Persuasion Requires Ruler Attention

Public argument and diplomatic appeals only work when those who wield power retain the cognitive capacity and institutional role to weigh evidence and separate public reasons from private passions. When leaders are inattentive, spectacle‑driven, or epistemically captured, the standard tools of intellectual influence — reasoning, evidence, and mediation — lose leverage and can even backfire. — If true, this reframes how journalists, diplomats, and public intellectuals should engage autocrats and populist leaders, shifting focus from persuasion to institution‑building, attention‑shaping levers, or alternative levers of constraint.