The secret of Donald Trump's success
Donald Trump has become an unprecedented political phenomenon. His success derives from a very particular narrative.
Donald Trump is dominating the Republican presidential primary at such a rate that it seems likely that he will become the next Republican presidential candidate, and perhaps the next president. Democrats don't quite understand why he wins so comfortably, and many Republicans don't see him as one of their own and are trying to stop him, but they don't know how. There are several theories: people are angry and he talks to the angry about him. People don't think highly of Congress and want someone who doesn't come from politics. Both ideas can be valid. But why? What are the details? And why Trump?
Many people are puzzled. Trump seems to have come out of nowhere. His views on various issues do not fit the common mold.
He likes Planned Parenthood, Social Security and Medicare, and those are not standard Republican positions. Republicans hate the doctrine of eminent domain (the taking of private property by the state) and love the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but Trump takes the opposite view on both issues. He is not a religious man and despises religious practices, yet evangelicals (or rather white evangelicals) love him. He thinks health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as military contractors, make too much profit and he wants to change that. He insults the main groups of voters, for example Latinos, while most Republicans try to seduce them. He wants to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and thinks he can do it. He wants to prevent Muslims from entering the country. What's going on?
The answer requires the explanation of some background that has not been discussed in the media until now.
Some background...
I work in cognitive science and in the study of the brain. In the 1990s, I dedicated myself to seeking the answer to a question in my field: how do the different political positions of conservatives and progressives fit together? Take conservatism: what does being against abortion have to do with being in favor of gun ownership? What does gun ownership have to do with denying the reality of global warming? How does being anti-state fit in with wanting a stronger military? How can you be pro-life and in favor of the death penalty? Progressives hold the opposite ideas. How do their views harmonize?
The answer came from the realization that we tend to understand the nation metaphorically in family terms: we have founding fathers. We send our sons and daughters to war. We have home security. The conservative and progressive views that divide our country can be very easily understood in terms of moral views that are encapsulated in two different models of family life: the nurturing parent (progressive view) and the strict parent (progressive view). conservative).
What do social issues and politics have to do with the family? We are governed first and foremost within our families, and therefore we grow up understanding the institutions of government in terms of family governance systems.
In the case of the strict father family, the father knows what is best for his children. He can tell right from wrong and he has ultimate authority to make sure his wife and children do what he says is considered right. Many conservative wives accept this view, uphold the father's authority, and are strict in the domains of family life for which they are in charge. When the children disobey, it is the moral obligation of the father to punish them causing enough pain so that in the future, to avoid punishment, they obey him (do what is right) and so that they do not only do what gives them pleasure.
Through physical discipline, children are supposed to become disciplined and able to thrive in the outside world. And what happens if they don't prosper? That means they are not disciplined and therefore cannot be moral and deserve their poverty. This reasoning appears in conservative politics where the poor are perceived as lazy and undeserving and the rich as deserving of their wealth. The responsibility is then taken as personal responsibility and not as social responsibility. What one becomes depends on oneself; society has nothing to do with it. One is responsible for himself, not others, and others are responsible for themselves.
Win and insult
As Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, said, “Winning isn't everything. Its the only thing". In a world ruled by personal responsibility and discipline, those who win deserve to win. Why does Donald Trump publicly and mercilessly insult the other candidates and political leaders? Very simple: because he knows that he can win in a game of insults for television. In the eyes of a Conservative, that makes him a formidable winning candidate who deserves to be. Electoral competition is perceived as a battle. Insults that "turn on" are considered victories, and deserved victories.
Take for example Trump's statement in which he denies that John McCain is a war hero. The reasoning: McCain was shot. Heroes are winners. They beat the bad guys. They don't shoot them down. Those who are wounded, beaten to death and locked in a cell are losers, not winners.
The moral hierarchy
The strict father logic goes further. The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that in a well-ordered world there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have dominated should dominate. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (the Strong) above the Undisciplined (the Weak), the Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western Culture above others. Our country above the others. The hierarchy extends to Men over Women, Whites over Non-Whites, Christians over Non-Christians, Heterosexuals over Homosexuals.
We see these tendencies in most of the Republican presidential candidates, as well as in Trump, and in general conservative politics emanate from the strict father mentality and this hierarchy.
Family-based moral concepts run deep. Since people want to see themselves doing good and not evil, moral concepts tend to be part of self-definition, that is, who one is in essence. And so moral concepts define for one how the world should be. When this is not the case, you can feel frustrated and angry.
There is some wiggle room in the strict father view, and important variations as well. Thus, it is possible to draw a main division between a) white evangelical Christians, b) conservatives who defend laissez-faire and the free market, and c) pragmatic conservatives who are not tied to evangelical beliefs.
