Merry Christmas

The Obama Era Ended on November 8.   It is President Trump Now.   Yes, Now.

Americans elected strong man government.  Trump owned a sole proprietorship   He did not report to a board or shareholders.   He could be a strong, decisive leader.  Voters liked that.

The burden of the guest post today is that Trump has already changed American foreign policy and put in motion changes in domestic policy through seizing the levers of power and acting with bold decisive unilateral action.   America's China policy was changed with a phone call from Taiwan, America's policy toward Israel was pre-empted and reversed with a tweet and a press release by Trump.   Financial company stocks have soared; investors know that Dodd Frank will be relaxed and it will be happy days again soon.

Readers of Thad Guyer's guest post may wish to take comfort in the notion that American checks and balances are still at work.  Trump's strong moves take place in constitutional system designed to block a strong executive.  Americans--and their institutions of congress, the courts, the media, and interest groups--are on the lookout for tyrants.   Worrywarts console themselves this Christmas morning thinking that things cannot change all that much.

There is reason to be lie awake and worry.

Gallup Poll: Congress has 12% Approval rating.

The great institutions that have blocked presidents are widely discredited.  They are held in lower esteem than the president.   

Some of the reason for this is their own self-destructive behavior with congressional gridlock, with sexual scandal, with news of micro aggressions and trigger warnings at colleges.   Some of it has been that the problems in America are intractable.  Some of it has been the effect of globalism which has put Americans in competition with Chinese manufacturers and Indian office workers.  Some of it has been the relentless attacks on government as part of the Reagan-Gingrich-GOP ideology that government is the problem, not the solution.  

***Congress has lower approval rating than herpes or traffic jams.

***The Supreme Court has acted like a political branch of government and was openly campaigned about as a political body, with Democratic and Republican judges.

***Social media has replaced curated mainstream media as a source of credible information.  Trump condemns the media and voters like it when he does.

Called a tyrant and a feckless weakling.  Both.

***Academic experts give people unwelcome news on climate and health and the economy and expertise is scorned or ignored.

***Churches with growing power are the independent ones that emphasize individual agency and personal salvation, not institutional authority.

The checks and balances restraints on strong man government are weak, and so is the language environment.  The notion of "tyranny!" as a source of alarm has been weakened during the Obama period.  Obama never had a governing majority in the face of unified Republican opposition in the Senate, so Obamacare got passed as a jerry-rigged sub-optimal program whose primary attribute was that it could secure 60 votes in the Senate, barely.

Executive orders

Otherwise, Obama governed around congress with using executive authority, which is broad in foreign affairs and spotty domestically.   Republicans called him a tyrant.  They called him a feckless weakling, too.  The notion of tyrant and unaccountable power lost all meaning.   Tyrant?  So what? 

Obama set a precedent for governing in this manner, which Trump will use to un-do what Obama did, and then will do more on his own.  The charge of tyranny and over-reach has lost its sting.  Americans have heard the word "Tyrant!!" amid no perceived change, indeed inadequate change for a country seeking hope and change.  

Voters have been desensitized

Americans have been desensitized to fear of tyranny.  At this point a great many of them welcome it.  Constitutional government is associated with weak, ineffective government, government that comes up with Obamacare and lost jobs.  

The "Drain the swamp" message did not mean rooting out the bad buys and replacing them with good guys.  It meant getting rid of the impediments to winning and making America great.   The "swamp" was congress and the courts and the media and the interest groups that stood in the way of good strong government.

The stage is set for a period of strong man rule.   Thad Guyer describes how quickly that change has happened:

Guest Post:    

Trump to Obama:  “You’re Fired”

Thad Guyer

Trump teaches:  A strong president-elect outranks a weak lame-duck president. Did we baby boomers not learn in college that corporate America dominates government, and that the military industrial complex rules the military? Trump has assembled not a cabinet, but a boardroom of corporate billionaires and former generals.  Former generals wielding leadership in the private sector outrank generals still at the Pentagon. Trump has already revoked Obama’s power on the UN, China-Taiwan, Israel, Syria, arms control, Air Force One, and the F-35 fighter jet. Foreign ambassadors rebuff Obama with, “sorry, but we don’t want to offend President Trump”.  Career civil servants are dragging their feet on Obama’s orders to preempt Trump-- they fear of losing their jobs on January 21st. Trump has already requisitioned the names of civil servants charged with carrying out Obama’s anti-terrorism orders.  (See, CNN, “Trump Transition Asks for Names of State Department Staff”, Dec 24, 2017, https://goo.gl/DeA8xj). Most media inquiries go unanswered. If you can’t get an answer from Kellyanne Conway, you’re not getting one.

