"No, no, no, no, don't take him literally, take him symbolically. See? It's different."

Believing is seeing.

Trump did not win because he told people unpopular truths.  He won because he told people what a great many of them already believed.

The quotation in the blog title is from Anthony Scaramucci, an advisor to Trump.   "No, no, no, no, don't take him literally, take him symbolically."   

There was an earlier version of this same advice by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski when I was at the JFK School at Harvard:  not to take him literally but to take him seriously.   

Click to watch the clip

This blog has attempted to observe the 2016 campaign live and up close, the better to understand what is happening in America.  It helps actually to see live how Donald Trump performs in his rallies and to read his tweets.  And it helps actually to talk with people who perceive Trump very favorably.

Trump's harsh criticism of the media was widely judged--by the media--to be self destructive.  He was biting the hand that fed him, they thought.   They buy ink by the barrel and operate the network news, yet he repeatedly called them "dishonest", "lying", "corrupt", "biased", "unreliable" and more.   This was not an accident.  It was craft.   New information from "news" sources is not real or true, he said; it is just opinion and likely biased and wrong and can be ignored or dismissed out of hand.  No need to change your mind because of whatever they say.

The two "grey" squares are the same color.  Really!

Trump understood and has revealed something understood by psychologists and academics about how humans perceive and absorb information.  Because they are sophisticated, educated thinkers they realize that believing is seeing, that perception is relative, not absolute.  They take ideas like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and relate it to everyday perception.  The observer changes what is observed and reshapes it to conform with the framework of understanding that is in place.

They understand that optical illusions work because the brain processes things so that vision itself is transformed to meet expectations.  "Reality" is relative and created by the mind of the perceiver.   In the illustration above our brains automatically adjust for the background, so it applies a different light scale to each box.  Our belief about the context for the grey causes us to see the same color very differently.  They are the same color of grey.  Put your finger over the dividing line and you will see.

In the box below there are only 3 colors.  White, green and pink.  There is only one shade of pink but it looks like there are two.   Our brains adjust for the context.   Believing is seeing.

There is only one shade of pink.  Really!

Trump understood as a political performer what academics know as science, and then he adeptly put it into practice.  People believe what feels true to them and they don't easily process and integrate information that conflicts with what they believe, especially if it comes from an untrustworthy source.  

Donald Trump spoke to some deep truths about what a great many people believe.  He exaggerated and he lied and even his supporters understand that but they dismiss it because he said things that seemed true to people.   They just made sense:

   ***They believe that immigrants are outsiders and are to some degree a threat to jobs, and they do not deserve to take them.

   ***They believe that outsiders, and especially Muslims, are a real and especially frightening threat and we need to protect ourselves from them.

   ***They believe that crime is rampant and far worse than in the past.

   ***They believe that most of the problems blacks had with discrimination are in the past and that now problems with black poverty and crime are caused by bad personal behaviors, not discrimination.

   ***They believe that America is relatively weaker than it used to be and they don't like it.

   ***They believe that "regular Americans" are being taken advantage of by interlopers at home and foreign governments and businesses abroad.

   ***They believe that some groups here in America are coddled by government, which is being paid for by people like themselves, and which is reducing their share of the pie.

   ***They believe that privileged people get away with things regular people cannot get away with.

   ***They believe that government benefits privileged rich people and lazy poor people and they resent it.

   ***They believe that educated elites have values that are ridiculously precious and unrealistic which shows up as the tyranny of political correctness relating to race, religion, and sex.

   ***They believe that politicians are corrupted by money and special interests and that they serve those interests, not the interests of people like them.

   ***They believe Trump will attempt to fix things because he is on their side.

There is no shortage of information generally available to justify and document those beliefs.      Supporters can cite instances and facts. People who believe the above are not delusional, and they probably constitute a majority of the people in America.   These beliefs are not the whole story nor are they the only story, but they are certainly one story.

Trump's craft and skill has been to appeal to that belief and to de-legitimize information that would complicate or disagree with those beliefs.   He is transitioning to governing from campaigning but the message discipline has stayed the same.  Trump continues to red-legitimize information that would show him to be hypocritical or part of the same problem or that he is failing to fix the problems he cited.   Media observers--and this blog--have observed that Trump has a teflon shield against adverse news.  By being a firm and unapologetic spokesman for the deep truths that people believe Trump's supporters don't absorb and integrate contrary or complicating information.   The news media's citing of information they consider factual simply bounce off Trump.   It is not about facts.  It is about beliefs in core truths.

It will not matter.  They miss the point.

The current controversy over Russian hacking of the DNC for the apparent purpose of helping elect Trump is a case in point.  His supporters don't think it happened but if it did it is the fault of the Democrats and it is unimportant anyhow  So what if the Russians messed with our election.  The news this morning is that the Trump sons are selling access to Trump for a million dollar donation to their charity, with dinner and a photo op, but it isn't real and it isn't selling influence and it doesn't matter.  Trump contradicts himself?  It did not happen and it doesn't matter.

Advice from Trump's people:  Do not take Trump literally.  Take him symbolically.  The underlying truth is the real truth and that truth is that suite of beliefs that Trump has tapped into that are shared by a great many Americans.  The media and Democrats are attempting to invade or complicate those beliefs by facts as they understand them, but their facts are not consistent with the deep set beliefs of Trump voters.  MSNBC is wasting its breath.   

Possibly the difficulties of actual governance will chip away at the belief framework and Trump's teflon will dissolve.   But I think a more likely path for electoral success for Democrats is to find among those deep beliefs listed above ones they can agree to and adopt, thereby becoming an alternative route for voters to get what they believe.   

Trump did not win because he told people inconvenient truths.   He won because he told them what they already believed, and he put words and a face to it.