White evangelicals
Those whites who have a personal strict father vision and are religious lean towards evangelical Christianity, since God, in evangelical Christianity, is the Supreme Strict Father: if you follow his commandments, you go to heaven; if you defy his commandments, you burn in hell for all eternity. If you are a sinner and want to go to heaven, you can be "born again" by proclaiming your faith by choosing his son, Jesus Christ, as your personal Savior.
Such a version of religion is natural to those with a strict father morality. Evangelical Christians join the church because they are conservative; they are not conservative by virtue of being part of an evangelical church, although in some cases they can grow up with both characteristics at the same time.
Evangelical Christianity focuses on family life. Hence, there are organizations like Focus on the Family and constant references to "family values," which should be taken as evangelical strict father values. In strict father morality, it is he who controls sexuality and reproduction. Where the church has political control, there are laws that require parental and marital notification in cases where abortions are suggested.
The evangelists are very well organized politically and exercise control over a large number of local political powers. Consequently, Republican candidates mostly have to side with evangelicals if they want to reach the nomination and win local elections.
Pragmatic Conservatives
Pragmatic conservatives, for their part, may not have any religious orientation. Instead, they may be concerned first with their own personal authority, and not with the authority of the church, or Christ, or God. They want to be strict parents in their own domain, with authority over their own lives, fundamentally. Therefore, a young and single conservative – man or woman – may want to have sex without worrying about marriage. They may need access to contraception, advice on sexually transmitted diseases, information on cervical cancer, etc. And if a teenage girl or woman becomes pregnant and there is no possibility or desire to marry, an abortion may be necessary.
Trump is a pragmatic conservative par excellence. And he knows that there are a large number of Republican voters who are like him in his pragmatism. There's a reason he likes Planned Parenthood: There are plenty of young, single (or even married) pragmatic conservatives who may need what Planned Parenthood has to offer, cheaply and confidentially.
Similarly, young or middle-aged pragmatic conservatives want to maximize their own wealth. They don't want to bear the financial burden of caring for their parents. The social security system and Medicare relieve them of most of those responsibilities. This is why Trump wants to keep the social security system and Medicare.
Defenders of laissez-faire and the free market
The conservative policies of the establishment have not only been shaped by the political power of white evangelical churches but also by the political power of those who seek free markets with maximum laissez-faire, in which rich people and corporations impose rules of market that favor them with a minimum of regulation and compliance control by the State. They see the payment of taxes not as an investment in public provision resources for all citizens, but as an action by the government to take away their income (their private property) and deliver the money, through public programs, to those who do not. deserve. This is the source of the anti-tax and pro-downsizing positions held by the Republican establishment. This version of conservatism is fine with outsourcing to increase profits by shifting manufacturing and many services to foreign countries where labor is cheap, with the consequence that the United States loses high-paying jobs and wages decline. . Since they depend on importing cheap goods, they would not be in favor of imposing high tariffs.
But Donald Trump is not in a business that makes products abroad to import and jack up the price for a profit. He builds hotels, casinos, office buildings, golf courses. He can build them abroad using cheap labor, but he doesn't import them. In addition, he acknowledges that most small business owners in America are alike: American businesses like dry cleaners, pizzerias, restaurants, hardware stores, plumbers, landscapers, contractors, car washes, and professionals like architects, lawyers, doctors, and nurses. High tariffs do not seem to be a problem.
Many entrepreneurs are pragmatic conservatives. They like the power of the state when it works to their advantage. Let's consider eminent domain. Establishment Republicans see it as an abuse by the state, a state that takes private property. But construction conservatives like Trump rely on eminent domain so that homes and small businesses located in the areas they want to develop can be expropriated under this principle, to the benefit of their real estate plans. All they have to do is get local government officials on board, through campaign contributions and the promise of increased local tax dollars to help purchase eminent domain rights. Trump is targeting Atlantic City, where he is building a casino using eminent domain to take ownership.
If companies have to pay for their employees' health plan, Trump would want them to pay as little as possible to maximize profits for companies overall. Therefore, he would like both companies that provide health coverage and pharmaceutical companies to charge as little as possible. To increase competition, he would want insurance companies to offer plans nationwide, to avoid state-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These exchanges exist to maximize health coverage for citizens and help low-income people obtain coverage, not to increase corporate profits. However, Trump wants to maintain the mandatory nature of the ACA, which establishment conservatives detest, since they consider it an excess on the part of the State because it forces people to buy a product. For Trump, on the other hand, the mandatory character increases the insurance fund and reduces costs for companies.