The left media is now 0-2 for willful ignorance: Trump can’t win, and his transition team is ineffectual. If we should have learned one thing from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay’s scathing biography “The Making of Donald Trump” (2016), it’s that Trump is a master of governmental power levers through back-door means and bone-breaking operatives.  That Joseph McCarthy’s Senate lawyer Roy Cohn was Trump’s attack dog from 1973 until he died, tells you most of what you need to know. If you want sophisticated reporting on the Trump transition, read the Wall Street Journal, whose editors and reporters have known many of Trump’s New York cabinet picks for decades. The WSJ says Trump tired of the “daily intelligence briefings”, finding them repetitive, incomplete, ideologically tainted (eg. national security implications of climate change), infused with Russia paranoia, and not credible on Syria. Trump dismissed Obama’s briefers with a “I’ve got a country to run”, his exact words: “If somethingshould change from this point, call me immediately”. (See NPR, Dec. 13, 2016, https://goo.gl/iXiTfP). To top executives, information is power, disinformation is distraction.

Obama’s record of 250 executive orders and counting can easily be overtaken by Trump. No argument is quite so effective as “you guys said it’s legit”.  Were there greater moral imperative to it, Obama’s final flurry of executive orders, proclamations, and new regulations would appear heroic.  But instead it looks sad and desperate, with liberal activists complaining Obama should have institutionalized these progressive moves long ago. (Podcast, NPR On the Media, “Hurry Up [with Midnight Orders and Regulations”, Dec. 23, 2016, https://goo.gl/b6NUFl). Every new Obama executive order can be undone with Trump’s signature. (Podcast, WSJ “Obama Last-Minute Rules”, Dec 21, 2016 https://goo.gl/iFZQYr). Every new Obama regulation can be superseded with a Trump “interim” regulation gutting it. Obama’s claim that his proclamation banning North Atlantic oil extraction is “permanent” is legally ludicrous. Obama’s revocation of NSEERS, aka the “9-11 Muslim Registry”, can also be reinstated with Trump’s issuance of an “interim final rule”.  Such rules are effective upon publication without prior public notice. (See, “A Guide to the Rulemaking Process”, Office of the Federal Register 2010, https://goo.gl/bTdV4M).

For us baby boomers, we now have a third emblazoned memory of American politics, which in order are: (1) the Kennedy assassination, (2) election of first Black president, and (3) and our first overtly corporate presidency. We don’t have to wait until January 21st to study the four strongmen controlling world affairs, if not our destinies: Donald Trump (North America), Vladmir Putin (Eurasia), Recep Erdoğan (Mideast/North Africa), and Xi Jinping (South and East Asia).  Trump is right: “Let’s talk now”. Obama is serving in a caretaker role. 

Trump and the Imagined Past. Santa Clause is real

Barrack Obama should have gone to church, regularly and conspicuously.  Hillary Clinton, too.   Paris is worth a mass.   So was the White House. 

Trump invoked traditional values

Christmas songs surround us this month, reminding us of a nostalgic imagined past of home and tradition and a warm memory of everything being all right again, "just like the ones I used to know."  

Donald Trump had a message of nostalgia and tradition.  The Democrats did not.  It cost them.

Hillary Clinton lost among white voters, especially among white evangelical voters.  This is not a change from previous years.  These voters vote Republican every election.  This is a huge handicap for Democrats because these voters represent approximately 26% of the electorate.   Here is the study from PRII.org:  PRII: White Christians side with Trump

PRII: Looking back to the 1950s

Religion matters.  Some 74% of white evangelical voters think things have gotten worse in America since the 1950s, and 81% of those voters supported Donald Trump.

