Today, June 13, 2023, Donald Trump was arraigned on thirty-seven criminal counts in Florida related to mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice by refusing to return them.
The courts can settle legal issues but not psychological ones. The issue of the Trump-base relationship will require a strategy that can address the deeply etched sense of identity that binds his followers to him. It is problem requiring cult deprogramming on a national scale. I'm not very optimistic about the success of that. There are some possible approaches discussed in my upcoming book. But I think it would be easier to move Republican-leaning independents.
Isn't that necessary but insufficient? We are looking at armed mobs who get their orders from Fox and OAN. They're not going to disappear. Prior to social media they couldn't organize and plan actions nationwide and quickly.
I agree. Those in the MAGA cult are not retrievable and a growing number comprise the open military wing of the GOP, which in some cases overlaps with the Congressional wing. In my view, they are likely to constitute a Brown-Shirt-like terrorist force for years to come. As you can readily observe, the Republican Party is working hard on all fronts to demolish American democracy. As a shrinking minority, they depend on corruption, coercion, voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, filibuster threats, and if possible election nullification strategies.
If we are going prevent a tyranny of the minority through the use of those strategies, profound structural changes will be needed. To do that means that pro-democracy forces have to win elections by very large margins. And for that to occur, we have to understand how our opponents create compelling frames to move the persuadable and develop our own strategies for communicating our values. That is something I take up in my book. But the person most effective in that regard and who increasingly has the ear of Democrats is Anat Shenker-Osorio. She started the progressive messaging research group, Research Collaborative .
I mention Republican-leaning independents only because as a persuadable slice of the electorate they could determine the outcome. But that requires reaching them using frames that resonate with their moral intuitions. Studies show that if you can speak about a liberal policy in the moral frames that resonate with certain conservative values, like loyalty, sanctity, and purity, they are more likely to endorse such policies. The other messaging challenge is to get liberal but disengaged voters to show up.
Ah, but where shall we look outside the courts?
The courts can settle legal issues but not psychological ones. The issue of the Trump-base relationship will require a strategy that can address the deeply etched sense of identity that binds his followers to him. It is problem requiring cult deprogramming on a national scale. I'm not very optimistic about the success of that. There are some possible approaches discussed in my upcoming book. But I think it would be easier to move Republican-leaning independents.
Isn't that necessary but insufficient? We are looking at armed mobs who get their orders from Fox and OAN. They're not going to disappear. Prior to social media they couldn't organize and plan actions nationwide and quickly.
I agree. Those in the MAGA cult are not retrievable and a growing number comprise the open military wing of the GOP, which in some cases overlaps with the Congressional wing. In my view, they are likely to constitute a Brown-Shirt-like terrorist force for years to come. As you can readily observe, the Republican Party is working hard on all fronts to demolish American democracy. As a shrinking minority, they depend on corruption, coercion, voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, filibuster threats, and if possible election nullification strategies.
If we are going prevent a tyranny of the minority through the use of those strategies, profound structural changes will be needed. To do that means that pro-democracy forces have to win elections by very large margins. And for that to occur, we have to understand how our opponents create compelling frames to move the persuadable and develop our own strategies for communicating our values. That is something I take up in my book. But the person most effective in that regard and who increasingly has the ear of Democrats is Anat Shenker-Osorio. She started the progressive messaging research group, Research Collaborative .
I mention Republican-leaning independents only because as a persuadable slice of the electorate they could determine the outcome. But that requires reaching them using frames that resonate with their moral intuitions. Studies show that if you can speak about a liberal policy in the moral frames that resonate with certain conservative values, like loyalty, sanctity, and purity, they are more likely to endorse such policies. The other messaging challenge is to get liberal but disengaged voters to show up.
I would like to read one or more such studies - got cites?
There is one in this post.