Deny wrongdoing with conviction.
Delegitimize the accuser, as biased or fake.
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| Trump becomes Rambo |
Pivot to an accusation of a Democrat.
Relativize. Say reality is just a matter of opinion.
Assert correctness with conviction.
Trump understands his audience and the news media. He knows that American are bored with policy and that what we are interested in is conflict. Trump picks the conflict he wants.
Trump changes the story template. Theoretically there are unlimited story frames for a politician in trouble. Trump's genius is changing those frames into one that is advantageous to his particular public character: the embattled defender of the forgotten man. Media like conflict stories and the media and the public have templates already pre-loaded in their minds. For example, tragedy strikes a victim of misfortune; fool or naif taken advantage of by others; authorities search for a malefactor; a person of high reputation revealed as a fool or fraud. We have all seen these frames. Trump does not let himself be trapped into one of them. He employs a formula to change the frame to some version of the Rambo story, the embattled good guy, heroically struggling for justice against corrupted authority.
Trump effectively used the template against others but avoids being caught in it because he employs his formula: Deny, Delegitimize, Pivot, Relativize, Assert correctness.
Readers who want to watch Trump at work can see it right now, in real time, presented in textbook form.
Deny.
Up until the release of the e-mail string by Donald Trump, Jr. denial was in the strong, clear form: there is no evidence whatsoever of covert contact with the Russian government to influence the election.
Now circumstances force them to assert that there is no unusual or guilty covert contact with the Russian government.
Delegitimize.
This is ongoing. The investigation is still a witch hunt, it is still an attempt to reverse the 2016 election, it is still done by people determined to undermine Trump using every device possible, it is still a political investigation in search of a crime.
Trump and his team stick to the message: the news is fake, the media is biased.
Kellyanne Conway says her Democratic accusers are unbelievable and unbelieved. Their poll numbers are very low, and people don't respect them.
Click Here for a video clip to watch her at work.
Pivot to accusing others.
This is an essential element of the strategy, the one that is most audacious in how it changes the template frame from "authorities catch miscreant" into a more interesting frame, in which the hunted becomes the hunter. This requires a friendly media, and Trump has one.
Trump and his team make angry charges. The real issue is Hillary Clinton and Benghazi. The real issue is Loretta Lynch talking with Bill Clinton. The real issue is the sale of an American uranium company to the Russians. The real issue is James Comey's leak. The real issue are the politics of the lawyers on Meuller's stuff. The real issue is the fact of the deep state in the form of holdover bureaucrats. The real issue is incompetence in the intelligence services. The real issue is why Obama didn't stop the Russians from hacking the election. The real issue is why Obama didn't stop Iran with a better nuclear deal. The real issue is why the DNC didn't protect itself.
Relativize.
Trump's supporters still support him. Polls report that some 93% of Trump voters do not regret their votes. In the current moment with Donald Trump Jr.'s e-mails revealed, Trump supporters dismiss the news. All politicians look for dirt. The news is untrustworthy. Trump's campaign behavior does not stick out as special. He is a competitor, not a miscreant. Trump successfully changes the frame.
Assert with conviction.
Stand tall. Refuse to look like a miscreant. Do not apologize. Chin up.
Voters decide whether one is in a perp-walk, brought low by legitimate authority, or whether you are a proud and courageous warrior, fighting for what is right, by how the person looks and sounds. Trump embraces the fact that he has critics thereby defining them as mere opponents--dishonest ones at that--rather than people of authority bringing a miscreant to justice. He asserts he is right and he sells it hard.
Trump changes the story template. Theoretically there are unlimited story frames for a politician in trouble. Trump's genius is changing those frames into one that is advantageous to his particular public character: the embattled defender of the forgotten man. Media like conflict stories and the media and the public have templates already pre-loaded in their minds. For example, tragedy strikes a victim of misfortune; fool or naif taken advantage of by others; authorities search for a malefactor; a person of high reputation revealed as a fool or fraud. We have all seen these frames. Trump does not let himself be trapped into one of them. He employs a formula to change the frame to some version of the Rambo story, the embattled good guy, heroically struggling for justice against corrupted authority.
Trump effectively used the template against others but avoids being caught in it because he employs his formula: Deny, Delegitimize, Pivot, Relativize, Assert correctness.
 |
| The current version of "Deny" |
Deny.
Up until the release of the e-mail string by Donald Trump, Jr. denial was in the strong, clear form: there is no evidence whatsoever of covert contact with the Russian government to influence the election.
Now circumstances force them to assert that there is no unusual or guilty covert contact with the Russian government.
 |
| Delegitimize supposed authority. |
Delegitimize.
This is ongoing. The investigation is still a witch hunt, it is still an attempt to reverse the 2016 election, it is still done by people determined to undermine Trump using every device possible, it is still a political investigation in search of a crime.
Trump and his team stick to the message: the news is fake, the media is biased.