Education matters.  There is a significant divide between the attitudes of college educated white voters versus non-college whites on whether the country is getting better or worse since the 1950s.  Some 56% of college educated whites think things have gotten better in America since the 1950s, but the non-college disagree:  65% think things are getting worse.

Changing demographic matters.  Some 73% of Republicans think that immigrants are threaten traditional customs and values.  Only 29% of Democrats say the same.

The Democrats failed to create a strong unassailable message of traditional values and traditional Christian faith.

What matters is what people think

Donald Trump captured overwhelmingly the votes of people who wanted a return to something.  He was enabled in this because  Obama and Clinton represented new America. Educated.  Black.  Rational.  Scientific.  Modern. Diverse.  And largely secular in orientation.  They left a political void that Republicans seized upon. 

Republicans did not think Obama was Christian.    

Democrats repeatedly note that the accusation is factually untrue, factually unfounded, and utterly cynical when presented by detractors.  None of that matters.  Carl Palidino, Trump's NY Campaign Chair said, "In the mind of the average American there is no doubt Obama is a Muslim.  He is not a Christian."   Palidono spoke to the reality in a great many people's minds.  In a May, 2016 poll only 13% of Trump supporters at that time agreed that Obama was a Christian and two thirds think they do know his religion: Muslim.


What could Obama have done with such information, information that Obama and the media consider lunacy and conspiratorial and outrageous? 

They could have dealt with it, not dismiss it.     They might have gone to church.   The Protestant King Henry the IV of France ended the religious wars of France in 1593 by attending a mass in the heavily Catholic city of Paris.  It didn't kill him.  It resolved the religious wars that were tearing France apart.   

Ann obviously unchurched and openly unreligious Trump overwhelmingly won the votes of people for whom religion is apparently very important.   Trump was not an example of Christian faith.  He was an advocate for Christian faith.  He represented tradition, not piety nor virtue.

Memory and desire.  Trump evoked an image of an imagined past.   America strong.  Christians triumphant. The old social order was in place and secure.  That America is real, as real as Christmas.

The sober rational reality of a white Christmas is slick roads and airport closures in snowstorms.  The physical reality of "I'll be home for Christmas" is that the person in the song cannot go home and can only dream of it.   The world affairs reality of Christmas is that all is not calm and all is not bright in anyplace other than a young child's mind.   The adult reality of Christmas is that Santa Claus is pretend.

The nostalgic image of Christmas people celebrate in their hearts is snowy cuddling over an open fire, a return to family, peace, joy, and unearned gifts from Santa.  Obama and Clinton embraced the direction of the Democratic party as the secular, new, rational, and modern party, and they likely lost votes because of it.

It is a tough world out there, but there is imagined refuge from it, in the mind and the past:

"The weather outside is frightful
 But the fire is so delightful
 Since we've no place to go
 Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

Trump on Terror Attacks: Heads I win, Tails I win

Obama is criticized when there is a terror attack in the US.  

But Donald Trump will be proven right  both when there is an attack and when there is no attack.   Trump took the lead in telling us the world is dangerous.

Trump is winning the message war.

Forgetting 9-11   Watch:  Click Here

Democrats described the terror attacks of 9-11 as a failure of our national security system, but not a personal failure of President George Bush.  John Kerry, in the 2004 campaign, did not make an issue of the systematic errors of the Administration nor of George Bush personally.   

Republicans have handled messaging on Obama much more adeptly.  They blame Obama when bad things happen at Fort Hood, at the Boston Marathon, at Orlando, at San Bernardino.   The perception in the public mind is that George Bush's presidency was terror free (discounting the 3,000 who died on 9-11, because that was blamed on outsiders, not Bush) but that Obama has had multiple terror incidents, to his discredit.

The notion is so widespread and integrated into the mindset that Rudy Giuliani could speak extemporaneously at a Trump rally in August and assert firmly that there were no terrorist attacks on America until Obama came to office.    Giuliani, Mayor of NY during the 9-11 attacks, somehow dismissed  a huge terror attack while blaming Obama for smaller ones in comparison shows just how profound is the notion that terror attacks are the responsibility of Democrats and take place only under their watch.   

