The Ego Has Landed: Why Trump Damaged Himself Tonight

Apologies. I have no idea why I indulged myself to write so long to make such a simple point. Long story short: You can't tell people they've been flat wrong about everything for 17 years, without giving the slightest reason why they should change their entire scheme of thinking, and expect them to support you.

This was a brief line in the podcast (which we'll post tomorrow) which I expanded, for reasons I can now no longer guess, into a 1500 word exegesis on the obvious.

The "ego" in the headline doesn't actually refer to Trump's ego, for once. Rather, it refers to the voters' egos.

I think Trump hurt himself badly tonight, enough to knock him out of his first-place standing in most states. Oh he won't completely disappear -- but 2nd Place Trump is not the same thing as Frontrunner Trump.

Trump damaged himself with his claim that Bush lied us into war in Iraq. Not botched the intelligence, not read too much into thin intelligence.

First, this is alarming because it once again demonstrates that Trump has a conspiratorial mind. It's not enough for the conspiracist to say someone was wrong -- no, they have unrealistically black/white minds, and if you made a bad call, you must have lied.

That conspiracism was always present in his claims about Obama's birth certificate. But that bit of fantasy was about Obama, someone the average Republican voter isn't exactly eager to man the battlements for.

This corker -- this Al Gore roar of quote -- is about George W. Bush, someone still looked upon with affection by most of the party.

If Donald Trump is right, and George W. Bush deliberately schemed with his neo-con advisers to "lie" us into a phony war with Iraq, what does that say about the average Republican voter who supported Bush from 1999, voted for him, defended him through the recount, cried with him on 9/11, agreed with him on Iraq, defended him from ceaseless liberal attacks on him during the war, defended him from Obama's never-expiring "Blame Bush" blame-shifting, etc.?

If Trump is right, then we're not just wrong to have supported him. If Trump's right, we're goddamned rubes and fools to have defended this Actual Hitler-Level Monster for going on 17 years now.

People want to think well of themselves, and they wish to vote in a way that makes them think well of themselves. It's a critical goal in every campaign to convince the public that voting for this candidate is the Smart, Virtuous, Good thing to do, because people will vote in a way that enables them to luxuriate their egos.

That's how Barack Obama got elected. The media convinced people that they became smart and virtuous and good just by voting for this layabout pinko incompetent.

A good leader will challenge people, and that sometimes requires posing a threat to their egos. By telling someone they are wrong-- or at least aren't thinking about things quite straight --one is attacking their ego.

But someone adroit in persuasion understands when he is in fact attacking the core of someone's sense of self-worth, and does so cautiously, deploying all the reason and tactfulness he can marshal into the effort.

He attacks that person's ego to the smallest extent compatible with his goal (changing the person's mind), and offers him good reasons to change his mind.

He thus offers a lateral move, if you will, from one state of self-valuation to another. You give up on this one way of thinking, which would usually cause some psychic strain to the ego, but, on the other hand, you have been convinced of the rectitude of this other way of thinking. By moving to that new way of thinking, you gain a level of self-worth, so you're net even on the deal. (You might even gain some sense of self-worth for having been smart enough to recognize a good argument and having been openminded enough to consider it.)

It is very unpersuasive, on the other hand, to offer someone a flat contradiction of something they've long believed while offering no reason at all to accept a new replacement belief, except the assertion of it.

Abandoning the old position is damaging to one's sense of self-worth -- how could I have gotten it wrong for so long? But no easy glide-path to the new way of thinking is offered.

You sort of have to just knuckle under someone's flat assertion -- and subordinating oneself to another's claims, with no good reasons for such subordination offered, is even more hostile to the ego than being wrong.

This is a long way of saying Trump specifically and completely contradicted a belief that 75-80% of Republicans have about Bush -- that he was a fundamentally decent man, perhaps overwhelmed by a very difficult period, who made an erroneous decision based on incomplete information -- and instead offered a new belief, that Bush deliberately lied about Iraq's WMD's, a position that 75-80% of Republicans have long not only rejected but have been actively hostile towards.

With no better reason to adopt this new claim other than that Donald Trump said it.

I doubt very much people will be willing to make this leap with Trump. Gathering political support is all about getting a buy-in of belief at a price that people are willing to pay (usually, a low price-- that's why politicians strain to parrot back to you things you already believe).

