Out of all my posts on this blog,
these four are the most connected to the long term political future of the
Country.
An Open Letter to
Senator Bernie Sanders,
Senator Elizabeth Warren,
Senator Chuck Schumer,
and Senator Al Franken
Reaching out directly to constituents is nothing new, of
course. Every politician does it.
The point the media miss is that with the constant use of
Twitter, regularly issuing provocative statements which ignite extensive media
coverage, and with regular rallies, Donald Trump and his advisers have brought
this political tool to a completely new level (at least in the U.S.). Trump
does not have much of a support from his own party, and by reaching out
directly to people, he manages to put a pressure on local and state officials
of all sorts (and Trump must keep his supporters in the state of excitement, or
he will lose them).
Among extreme examples of such reaching out directly to
people, we can mention the Cultural Revolution which happened in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution).
When the then-leader Mao Zedong was on a brink of being pushed out of the
power, he appealed directly to the Chinese young people, asked them to form
militia, and paralyzed the country for ten years.
Probably, America should not worry about running into such
an extreme social disaster as the Cultural Revolution, but there are core
American values which are at risk of being watered down, or even dissolved
(such us the freedom of speech, checks and balances within governing
institutions, trustful media).
In part, Frum cites words “written more than 200 years ago
to explain the most important safeguard of the American constitutional system:
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”.”
That is exactly what Democrats and all progressivists have
not been able to produce to counteract Trump’s team.
Dear Senators Sanders, Warren, Schumer, and Franken.
Unfortunately, each of you alone is not strong enough to
successfully spar with Trump, but four of you together may present a formidable
counter-force to his current media domination. You are respected politicians;
your names are nationally recognized. The hope is that when you start leading
the “resistance” (quoting Bill Maher), eventually Democrats will be able to
present to the American people a smart, and charismatic (and, hopefully, young)
person, who will be able to consolidate all the progressives.
But that is just a hope; the time for thinking about the
next Presidential elections has not come yet.
The immediate goal is to mobilize the forces, to direct the
actions by giving activists clear goals, and to win back the Congress. There is
no time for waiting. This fight had to begin on November 9, 2016, but
still is dormant. Inside party maneuvering, reshuffling the same people between
the same chairs is the recipe for a failure.
The first thing you have to do is to accept the fact that
the top Democrats f@$ed up the elections. You have to tell people that the
top-level Democrats made big mistakes, that Hillary Clinton and her team made
mistakes, that you made mistakes. But you will use those mistakes to learn from
them, and to regenerate the party, and to re-energize the people.
You cannot follow the same path Hillary Clinton and her team
followed in 2016.
Right after Trump became the nominee, it was clear (for
those who could see) that the social landscape was drastically different from
what Clinton’s advisers thought. But their arrogance made them blind; they kept
using the same old “playbook”, and they lost.
Winning the popular vote and losing the White House does not
make the situation better; it actually makes it worse.
There is only one silver lining in this loss. If Clinton had
won, the Democratic party might had been stagnating for at least four more
years. Now, after a slap in the face (well, a hit in the face), the party has
only to choices; become obsolete, or reform itself on the march.
I hope, you see that the old methods and approaches to build
the movement, to lead the party have not worked, and will not work, because
they have been developed for a situation which is in the past, and will not
come back any soon (more on this later).
Basically, you have to invent new methods and new approaches
to build the movement, to lead the party, to help rise to the top new
people.
In the meantime, four of you have to build a progressive
media firewall.
For each Trump’s rally, you have to organize at least four
of yours. For each Trump’s media outburst, you have to fire up at least four
media eruptions.
Do not wait for an approval of your actions from anybody
else; this is up to four of you (at least for now).
The good start for developing a new strategy would be just
thinking of what would you do in the past, and do just the opposite (this, of
course, is a hyperbole). For a while, you have to stop listening to the party
officials, advisers, think tank intellectuals, etc. who you have been listening
in the past. You need to find and gather people who have been giving away
warnings about Trump since the beginning of his campaign. Then and only then
you can call back some of the people who used to work for Hillary Clinton
(because you do not want to repeat her mistake by listening only to people who
tell you only what you want to hear).
You have to accept the fact that the approach “We are good –
Trump is bad! We tell the truth – he is a liar! We care about you – he only
cares about himself! We are for all people – he is racist!” etc. has not
worked, and will not work.
You cannot honestly think that all people who voted for
Trump are racist, or white supremacists, or poorly educated, or just hate
Hillary Clinton. Hence, you need to know the hidden reasons underlying peoples’
choices, otherwise you and then all progressives will follow the Hillary
Clinton’s fate.
Here I begin the most important part of this letter.
We have to start from addressing a question: “How do people
make decisions?”
For example, when you (or your child, or your friend, or
your enemy) stand in Baskin Robbins (or Dunkin Donuts, or Burger King) staring
at the menu trying to figure out what to order this time – do you make a
decision?
