Understanding Trump
Published on
Friday, July 22, 2016
by
Common Dreams
Understanding Trump
by
George Lakoff
Donald Trump and family, on stage after his RNC acceptance speech. (Photo:
Disney-ABC Television Group/flickr/cc)
There is a lot being written spoken about Trump by intelligent and
articulate commentators whose insights I respect. But as a longtime
researcher in cognitive science and linguistics, I bring a perspective from
these sciences to an understanding of the Trump phenomenon. This perspective
is hardly unknown. More that half a million people have read my books, and
Google Scholar reports that scholars writing in scholarly journals have
cited my works well over 100,000 times.
Yet you will probably not read what I have to say in the New York Times, nor
hear it from your favorite political commentators. You will also not hear it
from Democratic candidates or party strategists. There are reasons, and we
will discuss them later this piece. I am writing it because I think it is
right and it is needed, even though it comes from the cognitive and brain
sciences, not from the normal political sources. I think it is imperative to
bring these considerations into public political discourse. But it cannot be
done in a 650-word op-ed. My apologies. It is untweetable.
I will begin with an updated version of an earlier piece on who is
supporting Trump and why and why policy details are irrelevant to them. I
then move to a section on how Trump uses your brain against you. I finish up
discussing how Democratic campaigns could do better, and why they need to do
better if we are to avert a Trump presidency.
Who Supports Trump and Why
Donald J. Trump has managed to become the Republican nominee for president,
Why? How? There are various theories: People are angry and he speaks to
their anger. People dont think much of Congress and want a non-politician.
Both may be true. But why? What are the details? And Why Trump?
He seems to have come out of nowhere. His positions on issues dont fit a
common mold.
He has said nice things about LGBTQ folks, which is not standard Republican
talk. Republicans hate eminent domain (the taking of private property by the
government) and support corporate outsourcing for the sake of profit, but he
has the opposite views on both. He is not religious and scorns religious
practices, yet the Evangelicals (that is, the white Evangelicals) love him.
He thinks health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as military
contractors, are making too much profit and wants to change that. He insults
major voting groups, e.g., Latinos, when most Republicans are trying to
court them. He wants to deport 11 million immigrants without papers and
thinks he can. He wants to stop Muslims from entering the country. What is
going on?
The answer requires a bit of background.
In the 1900s, as part of my research in the cognitive and brain sciences, I
undertook to answer a question in my field: How do the various policy
positions of conservatives and progressives hang together? Take
conservatism: What does being against abortion have to do with being for
owning guns? What does owning guns have to do with denying the reality of
global warming? How does being anti-government fit with wanting a stronger
military? How can you be pro-life and for the death penalty? Progressives
have the opposite views. How do their views hang together?
The answer came from a realization that we tend to understand the nation
metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons
and daughters to war. We have homeland security. The conservative and
progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood
in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different
common forms of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and
the Strict Father family (conservative).
What do social issues and the politics have to do with the family? We are
first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing
institutions in terms of the governing systems of families.
In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong
and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do
what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses
accept this worldview, uphold the fathers authority, and are strict in
those realms of family life that they are in charge of. When his children
disobey, it is his moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to
avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what
feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become
disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world.
What if they dont prosper? That means they are not disciplined, and
therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve their poverty. This reasoning
shows up in conservative politics in which the poor are seen as lazy and
undeserving, and the rich as deserving their wealth. Responsibility is thus
taken to be personal responsibility not social responsibility. What you
become is only up to you; society has nothing to do with it. You are
responsible for yourself, not for others who are responsible for
themselves.
Winning and Insulting
As the legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, said,
Winning isnt everything. Its the only thing. In a world governed by
personal responsibility and discipline, those who win deserve to win. Why
does Donald Trump publicly insult other candidates and political leaders
mercilessly? Quite simply, because he knows he can win an onstage TV insult
game. In strict conservative eyes, that makes him a formidable winning
candidate who deserves to be a winning candidate. Electoral competition is
seen as a battle. Insults that stick are seen as victories deserved
victories.
Consider Trumps statement that John McCain is not a war hero. The
reasoning: McCain got shot down. Heroes are winners. They defeat big bad
guys. They dont get shot down. People who get shot down, beaten up, and
stuck in a cage are losers, not winners.
The Moral Hierarchy
The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is
justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a
well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral
hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate.
The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong)
above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above
Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures,
Am,erica above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women,
Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above
Gays.
We see these tendencies in most of the Republican presidential candidates,
as well as in Trump, and on the whole, conservative policies flow from the
strict father worldview and this hierarchy
Family-based moral worldviews run deep. Since people want to see themselves
as doing right not wrong, moral worldviews tend to be part of
self-definition who you most deeply are. And thus your moral worldview
defines for you what the world should be like. When it isnt that way, one
can become frustrated and angry.
There is a certain amount of wiggle room in the strict father worldview and
there are important variations. A major split is among (1) white Evangelical
Christians, (2) laissez-fair free market conservatives, and (3) pragmatic
conservatives who are not bound by evangelical beliefs.
White Evangelicals
Those whites who have a strict father personal worldview and who are
religious tend toward Evangelical Christianity, since God, in Evangelical
Christianity, is the Ultimate Strict Father: You follow His commandments and
you go to heaven; you defy His commandments and you burn in hell for all
eternity. If you are a sinner and want to go to heaven, you can be born
again by declaring your fealty by choosing His son, Jesus Christ, as your
personal Savior.
Such a version of religion is natural for those with strict father morality.
Evangelical Christians join the church because they are conservative; they
are not conservative because they happen to be in an evangelical church,
though they may grow up with both together.
Evangelical Christianity is centered around family life. Hence, there are
organizations like Focus on the Family and constant reference to family
values, which are to take to be evangelical strict father values. In strict
father morality, it is the father who controls sexuality and reproduction.
Where the church has political control, there are laws that require parental
and spousal notification in the case of proposed abortions.
Evangelicals are highly organized politically and exert control over a great
many local political races. Thus Republican candidates mostly have to go
along with the evangelicals if they want to be nominated and win local
elections.
Pragmatic Conservatives
Pragmatic conservatives, on the other hand, may not have a religious
orientation at all. Instead, they may care primarily about their own
personal authority, not the authority of the church or Christ, or God. They
want to be strict fathers in their own domains, with authority primarily
over their own lives. Thus, a young, unmarried conservative male or female
may want to have sex without worrying about marriage. They may need access
to contraception, advice about sexually transmitted diseases, information
about cervical cancer, and so on. And if a girl or woman becomes pregnant
and there is no possibility or desire for marriage, abortion may be
necessary.
