Part of the phenomenon is that whatever the newly crowned king pursues as his highest priority for reform will require concessions on other things that he might also have wished to change ... and the first step to pursuing that reform is to convert his formal position into real power, in the process of which any reforming zeal can often be lost in the weeds.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.