That approach would not work, Garin said, because voters, including many of Trump’s supporters, don’t really “believe he will build a wall, or get Mexico to pay for a wall” — they have already discounted many of Trump’s over-the-top assertions as hyperbole.
“The real case has more to do with his character and temperament,” Garin said. “The biggest concern is that he is temperamentally unsuited to lead the country.”
.. Responding directly to Trump’s claims often requires repeating them, which gives them extra oxygen. There is a growing literature on attempts to correct “misinformation.” A common theme in this literature is that if a person repeats misinformation or otherwise draws attention to it in an attempt to counter the misinformation, the original claim can be reinforced, rather than diminished, in people’s memories.
.. The problem for Democrats is that in quarreling with the Trump program, they are getting tangled up with specifics, and as a result, they may be seen to be oblivious or insensitive to the underlying message: about illegal immigration or crime or terrorism or loss of local control or American responsibility for world affairs that seems endless and pursued at the expense of concentration on domestic concerns.
.. This strategist cited the futility of accusing Trump of hyping crime:
This seems counterproductive: Voters are not judging a 10-year performance on crime if they are worried about an experienced or feared increase now. The effect of a defense of this nature may be perceived as belittling or minimizing the concern.
.. Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal advocacy group, described the problem of attempting to refute Trump point-by-point:
Democratic think tanks and surrogates and experts will dissect his proposals and show how they fail, but that won’t mean much. He’s an attitude, a direction, not a policy agenda.
.. “Her biggest challenge is to be different than Obama — bolder, challenging Wall Street, corporate trade and tax deals.”
.. net illegal migration has been zero or negative for eight years, so building walls and increasing border enforcement is addressing a problem that no longer exists... Similarly, The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2015 that numerous studieshave shown that immigrants — regardless of nationality or legal status — are less likely than the native population to commit violent crimes or to be incarcerated.
These facts are unlikely to dissuade voters convinced that immigrants are taking jobs, committing crimes and undermining American values. From their point of view, any crime by an illegal immigrant is one crime too many.
..1) “to deny Trump the ‘I’m-on-your-side’ space,” and 2) “to keep hammering on how bizarre and dangerous he is to America and our interests around the world. His weird man-crush on Putin and his invitation this week to Russia to invade the Baltics seem like good places to start.”.. Haidt argues, is because themind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict, like a small rider — conscious, verbal, reasoning — sitting atop a large elephant — the other 98 percent of mental processes, which are automatic and intuitive.
The elephant “really runs the show,” Haidt said, Translating this analytic approach to the 2016 election, in Haidt’s view, means that
in matters of politics and morality, you must speak to the elephant first. Trump did this brilliantly in the Republican primary, and in his convention speech.
To counter Trump, Democrats have to get into the electorate’s automatic, intuitive and unconscious level of responding to events before attempting a critique based on reasoned argument, according to Haidt. To do this, he wrote, the goal should be to portray Trump in ways that conflict with “deep moral intuitions about fairness versus cheating and exploitation.”
.. The next step is to present a vision of Trump that violates “moral intuitions about loyalty, authority, and sanctity:”
.. Haidt put it another way:
Trump talks about patriotism (a form of loyalty), but he seems to be pals with one of our main adversaries (Putin) while telling our friends in the Baltics that we may not defend them. In these ways he brings shame to America and weakens our stature among our friends.
Don’t feed the Trump
Trump is a troll
The greatest troll of all time is Donald Trump.
I say that with some certainty even though trolling has probably existed as long as the human species. Never before have trolls had the awesome tool of the Internet to support their craft.
The Internet is to trolling what airplanes are to global travel.
Sure you could do it before, but now you can do it so much better.
And the tools for trolling keep getting better.
Mail lists were the ultimate sporting venue for trolls, because they gave everyone an equal voice. At any time a troll could halt the discussion and make everyone pay attention to him. Without moderation all mail lists become dominated by trolls, eventually. This is a fundamental rule of Internet discourse.
Twitter makes trolling a little more difficult because people have to follow you before they get your announcements. But if you can get people to RT you, then you’ll get people to see your stuff even if they don’t follow you.
One way to get people to RT is to say something they strongly agree with. An even better way to get RTs is to say something outrageous, so people can express their rage. Trump uses the latter form, more effectively than anyone before him.
.. On day two, he says he was just being sarcastic. Now we can debate whether or not that’s possible. On day three, who knows what he says, but it’ll be good. Etc etc. As long as we feed him, he keeps escalating the outrage, and we keep carrying his message, crowding out any other ideas. It’s like a media filibuster. No one gets to say anything unless it’s about what the troll just said.
.. the only people who care about your condemnation are people who are already totally stoked with outrage about the troll. The people who love him love the fact that he tweaks you. Even people who hate him are fascinated by your rage. It’s like stopping to look at a terrible car accident. Or a beheading by a terrorist. It’s hard to avert your eyes.
.. In sailing, it doesn’t matter which way the wind is blowing, you can always adjust your sails to move in the direction you want to go. Same with trolls. As long as they’re controlling you it doesn’t matter if you like them or not. The only thing that makes a troll happy is attention. They probably prefer it if you hate them.
.. Now imagine what would happen if instead of erupting in rage over his comments about Russian spying, we had simply said Oh there’s Trump doing his thing. It’s not news.
.. If it came from him, it’s trolling. If it’s news about him that he didn’t control, it’s fair game.
.. Delighting his fans, and most important — crowding out any other ideas and messages that need to get out. And in the past that has meant he wins.