Trump is a pragmatic conservative, par excellence. And he knows that there
are a lot of Republican voters who are like him in their pragmatism. There
is a reason that he likes Planned Parenthood. There are plenty of young,
unmarried (or even married) pragmatic conservatives, who may need what
Planned Parenthood has to offer cheaply and confidentially by way of
contraception, cervical cancer prevention, and sex ed.
Similarly, young or middle-aged pragmatic conservatives want to maximize
their own wealth. They dont want to be saddled with the financial burden of
caring for their parents. Social Security and Medicare relieve them of most
of those responsibilities. That is why Trump wants to keep Social Security
and Medicare.
Laissez-faire Free Marketeers
Establishment conservative policies have not only been shaped by the
political power of white evangelical churches, but also by the political
power of those who seek maximally laissez-faire free markets, where wealthy
people and corporations set market rules in their favor with minimal
government regulation and enforcement. They see taxation not as investment
in publicly provided resources for all citizens, but as government taking
their earnings (their private property) and giving the money through
government programs to those who dont deserve it. This is the source of
establishment Republicans anti-tax and shrinking government views. This
version of conservatism is quite happy with outsourcing to increase profits
by sending manufacturing and many services abroad where labor is cheap, with
the consequence that well-paying jobs leave America and wages are driven
down here. Since they depend on cheap imports, they would not be in favor of
imposing high tariffs.
But Donald Trump is not in a business that makes products abroad to import
here and mark up at a profit. As a developer, he builds hotels, casinos,
office buildings, golf courses. He may build them abroad with cheap labor
but he doesnt import them. Moreover, he recognizes that most small business
owners in America are more like him American businesses like dry cleaners,
pizzerias, diners, plumbers, hardware stores, gardeners, contractors, car
washers, and professionals like architects, lawyers, doctors, and nurses.
High tariffs dont look like a problem.
Many business people are pragmatic conservatives. They like government power
when it works for them. Take eminent domain. Establishment Republicans see
it as an abuse by government government taking of private property. But
conservative real estate developers like Trump depend on eminent domain so
that homes and small businesses in areas they want to develop can be taken
by eminent domain for the sake of their development plans. All they have to
do is get local government officials to go along, with campaign
contributions and the promise of an increase in local tax dollars helping to
acquire eminent domain rights. Trump points to Atlantic City, where he build
his casino using eminent domain to get the property.
If businesses have to pay for their employees health care benefits, Trump
would want them to have to pay as little as possible to maximize profits for
businesses in general. He would therefore want health insurance and
pharmaceutical companies to charge as little as possible. To increase
competition, he would want insurance companies to offer plans nationally,
avoiding the state-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. The
exchanges are there to maximize citizen health coverage, and help low-income
people get coverage, rather than to increase business profits. Trump does
however want to keep the mandatory feature of ACA, which establishment
conservatives hate since they see it as government overreach, forcing people
to buy a product. For Trump, however, the mandatory feature for individuals
increases the insurance pool and brings down costs for businesses.
Direct vs. Systemic Causation
Direct causation is dealing with a problem via direct action. Systemic
causation recognizes that many problems arise from the system they are in
and must be dealt with via systemic causation. Systemic causation has four
versions: A chain of direct causes. Interacting direct causes (or chains of
direct causes). Feedback loops. And probabilistic causes. Systemic causation
in global warming explains why global warming over the Pacific can produce
huge snowstorms in Washington DC: masses of highly energized water molecules
evaporate over the Pacific, blow to the Northeast and over the North Pole
and come down in winter over the East coast and parts of the Midwest as
masses of snow. Systemic causation has chains of direct causes, interacting
causes, feedback loops, and probabilistic causes often combined.
Direct causation is easy to understand, and appears to be represented in the
grammars of all languages around the world. Systemic causation is more
complex and is not represented in the grammar of any language. It just has
to be learned.
Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason with direct
causation and that progressives have a much easier time reasoning with
systemic causation. The reason is thought to be that, in the strict father
model, the father expects the child or spouse to respond directly to an
order and that refusal should be punished as swiftly and directly as
possible.
Many of Trumps policy proposals are framed in terms of direct causation.
Immigrants are flooding in from Mexico build a wall to stop them. For all
the immigrants who have entered illegally, just deport them even if there
are 11 million of them working throughout the economy and living throughout
the country. The cure for gun violence is to have a gun ready to directly
shoot the shooter. To stop jobs from going to Asia where labor costs are
lower and cheaper goods flood the market here, the solution is direct: put a
huge tariff on those goods so they are more expensive than goods made here.
To save money on pharmaceuticals, have the largest consumer the government
take bids for the lowest prices. If Isis is making money on Iraqi oil,
send US troops to Iraq to take control of the oil. Threaten Isis leaders by
assassinating their family members (even if this is a war crime). To get
information from terrorist suspects, use water-boarding, or even worse
torture methods. If a few terrorists might be coming with Muslim refugees,
just stop allowing all Muslims into the country. All this makes sense to
direct causation thinkers, but not those who see the immense difficulties
and dire consequences of such actions due to the complexities of systemic
causation.
Political Correctness
There are at least tens of millions of conservatives in America who share
strict father morality and its moral hierarchy. Many of them are poor or
middle class and many are white men who see themselves as superior to
immigrants, nonwhites, women, nonChristians, gays and people who rely on
public assistance. In other words, they are what liberals would call
bigots. For many years, such bigotry has not been publicly acceptable,
especially as more immigrants have arrived, as the country has become less
white, as more women have become educated and moved into the workplace, and
as gays have become more visible and gay marriage acceptable.
As liberal anti-bigotry organizations have loudly pointed out and made a
public issue of the unAmerican nature of such bigotry, those conservatives
have felt more and more oppressed by what they call political correctness
public pressure against their views and against what they see as free
speech. This has become exaggerated since 911, when anti-Muslim feelings
became strong. The election of President Barack Hussein Obama created
outrage among those conservatives, and they refused to see him as a
legitimate American (as in the birther movement), much less as a legitimate
authority, especially as his liberal views contradicted almost everything
else they believe as conservatives.
Donald Trump expresses out loud everything they feel with force,
aggression, anger, and no shame. All they have to do is support and vote for
Trump and they dont even have to express their politically incorrect
views, since he does it for them and his victories make those views
respectable. He is their champion. He gives them a sense of self-respect,
authority, and the possibility of power.
