People usually talk about what they want to do before they do it.
If you ignore them when they talk about it and only react when they actually do it, you lose the opportunity to stop them doing something bad before it happens.
If you ignore them when they talk about it and only react when they actually do it, you lose the opportunity to stop them doing something bad before it happens.
The smooth-spoken actor Obama has successfully branded himself a liberal champion, and now receives the same (similarly fake) adulation on the left as Reagan on the right. When people think "Obama", they think of the smile or nuances speeches (all appearance).
They don't think about the only things that really matter, actions. Obama used espionage laws to imprison journalists. Where was the outrage in the media? People now are calling Trump dictatorial and anti-1A, when all he's done is criticized news outlets in tweets, never (yet) used laws to limit freedom of the press.
This is just an example. Reputation, in the public consciousness, is based on appearances, and you can see how cancerous that becomes, and how easily manipulated it makes you. People not judging others solely by what they do is why democracy is so weakened today.
James Risen (a journalist for the New York Times) was threatened with jail if he refused to identify a source. The government did not end up jailing him.
Which journalists were jailed?
Meanwhile, the appearances crowd was nowhere to be found, and only a small minority actually looked behind the curtain.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-...