The answer actually depends on what do you call a
“decision”.
Without deeping into a long discussion, let’s just say that
in general, we – humans – make two types of decisions: rational decisions
(a.k.a. logical, via a step-by-step reasoning), and “irrational” (a.k.a.
intuitive, a.k.a. a guess, or a hunch). The ability to make rational decisions
differs humans from other animals; take this ability away – and we will be no
smarter than dolphins, or dogs, or monkeys, or cats.
During a usual day, we do not make too many of rational
decisions, because usually we do not have to. Usually, we just have to make
choices which would not greatly affect our well-being, or our future.
When we are angry, or when we are happy, or when we are sad,
or when we are stressed, we may not make the same choice which we would have
made if we were calm and rational.
The reaction which we call a choice, or a decision, is the
result of the brain functions happening in our subconscious mind without our
interference. Maybe, on average, we use about ten percent of our brain power
for a logical reasoning. But that does not mean that other ninety percent do
nothing. Our brain is constantly analyzing a huge amount of information to
answer one single question: “What to do to survive?” (the strongest instinct of
every healthy animal is self-preservation). Then our brain makes a choice for
us, and places it into the logical part of it, so we would be able to
articulate it (first of all – to ourselves). And then we start defending this
“decision we had made” like we were actual authors of it.
Of course, the picture I just painted is very simplistic,
but presents a good initial model of a human decision making process.
And one more note: the stronger our emotions are, or the
longer we experience those emotions, the more chance that we would not listen
to any rationalization of our actions. We would tend just to react. There is a
study which demonstrates that when people experience stress over a long period
of time the brain chemistry changes (that is why doctors prescribe pills to
help with depression). Disorientation is not just a psychological state, it is
a state of a physical disjunction in a brain.
It does not mean, of course, that people become insane, but
people become less influenced by logical arguments and more inclined to a
simple emotional reaction to various stimuli.
If it involves massive numbers of people, it may lead to mass migrations (for
example, Syrian refugees, but also the same reaction we can see regularly in
animal world), or to following “a messiah”.
For millions of Americans the past two decades are
associated with a continuous state of stress. The fall of the Twin Towers, two
wars, natural disasters, economic depression, job loss, social stagnation; these
are only some of the major sources of a pressure on the society in general, and
on the middle class in particular (one of the latest publications: http://nypost.com/2016/05/12/americas-middle-class-is-headed-toward-extinction/).
The social and especially the economic environment has become very stressful
for millions of Americans.
Ecologists know that a stressful change in the environment
(like, a change in the average temperature, or average humidity) may lead to
significant changes in the ecosystem (some species can even extinct like
dinosaurs, or begin mass migration, or mutate). When due to any reasons species
start experience the shortage of food, they start searching for the ways to
adapt to the new situation.
Whether we like it or not, our brain is wired in almost the
same way as a wolf’s brain.
Of course, we experience much deeper emotions than just a
hunger. But living in a constant fear of not being able to provide for a
family, feeling day-after-day how the usual prosperity is slipping away like a
sand through fingers, leads to a gradual transformation of the way people view
the world and their position in it. We could say, that a longitudinal social
stress leads to a psychological “mutation” of a large part of the population.
Millions of Americans expressed their frustration with the
current state of social events and economic status. They have been forced to
accept lower paid or less stable jobs. They feared that they would not be able
to leave to their children better living conditions. They have been losing
their savings. They felt like they lost a “game” called “life”.
Trump and his team brilliantly used this massively spread
psychological state.
Everyone wants and needs to be a part of a winning team.
This need is growing with every day of feeling sad and lost.
For millions of people, who have been feeling a stress so
strong and for so long time, that they started disconnecting from a reality,
Trump created a fictional reality.
In that “reality” he was “a head of a winning team”,
promising to everyone who joins “so much winning, you will get tired of
winning”.
In fact, Trump and his advisers have not invented anything
new.
Trump, Bannon, and Inc. used the tactic which has been very
well known for at least a century.
1. Make as many people as possible to feel as miserable as
possible (“our Country is a disaster”).
2. INVENT enemies and blame on them everything bad, do not
care about how illogical it might sound (liberals, immigrants, Muslims).
3. Present strong emotional passages, even if they do not
make any sense (“You will get tired of winning”).
4. Promise anything, even if it is impossible (“We will
build the wall and make Mexica to pay for it!”).
5. Embrace and bring to your team people who have no moral
limits and who want only ONE thing – a three-headed dragon (money/fame/power).
6. Suppress any opposite views, or at least drown them in
the ocean of misinformation (a.k.a. fake news)
7. SCREAM!!
This tactic is very old and well known for everyone who read
Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin; and had been successfully used to bring many
former and current dictators into a power. Evidently, Clinton’s advisers have
not read this literature (which makes them “a vanilla” of consulting).