Whenever you hear the words political correctness remember this.
Biconceptuals
There is no middle in American politics. There are moderates, but there is
no ideology of the moderate, no single ideology that all moderates agree on.
A moderate conservative has some progressive positions on issues, though
they vary from person to person. Similarly, a moderate progressive has some
conservative positions on issues, again varying from person to person. In
short, moderates have both political moral worldviews, but mostly use one of
them. Those two moral worldviews in general contradict each other. How can
they reside in the same brain at the same time?
Both are characterized in the brain by neural circuitry. They are linked by
a commonplace circuit: mutual inhibition. When one is turned on the other is
turned off; when one is strengthened, the other is weakened. What turns them
on or off? Language that fits that worldview activates that worldview,
strengthening it, while turning off the other worldview and weakening it.
The more Trumps views are discussed in the media, the more they are
activated and the stronger they get, both in the minds of hardcore
conservatives and in the minds of moderate progressives.
This is true even if you are attacking Trumps views. The reason is that
negating a frame activates that frame, as I pointed out in the book Dont
Think of an Elephant! It doesnt matter if you are promoting Trump or
attacking Trump, you are helping Trump.
A good example of Trump winning with progressive biconceptuals includes
certain unionized workers. Many union members are strict fathers at home or
in their private life. They believe in traditional family values a
conservative code word and they may identify with winners.
Why Has Trump won the Republican nomination? Look at all the conservative
groups he appeals to!
Why His Lack of Policy Detail Doesnt Matter
I recently heard a brilliant and articulate Clinton surrogate argue against
a group of Trump supporters that Trump has presented no policy plans for
increasing jobs, increasing economics growth, improving education, gaining
international respect, etc. This is the basic Clinton campaign argument.
Hillary has the experience, the policy know-how, she can get things done,
its all on her website. Trump has none of this. What Hillarys campaign
says is true. And it is irrelevant.
Trump supporters and other radical Republican extremists could not care
less, and for a good reason. Their job is to impose their view of strict
father morality in all areas of life. If they have the Congress, and the
Presidency and the Supreme Court, they could achieve this. They dont need
to name policies, because the Republicans already of hundreds of policies
ready to go. They just need to be in complete power.
How Trump Uses Your Brain to His Advantage
Any unscrupulous, effective salesman knows how to use you brain against you,
to get you to buy what he is selling. How can someone use your brain
against you? What does it mean?
All thought uses neural circuitry. Every idea is constituted by neural
circuitry. But we have no conscious access to that circuitry. As a result,
most of thought an estimated 98 percent of thought is unconscious.
Conscious thought is the tip of the iceberg.
Unconscious thought works by certain basic mechanisms. Trump uses them
instinctively to turn peoples brains toward what he wants: Absolute
authority, money, power, celebrity.
The mechanisms are:
1. Repetition. Words ore neurally linked to the circuits the determine their
meaning. The more a word is heard, the more the circuit is activated and the
stronger it gets, and so the easier it is to fire again. Trump repeats. Win.
Win, Win. Were gonna win so much youll get tired of winning.
2. Framing: Crooked Hillary. Framing Hillary as purposely and knowingly
committing crimes for her own benefit, which is what a crook does. Repeating
makes many people unconsciously think of her that way, even though she has
been found to have been honest and legal by thorough studies by the
right-wing Bengazi committee (which found nothing) and the FBI (which found
nothing to charge her with, except missing the mark (C) in the body of 3
out of 110,000 emails). Yet the framing is working.
There is a common metaphor that Immorality Is Illegality, and that acting
against Strict Father Morality (the only kind off morality recognized) is
being immoral. Since virtually everything Hillary Clinton has ever done has
violated Strict Father Morality, that makes her immoral. The metaphor thus
makes her actions immoral, and hence she is a crook. The chant Lock her
up! activates this whole line of reasoning.
3. Well-known examples: When a well-publicized disaster happens, the
coverage activates the framing of it over and over, strengthening it, and
increasing the probability that the framing will occur easily with high
probability. Repeating examples of shootings by Muslims, African-Americans,
and Latinos raises fears that it could happen to you and your community
despite the miniscule actual probability. Trump uses this to create fear.
Fear tends to activate desire for a strong strict father namely, Trump.
4. Grammar: Radical Islamic terrorists: Radical puts Muslims on a linear
scale and terrorists imposes a frame on the scale, suggesting that
terrorism is built into the religion itself. The grammar suggests that there
is something about Islam that has terrorism inherent in it. Imagine calling
the Charleston gunman a radical Republican terrorist.
Trump is aware this to at least some extent. As he said to Tony Schwartz,
the ghost-writer who wrote The Art of the Deal for him, I call it truthful
hyperbole. Its an innocent form of exaggeration and its a very effective
form of promotion.
5. Conventional metaphorical thought is inherent in our largely unconscious
thought. Such normal modes of metaphorical thinking that are not noticed as
such.
Consider Brexit, which used the metaphor of entering and leaving the EU.
There is a universal metaphor that states are locations in space: you can
enter a state, be deep in some state, and come out that state. If you enter
a café and then leave the café , you will be in the same location as before
you entered. But that need not be true of states of being. But that was the
metaphor used with Brexist; Britons believe that after leaving the EU,
things would be as before when the entered the EU. They were wrong. Things
changed radically while they were in the EU. That same metaphor is being
used by Trump: Make America Great Again. Make America Safe Again. And so on.
As if there was some past ideal state that we can go back to just by
electing Trump.
6. There is also a metaphor that A Country Is a Person and a metonymy of the
President Standing For the Country. Thus, Obama, via both metaphor and
metonymy, can stand conceptually for America. Therefore, by saying that
Obama is weak and not respected, it is communicated that America, with Obama
as president, is weak and disrespected. The inference is that it is because
of Obama.
7. The country as person metaphor and the metaphor that war or conflict
between countries is a fistfight between people, leads the inference that
just having a strong president will guarantee that America will win
conflicts and wars. Trump will just throw knockout punches. In his
acceptance speech at the convention, Trump repeatedly said that he would
accomplish things that can only be done by the people acting with their
government. After one such statement, there was a chant from the floor, He
will do it.
8. The metaphor that The nation Is a Family was used throughout the GOP
convention. We heard that strong military sons are produced by strong
military fathers and that defense of country is a family affair. From
Trumps love of family and commitment to their success, we are to conclude
that, as president he will love Americas citizens and be committed to the
success of all.