Kellyanne Conway says her Democratic accusers are unbelievable and unbelieved. Their poll numbers are very low, and people don't respect them.
Click Here for a video clip to watch her at work.
Pivot to accusing others.
This is an essential element of the strategy, the one that is most audacious in how it changes the template frame from "authorities catch miscreant" into a more interesting frame, in which the hunted becomes the hunter. This requires a friendly media, and Trump has one.
 |
| Pivot and attack. Create a new story. |
 |
| No big deal. |
Trump's supporters still support him. Polls report that some 93% of Trump voters do not regret their votes. In the current moment with Donald Trump Jr.'s e-mails revealed, Trump supporters dismiss the news. All politicians look for dirt. The news is untrustworthy. Trump's campaign behavior does not stick out as special. He is a competitor, not a miscreant. Trump successfully changes the frame.
 |
| Appear righteous, not embarrassed. |
Stand tall. Refuse to look like a miscreant. Do not apologize. Chin up.
Voters decide whether one is in a perp-walk, brought low by legitimate authority, or whether you are a proud and courageous warrior, fighting for what is right, by how the person looks and sounds. Trump embraces the fact that he has critics thereby defining them as mere opponents--dishonest ones at that--rather than people of authority bringing a miscreant to justice. He asserts he is right and he sells it hard.
Will the formula work for Trump?
History would say, yes it would--and does. Trump remains the centerpiece of public political discourse. As long as the frame is Trump-vs.-the establishment, making Trump the embattled Rambo, then Trump will do very well.
What could go wrong? His Republican allies could bail on him. They have not and so far there is nothing that forces them to, but if Trump loses support from a broad range of GOP officeholders he will look less like a hero and more like an outlier, a freak. He will have become a bad form of "bad" rather than the hero form of "bad." That changes the frame, to Trump's detriment.
The other thing that could go wrong is that the Democrats get their act together to introduce a counter hero, one who is a more appealing warrior for the forgotten American than Trump is. I am unaware of who that might be. The right person does not appear to be in the wings.
The matchup would be most powerful if that Democrat represents a military or law enforcement or prosecution portion of the party rather than from the softer, social conscience, benefits-for-the-poor sentiment. Trump is a warrior and a warrior needs to be stopped by another form of warrior. Trump's brand and behavior leave lots of room for an alternative form of patriotism to stand tall as an alternative candidate. People would be choosing between patriots, not choosing between an American Greatness via Trump versus a Democratic globalist, or Democratic socialist, or Democratic peacemaker. Trump would dominate and humiliate that person the way George HW Bush dominated Dukakis.
The Democrat who would match up best against Trump would be just as angry and indignant as Trump and just as practiced in accusing the wrongdoer. That would force Trump back into the box his formula is designed to avoid: the just system bringing the malefactor to justice.
3 comments:
This post is among the most erudite and incisive I've read in the past month. It advances political thinking and media understanding. Democrats have had too lazy a ride with our left media framing the narrative rather than creative political leaders. Selling ever more bombastic headline clicks is different from building effective political gravitas. Trump-hate is not a winning formula for anyone other than CNN and MoveOn.org.
Hate works for Republicans but not Democrats, for anti government but not pro-government, for what Rick Millward calls Regressives but not Progressives. We Democrats are awkward with hate, it doesn't work for us. Reaganism was stopped by Bill Clinton attacking conservative excesses, not conservative voters. Barrack Obama stopped Bush's neo-conservative march with a politics of hope. Both were adamant in bipartisanship and civility.
Hillary Clinton's deplorables characterisation of opposition voters has been amplified since it brought us down. We have embraced the very toxicity that felled us because that's what CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post and NYT feed us. Hate and scandalizing satiate their most avid subscribers, but leave the rest of increasingly unappetized.
Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama are right. Hate and condescension don't work for us. I'm growing confident that a voice from the wings of our party, perhaps a young senator or governor from Illinois or Arkansas, will emerge to lead us out of this dark media miasma.
Will the formula work for Trump?
History would say, yes it would--and does. Trump remains the centerpiece of public political discourse.
But the question is: will it keep working forever?
It is true that the charges of Russian treason are a bunch of shit, but the other side of the coin is that in terms of governance it's been a shambles. Apparently, there are people in the Trump White House who consider options like appointing an American viceroy to Afghanistan.
May I suggest that the ideal would not be a Fascistic or militaristic candidate, but someone who might appeal to fundamental principles of decency, justice and honour, all across the board? That would be either a new JFK, or whomever.
Both Alonso and Thad make a great point about needing a charismatic new leader in the Democratic Party, along the lines of JFK, or Barack Obama, who despite a couple of major mistakes, IMHO, and absolutely unprecedented in my 70 year lifetime obstruction by the opposition party, managed to get a lot done, and certainly did not remove us from the World Stage as has been accomplished by 45* in less than 6 months. The centrism and triangulation by the Clinton Administration really helped put us here, and I think is an example of the worst of politics, the cynicism with which he played with his supporters.
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