Many people who become president, or who seek the office, are unfit for the job. That much is true. But when a person, fit or unfit, wins the election, the conversation must change. In fact, it ought to.

Because when someone becomes president, they become something else entirely.

From the moment the oath is taken before God and man, something fundamental shifts. The individual is no longer just a private citizen or a political candidate. He becomes something more. Something weightier. The assignment alters him, whether he likes it or not.

It’s a transformation not unlike the one a man undergoes when he stops being a boyfriend and becomes a husband. Same body, same woman, but a different responsibility and a different spirit is now required of him. As a married man, I’ve seen this seemingly overnight transformation firsthand.

To my chagrin, the tragedy is that many well-meaning citizens fail to recognize this shift. And so they continue to treat the president as though he or she were still a candidate. That is an error.

Dear Akadá, the reader may wish to know: What is it, precisely, that changes in a man once he takes that oath? Is it merely the burden of power? Or a kind of calling, even when the man is unworthy? And what is the citizen to do now that someone she deems unfit for the office is no longer a candidate but the elected president? What is the right thing to do?