It was cynical behavior but superb message control on the part of Republicans and negligence and malpractice on the part of Democrats.


Senator John McCain openly calls terror attacks as the personal failure of Obama who is "directly responsible"  After some criticism he revises his statement to say that Obama is certainly at fault, but only indirectly and generally responsible.



This takes place in a Fox media environment that amplifies this notion.  Terror attacks are the fault of Obama.   Obama did not do a good job of parrying or objecting to that notion.  His calm deliberate manner and comments tamp down fear and foolish responses--arguably sensible and responsible behavior of ra president-- but it contrasts poorly against Trump who expresses anger and outrage and blame.

In this environment Donald Trump inoculated himself against the same attacks.  He did it in part by doing something that drew sharp criticism.

Trump understands that some criticism is good, very good for you.

Criticism for this helped him.

By getting criticized Trump received the attention he wanted and the positioning he wanted.   The criticism secured his political position because it was asserted not just by Trump himself but also by his media and Democratic detractors:  Trump said:  "I told you so!

Trump has won the message war.   With help from his critics Trump is understood to be the leader who takes credit for being right when some incident happens.  Yes, Trump's detractors think he is a grandiose show off but he is understood to be gloating because he is right.  This helps Trump.

Of course, when there is no news of a terror attack somewhere he is the beneficiary by default, able to assert that his actions kept us safe.  
  

Democrats are going to have a hard time blaming Trump for breaches--even serious errors--in our homeland security systems if and when new incidents happen.   Trump has been openly critical of the CIA and FBI, so if something happens he will blame them, not him.   Trump will not be asking for resolve and a calm sense of purpose the next time an incident happens.   He will be saying that the blame is on the terrorists or the CIA, not him, and that he knew it all along.

At some point Trump will need to "own" the problems that happen under his watch, but Trump will likely remain first off the blocks every time an incident happens.  He will say it is an outrage and that once again he is proven right.

There is, however, hope for the Democrats.  Trump skips and skimps on his Intelligence briefings.  When something bad happens would might Trump had done if he had been getting briefings?

The Genial Con Man

There is an archetype in literature and the movies and we like him:  the genial con man.    Donald Trump plays that role.

Note there are two blog posts today.  This one on messaging and Trump.  The earlier one on the message Democrats should adopt.   Read them both for a healthy and balanced diet of insight and wisdom.

The lovable scamp: Paul Newman in The Sting

Thad Guyer noted in a comment that all politicians need to deceive in order to communicate what is impossible in the real world, that they will satisfy all needs.   Guyer says that Trump is at least honest in being a con man while other politicians attempt to hide it.   

I have watched Trump in person and up close on five occasions and agree that he has a self-mocking genuineness in which he says things he knows--and the audience knows--is impossible.   To paraphrase him at the end of the Boca Raton speech.   "You are going to win and win and win and win and win.  You will win so much you will get tired of winning.  You will come to me and say, 'Donald, we are tired of winning, please stop!'  But I won't stop because we will just keep winning!"

You knew he was going to cheat you.

Everyone understood what was happening.   We were not to take him literally.  We were to take him seriously but symbolically.

American voters are familiar with this archetype and that person is generally a hero character.  Examples that come immediately to mind:

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The characters played by Newman and Redford in "The Sting".

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the scamp outlaws.

Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

All the hero in Picaresque genre stories of the rogue hero

The genre movies of James Bond, the TV series Maverick and James Rockford.

Professional Wrestling as it is now practiced in America, understood to be staged.

Trump's rallies have humor in them.  Hillary Clinton's were serious and earnest.  Mitt Romney warned that Trump was a con man.  Trump did not deny it.  He rolled with it.

Here is what Thad Guyer had to say about Trump's messages:

Guyer

"Lying without Betrayal-- Why Trump is a Better Liar than Clinton"

Excellent post, it succinctly gives an executive overview of political stagecraft used by every president since at least Nixon, probably for every one since Washington. Whether its Bush with "mission accomplished" in Iraq, Clinton did not have sex with "that woman", Obama promising the Affordable Care Act will confer the right to keep your own pre-ACA doctor,Senator Clinton promising to bring jobs to upstate New York or denying she ever sent classified emails,there's a real movement of "Hamilton Electors", or Trump is going to drain the swamp, the art of political illusion is the fundamental underpinning of politicians left and right. The primary difference in the myriad illusion and lies of Bush, Obama, Clinton and Trump is not the relative stagecraft-- they all use the same tried and proven methods, all rely on their preferred brand of media to transmit their disinformation.

