It’s remarkably easy. Just listen to Trump’s remarks and Spicer’s defense of them. They sound EXACTLY, PRECISELY like a kid that has to give an oral book report in front of the class and hasn’t opened the book. “So, uh, the Cyber… is in the internet… and then um… hackers, cuz we have bad cyber…”
Pick a subject on which you have no particular knowledge but HAVE seen the relevant words in headlines and your twitter or facebook feeds. Then just just say whatever the hell you want, confidently. Don’t even have to plan the words. Are you for the thing? Great! The best! or maybe you’re against it. Sad! TERRIBLE! Why does it even EXIST?!
see? so easy children do it with no effort at all.
Because the tactics that were so successful in rallying the Left to vote for Trump will be equally successful in getting the Right to rally against him.
I had to stop by a donut shop for a meeting later this afternoon, and there were four old white guys talking politics. Where do all these protesters coming from? Who’s responsible? What’s happening. I wish I’d read this article an hour ago, because it’s talking their language. Instead of saying nothing (what I did), I could have said: “People are afraid. He’s dangerous, he’s a liar. Honest Americans are standing up for freedom. They’re afraid, okay?” and walked out.
I agree it should be important to try and reach Trump supporters, but man, all the articles on it look like a giant catch-22. Make sure you’re not arrogant or condescending; you never want to treat them like they’re stupid or less than you. But also, any use reason or facts is counterproductive, and make sure to dice everything into inane sentence fragments like you’re patronizing a child you don’t think can figure out conjunctions.
Maybe someone can thread their way through some gap this leaves. I know I honestly don’t see where it is, though. It looks like they’re painting a task where you have to be every opposite at once and it’s too important to not try or get wrong. So it still ends up impossible, only now it’s your fault for not doing it right. Hooray.
Really it all boils down to speaking in hyperbole.
“Donald - how was your lunch today?”
“A COMPLETE DISASTER. A CATASTROPHE. SO SAD. (They forgot my bread rolls).”
“Donald - how are your new Executive Orders being received?”
“THE BEST. A TREMENDOUS SUCCESS. ASK ANYONE. (I signed my name where they told me to”).
I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a public figure act with such polarity. It’s almost like he wants people to believe there is only black and white…hmmmmmm.
We are already seeing other nations and public figures mocking the childish simplicity of this, and it’s only week 2. Nuts.
Self defense instructors I’ve had in the past have told me this; learn to fight on the ground, because all fights end up there eventually. Same thing applies to debating with Trumpians; if you try to use logic or facts, you will lose. The first person to get in the mud and call the other a whiner wins.
By far the most important thing you can to to try and reach Trump supporters is to actually talk to them and represent your own opinion. Note that a conversation requires some degree of mutual respect, so when you’re not given any or prepared to give any, the conversation is over, but we’ve all got racist uncles/“libertarian” assholes/“but-what-about-her-e-mails” people we can coherently talk to for at least a few minutes. And if we don’t, I suppose that’s what those who can reach out can do! FIND THOSE PEOPLE AND TALK TO THEM. There are a lot of them in this country - a little less than half, given the election.
Can’t make people smart. But you can show them that there their stereotypes are wrong and that you’re a human being, too.
We want people to think critically and think outside themselves so that we can have a healthy democracy. We won’t accomplish this by using idiot-speak to get them to chant a new set of slogans.
I get that your average Trump supporter isn’t going to absorb long, nuanced think pieces about Constitutional checks and balances, but the point is moot because most people don’t respond to direct persuasion, anyway. What we need is to appeal to people’s higher emotions, ideals and aspirations. It was easy to tear down Hillary Clinton; Lady Liberty and her inscription are a harder target.
Trump won on drawing a false equivalency between Hillary Clinton’s sketchiness and his own (“What have you got to lose by trying something new?”). To draw people to the left, the left must embody higher values to which they can aspire, and Trump’s hate-fueled insanity is affording us a platform to do that.
Isn’t this essentially another form of the condescending “liberals think they’re smarter than everyone else” elitism that supposedly cost Dems the election though?
This approach is literally saying “use small words, conservatives are too stupid to understand anything else.” It’s not respecting the other side, it’s patronizing them.
My everyday vernacular is very different from the kind of language Trump uses. I don’t make an effort to limit my vocabulary unless I’m addressing young children or people with limited knowledge of the English language. If I started talking to most adults that way I’d feel like I was talking down to them.
I agree with you! But when the subject of Trump comes up, I shall also say things like, “Trump is incredibly dangerous. Incredibly dangerous! It’s obvious. He’s corrupt, he’s unstable, he’s reckless.” That is how I now describe him, not because I want to talk down to people, but because it’s actually true.