9. There is a common metaphor that Identifying with your familys national
heritage makes you a member of that nationality. Suppose your grandparents
came from Italy and you identify with your Italian ancestors, you may proud
state that you are Italian. The metaphor is natural. Literally, you have
been American for two generations. Trump made use of this commonplace
metaphor in attacking US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is
American, born and raised in the United States. Trump said he was a Mexican,
and therefore would hate him and tend to rule against him in a case brought
against Trump University for fraud.
10. Then there is the metaphor system used in the phrase to call someone
out. First the word out. There is a general metaphor that Knowing Is
Seeing as in I see what you mean. Things that are hidden inside something
cannot be seen and hence not known, while things are not hidden but out in
public can be seen and hence known. To out someone is to made their
private knowledge public. To call someone out is to publicly name
someones hidden misdeeds, thus allowing for public knowledge and
appropriate consequences.
This is the basis for the Trumpian metaphor that Naming is Identifying. Thus
naming your enemies will allow you to identify correctly who they are, get
to them, and so allow you to defeat them. Hence, just saying radical
Islamic terrorists allows you to pick them out, get at them, and annihilate
them. And conversely, if you dont say it, you wont be able to pick them
out and annihilate them. Thus a failure to use those words means that you
are protecting those enemies in this case Muslims, that is, potential
terrorists because of their religion.
Ill stop here, though I could go on. Here are ten uses of peoples
unconscious normal brain mechanisms that are manipulated by Trump and his
followers for his overriding purpose: to be elected president, to be given
absolute authority with a Congress and Supreme Court, and so to have his
version of Strict Famer Morality govern America into the indefinite future.
These ten forms of using with peoples everyday brain mechanisms for his own
purposes have gotten Trump the Republican nomination. But millions more
people have seen and heard Trump and company on tv and heard them on the
radio. The media pundits have not described those ten mechanisms, or other
brain mechanisms, that surreptitiously work on the unconscious minds of the
public, even though the result is that Big Lies repeated over and over are
being believed by a growing number of people.
Even if he loses the election, Trump will have changed the brains of
millions of Americans, with future consequences. It is vitally important
people know the mechanisms used to transmit Big Lies and to stick them into
peoples brains without their awareness. It is a form of mind control.
People in the media have a duty to report it when the see it. But the media
comes with constraints.
Certain things have not been allowed in public political discourse in the
media. Reporters and commentators are supposed to stick to what is conscious
and with literal meaning. But most real political discourse makes use of
unconscious thought, which shapes conscious thought via unconscious framing
and commonplace conceptual metaphors. It is crucial, for the history of the
country and the world, as well as the planet, that all of this be made
public.
And it is not just the media, Such responsibility rests with ordinary
citizens who become aware of unconscious brain mechanisms like the ten we
have just discussed. This responsibility also rests with the Democratic
Party and their campaigns at all levels.
Is the use of the publics brain mechanisms for communication necessarily
immoral? Understanding how people really think can be used to communicate
truths, not Big Lies or ads for products.
This knowledge is not just known to cognitive linguists. It is taught in
Marketing courses in business schools, and the mechanisms are used in
advertising, to get you to buy what advertisers are selling. We have learned
to recognize ads; they are set off by themselves. Even manipulative
corporate advertising with political intent (like ads for fracking) is not
as dangerous as Big Lies leading to authoritarian government determining the
future of our country.
How Can Democrats Do Better?
First, dont think of an elephant. Remember not to repeat false conservative
claims and then rebut them with the facts. Instead, go positive. Give a
positive truthful framing to undermine claims to the contrary. Use the facts
to support positively-framed truth. Use repetition.
Second, start with values, not policies and facts and numbers. Say what you
believe, but havent been saying. For example, progressive thought is built
on empathy, on citizens caring about other citizens and working through our
government to provide public resources for all, both businesses and
individuals. Use history. Thats how America started. The public resources
used by businesses were not only roads and bridges, but public education, a
national bank, a patent office, courts for business cases, interstate
commerce support, and of course the criminal justice system. From the
beginning, the Private Depended on Public Resources, both private lives and
private enterprise.
Over time those resources have included sewers, water and electricity,
research universities and research support: computer science (via the NSF),
the internet (ARPA), pharmaceuticals and modern medicine (the NIH),
satellite communication (NASA and NOA), and GPS systems and cell phones (the
Defense Department). Private enterprise and private life utterly depend on
public resources. Have you ever said this? Elizabeth Warren has. Almost no
other public figures. And stop defending the government. Talk about the
public, the people, Americans, the American people, public servants, and
good government. And take back freedom. Public resources provide for freedom
in private enterprise and private life.
The conservatives are committed to privatizing just about everything and to
eliminating funding for most public resources. The contribution of public
resources to our freedoms cannot be overstated. Start saying it.
And dont forget the police. Effective respectful policing is a public
resource. Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas Police got it right. Training,
community policing, knowing the people you protect. And dont ask too much
of the police: citizens have a responsibility to provide funding so that
police dont have to do jobs that should be done by others.
Unions need to go on the offensive. Unions are instruments of freedom
freedom from corporate servitude. Employers call themselves job creators.
Working people are profit creators for the employers, and as such they
deserve a fair share of the profits and respect and acknowledgement. Say it.
Can the public create jobs. Of course. Fixing infrastructure will create
jobs by providing more public resources that private lives and businesses
depend on. Public resources to create more public resources. Freedom creates
opportunity that creates more freedom.
Third, keep out of nasty exchanges and attacks. Keep out of shouting
matches. One can speak powerfully without shouting. Obama sets the pace:
Civility, values, positivity, good humor, and real empathy are powerful.
Calmness and empathy in the face of fury are powerful. Bill Clinton won
because he oozed empathy, with his voice, his eye contact, and his body. It
wasnt his superb ability as a policy wonk, but the empathy he projected and
inspired.
Values come first, facts and policies follow in the service of values. They
matter, but they always support values.
Give up identity politics. No more womens issues, black issues, Latino
issues. Their issues are all real, and need public discussion. But they all
fall under freedom issues, human issues. And address poor whites!
Appalachian and rust belt whites deserve your attention as much as anyone
else. Dont surrender their fate to Trump, who will just increase their
suffering.
And remember JFKs immortal, Ask not what your country can do for you, but
what you can do for your country. Empathy, devotion, love, pride in our
countrys values, public resources to create freedoms. And adulthood.