As Clinton supporters, we sneered a bit at her lies, but Trump supporters cheered at the show. The primary difference is that Trump preemptively, before taking office, announces that he is going to use this bipartisan slight of hand. Trump says in advance "I have told you a bunch of lies", rather than, say with Bill Clinton or Obama, where we have to discover them as we go along. Trump is like a great Las Vegas magic act (I went to one) where you know it is all illusion but you are still amazed, one side of your brain entertained as the other side tries to figure out the truth of it. Bush, the Clintons and Obama were like the big name magicians who actually get on stage and tell you with a straight face that what you are about to see is real. Trump is different-- he starts the show telling us "a lot of this is just an act".

Trump also drives home to us what PEW Research confirms year after year that we all know already-- the media is dishonest (i.e., the other side's media is dishonest), but he doesn't focus on the message after the fact. Obama, for example, railed (and rails still) against the media (the brand he doesn't like) for its characterizations that he lied about this or that. Trump is different, he tells us before he is even in office that "the dishonest media is going to tell lies about me when I am president, but trust only me as when I am or am not lying". The bottom line is that, as UpClose hightlights, the brain compensates and Trump "appears" to be not more honest, but more trustworthy than the typical politician. A politician like Trump who says "sometimes I lie and exaggerate" is obviously more trustworthy than a politician like Hillary Clinton who claims never to lie or exaggerate. When Bill Clinton and Obama lied, there was a feeling of betrayal when their supporters found out. When Trump's lies are revealed as his first term progresses, his supporters will feel dismayed, but not betrayed. That is the real import of today's post.  

A Direction out of the Wilderness for Democrats

Straight talk to the American People

Democrats need to get real.    It is OK to be against crime and terror and corruption.

Tee Shirt of the Class.  A bunch of liberal protesters.

I sent an excerpt of yesterday's post deep into the heart of blue America: a Harvard college forum of the class of 1971, a bunch of us who were in college in the late 1960s and are about 67 years old now.   The group fit the demographics of the archetype Democrat.  Prosperous, educated with advanced degrees, with professional careers, densely urban, boomer, NY Times and Washington Post reading people familiar and comfortable with diversity.   I got a reaction from one of my classmates, a brilliant Ph.D political scientist.   

Here is what he wrote:

       "So what is the conclusion we're supposed to draw here, Peter?  That it is better to reinforce false beliefs in an effort to gain election?   I have little hope that political debates will educate people or dissuade them from holding false beliefs.  So unless Democrats can rally people with a fact-based view of America, they'll have a very hard row to hoe in the months ahead."

Note this: "false beliefs", said twice.   Here are the set of beliefs I said resonated with the American people, beliefs Trump said he shared.   
                     

**A great many Americans believe that immigrants are outsiders who are taking jobs Americans should do and they do not deserve to take them.

***They believe that outsiders, especially Muslims, are a real and 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 now problems with black poverty are caused by bad personal behaviors not discrimination.

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

***They believe that "regular Americans" are being taken advantage by foreign governments and businesses in trade and foreign policy.

***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 but not people like themselves, and they resent it.

***They believe that educated elites have values that are ridiculously precious and unrealistic, which shows up as a 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.

                                                   #     #     #

The above statements are voiced in a tone of moral disapproval in an attempt to sound Trump-like.   Some readers will be turned off by them, as was my classmate at college.  But look closely.  Are any of the beliefs crazy or without foundation?  Indeed, are any of them actually objectionable to progressives, to liberals, to empathetic Democrats of any variety?

Click Here. 2 minute clip

But it is not crazy or illiberal to think that immigrants, legal and undocumented, take jobs native born Americans might do and that the wages of low-skilled workers might go up if that labor source disappeared.   Barbara Jordan, the black liberal from Texas, argued this.  [Liberals may have other reasons to support immigration (asylum, refugees, displaced persons) but it is not illiberal to want to control immigration.]

