The first strategy is the one the article alludes to, which is to slowly, incrementally move the unwilling in the desired direction. This strategy relies on the tactics of deception, stealth and patience. Small pieces of the whole will be carefully reworded in innocuous terms, hidden deeply in unrelated work and slowly accumulate into an ugly whole.
The first phase of the second strategy has already been done. The strategy goes something like this: Push really hard for a policy that is so far over the top, so astonishing, so bold that its opponents will literally sputter in anger against it. Heads reel as people try to wrap their brains around the magnitude of the changes and sacrifices you propose. Finally, at the peak of the opposition's fervor, you relinquish and remove the proposal.
But now, you've stretched the boundaries. You've pushed the envelope. Because your first proposal was so colossally scary, the more modest follow-up proposal is much more likely to be accepted, simply because it isn't as bad as the first.
Where workers might well complain about orders to increase their productivity by 5%, they'll be happy to get there after they've first suffered a month of whipping and berating in pursuit of a 25% increase!
Brilliant analysis, Chris. As one of my political mentors, Huck Walther, used to explain: “The extremes determine the middle. Unfortunately for those of us on the Right, no group is taking the proper “extreme”: Now that we have stopped amnesty, let’s start rounding up and shipping back the lawbreakers. That’s what our position ought to be. But, infortunately, our side seems to be resting on its laurels.