Direct causation versus systemic causation
Direct causation is treating a problem through direct action. Systemic causation recognizes that many problems arise from the system in which they are found and must be resolved through systemic causation. Systemic causation exists in four versions: chaining of direct causes, interaction of direct causes (or chains of direct causes), feedback loops, and probabilistic causes. Systemic causality regarding global warming explains why global warming in the Pacific can produce terrible blizzards in Washington, DC: masses of highly energized water molecules evaporate over the Pacific, fly northeast and over the North Pole, and come down. in winter over the East Coast and parts of the Midwest as snowpacks. Systemic causation has a chain of direct causes, interacting causes, feedback loops, and probabilistic causes, often in combination.
Direct causality is easy to understand and seems to be represented in the grammar of all the world's languages. Systemic causality is more complex and is not represented in the grammar of any language. It has to be learned.
Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason using direct causality and progressives do better reasoning using systemic causality. The reason is thought to be that, in the strict father model, the strict father expects the son or wife to respond directly to an order and that refusal should be punished as quickly and directly as possible.
Many of Trump's policy proposals are framed in terms of direct causation.
Immigrants enter en masse from Mexico: a wall must be built to stop them. In the case of all the immigrants who have entered illegally, they simply have to be deported, even though there are 11 million of them working in the entire economy and living in the entire country. The cure for gun violence is to have a gun ready to simply shoot the assailant. To prevent jobs from moving to Asia where the cost of labor is lower and cheap products from flooding the local market, the solution is straightforward: put a very high tariff on these products, so that are much more expensive than those made in the United States. To save on pharmaceuticals, you have to get the largest consumer – the state – to accept the lowest price offers. If the Islamic State (IS) is making money from Iraqi oil, send US troops to Iraq to take control of the oil. IS leaders must be threatened with assassination of their family members (even if that is a war crime). To get information from terrorist suspects, you have to use waterboarding or even worse torture methods. If among the Muslim refugees a few terrorists can sneak in, we must stop allowing any Muslim to enter the country. All of this makes sense to those who think according to direct causality, but not to those who see the enormous difficulties and dire consequences of such actions due to the complexity of systemic causality.
Political correctness
There are at least tens of millions of conservatives in America who share the strict father morality and moral hierarchy. Many of them are poor or middle class and many are white men who consider themselves superior to immigrants, non-whites, women, non-Christians, homosexuals; also to people who depend on public assistance. In other words, they are what liberals would call "bigots." For many years, such intolerance has been publicly unacceptable, especially as more immigrants arrived, the country became less white, more women gained access to education and entered the job market, homosexuals became more visible, and marriage gay, okay. As anti-bigotry organizations loudly pointed out and publicized the un-American nature of such fanaticism, these conservatives felt more and more oppressed by what they call "political correctness," the political pressure against their views and against what they see as "freedom of expression". This became more exaggerated after 9/11, when anti-Muslim sentiments intensified. The election of President Barack Hussein Obama created fury among those conservatives, who refused to see him as a legitimate American (as in the case of the birthers' movement), let alone as a legitimate authority, especially since his liberal views almost contradicted everything else they believe in as conservatives.
Donald Trump expresses what they feel out loud, with force, aggressiveness and anger, and without shame. All they have to do is support Trump and vote for him, and they don't even have to express their "politically incorrect" opinions because he does it for them and his wins make them respectable. Trump is his champion. He gives them a sense of self-respect and authority, and the possibility of power.
Every time you hear the words "political correctness," remember this.
There is no middle ground in American politics. There are moderates, but there is no one ideology of the moderate, nor one single ideology that moderates agree on. A moderate conservative has some progressive views on certain issues, but these vary from person to person. Similarly, a moderate progressive has some conservative views on certain issues, but again these change from person to person. In short, the moderates have both political-moral visions, but use one of them to a greater extent. Those two moral visions generally contradict each other. How can they inhabit the same brain at the same time?
Both are characterized in the brain by neural circuitry. They are connected by a common circuit: mutual inhibition. When one turns on, the other turns off; when one is strengthened, the other is weakened. What makes them turn on or off? Language that matches one view activates that view, strengthening it, while it turns off the other view and weakens it. The more Trump's views are discussed in the media, the more they become activated and stronger in the minds of both hard-line conservatives and moderate progressives.
This is so even when Trump's positions are attacked. The reason is that denying a frame activates it, as I have pointed out in the book Don't Think of an Elephant. It does not matter if Trump is being promoted or if he is being attacked, in both cases he is being helped.
A good example of Trump's gain with progressive biconceptuals is certain unionized workers. Many union members are strict parents at home or in their private lives. They believe in "traditional family values" - a conservative code - and can identify with winners.
Why has Trump been winning in the Republican primaries?
Look at all the conservative groups he's reached out to!
The Democratic Party has not taken seriously many of the reasons why Trump receives support and the range of that support. And the media hasn't addressed many of the reasons for that support, either. That has to change.