It is not crazy or illiberal to think that some foreigners—some of whom are Muslim—want to carry out terrorist activities against us. Some have done so.   Obama certainly acknowledges that there are some bad actors out to kill Americans.  Isn’t it OK for Democrats to admit the obvious: there are dangerous people out there and some of them are Muslim.

It is not crazy or illiberal to think crime is rampant.  Crime rates nationwide are down generally, but there is still crime in very visible places, 3565 shot and wounded in the city of Chicago so far this year.   And 692 shot and killed.   Democrats are against that, aren’t we?  Surely it is OK for Democrats to be against crime.

It is not crazy or illiberal to think there has been progress in the position of blacks in America in the past 50 years.  Barrack Obama said exactly that to the students at Howard University this June.  Liberals need not agree that discrimination has ended, but black leaders have called out bad behaviors among blacks and certainly it is politically acceptable for a Democratic candidate to do so as well.  Is it not politically safe for a Democrat to condemn drug use and street crime? 

It is not crazy or illiberal to think that Americans are subject to being taken advantage of by foreign governments and businesses.  Bernie Sanders has said the same thing.  Obama said the Russians meddled in our elections.  If Sanders and Obama both say it then it cannot be too awful to acknowledge, can it?  Cannot Democrats be firmly against an old-boy system of political cronyism?   

I will stop here, but could go on.   Democrats were distracted by loyalty to their team-mates in the Democratic coalition which caused Hillary-Clinton-style Democrats to define as "illiberal" or anti-progressive beliefs and policies  that are utterly defensible as the needs of a safe, orderly community.  A safe, orderly community is a liberal value because only in such a place can the liberal values of freedom and equality of opportunity flourish.   They are liberal progressive thoughts, but they sound "Trumpian" because Democrats ceded those ideas to Trump.  

They shouldn't have.   A liberal progressive Democrat can voice the beliefs listed above.  A Democrat would want to make clear that the condemnation was against the bad action and not the disfavored ethnicity--which is a clear distinction with Trump, and a good distinction politically.   Democrats can voice all of the thoughts above without losing their role as the anti-racist political party.

Democrats need not be racist to be against crime.

Trump's open ethnic animus  (e.g. against Judge Curiel) hurt him.  Trump's racial talk likely helped him in the primary but it hurt him in the general election. Trump secured Republican votes at the campaign's end when he stopped the overt racial talk, stuck to his teleprompter, and changed the focus of his talk to swamp draining.   

Democrats can take back ownership of values and beliefs that are not "false".  They are liberal and they are popular.   They can also take back the notion of "patriotism."  In my youth and young adulthood some of the most patriotic of Americans entered the Peace Corps.  

Public service and asking what one can do for one's country, was a liberal value.   Democrats can re-claim it, if they choose.

Democrats are considering full scale opposition to Trump as a way of stopping the destruction of the New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society, and expanded health insurance.  They can pick their language and their battles carefully.  Some of what Trump said is completely consistent with progressive values.  It was disguised by Trump who tended to wrap those ideas within the package of white populist resentment.   Democrats can unpackaged them and then adopt the common sense progressive parts.

The risk is that progressives will hear the message and immediately define them as "false beliefs."

"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.

   

Electoral College Mess

The Electoral College is beginning its self destruction because it is working the way it was written, not the way people expect.

But it will persist for a while.

There are some very reasonable things about the electoral college system.  By counting votes by states it means that huge regional majorities lose some of their national importance.  It also means there is a firewall in the event one or a few states attempt partisan advantage.

This is probably good for the stability of the nation.

Trump tweet last night 

Widespread regional acceptability.  The current election is an example where Clinton racked up a four million vote majority in California.  The electoral college system kept that from overwhelming the national vote forcing her candidacy to be acceptable to other regions.  A more predictable example from history would be a candidate who represented the racial traditions of the white south who might rack up huge majorities in the former slave states, but who was otherwise unacceptable to the nation.  

