Steve Bannon, on audiotape, October 31, 2020, four days before the election:
"What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”Donald Trump, on TV, election night, 2020:
"This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election."
Sunday morning I got this email from the Trump campaign, telling me he has wrapped up the GOP nomination.
Donald Trump understands the psychology of anchoring.
Democrats with intense dislike for Trump may under-estimate him by being blind to his strengths. He does wild, crazy, intemperate things but he is not stupid. Amid his manifest faults, he has some of the attributes of a great communicator. He can frame an argument and shape opinion. As Barack Obama put it, the job of a president is "to explain stuff."
Trump understands how to use anchoring to perpetuate the idea that he is a winner, and therefore that anything that looks like a setback for him is illegitimate. False. Immoral. Taken away from its rightful owner. Humans are susceptible to anchoring an original status; they presume it to be legitimate, normal, the status quo ante. We compare any deviation from it as requiring special justification. The simplest example is the "sale" in a store. It's Labor Day, a reason to drop prices below their "real" value!
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| Oriental rugs at great prices: www.rugs.com |
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| The "real" price is exactly $7,247.50. |
We witness this device being employed to serve other people's interests. We know it is a device. We fall for it again and again.
Even smart, rational people anchor. We cannot help ourselves. Every Financial Advisor observes it with clients. Once an investment hits a certain price, or a portfolio a certain high point in value, that is the new anchor point. Anything less than that is "loss," something taken away from what was once rightfully theirs, regardless of the price paid or its price history. Loss implies fault in some way, either by neglect or theft, and therefore there is an implied villain. Humans hate loss. It disturbs the natural order of things. After the drop in housing prices in 2009-2013 from the previous highs in 2006-2007, houses sat on the market for years. People who had understood their house to have been worth a certain value in 2007 could not bear to sell for less than that value.
We see Trump making the statement repeatedly that he received 73 million votes, seven million more votes than any president in history seeking re-election. He is using anchoring. He repeatedly posits that the number of votes prior presidents received in re-election bids is a relevant fact for determining the 2020 election. He got more votes than Obama in 2012, more than Bush in 2004, so he simply must have won in 2020.
Trump is a far better salesperson than is Joe Biden. That combines with the fact that Trump is shamelessly dishonest, selfish, narcissistic, and sociopathic, as widely acknowledged by his former cabinet members. But Trump understands what captures our attention and he is persuasive to a big group of people and is therefore powerful. Next generation Democrats who might arise as party leaders to present an articulate counter-narrative to Trump are deferring to Biden, letting him be party leader and spokesperson. Biden has many strengths, but telling a persuasive narrative is not one of them.
Trump is making it harder for any GOP competitor to replace him. After all, he has already won the nomination, as he asserts. He is anchoring. The nomination is his. It could only be taken away from him by theft, and surely GOP voters would not want to support an election thief.
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16 comments:
I had to look up anchoring, because I wasn’t familiar with it other than with boats. Personally, I don’t think it explains why so many people are ready to discard our Constitution and rule of law in exchange for an autocracy led by a lying psychopath who tried to overthrow the government.
Rather than our founding principles, Republicans today embrace what they call “traditional” values, which boil down to keeping women and minorities in their place. It seems to me we’re still fighting the Civil War, but now they call it the “war on woke” or human decency and kindness. This is most obvious in Florida, where the governor announced they go to die. That’s why he was booed when he went to console the victims of a recent hate crime and neo-Nazis paraded around in support of it.
If I don’t need a rug, I’m not going to buy it. The same with a dictator.
Actually, just another feature of the Big Lie.
One aspect of polling is that just because someone says they might vote in a certain way does not mean they actually will vote as they say, or even vote at all. While pollsters calculate this as "margin of error", it's the reason polls can be an unreliable predictor. Conversely, poll results contribute to anchoring so there is somewhat of a self-fulfilling aspect.
I'd also point out that should polls show his support softening, which it actually is slightly, Trump will immediately discredit them. The fact is we probably won't know for sure until Iowa, when folks actually vote.
What is actually more interesting is that currently the top 5 contenders are all MAGA or MAGA curious, so it's likely that the Republicans will remain astride this dead horse for the foreseeable future.
"Democrats under-estimate Donald Trump." Is that a fact? Says who? All Democrats? Half of Democrats? What is your source? I hope it is relatively recent.
Kids say the darndest things.
Good point, Anonymous. I revised the text. I don't personally believe in Trump Derangement Syndrome. I think Trump is legitimately, objectively crazy, and I will cite his former cabinet officers as my authority. But Democrats' widespread dislike for Trump blinds them and causes them to underestimagte his persuasiveness. Who says? Well, I do.
Peter -
As you say, Trump is crazy. He's persuasive to those who are of like mind. It's not that we underestimate his persuasiveness; we just can't quite believe how many crazies there are.
