As I said a few days ago, progressives like me are going through an anxious period. There's no obvious Democratic presidential candidate who seems fully up to the job of beating Trump in the November 2020 election.
Meanwhile, polls show that Trump has managed to hold on to his base of support, and maybe even has expanded it a bit. This befuddles people, again, like me, who wonder what 44% or so of the country sees in a guy who is so obviously immoral, a habitual liar, and mean.
A book I just finished re-reading gave me a new perspective on this question. And that scares me, because the explanation makes so much sense, and shows why it is so difficult to get Trump supporters to stop fawning over him.
Here's an excerpt from a blog post I wrote about the book back in December 2014, "The social value of getting wasted." Following the excerpt I'll explain what this has to do with Trump's popularity.
With New Year's Eve coming up soon, this seems to be a good time to share some passages about the positive side of intoxication from a book I just finished, "Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity."
The author, Edward Slingerland, discusses the ins and outs (along with the yin and yang) of wu-wei, the elusive quality of effortlessly flowing with life so much praised in Daoist and Confucian philosophy.
Slingerland, a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, clued me in to some aspects of both Asian and Western culture that had largely escaped me before.
For example, why getting wasted — imbibing copious amounts of alcohol or some other intoxicating, mind-altering, inhibition-dampening substance — is so important in closing business deals, as well as in other social contexts.
The basic reason is that we admire and trust good-hearted people who act naturally, spontaneously, unselfconsciously. Schemers who always seem to be calculating what to do and how to act, not nearly so much, even if they proclaim their beneficent intentions.
Slingerland explains from both a philosophical and neuroscientific outlook that virtue (de, in Chinese) can be faked by what often is called "cold cognition."
That's the slower, more intellectual, thoughtful part of the brain's workings. This is contrasted with "hot cognition," which is faster, more emotional and intuitive. So, Slingerland says:
These techniques take advantage of the fact that deception is fundamentally a cold-cognition act and relies on cognitive control centers. This means that if we can impair the cognitive control abilities of people we're trying to judge, we'll do a better job of sussing them out: they will be less likely to confuse our cheater-control systems.
This, of course, is the rationale for so-called "truth serum" drugs used by interrogators. Lessen inhibitions and what a person says should more accurately reflect what is really inside them, not just how they want to appear to outsiders.
OK, you may have noted that I said we admire and trust good-hearted people who act naturally, spontaneously, unselfconsciously.
Scratch the "good-hearted" and you've got a pretty decent description of Trump — though I'm sure most of his supporters view him as possessing a good heart, albeit a decidedly weird one, given Trump's habitual vicious attacks on anyone he views as opposing him.
Trump doesn't drink, but he acts like the emotional, intuitive, spontaneous person in the thralls of "hot cognition." His rallies are popular with Trump supporters because he offers them an uncensored view of what's on his mind. (Which is why those rallies horrify the rest of us.)
This goes a long way toward explaining why many voters didn't trust Hillary Clinton, even though she was a much more trustworthy person than Donald Trump. With Trump, what you see is what you get. With Clinton, it was difficult to tell whether the persona she presented outwardly truly was who she was deep down.
So what scares me is that all of the rational, reasonable, well-though-out policy prescriptions and criticisms of Trump the eventual 2020 Democratic presidential candidate presents to the public may not be enough to defeat Trump if the Dem isn't able to demonstrate the sort of natural, spontaneous, unselfconscious personality that appeals to the evolutionarily ancient "hot cognition" part of the human brain.
if you watched the Academy Awards last night, this theme was on full display, as it is every year of the Oscars.
When someone who has won the film editing award, say, walks on stage, steps up to the microphone, and pulls out a piece of paper that they proceed to read, thanking everyone they want to thank in words they wrote before coming to the event, I think, "Oh, no, this is so boring."
Contrast that with someone like Joaquin Phoenix. After winning the Best Actor award for his role as the Joker, Phoenix rubbed his face, looked around, and proceeded to give a gripping acceptance speech that was mostly about how we humans are screwing up the natural world.
He said he'd been thinking a lot about what he said, so it wasn't totally spontaneous. But it had the ring of spontaneity and sincerity, which is why I remember his remarks so much more clearly than the scripted and predictable remarks of other Oscar winners.
Let me be clear. I'd rather have any boring predictable scripted Democratic nominee become president, rather than Donald Trump. What worries me, though, is that the nominee would be much more able to beat Trump if they can muster the sort of "can't look away" spontaneity that Trump and Phoenix possess, albeit in vastly different fashions.
And so far I haven't seen that from the Democratic presidential candidates.
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“This befuddles people, again, like me, …..”
That befuddlement has a name: TDS.
The problem isn’t President Trump.
American’s DO NOT want any of the self promoting candidates that are running against him.
I have not heard a single democrat say that they put America first.
THAT is the new requisite.