Be prepared. You have to understand Trump to stand calmly up to him and
those running with him all over the country.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
George Lakoff
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Understanding Trump
Published on
Friday, July 22, 2016
by
Common Dreams
Understanding Trump
by
George Lakoff
4 Comments
Donald Trump and family, on stage after his RNC acceptance speech.
(Photo: Disney-ABC Television Group/flickr/cc)
There is a lot being written spoken about Trump by intelligent and
articulate commentators whose insights I respect. But as a longtime
researcher in cognitive science and linguistics, I bring a perspective from
these sciences to an understanding of the Trump phenomenon. This perspective
is hardly unknown. More that half a million people have read my books, and
Google Scholar reports that scholars writing in scholarly journals have
cited my works well over 100,000 times.
Yet you will probably not read what I have to say in the New York
Times, nor hear it from your favorite political commentators. You will also
not hear it from Democratic candidates or party strategists. There are
reasons, and we will discuss them later this piece. I am writing it because
I think it is right and it is needed, even though it comes from the
cognitive and brain sciences, not from the normal political sources. I think
it is imperative to bring these considerations into public political
discourse. But it cannot be done in a 650-word op-ed. My apologies. It is
untweetable.
I will begin with an updated version of an earlier piece on who is
supporting Trump and why and why policy details are irrelevant to them. I
then move to a section on how Trump uses your brain against you. I finish up
discussing how Democratic campaigns could do better, and why they need to do
better if we are to avert a Trump presidency.
Who Supports Trump and Why
Donald J. Trump has managed to become the Republican nominee for president,
Why? How? There are various theories: People are angry and he speaks to
their anger. People dont think much of Congress and want a non-politician.
Both may be true. But why? What are the details? And Why Trump?
He seems to have come out of nowhere. His positions on issues dont fit a
common mold.
He has said nice things about LGBTQ folks, which is not standard Republican
talk. Republicans hate eminent domain (the taking of private property by the
government) and support corporate outsourcing for the sake of profit, but he
has the opposite views on both. He is not religious and scorns religious
practices, yet the Evangelicals (that is, the white Evangelicals) love him.
He thinks health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as military
contractors, are making too much profit and wants to change that. He insults
major voting groups, e.g., Latinos, when most Republicans are trying to
court them. He wants to deport 11 million immigrants without papers and
thinks he can. He wants to stop Muslims from entering the country. What is
going on?
The answer requires a bit of background.
In the 1900s, as part of my research in the cognitive and brain sciences, I
undertook to answer a question in my field: How do the various policy
positions of conservatives and progressives hang together? Take
conservatism: What does being against abortion have to do with being for
owning guns? What does owning guns have to do with denying the reality of
global warming? How does being anti-government fit with wanting a stronger
military? How can you be pro-life and for the death penalty? Progressives
have the opposite views. How do their views hang together?
The answer came from a realization that we tend to understand the nation
metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons
and daughters to war. We have homeland security. The conservative and
progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood
in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different
common forms of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and
the Strict Father family (conservative).
What do social issues and the politics have to do with the family? We are
first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing
institutions in terms of the governing systems of families.
In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong
and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do
what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses
accept this worldview, uphold the fathers authority, and are strict in
those realms of family life that they are in charge of. When his children
disobey, it is his moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to
avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what
feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become
disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world.
What if they dont prosper? That means they are not disciplined, and
therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve their poverty. This reasoning
shows up in conservative politics in which the poor are seen as lazy and
undeserving, and the rich as deserving their wealth. Responsibility is thus
taken to be personal responsibility not social responsibility. What you
become is only up to you; society has nothing to do with it. You are
responsible for yourself, not for others who are responsible for
themselves.
Winning and Insulting
As the legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, said,
Winning isnt everything. Its the only thing. In a world governed by
personal responsibility and discipline, those who win deserve to win. Why
does Donald Trump publicly insult other candidates and political leaders
mercilessly? Quite simply, because he knows he can win an onstage TV insult
game. In strict conservative eyes, that makes him a formidable winning
candidate who deserves to be a winning candidate. Electoral competition is
seen as a battle. Insults that stick are seen as victories deserved
victories.
Consider Trumps statement that John McCain is not a war hero. The
reasoning: McCain got shot down. Heroes are winners. They defeat big bad
guys. They dont get shot down. People who get shot down, beaten up, and
stuck in a cage are losers, not winners.
The Moral Hierarchy
The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is
justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a
well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral
hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate.
The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong)
above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above
Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures,
Am,erica above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women,
Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above
Gays.
We see these tendencies in most of the Republican presidential candidates,
as well as in Trump, and on the whole, conservative policies flow from the
strict father worldview and this hierarchy
Family-based moral worldviews run deep. Since people want to see themselves
as doing right not wrong, moral worldviews tend to be part of
self-definition who you most deeply are. And thus your moral worldview
defines for you what the world should be like. When it isnt that way, one
can become frustrated and angry.
There is a certain amount of wiggle room in the strict father worldview and
there are important variations. A major split is among (1) white Evangelical
Christians, (2) laissez-fair free market conservatives, and (3) pragmatic
conservatives who are not bound by evangelical beliefs.
White Evangelicals
Those whites who have a strict father personal worldview and who are
religious tend toward Evangelical Christianity, since God, in Evangelical
Christianity, is the Ultimate Strict Father: You follow His commandments and
you go to heaven; you defy His commandments and you burn in hell for all
eternity. If you are a sinner and want to go to heaven, you can be born
again by declaring your fealty by choosing His son, Jesus Christ, as your
personal Savior.
Such a version of religion is natural for those with strict father morality.
Evangelical Christians join the church because they are conservative; they
are not conservative because they happen to be in an evangelical church,
though they may grow up with both together.
Evangelical Christianity is centered around family life. Hence, there are
organizations like Focus on the Family and constant reference to family
values, which are to take to be evangelical strict father values. In strict
father morality, it is the father who controls sexuality and reproduction.
Where the church has political control, there are laws that require parental
and spousal notification in the case of proposed abortions.
Evangelicals are highly organized politically and exert control over a great
many local political races. Thus Republican candidates mostly have to go
along with the evangelicals if they want to be nominated and win local
elections.
Pragmatic Conservatives
Pragmatic conservatives, on the other hand, may not have a religious
orientation at all. Instead, they may care primarily about their own
personal authority, not the authority of the church or Christ, or God. They
want to be strict fathers in their own domains, with authority primarily
over their own lives. Thus, a young, unmarried conservative male or female
may want to have sex without worrying about marriage. They may need access
to contraception, advice about sexually transmitted diseases, information
about cervical cancer, and so on. And if a girl or woman becomes pregnant
and there is no possibility or desire for marriage, abortion may be
necessary.
