Do you recall the Obama administration’s “stray voltage” theory? The gist was, “the president purposefully overstates his case knowing that it will create controversy… Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness.” Part of it was a cynical calculation to let an argument about a presidential statement ensure a topic stayed front and center in the public’s mind; there’s also the side effect of ensuring that a brouhaha about a presidential statement overshadowed actual policy decisions – decisions that may be more consequential, but are less dramatic and interesting to the news media.
If the incoming Trump administration really is using a variation of the “stray voltage” approach, and Democrats really have an uncontrollable impulse to focus on the controversial statement du jour, the Trump administration could end up being stunningly effective in policymaking. A lot of seemingly dry and boring regulations can be repealed, executive orders withdrawn, rewritten, and issued, legislation passed by GOP majorities in Congress and signed, all while the political world froths at the mouth about the president’s latest Tweet or denunciation of the media, or theater performers, or anything else that comes to mind.
You can enact sweeping, dramatic changes to Americans’ lives under the radar.
.. Could this really happen? Could the next four (eight?) years really turn out to be a golden era for conservative policy?
.. Today, some on both the left and the right argue that al-Qaeda wanted to draw us into a quagmire in Afghanistan — and now the Islamic State wants to do the same in Iraq and Syria. KSM said this is dead wrong. Far from trying to draw us in, KSM said that al-Qaeda expected the United States to respond to 9/11 as we had the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut — when, KSM told Mitchell, the United States “turned tail and ran.” He also said he thought we would treat 9/11 as a law enforcement matter, just as we had the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole in Yemen — arresting some operatives and firing a few missiles into empty tents, but otherwise leaving him free to plan the next attack.
.. “KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks.” He was not able to do so because al-Qaeda was stunned “by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.”
But KSM said something else that was prophetic. In the end, he told Mitchell, “We will win because Americans don’t realize . . . we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”
.. a ban on flag-burning is extremely popular, and most Americans instinctively detest the sight of the flag being burned. That’s the sort of provocation that raging anti-American mobs in foreign countries embrace. Of course, it’s likely that the most passionate – some would say unhinged – activists opposed to Trump are more interested in their own emotional catharsis than persuading the public about policy decisions.
When Republicans Take Power
the conservative ideology that pervades much of the party is based on the belief that government is the enemy. What will Republicans do with their newfound power? And how will the exercise of that power change the party?
.. It doesn’t require a huge stretch of the imagination to envision Mr. Trump’s trying to use the power of the presidency to punish his enemies, withdraw from military and diplomatic alliances, start trade wars, and engage in a wide-scale roundup of illegal immigrants that would call to mind Operation Wetback in the 1950s crossed with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. However, such a divisive policy inevitably would split the country and the Republican Party as well, leading to a crushing loss in the 2018 midterm elections.
.. anti-deportation protections for the children of undocumented immigrants. (Mr. Trump may not pursue those children, but he won’t protect them.)
.. Party strategists are well aware that the G.O.P. has now lost the popular vote in six of the last seven elections. Despite Mr. Trump’s ability to maximize the white vote, and his more surprising ability to bring some minority voters along, it’s still not in the party’s long-term interest to write off the minorities, particularly Hispanics, who are a growing part of the country’s population.
.. The demands of the G.O.P.’s constituents may force a revision on issues such as trade and climate change, particularly if the waters continue to rise in coastal red states like South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
.. Republicans in Congress have voted more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but they’ve spent far less time thinking about how to replace it. Would the 20 million Americans who have gained health insurance lose it? Would a Republican version of the law retain its prohibitions against insurance companies’ denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions?
Throughout the Obama administration, the G.O.P. has had the mind-set of an opposition party, condemning policies without thinking deeply about how to reform them.
.. Now that the common enemy has been vanquished (at least temporarily), the rival conservatives will be tempted to go to war with one another.
Rogue Republican factions in Congress like the House Freedom Caucus could even use the threat of a government shutdown or debt default against their own administration.
The need to keep order in his ranks may encourage Mr. Trump to become a Richard Nixon-style leader, pursuing an agenda that gives enough to each faction that it remains sullen but not mutinous.
.. The establishment may now be forced, at long last, to stand up to those on the right who are calling for Republicans to repeal the institutions of the New Deal and the Progressive era.
.. Those who anticipate only a two- or four-year window will press for the rapid enactment of a maximalist conservative program, even at the risk of an intense backlash. Others, however, will focus on the long game.
.. Mr. Trump will not be able to bring back the manufacturing jobs he promised, but he could put his supporters to work building roads and bridges instead.
.. Other policies aimed at improving life for working-class Americans could include efforts to combat the epidemic of opioid addiction and improve our mental health system.
.. Mr. Trump could invoke the tradition of national greatness by asking Americans to join him in pursuing a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, which may present the single greatest threat to our physical and fiscal health in the 21st century. Or he could rally our national energies around the construction of the world’s first driverless highway
.. The success of Mr. Trump’s administration ultimately will be determined more by its ability to persuade than compel.
