The future, like the colonized, is often highly reluctant to accept that burden. It may actively seek liberation from the burden by pursuing some alternative course of action. In the light of democratic principles, it may indeed be asked how legitimate is the authority of the past when those living in the present have not been consulted about the legitimacy of its control upon their lives. For a politician, a strategy from the past has decreasing value. It is not news.
Opponents offering alternative strategies can then easily attract the support of a fickle public.
Clearly it is in formulating strategies that lies the political pay-off. It is in avoiding the unpleasant aspects of their implementation that political skill is demonstrated. Constituencies now have little expectation that politicians or governments will fulfil pledges. In 1995 the French government was even obliged to vow to fulfil a pledge to other governments. Resolution is now subject to rapid devaluation.