How Donald Trump won the White House with a 21st-century mindset

The East Bay Times ^ | February 25, 2017 | Gary Peterson

[2ndDivisionVet]

George Lakoff vividly recalls where he was and what he was doing the night Donald Trump was elected president.

“We were having some tacos,” said Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley. “I felt pretty bad afterward. And it wasn’t just the tacos.”

A lot of people had heartburn that night, unable to understand how such a uniquely unqualified candidate could be elected to the highest office in the free world. Lakoff understood exactly what had occurred.

“Why was it that all the polls were wrong?” asked Lakoff, speaking to a packed auditorium Thursday night at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. “They were wrong because they only looked at demography. They looked at things you could find out about in the census — religion, income, gender, etc. But not about your values.”

Not only did Trump appeal to people with certain values, his shrewd messaging energized that base while confounding Democrats. In fact, Lakoff hinted at such a dynamic in his 2008 book “The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain.”

Nothing defines 21st century America like the torrent of information, misinformation and, yes, fake news available by all manner of means and at all times of day. Journalist Robert Rosenthal, who joined Lakoff at Thursday night’s program, likened it to getting information from a fire hose. It flows so fast that nobody can process it all. It’s not unusual for people, forced into selective consumption, to favor that which conforms to their core beliefs.

“We are now in an information civil war,” said Rosenthal, executive director of The Center for Investigative Reporting, “because you believe what you want to believe, and you don’t want to believe what they believe.”

Behold, then, Trump’s twin towers of power: information (Twitter being his specialty) and intractable tribes of “us” and “them.”

“You have to understand something about the brain to understand what’s going on here,” Lakoff said. “Every idea is physical. It’s in your neural circuitry. What that means is if you have an ideology, you have lots of complex circuitry, lots of ideas. Your very identity is wrapped up in that world view. That’s who you are. If you have that world view, then certain things must be facts or else your whole identity goes.”

So when Trump lies?

“The strong Trump supporters will take lies,” Lakoff said. “The lies are not as important as the truth that defines who they are. You can say, ‘He’s a liar,’ and it won’t matter.”

We have. And it doesn’t.

Beyond the untruths lie Trump’s genius for messaging, such as his recent contention that the free press is the enemy of the American people.

“The press did something really dumb after that happened,” Lakoff said. “They came out with a Twitter (post): ‘Not the enemy.’ Nixon said, ‘I am not a crook.’ Everybody thought he was a crook. (Say) ‘Not the enemy,’ and you’re going to think of them as the enemy. The reason is very simple. In order to negate something, you have to activate in your brain what is being negated. And every time you activate something in your brain, it becomes stronger. So the more you negate something, the stronger it gets.”

Somewhere Crooked Hillary nods her head knowingly.

That’s called framing an argument, and it’s one of Trump’s go-to ploys. Another is floating a trial Twitter balloon. And yet another is the good, old-fashioned diversion.

“The question arose about the emoluments clause and whether he should be thrown out of office because of it,” Lakoff said. “So what does he do? He talks about Meryl Streep. The media, like dogs following a ball … ”

Rosenthal, grudgingly one presumes, said Trump’s “use of Twitter is brilliant.”

Even at 3 a.m., Lakoff said, “He knows exactly what he’s doing in every single tweet.”

[2ndDivisionVet]

Read that until you understand it. Scott Adams of Dilbert talks about many of the same things.

[dp0622]

Behold, then, Trump’s twin towers of power: information (Twitter being his specialty) and intractable tribes of “us” and “them.”...

All I read here is about one prick who insults trump voters and got sick the night Trump won.

AND another prick who is so vulgar that he doesn’t think twice about referring to Twin Towers in his sentence because he’s probably glad they were attacked.

I see NOTHING here as intelligent and cohesive as Scott Adam’s writings.

[OddLane]

BTTT.

[marktwain]

Exactly correct.

It is all written from the assumption that Trump and his followers are wrong.

He uses exactly the tribal view that he complains of.

[rockrr]

Lakoff - rhymes with....

[bigbob]

Yep.
I also think there’s an understated factor in the knowledgebase younger people have to draw on. Us old farts were taught American History, Civics, and grew up when about the worst thing in the world was to be anti-American.

But we’re now into the 2nd generation where just the opposite has become acceptable. Kids are told that it’s embarrassing to win if someone elses feelings are hurt in the process, thus the “participation ribbon” was born. Apply that concept to political philosophy and you get the believe that “all cultures are equal”. And if you believe that, why not have world government to make sure it is put into effect? Their entire world view is built on a very different foundation than that of older Americans.

These people hear Trump speak about “American First” and patriotism and they cringe, they cannot beleive their ears because it goes against everything they were brought up to believe. As Scott Adams often explains, this is “cognitive dissonance”. THe natural tendency is to resolve the conflict which would mean either A) they must admit that their own beliefs are incorrect (which is hard to do) - or B) they take the easiest path, and denigrate the source e.g. “Trump is Hitler”, “Trump is a Racist”, “Trump hates Muslims”, etc ad nauseum.

This writer says this is wired into “neural circuitry” which seems unchangeable but I disagree. They are not born this way, these things are learned, and everything learned can be un-learned. That’s why it is so important that Trump continue to use Twitter, to hold rallies, and communicate about his ideas directly to the people. Because that is the best way for someone to resolve their cognitive dissonance the other way - by realizing what they’ve been programmed to believe isn’t true after all, and to come to accept Trumps vision, which is that which traiditional Americans were taught from childhood. They need to learn that patriotism and putting American first is not only necessary, but honorable. To learn, they need to be taught, and Trump is in the position to be the best teacher.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

They STILL don't get it. Let me help you understand, it's time now. I taught public school for many years. Every time I brought up conservative values and thought in the classroom, liberal leftists did everything they could to fire me. Several times, they were successful. When I went back to the private sector, that all ended. They couldn't get me fired because the bar is lower for the private sector than for the public sector for stating one's opinion. But, they did it to me several times.