Why Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame risked his reputation by sparking controversy in the election
Adams’s goal from the beginning, he said, was to show how voters are highly vulnerable to rhetorical techniques such as tricks that aim to plant simple, sticky ideas (i.e., “Crooked Hillary”) instead of promoting complex political positions.
.. “The fact that he probably will be eliminated from the race by allegations of sexual misconduct — that makes it hard for a male to win in the future” when there are credible allegations, he said.
Why People Fall for Charismatic Leaders
A new book explores how fear, uncertainty, and group psychology lead people to believe leaders who say false things.
.. You write that cults often draw people of above-average intelligence. Why is that?.. a lot of the people who hold some of these beliefs including being easily easily persuaded by charismatic leaders or pulled into cults are actually very intelligent... I think what happens with people who fall into cults and also conspiracy theories, it has more to do with feelings of powerlessness, and especially if you’re very very stressed, you can really be much more susceptible to these ideas. In that way, it’s not as much about your intelligence as it is about your circumstances and feeling like you’ve lost control in some way... the two most strong predictions of who supports Trump were not having a college degree and people who feel voiceless and powerless. So that voiceless and powerless trait looks like it aligns with both supporting Trump and being prone to believing in conspiracy theories... One of the big things for him is that he’s positioned himself as an outsider and being on the fringes. That actually helps him build up his charisma and his identity as a charismatic leader because it creates a very strong sense of him being able to come in and create a totally different order and a revolution. But it also allows him to create a very strong us-versus-them narrative.. once you create a sense of a “them,” you reinforce a strong “us.” And when you reinforce a very strong “us,” a lot of group psychology will sort of kick up. There’s a lot of conformity, there’s a lot of not questioning things because other people seem to be going along with it. It’s harder for individuals who are part of groups to make independent judgments and decisions... Being less specific makes it harder to disagree with them?.. I once heard a speech by Wayne LaPierre, the director of the NRA. And you could insert almost any cause into that speech, because he almost never actually used the word gun... You probably heard if you listened to the VP debate when the moderator said to Pence, “but you know the most recent incidents were all done by American citizens, how do you account for that?” and he ducked that question and went right back to very loaded emotional words — “tragedies occurring to families.”So what he does is deflect attention away from the data onto these base emotions, and then they tell you, “we’re the only ones who can save you.”.. But I would say that Hillary Clinton and also Tim Kaine … both of them have a tendency to try to bring up facts. Tim Kaine especially [at the debate] kept doing that, and you can see how to another scientist like me, that’s extremely refreshing. On the other hand, it comes across as being very flat, and people constantly complain that neither of them is convincing or persuasive or energetic or attractive in the way they talk. And you could see that [in the most recent debate], and that is a difficulty that scientists have in how to get their message across in a way that persuades people while still being true... The point is, those fears that these charismatic leaders arouse are often committed to permanent indelible memory, and they become extremely hard to dislodge, and they are easy to evoke simply by making people scared again. So all that Trump has to do is say “these immigrants are going to kill you,” and his entire message about immigration becomes immediately recalled... It requires a lot more effort to use the reasoning part of the brain. The default is to use the faster parts of the brain. So if you’re in a state of stress or there are too many facts coming at you or too much information, the default mode is to say, “I can’t handle all that stuff, it’s too much, or it’s too frightening, or it’s too complicated. I’m gonna default to the more rapid acting part of the brain, and make immediate decisions.”.. It requires a lot more effort to use the reasoning part of the brain. The default is to use the faster parts of the brain. So if you’re in a state of stress or there are too many facts coming at you or too much information, the default mode is to say, “I can’t handle all that stuff, it’s too much, or it’s too frightening, or it’s too complicated. I’m gonna default to the more rapid acting part of the brain, and make immediate decisions.”.. One of the things you find with the conspiracy theory is that they’re actually very, very fluid. If you’re actually able to disprove one of their tenets, they don’t say, “Oh, guess we were wrong.” They immediately move to another reason to support their original fear... How likely is it really that the groups of people who have been identified as the ones conspiring would really be able to all come together and do this? Someone like Andrew Wakefield’s argument is that every single scientist in every single government agency and the pharmaceutical industry, they’re all together in this conspiracy against him. That just feels very unlikely... [Dealing with someone who believes a conspiracy theory,] you can take their arguments and sort of present them in a very unemotional way, and a very bland way, over and over and over, and just repeat weakened versions of the argument in a flat manner. And that has actually been shown to be somewhat effective in getting people out of the grasp of a charismatic leader or a conspiracy theory... The other thing is, you can engage people on the level of, what are your values? What do you really want? For vaccines, it’s, “I want my child to be safe.” When you get them to rehearse their values, you actually can see a reduction in their willingness to believe crazy ideas… “This is dangerous,” say, “Compared to what?”