State mischief.    A state like Texas, with a Republican House, Senate, and Governor,  or California with Democratic control, might find some reason to block a candidate from the ballot on some basis, e.g. disallowing a slate of electors.  Federalist respect for state autonomy in matters of ballot access might be helpless in stopping such an action.   The result is a national election which was won soundly by one candidate but who lost a national popular vote because the candidate got no votes in that one state.    Could this happen?   It did happen.  Abraham Lincoln received zero votes in ten southern states in the election of 1860 because in ten states no electors were willing to put forward their names as electors pledged for Lincoln.  Therefore, there was no way for individuals to vote for him.

However, neither of those sound reasons for an electoral college system explain why it will persist.    It will persist because of inertia and the idea that one or another party benefits from it.   It will collapse when parties think it is too dangerous to persist.   And that is underway now.   The electoral college is being revealed as capricious with an unreliable result.

Here is Fox News gloating and saying "Bias Alert", noting Slate had an article reversing an earlier Slate article which praised the electoral college.  The electoral college has fundamental respect.  Party and policy people like it when it works--for themselves:    Click Here.

The Democratic effort to encourage defections--the Hamilton elector gambit--backfired in the short term but it succeeded long term.   It revealed and reminded the leadership of both parties that electors are not reliable.  Electors are selected based on their strong party and political affiliation which actually makes them unreliable electors.   They actually care about politics and the issues.  They have their own strong political agendas and they want to exercise it, not act as a passive agent.   Party leaders are thinking:  next time this could be a disaster for our side.   Defections happened--but not where expected.

A variety of electors--more Democrats than Republicans, as it turned out--decided to defect.  In Washington State 4 out of 12 electors defected--from Hillary Clinton.   Three voted for Colin Powell, a nominal Republican, and one for a Native American elder, Faith Spotted Eagle.   Two Texas Republicans defected, one voting for Ron Paul and another for John Kasich.  In Hawaii a Democratic elector voted for Sanders rather than Hillary Clinton.

In several other states there were mechanisms for replacing electors before they could cast a faithless vote, although they tried to.   This happened in Maine and Minnesota, where Clinton voters attempted to  defect but were replaced.

This blog argued two days ago that the electoral college was a time bomb.  Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were both expected to cast presidential ballots for the Democrat, yet each were under the control of Republican legislators.   There was discussion--which did not come to fruition, fortunately for Republicans as it turned out--of changing both states from winner-take-all to votes being distributed by congressional district.  And because in Pennsylvania some very aggressive gerrymandering, packing Democrats into relatively few congressional districts, even though the total votes for Democratic congressmen is greater than the total votes for Republican congressmen, Pennsylvania's 18 congressional delegation is 13 Republicans, 4 Democrats, 1 vacancy. (The districts are drawn so that Democratic votes are "wasted" in overwhelming majorities in urban districts, leaving a majority of districts with a Republican majority.   This is legal and constitutional.)   States have broad latitude to shape their own congressional districts.  The presumed result of Pennsylvania moving from winner-take-all to allocation by congressional districts was that Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would not all go to the Democrat and would instead be split about  13-Repubican, 7-Democrats, even if the state cast a majority of its votes for the Democrat.  Against expectations, Trump, not Clinton, won statewide. 

Here is a Pennsylvania Congressional District

  
There is no national mechanism for requiring every state to be winner-take-all.  Again, partisans on both sides are looking at the maps, wondering if they--or the other side--might successfully game the system to move electoral votes from one side to the other through the mechanism of state law.   All of this draws attention to the electoral college.  As a blog comment here put it, the votes Americans cast for president are suggestions, not orders.

And, of course, there is the mis-match between the electoral college vote and the popular vote.   This year Republicans love the Electoral Vote mechanism but as recently as 5 days before the election Republicans were bemoaning the presumed "blue wall" which would have allowed Clinton to win the popular vote (thanks to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) while herself losing the popular vote.  

The presidential winner wants to claim the mandate of the American people.   In actual fact it turns out he or she has the mandate of an invisible group of people who are free to be faithless grandstanders.