So, you wonder WHY I am a radical conservative? Do you hear me now? You folks had me fired not once, but several times. I will breathe my last breath fighting you. You literally have no idea. NOW, YOU know how it feels to see your livelihood threatened and you KNOW you are eventually facing termination at work for YOUR point of view (and you should). I never used to feel that way about liberals - thinking they should be terminated because of their opinions, but I do NOW. I am completely, absolutely, irrevocably, indisputably or beyond a shadow of a doubt in the camp which believes YOU should be unemployed.

And, YOU liberal leftists made me that way. You've brought all of this on yourselves by the way you treated conservatives for 35+ years.

[Grampa Dave]

Rosenthal, grudgingly one presumes, said Trump’s “use of Twitter is brilliant.”

Even at 3 a.m., Lakoff said, “He knows exactly what he’s doing in every single tweet.”

The elite mediots, who control ABCNNBCBS, Faux, the Ny/LA Slimes, WSJ, Compost, and LaRaza Slimes fail to realize: President Trump does not need them to speak to his 60+ million voters/us. He Tweets us, sends his contributors emails and controls the White House digital system. He bypasses the left wing mediots, when he communicates directly with us.

So, neither President Trump, nor his 60+ million voters need nor do we want ABCNNBCBS, Faux, the Ny/LA Slime, WSJ, Compost, and LaRaza Times trying to tell us what our president is telling us. We know without their twisting and word games.

We don’t need the “old gotcha” press conferences. With the whining and lying liberal mediots attacking our president. We are tired of the mediots lying and telling us what to believe and how to vote! Ban them from the White House. Trump’s comments and statements are for his voters. We don’t need lying liberal mediots to tell us what he says to us. There is zero filtering, adjusting and lying to us when Trump talks to us directly!

Official Washington is being traumatized by the tweets of Donald Trump.

Politico has chronicled the pearl clutching concern by the inside the beltway types over Trump's tweets. Trump speaking directly to the people via Twitter is causing a crisis among mediots, politicians and lobbyists. They just don't know how to handle it as the article title, “Trump’s Twitter feed traumatizes Washington.”

[Grampa Dave]

More rambling from the intellectual yet idiots.

[georgiegirl]

Barf Alert please!

[WMarshal]

A lot of people had heartburn that night, unable to understand how such a uniquely unqualified candidate could be elected to the highest office in the free world.

A self-made billionaire who has been successful in multiple industries, a serial entrepreneur, a man who took on the entire establishment, both political parties, the UN, creepy socialist the world over, and won the presidency on his first try and did it on the cheap - and they try to tell us that he is 'uniquely unqualified'! Wow. Baghdad Bob has nothing on these losers.

[bigbob]

Why? It’s not a barfer, in fact the guy seems to understand why Trump is successful.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

...a uniquely unqualified candidate could be elected to the highest office in the free world

Remind me again how many times that concern was raised about a drug-addled community organizer who suddenly (and crookedly) shot to the US Senate, served a partial, no-accomplishment term, and got elected POTUS? There is no doubt he was the least accomplished POTUS ever elected. Trump has decades of executive suite experience he brings to the job, has run huge companies and had responsibility for a payroll of tens of thousands of employees. Barky? Never even ran a lemonade stand. Plus, the few months he spent in private enterprise he characterized as "behind enemy lines."

That "uniquely unqualified" trope drives me crazy. The founders intentionally kept the qualifications in the Constitution few. They could have written a much longer list, but they didn't. Because it is supposed to be a government by the citizenry.

[octex]

Kudos to you for an excellent posting!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Pretty much what’s been going on since forever.

[AndyJackson]

A lot of people had heartburn that night, unable to understand how such a uniquely unqualified candidate could be elected to the highest office in the free world.

You can't start from that premise and go anywhere useful. The notion that Trump was unqualified while everyone else is qualified is how American politics has gotten turned upside down. In fact he is the only one qualfied to actually do anything in a long time. But boomers have no clue what competence looks like.

[bigbob]

Thank you. By virtue of the myriad posts on FR I keep looking for ways to make sense out of what’s going on and I think this is part of it. The good news is, I believe people can learn and change - we are all living proof of it - and Trump is doing all the right things. As the old saying goes “nothing succeeds like success”, and I feel optimistic that in just a few months the tangible evidence of what Trump is doing to put the nation back on the right track and unleash the US economy will be convincing to many doubters and even some of the libs. Even the most diehard lib still wants a good prosperous future for their kids and grandkids.

[Falconspeed]

Scott Adams, also at Berkeley, is honest while Lakoff is deceptive. For example:

“Lakoff [was] speaking to a packed auditorium Thursday night at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club.”

Packed. Yeah, right. Where is the photo of the “packed” room?

Did Lakoff support Milo’s visit to Cal? Oh well, Who cares. Milo’s visit was rejected by 84 professors in a letter to the Cal President on January 11, 2017.

Deceptive losers who teach silliness rather than the Gospels and Newtonian physics.

[Figment]

Is this the same guy Rush refers to as “rhymes with”?

[Zeppo]

It is all written from the assumption that Trump and his followers are wrong. He uses exactly the tribal view that he complains of.

Exactly.

If there's one thing that defines George Lakoff it is his stunning (pardon the pun) lack of self-awareness.