Trump is the master of, what we in sales call, "the assumed close". In this model, the sales person simply falsely "assumes" the order is forthcoming and acts accordingly with the prospective customer. Trump doesn't offer an opportunity for an alternative point of view. If he said it, simply put, "it is". And his marketing partners carry his jock to the bank.
And I happen to think you're right about Democrats/Left leaning Independents who miss the fact that a very significant percentage of the voting population believe in his lies and braggadocio, and do the Nation a disservice by making light of his intelligence and the people who support him..it seems to me we who actually believe in the promises contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be far more concerned, even a bit frightened by what he has done, and is doing.
I also believe, and have said many times that Trump Derangement does not infect the Majority of the Country, but has certainly taken hold among his supporters. A number of whom are now paying a serious price for believing in him to the point of Insurrection. If that isn't Derangement, what is ?
True. It is sad, shocking and scary.
I do think that Trump Derangement Syndrome exists. I know many people who react to Trump with a visceral disgust, the same way some people react to snakes and spiders. This strong emotional reaction blinds them to his strengths.
I personally don’t like Trump, but I do not react to him in that visceral manner. Because of that, I can see his charisma. Most of my friends and acquaintances not only can’t see it, but strongly deny that it exists, and get upset with me when I ask them how they explain the attraction he has for his many followers.
They come up with explanations like, 40% of the country is crazy, which is not a useful political theory. And then, when I try to explain what I think the motivations of his political supporters might be, I sometimes get accused of being a Trump supporter, which I definitely am not.
Unfortunately, Trump Derangement Syndrome is a going to make it more difficult to defeat Donald Trump in 2024.
I agree with Michael about Trump's authentic charisma, and how so many cannot or refuse to acknowledge its existence. I'm almost a sufferer of TDS but when Trump says things that I agree with (such as his diatribes against George W. Bush), the seas part, the light shines, and suddenly I can appreciate the miracle of Trump communication. There's a rhythm, a clarity, a force to it, somehow. Sure, the guy's a treasonous criminal and every other bad thing, but the evidence of his startling appeal is all around us. And it is really scary. Very very much like Hitler's sway with the Germans in the 30s and 40s, starting with his soothing, avuncular Austrian accent. Even with all his disasters, the German people were largely with him to the end, and blamed his other henchmen for the problems.
It's really too bad that our K-12 schools haven't focused on the basics:
Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, for starters.
I'd add that critical thinking hadn't been taught in a long while.
Social justice warrioring has consumed a lot of resources, leaving little time for the basics.
Each of us might study the candidates closely, but the majority of voters may only pay attention to one or two things.
Each of us here on this blog might be able to easily recognize the strengths and flaws of each candidate, as none are perfect.
How do we get more people to actually pay attention to more?
Difficult, and I blame our education system and the parents. Of course, the media doesn't really help at all, as they are focusing on attracting advertisers and their dollars, so they'll do wherever it takes to attract those eyeballs and ears.
The attraction Trump has for his may followers is that out of all the candidates, he best represents their values. There's nothing deranged about finding that disgusting.
Besides the three R's, schools also need to put a lot more emphasis on civics and on the ability to tell fact from fiction, i.e. how to discriminate between credible websites and bullshit - but perhaps that would be part of critical thinking. However, I'm afraid Republicans would consider it too woke and make it illegal in Florida.
Mike, yes, civics too.
This person, me, who happens to be a registered Republican, is probably like many who like only some of the things that Trump has done, and dislike a lot of what he has said and done.
It's not an all or none decision.
I'm still convinced we are in the Never-Trump vs Never-Biden part of the campaign.
I'm more focused on the issues of the day, foreign and domestic, and what the candidates say about those issues.
Too many are focused on defending or criticizing Biden or Trump, or worse, extrapolating that all Republicans are pro-Trump, and all Democrats are pro-Biden.
Too many use a broad brush condemning the parties without expressing the issues the US faces, rather than discussing the issues we all face, and what steps should be taken by government.
I guess those discussions aren't interesting enough for actual discussion.
M2inFLA –
Because of Trump’s attempt at overturning the election and his overwhelming support among Republicans and the GOP, preserving our democracy has become one of those issues of the day you mention. The candidates aren’t saying much about it except how quickly they’ll pardon him if elected. I know that a minority of Republicans don’t support his coup attempt, but a vast majority do and because they do, the party refuses to hold him accountable, making them complicit in his criminality. That isn’t using too broad a brush, it’s stating a fact.
While “holding Trump accountable” might be “the right thing to do” ethically, it could also be the wrong thing to do politically if it leads to Trump being reelected. No one knows for sure at this point, but it definitely could work out that way.
People on the side of accountability might want to keep that possibility in mind. Trump ruling the country from the White Cell is not the outcome they are seeking.
I suspect trump will be convicted of insurrection. If so, sorry, Trump, but no running for ANY office!
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