Trump is a pragmatic conservative, par excellence. And he knows that there
are a lot of Republican voters who are like him in their pragmatism. There
is a reason that he likes Planned Parenthood. There are plenty of young,
unmarried (or even married) pragmatic conservatives, who may need what
Planned Parenthood has to offer cheaply and confidentially by way of
contraception, cervical cancer prevention, and sex ed.
Similarly, young or middle-aged pragmatic conservatives want to maximize
their own wealth. They dont want to be saddled with the financial burden of
caring for their parents. Social Security and Medicare relieve them of most
of those responsibilities. That is why Trump wants to keep Social Security
and Medicare.
Laissez-faire Free Marketeers
Establishment conservative policies have not only been shaped by the
political power of white evangelical churches, but also by the political
power of those who seek maximally laissez-faire free markets, where wealthy
people and corporations set market rules in their favor with minimal
government regulation and enforcement. They see taxation not as investment
in publicly provided resources for all citizens, but as government taking
their earnings (their private property) and giving the money through
government programs to those who dont deserve it. This is the source of
establishment Republicans anti-tax and shrinking government views. This
version of conservatism is quite happy with outsourcing to increase profits
by sending manufacturing and many services abroad where labor is cheap, with
the consequence that well-paying jobs leave America and wages are driven
down here. Since they depend on cheap imports, they would not be in favor of
imposing high tariffs.
But Donald Trump is not in a business that makes products abroad to import
here and mark up at a profit. As a developer, he builds hotels, casinos,
office buildings, golf courses. He may build them abroad with cheap labor
but he doesnt import them. Moreover, he recognizes that most small business
owners in America are more like him American businesses like dry cleaners,
pizzerias, diners, plumbers, hardware stores, gardeners, contractors, car
washers, and professionals like architects, lawyers, doctors, and nurses.
High tariffs dont look like a problem.
Many business people are pragmatic conservatives. They like government power
when it works for them. Take eminent domain. Establishment Republicans see
it as an abuse by government government taking of private property. But
conservative real estate developers like Trump depend on eminent domain so
that homes and small businesses in areas they want to develop can be taken
by eminent domain for the sake of their development plans. All they have to
do is get local government officials to go along, with campaign
contributions and the promise of an increase in local tax dollars helping to
acquire eminent domain rights. Trump points to Atlantic City, where he build
his casino using eminent domain to get the property.
If businesses have to pay for their employees health care benefits, Trump
would want them to have to pay as little as possible to maximize profits for
businesses in general. He would therefore want health insurance and
pharmaceutical companies to charge as little as possible. To increase
competition, he would want insurance companies to offer plans nationally,
avoiding the state-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. The
exchanges are there to maximize citizen health coverage, and help low-income
people get coverage, rather than to increase business profits. Trump does
however want to keep the mandatory feature of ACA, which establishment
conservatives hate since they see it as government overreach, forcing people
to buy a product. For Trump, however, the mandatory feature for individuals
increases the insurance pool and brings down costs for businesses.
Direct vs. Systemic Causation
Direct causation is dealing with a problem via direct action. Systemic
causation recognizes that many problems arise from the system they are in
and must be dealt with via systemic causation. Systemic causation has four
versions: A chain of direct causes. Interacting direct causes (or chains of
direct causes). Feedback loops. And probabilistic causes. Systemic causation
in global warming explains why global warming over the Pacific can produce
huge snowstorms in Washington DC: masses of highly energized water molecules
evaporate over the Pacific, blow to the Northeast and over the North Pole
and come down in winter over the East coast and parts of the Midwest as
masses of snow. Systemic causation has chains of direct causes, interacting
causes, feedback loops, and probabilistic causes often combined.
Direct causation is easy to understand, and appears to be represented in the
grammars of all languages around the world. Systemic causation is more
complex and is not represented in the grammar of any language. It just has
to be learned.
Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason with direct
causation and that progressives have a much easier time reasoning with
systemic causation. The reason is thought to be that, in the strict father
model, the father expects the child or spouse to respond directly to an
order and that refusal should be punished as swiftly and directly as
possible.
Many of Trumps policy proposals are framed in terms of direct causation.
Immigrants are flooding in from Mexico build a wall to stop them. For all
the immigrants who have entered illegally, just deport them even if there
are 11 million of them working throughout the economy and living throughout
the country. The cure for gun violence is to have a gun ready to directly
shoot the shooter. To stop jobs from going to Asia where labor costs are
lower and cheaper goods flood the market here, the solution is direct: put a
huge tariff on those goods so they are more expensive than goods made here.
To save money on pharmaceuticals, have the largest consumer the government
take bids for the lowest prices. If Isis is making money on Iraqi oil,
send US troops to Iraq to take control of the oil. Threaten Isis leaders by
assassinating their family members (even if this is a war crime). To get
information from terrorist suspects, use water-boarding, or even worse
torture methods. If a few terrorists might be coming with Muslim refugees,
just stop allowing all Muslims into the country. All this makes sense to
direct causation thinkers, but not those who see the immense difficulties
and dire consequences of such actions due to the complexities of systemic
causation.
Political Correctness
There are at least tens of millions of conservatives in America who share
strict father morality and its moral hierarchy. Many of them are poor or
middle class and many are white men who see themselves as superior to
immigrants, nonwhites, women, nonChristians, gays and people who rely on
public assistance. In other words, they are what liberals would call
bigots. For many years, such bigotry has not been publicly acceptable,
especially as more immigrants have arrived, as the country has become less
white, as more women have become educated and moved into the workplace, and
as gays have become more visible and gay marriage acceptable.
As liberal anti-bigotry organizations have loudly pointed out and made a
public issue of the unAmerican nature of such bigotry, those conservatives
have felt more and more oppressed by what they call political correctness
public pressure against their views and against what they see as free
speech. This has become exaggerated since 911, when anti-Muslim feelings
became strong. The election of President Barack Hussein Obama created
outrage among those conservatives, and they refused to see him as a
legitimate American (as in the birther movement), much less as a legitimate
authority, especially as his liberal views contradicted almost everything
else they believe as conservatives.
Donald Trump expresses out loud everything they feel with force,
aggression, anger, and no shame. All they have to do is support and vote for
Trump and they dont even have to express their politically incorrect
views, since he does it for them and his victories make those views
respectable. He is their champion. He gives them a sense of self-respect,
authority, and the possibility of power.
