Posted on 11/14/2016 8:54:58 AM PST by Yo-Yo
Anti-Trump protesters believe they are fighting the good fight to stop a racist, homophobic, sexist monster. But about half of the country – the half that I’m in – is in a different movie. In our movie, we selected a new president and half of the country is in cognitive dissonance over it. Assuming the protesters are the ones experiencing the illusion, and not us, how can we release them from their zombie-like existence so they will stop blocking traffic?
I’ll tell you the general approach.
The main thing you have to do is violate the frame. Clinton framed Trump as a monster, and now protesters are locked into that illusion. If Trump does things that can be construed as monster-like, the illusion is strengthened. But every time he violates that framing, the illusion gets a crack. If it cracks enough, it breaks.
For example, half the country thought Trump was going to eliminate every good thing about Obamacare. But recently the public learned that Trump wants to keep the most popular provisions and just “fix” the rest of it. That violates the monster frame. But it isn’t enough by itself. You need more violations.
Picking Reince Priebus for Chief of Staff was a good step because it makes Trump seem presidential and flexible. That’s another violation of the monster frame. But a small one.
Unfortunately, picking Steve Bannon as chief strategist adds confirmation bias to the monster illusion because Clinton’s team polluted Bannon’s brand during the election. Bannon adds confirmation bias to the monster illusion. I assume Bannon is a great strategist or else Trump wouldn’t risk keeping him.
Yesterday on Sixty Minutes Trump said gay marriage was already settled by the Supreme Court, and Trump is okay with that. That’s a crack in the illusion that Trump is anti-LGBTQ. But not enough. And Trump’s selection of Pence to run the transition team supports the monster theory because Pence has some anti-gay history that needs fixing.
The obvious next move for the Master Persuader involves asking Pence to “evolve” to Trump’s positions on all LGBTQ matters. Everyone expects a VP to pretend to be a full supporter of the President’s policies. That gives cover for Pence to update his LGBTQ views because…
- Religious conservatives will dismiss it as mere politics, believing Pence privately holds views that match their own.
- Anti-Trumpers will see a major violation of the monster frame.
- I will explain it all later as Trump doing “pacing and leading” to bring the Republican Party toward the center where it is strongest. Because that’s what is happening.
Trump has lots of other ways to crack the monster framing in the coming months. He can say more about his “New Deal” ideas for helping African-Americans. He could flip a foreign leader from a critic to a friend. He could come up with some ideas on lowering college costs. He could say more about his plan NOT to deport undocumented citizens who have obeyed the law since coming to this country.
He has lots of levers. Expect him to push one lever after another until the monster framing cracks. By summer the story will be that he’s the most flexible and centrist president in our history.
It is worth noting that Trump and Clinton had very different unframing challenges. If Clinton had won, her job would have been to convince the public she isn’t crooked. But you can’t do that simply by doing some honest things in public. We expect that even crooked people do honest things when watched. Clinton literally had no path to remove her “crooked” label.
But Trump has a more solvable framing problem. Clinton’s team labelled him a racist, homophobic, sexist. Trump can violate that frame enough times to break it over time. But it will take a lot of cracks. You’ve already seen several. Expect more to come.
If I were in Trump’s place I would look for a bigly frame violation and soon. The public is already primed for him to “moderate” away from his campaign promises. This is the time to do it.
In summary, you can’t prove you are honest by NOT stealing something in public. But you can prove you are not a monster by saving a kitten from a tree in public. Monsters never do that sort of thing. This idea is so true that it became the title of the best book ever written about movie script writing: Save the Cat.
Watch for Trump to saves some kittens – as many as necessary – until you can’t hold in your mind the frame that he’s a monster. Enjoy the show. The Master Persuader is just getting started.
Trump should go on TV, smile and tell the snow flakes that everything will be OK for them. Of course, it will all be a lie.
Trump should hire the most far right wing conservatives to move the government rightward, while at the same time ‘pretending’ to be centrist.
This is exactly what Obama did. He hired to most insane left wing radicals while pretending to be centrist.
Trump needs to perform the same trick. Let his conservative underlings run the government while he puts the face of moderation on his administration.
The problem is that so far he saving cats that I voted for him to kill.
I find it hysterically funny that the protesters are tearing apart states which Hillary won.
The Democrats would not worry about no damage illusion.
They’d say, we won, deal with it!
I propose we do the same.
I liked Scott Adams during the campaign, because his message that Trump was a master persuader was confidence-building for the movement.
The most conservative of us hope and believe that Trump shares our constitutional principles and supported him for that reason. Yet, I think a lot of support for Trump was also based on the belief that Trump is a very smart 3D chess player, and that he will be able to use those skills to drain the swamp.
Both types of support were required to put Trump over the top and Scott Adams was a good cheerleader for the “3D chess” meme - good for him.
But I don’t think Scott Adams is even remotely conservative, and judging by this latest blog, I think his usefulness as a cheerleader has run its course.
Trump should break the “monster frame” but not by moderating conservative positions. He should break the “frame” that conservatism itself is “monstrous” and he should do it by establishing conservative policy and proving once and for all that it improves life for all people and makes America great again.
Liberals have not “framed” Trump as a monster - they have framed conservatism as a monster. They say it caused income inequality, protects the 1%, unleashes guns and pollutants on the world, promotes hate, invades privacy, forces religion into the public square, suppresses minorities.
These are all liberal lies, part of the “frame up”. The only way to prove they are lies is to reestablish conservative founding constitutional principles, and demonstrate that a limited constitutional conservative government produces an increase in general prosperity, safety, Life, Liberty and Justice for All.
That is how you “break the frame”, Scott Adams. Thank you for pointing out that Trump is a clever fellow, getting himself elected. Now it’s your turn to sit back and watch and learn.
If Trump makes America great again, it will be Conservatism that is his secret weapon, not persuasion.
He can show up to help the victims of a shootout in a black gay bar.
(Note to DU lurkers: I am NOT advocating such an attack. I simply see the patterns and know that one is inevitable given the current rate of terrorist attacks.)
well Scott seemed to take a while to warm up to Trump so I cut him a little slack for this article.
Yes on some things Trump needs to tread softly during this transition time, but Pence does;t have to appear to change his stance etc.
What I think is needed is continue exposing the lies and machinery behind the scenes, slowly more liberals will wake to realize they are following a fake god, fake leaders who have enriched themselves at the people’s expense and who as wiki leaks exposed will do anything to keep the people falsely satisfied so as not to see they are robbing the USA and destroying it from within.
I believe many liberals don’t truly want USA to be like many other countries with their hardships and harsher restrictions on freedoms USA somewhat still has..
Two birds with one stone: don’t help college students, instead use things that would usually go to help that group to, instead, help people who want to be trained in the trades. Don’t give goodies to the same old groups who are totally opposed to our side. Instead of using energies to talk about allowing illegals who didn’t break laws to remain here, use energies to build up Mexico private businesses and make Mexico great TOO so that people will have no need or desire to come across the border. Shift general money we are already probably sending them to more directed ends that will help us in the process. Just agreeing with some things, making concessions in order to break the frame seems like rewarding their tantrums.
They are deranged. Trump has no responsibility to sooth their derangement. Round them up and set them breaking rocks in the hot sun.
Why doesn’t someone suggest that if we follow the “progressives” policies, then we (GOP Admin) will force the NFL AND NBA to hire women and more WHITE MEN to play.
BKMK
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