The tactic does not appeal to a logic, it does not offer
rational approaches. Its main goal is basically to generate the atmosphere of
excitement similar to the one sport fans feel on a stadium when their team has
been losing until the last minutes but won in the end (a.k.a. Super Bowl LI).
Everyone who experienced this feeling once, got “addicted” to it, and wants to
feel it again; this feeling is like a drug (why else do sport conglomerates make
billions?).
Donald Trump’s priority has been and always will be his own
personal rating.
That is why Trump has never cared and will never truly care
about the meaning of the words he says or writes, because for millions of
people the meaning of his words does not matter. They will support him no
matter what he says, as long as he will make them feel as winners.
And to feed the need to feel as winners Trump, Bannon and
Inc. constantly create for them an “alternative realty” (some people would call
it “disinformation”).
Liberal media can point at Trump’s mistakes, leis, fictions
as much as they can; liberal media can make fun of Trump as much as they can –
that will not make any difference for people who support Trump.
Trump’s team brilliantly exploited everything they could to
paint Hilary Clinton as a loser. Of course, the content of the “damn emails”
never mattered. However, making Clinton explaining herself made her look
defensive; and “winners do not look defensive” (unless they do, but who
remembers that). And, of course, for rational people Benghazi or emails did not
make any difference. But Trump was not appealing to rational people. He (or
most probably Bannon) was counting on that the number of people in distress had
risen and reached the critical mass. Clinton’s team did not see it. Trump won.
Dear Senators Sanders, Warren, Schumer, and Franken.
Your immediate goal should be creating and promoting a clear
view of the “real reality”. It must be truthful, which makes your job harder
than Trump’s. It also must be positive, energetic, winning!
It will never be enough just to scream: “He lied!”, or “Look
what he did!”, or to make fun of Trump’s Tweets or appearance. Firstly, this is
also just a fog to deflect the attention from the actors hiding behind the fog
(Bannon, and Inc.). Secondly, liberal media have to get out of the bubble and
finally start reaching out to non-liberal audience. Thirdly, your media actions
need to be such that even Fox news channel could not avoid talking about them
on a regular basis.
You have no much time to get prepared. You have to start
acting now. Many people who voted for Hilary Clinton, have been feeling like
now the Atlanta Falcons fans are feeling, and may soon become so dissatisfied
with the Democratic party that will be lost (will become politically inactive).
As a “dictator-in-the-making”, everything “bad for the
Country” Trump will blame on the opposition, and everything “good for the
Country” Trump will attribute to himself. Your task will be to counteract
Trump’s team and to offer people the actual facts (David Frum has more on
this).
And one last note: please, tell your supporters, and then
remind them once in a while, that if they just act on emotions without giving
some rational thinking to their actions, they are no different from people who
support Donald Trump. Trump’s team outsmarted Clinton’s team. Do not let his
team to outsmart you.
#THINK
Good luck.
Dr. Valentin Voroshilov
P.S. A special word to Senator Bernie Sanders
Dear Senator. You have been speaking about the need for a
political revolution all along. Well, now you have a second chance to lead it.
Turns out, before revolutionizing the Country you need to revolutionize the
Democratic party
P.P.S. Dear Senators, please, keep in mind that if the
Democrats will not take the Congress back, it will be your fault.
P.P.P.S. Please, feel free to leave your comments! I have a
blog where you can find a comment box
Appendix:
Below is an actual comment left at
**
“Keeping the West weak is to their advantage.” Trump is not
to blame for the economic or military obligations this country faces today. All
of these were created and put into place by previous administrations, career
politicians and Washington insiders who profit from the actions of the military
industrial complex and its perpetual largely ineffective “nation building”
schemes that began at the end of the second world war and continue to this day
under the supervision of both political parties.
Trump is not and should be expected to perpetuate those
expensive failed policies. He should concentrate and building up the strength
of our military, while at the same time avoiding engaging us in any avoidable
new conflicts. In short, he should walk softly and carry a big stick.
Many people do not like Trump because he looks like a wolf.
FYI, a sheepdog looks like a wolf to a sheep. But ironically it is the genetic
similarly between the wolf and sheepdog and the teeth of the sheepdog in
particular that allow him to fight off the wolf when necessary.
Trump is a sheepdog whose bark and bite may ultimately prove
very uncomfortable for Putin should he take any offensive actions against the
USA and so I strongly suspect that Putin has more respect for Trump than that
the paranoid sheep recognize.
Time will tell, but I strongly suspect that Trump will do a
wonderful job of keeping his flock safe.
**
This comment perfectly represents the sentiments of a common
Trump supporter. No logic. Outburst of emotions. Arguing with this type of a
person would be the same as arguing with a patient of an Alzheimer clinic.
The main theme is shown in the end – “I want to feel safe”
(meaning, this person has not been feeling safe for a long time). “Trump makes
me feel safe”. The rest is just self-justification.
Many liberal pundits have not noticed this stressful
emotional state of many Trump supporters, they just bluntly called those people
"basket of deplorables". We all know the result.