Whenever you hear the words political correctness remember this.
Biconceptuals
There is no middle in American politics. There are moderates, but there is
no ideology of the moderate, no single ideology that all moderates agree on.
A moderate conservative has some progressive positions on issues, though
they vary from person to person. Similarly, a moderate progressive has some
conservative positions on issues, again varying from person to person. In
short, moderates have both political moral worldviews, but mostly use one of
them. Those two moral worldviews in general contradict each other. How can
they reside in the same brain at the same time?
Both are characterized in the brain by neural circuitry. They are linked by
a commonplace circuit: mutual inhibition. When one is turned on the other is
turned off; when one is strengthened, the other is weakened. What turns them
on or off? Language that fits that worldview activates that worldview,
strengthening it, while turning off the other worldview and weakening it.
The more Trumps views are discussed in the media, the more they are
activated and the stronger they get, both in the minds of hardcore
conservatives and in the minds of moderate progressives.
This is true even if you are attacking Trumps views. The reason is that
negating a frame activates that frame, as I pointed out in the book Dont
Think of an Elephant! It doesnt matter if you are promoting Trump or
attacking Trump, you are helping Trump.
A good example of Trump winning with progressive biconceptuals includes
certain unionized workers. Many union members are strict fathers at home or
in their private life. They believe in traditional family values a
conservative code word and they may identify with winners.
Why Has Trump won the Republican nomination? Look at all the conservative
groups he appeals to!
Why His Lack of Policy Detail Doesnt Matter
I recently heard a brilliant and articulate Clinton surrogate argue against
a group of Trump supporters that Trump has presented no policy plans for
increasing jobs, increasing economics growth, improving education, gaining
international respect, etc. This is the basic Clinton campaign argument.
Hillary has the experience, the policy know-how, she can get things done,
its all on her website. Trump has none of this. What Hillarys campaign
says is true. And it is irrelevant.
Trump supporters and other radical Republican extremists could not care
less, and for a good reason. Their job is to impose their view of strict
father morality in all areas of life. If they have the Congress, and the
Presidency and the Supreme Court, they could achieve this. They dont need
to name policies, because the Republicans already of hundreds of policies
ready to go. They just need to be in complete power.
How Trump Uses Your Brain to His Advantage
Any unscrupulous, effective salesman knows how to use you brain against you,
to get you to buy what he is selling. How can someone use your brain
against you? What does it mean?
All thought uses neural circuitry. Every idea is constituted by neural
circuitry. But we have no conscious access to that circuitry. As a result,
most of thought an estimated 98 percent of thought is unconscious.
Conscious thought is the tip of the iceberg.
Unconscious thought works by certain basic mechanisms. Trump uses them
instinctively to turn peoples brains toward what he wants: Absolute
authority, money, power, celebrity.
The mechanisms are:
1. Repetition. Words ore neurally linked to the circuits the determine their
meaning. The more a word is heard, the more the circuit is activated and the
stronger it gets, and so the easier it is to fire again. Trump repeats. Win.
Win, Win. Were gonna win so much youll get tired of winning.
2. Framing: Crooked Hillary. Framing Hillary as purposely and knowingly
committing crimes for her own benefit, which is what a crook does. Repeating
makes many people unconsciously think of her that way, even though she has
been found to have been honest and legal by thorough studies by the
right-wing Bengazi committee (which found nothing) and the FBI (which found
nothing to charge her with, except missing the mark (C) in the body of 3
out of 110,000 emails). Yet the framing is working.
There is a common metaphor that Immorality Is Illegality, and that acting
against Strict Father Morality (the only kind off morality recognized) is
being immoral. Since virtually everything Hillary Clinton has ever done has
violated Strict Father Morality, that makes her immoral. The metaphor thus
makes her actions immoral, and hence she is a crook. The chant Lock her
up! activates this whole line of reasoning.
3. Well-known examples: When a well-publicized disaster happens, the
coverage activates the framing of it over and over, strengthening it, and
increasing the probability that the framing will occur easily with high
probability. Repeating examples of shootings by Muslims, African-Americans,
and Latinos raises fears that it could happen to you and your community
despite the miniscule actual probability. Trump uses this to create fear.
Fear tends to activate desire for a strong strict father namely, Trump.
4. Grammar: Radical Islamic terrorists: Radical puts Muslims on a linear
scale and terrorists imposes a frame on the scale, suggesting that
terrorism is built into the religion itself. The grammar suggests that there
is something about Islam that has terrorism inherent in it. Imagine calling
the Charleston gunman a radical Republican terrorist.
Trump is aware this to at least some extent. As he said to Tony Schwartz,
the ghost-writer who wrote The Art of the Deal for him, I call it truthful
hyperbole. Its an innocent form of exaggeration and its a very effective
form of promotion.
5. Conventional metaphorical thought is inherent in our largely unconscious
thought. Such normal modes of metaphorical thinking that are not noticed as
such.
Consider Brexit, which used the metaphor of entering and leaving the EU.
There is a universal metaphor that states are locations in space: you can
enter a state, be deep in some state, and come out that state. If you enter
a café and then leave the café , you will be in the same location as before
you entered. But that need not be true of states of being. But that was the
metaphor used with Brexist; Britons believe that after leaving the EU,
things would be as before when the entered the EU. They were wrong. Things
changed radically while they were in the EU. That same metaphor is being
used by Trump: Make America Great Again. Make America Safe Again. And so on.
As if there was some past ideal state that we can go back to just by
electing Trump.
6. There is also a metaphor that A Country Is a Person and a metonymy of the
President Standing For the Country. Thus, Obama, via both metaphor and
metonymy, can stand conceptually for America. Therefore, by saying that
Obama is weak and not respected, it is communicated that America, with Obama
as president, is weak and disrespected. The inference is that it is because
of Obama.
7. The country as person metaphor and the metaphor that war or conflict
between countries is a fistfight between people, leads the inference that
just having a strong president will guarantee that America will win
conflicts and wars. Trump will just throw knockout punches. In his
acceptance speech at the convention, Trump repeatedly said that he would
accomplish things that can only be done by the people acting with their
government. After one such statement, there was a chant from the floor, He
will do it.
8. The metaphor that The nation Is a Family was used throughout the GOP
convention. We heard that strong military sons are produced by strong
military fathers and that defense of country is a family affair. From
Trumps love of family and commitment to their success, we are to conclude
that, as president he will love Americas citizens and be committed to the
success of all.