Brian
If I may suggest perhaps what you and lots of other Trump haters are missing:
Trump sees through the hypocrisy and mealy mouthed arrogance of the existing establishment…
It’s the same here in Britain, and that’s why there was a majority in favour of breaking away from the EU…
This is not to say that I, nor others who can see through the ruses of the ‘establishment’, are fully paid up supporters of Trump. We just love the way he sees through their same old tired arguments….
Just my tuppence worth, no need for any ping pong please….
“Words alone are certain good….” but not in this case…
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Wall St. Journal which conveniently gets into the hot-cold cognition of Trump although those terms weren’t used…From the article:
Quote: “To me, the key to understanding Trumpism is remembering why he was elected.
What do I mean? Voters chose Donald Trump as an antidote to the growing inflammation caused by the (OK, deep breath . . .) prosperity-crushing, speech-inhibiting, nanny state-building, carbon-obsessing, patriarchy-bashing, implicit bias-accusing, tokey-wokey, globalist, swamp-creature governing class—all perfectly embodied by the Democrats’ 2016 nominee. On taking office, Mr. Trump proceeded to hire smart people and create a massive diversion (tweets, border walls, tariffs) as a smokescreen to let them implement an agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and originalist judges.
Those reforms have left the market free to do its magic and got the economy grooving like it’s 1999. The daily Trump hurricane—like the commotion over the Chiefs from Kansas—makes the media focus on the all-powerful wizard while ignoring the policy makers behind the curtain.
Alfred Hitchcock called this kind of distraction a “MacGuffin”—something that moves the plot along and provides motivation for the characters, but is itself unimportant, insignificant or irrelevant. It can be a kind of sleight of hand, a distraction, and Mr. Trump uses his own public persona as a MacGuffin in precisely that way. The mobs decked in “Resist” jewelry fall for it every time.
For example, Sen. Bernie Sanders used his remarks during the Senate impeachment trial to point out that the media had documented some 16,200 alleged lies by President Trump. The MacGuffin worked! Mr. Sanders and his peers are focused on the president’s words, while most voters see the real plot unfolding in America—millions of jobs and rising wages.
The president’s success comes from his ability to shrug off critics. My son went to college in the early days of the social justice power grab. He recalls heated discussions in which someone would interrupt him to say, “Sorry, but you don’t get a say—you have white privilege.” My son would shoot right back: “Yeah, I don’t believe in that,” and resume his argument. That’s what Mr. Trump does. Rather than cower at the criticism he faces from the mobs, he probably smirks and thinks to himself, “Yeah, I don’t believe in that” and tweets away.
That’s the only reaction that can withstand today’s far left, which has become increasingly self-righteous. The very word “woke” asserts a kind of rebornness—as if those on their side have awakened and become holier than thou. It’s RELIGION (note: cap letters are mine.. tucson) on the cheap. The movement takes “diversity” to mean people who see the world exactly as they do, only with different surface characteristics: race, class and gender identity. There’s no room for diversity of expression, let alone diversity of thought. (I’ve confirmed this at Silicon Valley cocktail parties.)
Mr. Trump was elected as an antibody against this swampy disease. He’s the antidote to the snake bite of correctness. He’s a white (privileged?) blood cell fighting the coronavirus of the culture.” .. end quote
And now, brothers and sisters,,,lets pray:
Dear Heavenly Father, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE bless the Bernie Sanders campaign and let him win the primary in all of Obama’s 55 states.
Please, merciful Father, make this up-coming election a contest between Bernie and President Trump.
America has a huge appetite for the biggest republican landslide in U.S. history.
God bless the U.S.A.
Amen
Blogger Brian wrote: “This befuddles people, again, like me, who wonder what 44% or so of the country sees in a guy who is so obviously immoral, a habitual liar, and mean.”
— 63 million people voted for him. Why? They were sick and tired of the PC, woke, identity politics culture which is smothering individual rights, free speech and freedom of expression, that sees America as evil, founded on racism and white supremacy, who want to diminish America rather than support and restore what is great about it.
Brian, if you want to know how so many people can support this man Trump who you perceive as vile, vulgar, mean and distasteful you should read these two articles. They get into some of the psychology you discussed without using the terms “hot and cold cognition”. Took me less than five minutes each and I’m a slow reader.
https://www.bigvalleynews.com/index.php/features/guest-editorials/2216-editorial-trump-existential-threat-to-new-world-order
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/what_do_democrats_fear_in_donald_trump_greatness.html
My first link in the comment above may be slow to load. Be patient and then scroll down through a blank area to the article about “Trump, existential threat to the new world order”.
To Eric Robinson,
Hip hip hooray!. Farage’s 5 minute farewell speech to the EU. Historic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIgmfpHBiDw
Scared of Trump? She’ll scare the crap out of you. There’s getting to be more and more like her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHBDEufHxOc