Understanding the inaugurating moments of democratic subject formation and the practices sustaining such identification requires us to think about the role of, and changes, in political grammars – the latter understood as those horizons delimiting what is intelligible and, hence, what may count as possible reasons in any given context. Wittgenstein's account of aspect change opens up a fruitful way of thinking about these two moments in the context of a consideration of political grammar, while avoiding the pitfalls of either an overly sedimented or a ‘heroic’ conception of subjectivity within deliberative and post-structuralist positions respectively. Inspired by his emphasis on the practical character of language and grammar, I resist idealized theorizing and a disregard for ordinary political activities and engagements found in much contemporary political theory. However, this does not involve shunning the theorization of democratic practices. Instead, it leads us to engage with the puzzles arising out of the grip of particular pictures on our thinking and to open up new ways of looking at things. The seeing of aspects counters the cognitivism of much of the dominant approaches and shifts attention to activities other than thinking in bringing about political change.