9. There is a common metaphor that Identifying with your familys national
heritage makes you a member of that nationality. Suppose your grandparents
came from Italy and you identify with your Italian ancestors, you may proud
state that you are Italian. The metaphor is natural. Literally, you have
been American for two generations. Trump made use of this commonplace
metaphor in attacking US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is
American, born and raised in the United States. Trump said he was a Mexican,
and therefore would hate him and tend to rule against him in a case brought
against Trump University for fraud.
10. Then there is the metaphor system used in the phrase to call someone
out. First the word out. There is a general metaphor that Knowing Is
Seeing as in I see what you mean. Things that are hidden inside something
cannot be seen and hence not known, while things are not hidden but out in
public can be seen and hence known. To out someone is to made their
private knowledge public. To call someone out is to publicly name
someones hidden misdeeds, thus allowing for public knowledge and
appropriate consequences.
This is the basis for the Trumpian metaphor that Naming is Identifying. Thus
naming your enemies will allow you to identify correctly who they are, get
to them, and so allow you to defeat them. Hence, just saying radical
Islamic terrorists allows you to pick them out, get at them, and annihilate
them. And conversely, if you dont say it, you wont be able to pick them
out and annihilate them. Thus a failure to use those words means that you
are protecting those enemies in this case Muslims, that is, potential
terrorists because of their religion.
Ill stop here, though I could go on. Here are ten uses of peoples
unconscious normal brain mechanisms that are manipulated by Trump and his
followers for his overriding purpose: to be elected president, to be given
absolute authority with a Congress and Supreme Court, and so to have his
version of Strict Famer Morality govern America into the indefinite future.
These ten forms of using with peoples everyday brain mechanisms for his own
purposes have gotten Trump the Republican nomination. But millions more
people have seen and heard Trump and company on tv and heard them on the
radio. The media pundits have not described those ten mechanisms, or other
brain mechanisms, that surreptitiously work on the unconscious minds of the
public, even though the result is that Big Lies repeated over and over are
being believed by a growing number of people.
Even if he loses the election, Trump will have changed the brains of
millions of Americans, with future consequences. It is vitally important
people know the mechanisms used to transmit Big Lies and to stick them into
peoples brains without their awareness. It is a form of mind control.
People in the media have a duty to report it when the see it. But the media
comes with constraints.
Certain things have not been allowed in public political discourse in the
media. Reporters and commentators are supposed to stick to what is conscious
and with literal meaning. But most real political discourse makes use of
unconscious thought, which shapes conscious thought via unconscious framing
and commonplace conceptual metaphors. It is crucial, for the history of the
country and the world, as well as the planet, that all of this be made
public.
And it is not just the media, Such responsibility rests with ordinary
citizens who become aware of unconscious brain mechanisms like the ten we
have just discussed. This responsibility also rests with the Democratic
Party and their campaigns at all levels.
Is the use of the publics brain mechanisms for communication necessarily
immoral? Understanding how people really think can be used to communicate
truths, not Big Lies or ads for products.
This knowledge is not just known to cognitive linguists. It is taught in
Marketing courses in business schools, and the mechanisms are used in
advertising, to get you to buy what advertisers are selling. We have learned
to recognize ads; they are set off by themselves. Even manipulative
corporate advertising with political intent (like ads for fracking) is not
as dangerous as Big Lies leading to authoritarian government determining the
future of our country.
How Can Democrats Do Better?
First, dont think of an elephant. Remember not to repeat false conservative
claims and then rebut them with the facts. Instead, go positive. Give a
positive truthful framing to undermine claims to the contrary. Use the facts
to support positively-framed truth. Use repetition.
Second, start with values, not policies and facts and numbers. Say what you
believe, but havent been saying. For example, progressive thought is built
on empathy, on citizens caring about other citizens and working through our
government to provide public resources for all, both businesses and
individuals. Use history. Thats how America started. The public resources
used by businesses were not only roads and bridges, but public education, a
national bank, a patent office, courts for business cases, interstate
commerce support, and of course the criminal justice system. From the
beginning, the Private Depended on Public Resources, both private lives and
private enterprise.
Over time those resources have included sewers, water and electricity,
research universities and research support: computer science (via the NSF),
the internet (ARPA), pharmaceuticals and modern medicine (the NIH),
satellite communication (NASA and NOA), and GPS systems and cell phones (the
Defense Department). Private enterprise and private life utterly depend on
public resources. Have you ever said this? Elizabeth Warren has. Almost no
other public figures. And stop defending the government. Talk about the
public, the people, Americans, the American people, public servants, and
good government. And take back freedom. Public resources provide for freedom
in private enterprise and private life.
The conservatives are committed to privatizing just about everything and to
eliminating funding for most public resources. The contribution of public
resources to our freedoms cannot be overstated. Start saying it.
And dont forget the police. Effective respectful policing is a public
resource. Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas Police got it right. Training,
community policing, knowing the people you protect. And dont ask too much
of the police: citizens have a responsibility to provide funding so that
police dont have to do jobs that should be done by others.
Unions need to go on the offensive. Unions are instruments of freedom
freedom from corporate servitude. Employers call themselves job creators.
Working people are profit creators for the employers, and as such they
deserve a fair share of the profits and respect and acknowledgement. Say it.
Can the public create jobs. Of course. Fixing infrastructure will create
jobs by providing more public resources that private lives and businesses
depend on. Public resources to create more public resources. Freedom creates
opportunity that creates more freedom.
Third, keep out of nasty exchanges and attacks. Keep out of shouting
matches. One can speak powerfully without shouting. Obama sets the pace:
Civility, values, positivity, good humor, and real empathy are powerful.
Calmness and empathy in the face of fury are powerful. Bill Clinton won
because he oozed empathy, with his voice, his eye contact, and his body. It
wasnt his superb ability as a policy wonk, but the empathy he projected and
inspired.
Values come first, facts and policies follow in the service of values. They
matter, but they always support values.
Give up identity politics. No more womens issues, black issues, Latino
issues. Their issues are all real, and need public discussion. But they all
fall under freedom issues, human issues. And address poor whites!
Appalachian and rust belt whites deserve your attention as much as anyone
else. Dont surrender their fate to Trump, who will just increase their
suffering.
And remember JFKs immortal, Ask not what your country can do for you, but
what you can do for your country. Empathy, devotion, love, pride in our
countrys values, public resources to create freedoms. And adulthood.
Be prepared. You have to understand Trump to stand calmly up to him and
those running with him all over the country.
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