I think Trump, who has been a past-master at getting people to buy-in to a very low-cost premise -- "Let's Make America Great Again" -- just made a very high cost premise central to buying into him.

And I think for that reason that many people will be taking a second look at Trump -- and not in a good "second look" way. I think they'll be evaluating things they previously gave him passes on -- donations to Hilary, Reid, Pelosi, etc.; support for partial birth abortion; support for single-peer health care-- and re-evaluate those facts while keeping in mind Trump's big new premise that Republicans supported, voted for, defended, and sustained an actual war criminal who made war on a country he knew to be innocent of the claim he dishonestly profferred against it, for who knows what sinister gain.

We'll see if he tries walking this one back, and to what extent he's successful.

If it is now a part of the agenda that we actually have to buy into all the claims Gore, Pelosi, Obama, etc. made for years, I think this new agenda is going to turn out to be too highly priced for most Republican voters.

And Don't Even Get Me Started on Tribal Signaling. I was just telling someone that every campaign boils down to two four word claims:

Dress it up however you like, the subconscious messaging in every election is just that.

With just a few poorly chosen angry words, Trump declared a lot of allegiance to the enemy tribe, and essentially said "I'm not like you."

Bush could have tightened the sanctions without comitting America to war and without further destabilizing the Middle East.

Sanctions have varying degrees to them and they can be quite effective.

Banking sanctions mean not a unit of currency can be moved, so there’s no place to leave a deposit, no place to transfer funds to and from. It results in using land routes for currency or gold and gold is easy to freeze because it requires security.

And then Bush could have given Sadam an ultimatum that if he did not comply with the UN resolutions, that his palaces were going to be leveled, that he would be subject to guided missile assaults.

So much was available to Bush to use but he wanted to execute Sadam. In my opinion, he wanted to execute Sadam in revenge for the assassination attempt on his father in upstate NY after he had left office.

On 30 September 2004, the ISG released the Duelfer Report, its final report on Iraq’s purported WMD programs. Among its conclusions were:

Saddam Hussein controlled all of the regime’s strategic decision making.

Hussein’s primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the regime.

The introduction of the Oil-for-food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the regime.

By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support.

Iran was Iraq’s pre-eminent motivator.

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judged that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam’s belief in the value of WMD.

Saddam ended his nuclear program in 1991. ISG found no evidence of concerted efforts to restart the program, and Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after 1991.

Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions were discovered by the ISG.

Saddam’s regime abandoned its biological weapons program and its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons in 1995. While it could have re-established an elementary BW program within weeks, ISG discovered no indications it was pursuing such a course.

Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability, which was essentially destroyed in 1991, after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.

Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs.

Saddam believed the U.S. and the coalition that threatened to go to war against him if the U.N. resolutions were not met was bluffing.

In March 2005 Duelfer added addenda to the original report, covering five topics:

Prewar Movement of WMD Material Out of Iraq, stating “ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place” but also acknowledging that there was evidence “about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved,” and that this evidence was “sufficiently credible to merit further investigation.” IAG noted that, due to security concerns, it “was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war.”

Residual Pre-1991 CBW Stocks in Iraq, concluding “any remaining chemical munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant threat ... ISG has not found evidence to indicate that Iraq did not destroy its BW weapons or bulk agents”.

Residual Proliferation Risks: People, concluding “former WMD program participants are most likely to seek employment in the benign civil sector, either in Iraq or elsewhere ... However, because a single individual can advance certain WMD activities, it remains an important concern”.

Residual Proliferation Risk: Equipment and Materials, concluding “Iraq’s remaining chemical and biological physical infrastructure does not pose a proliferation concern”.

Iraqi Detainees, concluding “the WMD investigation has gone as far as feasible. ... there is no further purpose in holding many of these detainees”.

In media interviews before the addenda were published, officials went further on the important question of the possible smuggling of WMD to Syria, saying they had not seen any information indicating that WMD or significant amounts of components and equipment were transferred from Iraq to neighboring Syria or elsewhere. Other details surfaced after the Duelfer Report, which helped fill in the blanks left by the ISG investigation. Duelfer also concluded that Saddam planned to resume production of weapons of mass destruction once the United Nations lifted economic sanctions.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.