Bottom line:  the electoral college only has credibility with the partisan side of voters who most recently benefitted by its capriciousness, a weak foundation.  It is losing credibility with the leaders of both parties who are considering how its systems may work against them.   At this moment the Republicans are in control and nothing will happen, but if it appears the pendulum is changing then there will be a window in which the rules might change.  

Meanwhile, Thad Guyer 

Guyer considers the whole Hamilton Elector effort to have been a big mistake for Democrats.   He headlines that it was a "Hoax."  He is correct that it backfired and may be used against them in 2020, but I do not consider that fear to be a problem.  Both sides are now keenly aware that electors are unreliable, which is why the system might change.   But Guyer's real complaint is that Democrats are distracted from the real work of moving the party away from a party out of touch with American nationalism, patriotism, and populism.  Guyer is keenly aware that Trump has disrupted our political norms and expectations and any ambiguity in that system works to the benefit of Trump.   As this blog described yesterday, Trump has vastly superior message discipline and can use areas of ambiguity to suit his purposes at the expense of Democrats.

Democrats open up the system at their own peril.   Here is how Guyer expresses it:

Now That the Hamilton Electors Hoax is Over ...”

Another media hoax down-- “Hamilton Electors”. Media, left, center and right is filled with highlights that Democrats lost—once again—and that Trump actually widened his margin victory over Clinton in the Electoral College. So Trump—again—wins the best of both worlds: a new electoral victory over Democrats, and the green light we gave him to deploy his own Democratic-style “Hamilton Electors” gambit in 2020 if need be. A Wall Street Journal editorial say Republicans are the true “Hamilton Electors” because they faced-down harassing emails, letters and phone calls, after weighing Russian tampering, FBI interference, Trump conflict with China over Taiwan, his daughter and son-in-law as first lady and presidential advisor, and business conflicts of interest. (See, “WSJ, Hamilton’s Electors Vote Trump”, Dec 19, 2016, https://goo.gl/PlaT26.) 
As Breitbart rejoiced: “It’s hard to keep track of how many times Clinton has lost the 2016 election now.” (See, Brietbart, “Democrats Inflate Electoral College Vote into Another Burst Bubble for Clinton”, Dec 19, 2016, https://goo.gl/uhrKBG).  

With the Hamilton Electors coup hoax now finished, Russiagate will also likely fade away. Its urgent media impetus was that Hamilton Electors needed to act on the Federalist Papers’ admonition that a candidate installed by a foreign potentate must be stopped. Done and done. The hyperbolic claims that Russiagate is as bad as 9-11 and thus needs an “independent commission” have fallen on bipartisan deaf ears. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agrees with Mitch McConnell on no outside commission, that the investigation will stay in-house-- in Congress. Schumer wants it to be a “select committee”, McConnell says it will go to a “standing committee”. Timed to the 2018 midterms, after a televised spectacle and amidst teeth gnashing over what the CIA, FBI and NSA are willing to declassify for public consumption, Republican committee members will vote one way, Democrats the other.

The only sunlight is this: Schmuer and Obama are determined to bring some leadership to the Democratic party. Obama pledged this week to work for our salvation by helping promote coherent policies appealing to demonized rust belt voters. Schumer will work on saving the endangered Democratic senators in 10 Trump states up for reelection in 2018. Schumer says to do that-- and deny Trump a filibuster-proof 60 votes-- lock step opposition to Trump legislation is out of the question. However, the NY Times, Washington Post and CNN will remain in charge until we get a new DNC chair to replace disgraced acting chair Donna Brazile (debate question leaker), who replaced disgraced chair Debbie Schultz Wasserman (Sanders primary rigger). (See, ABC News, “Acting Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Accused of Leaking Debate Material to Clinton”, Oct 31, 2016, https://goo.gl/YH9WxL). That battle of succession looms large as Obama Secretary of Labor Tom Perez fights to save us from Rep. Keith Ellison, the DNC chair front runner. (See, CNN, “Ellison faces renewed scrutiny over past ties to Nation of Islam, defense of anti-Semitic figures”, Dec 1, 2016, https://goo.gl/Y65GkD). 

Obama and Schumer have their work cut out for them in getting us back on track. At least that will now not include the distractions of Russiagate and Hamilton Electors.