Two kernels of wisdom to help us all understand what happened on Tuesday.
First, this story in the Boston Globe, “The red state no one saw coming.” A few things worth noting there. First, Hillary’s campaign has only themselves to blame for being complacent, for not shoring up a weak base in states, like Wisconsin, they took for granted.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
When Sanders trounced her by 13 points in the Wisconsin primary, she didn’t see the warning signs. She didn’t see that people were hurt and angry and demanding change. She didn’t bother to campaign in Wisconsin, while Trump visited five times in the past few months. She didn’t even start running ads there until the final week. And a thin wisp of a margin lost her the state. Rinse and repeat in other places, and you see the pattern. The Globe article notes that some Sanders voters switched to Trump, and this pattern (in my very unscientific observation via Facebook and elsewhere) shows up all across the country. Others, of course, stayed home or voted third-party.
Yes, there were those who voted for Trump out of bigotry. But according to Elizabeth Warren, in a powerful post-election speech, more of his voters were voting for economic change. They supported (she claims) the liberal parts of his agenda, such as trade reform, restoring Glass-Steagall (which I don’t remember him supporting), and rebuilding our country’s infrastructure while creating jobs. Undeterred by the lack of specifics and in many cases holding their noses over his character issues, they voted for a Republican with an old-line Democrat domestic agenda and an appeal to the racist populism that propelled the Democratic Party even into the 1960s. The above link takes you to the video. Full transcript: https://www.elizabethwarren.com/blog/president-elect-donald-trump. Watch or read it; there’s much to learn about how we frame this election and where we go from here.
The US election is tomorrow, and I’m hoping for a result that utterly repudiates the racism, misogyny, and general hatred spewing from the mouth and keyboard of Donald Trump. That hope got me thinking about a column that ran in our local paper this summer.
The writer is progressive and I usually agree with him. But when he wrote about his experiences as a counterprotestor at a Trump rally, tossing insults at the attenders with his child in tow, I had a growing sense of unease.
Children from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C. help First Lady Michelle Obama plant the White House Vegetable Garden, April 9, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
He forgot Michelle Obama’s excellent advice at the Democratic Convention not to stoop to the level of those we oppose.
Yes, it’s very easy to get caught up in a temporary good feeling, hurling insults at Trumpsters and feeling like you’re striking a blow for what’s right and true. But it negates the other side’s humanity. It demeans people. It ignores the phrase popularized by 17th-century Quaker theologian George Fox, “that of God in every [hu]man.”
And it accomplishes the reverse of the desired goal! No one’s mind is changed by being insulted. If anything, when people are belittled, they are more likely to harden their hearts, reinforce their defenses, and stand resolute against what they perceive as the rowdy mob.
Think about the mindset of a Trump supporter encountering a protestor hurling insults. Many of Trump’s supporters are already feeling attacked; that’s why they respond to ideas like building a wall to keep Mexicans out or blocking any Muslim from entering the US. When they get insulted, they’re going to feel even more attacked. Instead of changing their minds, they’re more likely to come away from an encounter with a name-calling protestor feeling more justified in their condemnation of protestors. Instead of being touched at a human level, they wall themselves into the gated communities of a mind that now finds more safety in Trump’s lies and empty threats.
He writes, “what became clear as we shouted back and forth is that there is no common ground whatsoever between Trumpistas and the rest of us.”
But I disagree. When we focus on our differences, on the “otherness” of our “enemy,” we lose sight of what binds us together—yet our commonalities are still there. We all want a word where we feel safe, can earn a decent living, and can raise our children to feel like they matter in this world.
Are there some Trump supporters who are attracted to Trump’s blatant racism and misogyny, the constant lying, incessant bullying and name calling, and all the rest of his hateful message? Of course. But I don’t think it’s anything close to a majority of his voters. He has learned the fine art of framing. Helped by a vitriolic, slanderous 20+ year campaign against his Democratic opponent in right-wing media, he has framed his opponents as crooked and incompetent liars, who are bringing this country down, and he portrays himself as the Messianic savior who can turn the whole thing around, even without clear policy positions—and he’s managed to get enough people to believe this to win the nomination.
Trump is a master of crowd psychology. He speaks to the amygdala, the “reptilian” part of the brain that doesn’t care about facts—and he knows how to work an audience. I’m guessing that he’s probably read many works on manipulating the psyche, including Neurolinguistic Programming. I’m guessing that he has carefully studied the methods the Nazis used to get elected in 1933. This makes his refusal to be bound by facts more understandable. Catch him in a lie and he denies he ever said it, or denies it means what it appears to—because to admit and apologize would pry loose his grip on the minds of his followers. If we mirror his nastiness, we fertilize the field where his metaphorical bacteria can grow. But when we take the high road, we defuse his manipulations with a powerful natural antibiotic: the truth of our common humanity.
Let’s not stoop to Trump’s level. Let’s honor Michelle Obama’s call to take the high road. Rather than call our opponents nasty names, we must win them over to the promise of a better world than Trump can offer: a world that helps them achieve our common universal desires—without stomping on the backs of others.
“When they go low, we go high.” Let’s go really high tomorrow, and show that as a country, we are better than that.
[Editor’s Note:] I read John Engel’s article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (my local newspaper) and immediately went to his website to ask his permission to reprint. It’s highly topical and speaks so strongly to something that I’ve felt for a long time but never got around to writing about, and that’s why I chose to share it with you. I generally enjoy his column (which you can read at his site—link is at the bottom) but this is the first time I was moved to republish one.—Shel Horowitz, “The Transformpreneur”]
As published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, October 26, 2016
As the presidential race approaches Election Day, rhetoric – from candidates, pundits and voters alike – has reached a fever pitch. My kids Zoe and Adam, at ages 10 and 7, are befuddled by both the hype and some of the more disturbing messages that have reached their young ears.
Filtering both the extreme and mundane, what continues to hold my attention is one of the election season’s most persistent themes – a steady beat of cries that the country is in disastrous condition and only getting worse. Some voices from this chorus are calling for a return to life as it was in the 1950s.
While I was not alive, let alone a father in the 1950s, my historical understanding of that era provides me with some insight about what my experience of fatherhood might have been like, in that most laudable decade of modern America. Granted, fathers probably were not writing columns about the experience of fatherhood, and since Al Gore had yet to invent the internet there were no Daddy Blogs – or Mommy blogs, for that matter – to peruse on smart phones, while children frolicked on play dates.
But had I been writing such a column in the 1950s, here are some important topics I may, or may not have, considered.
I might have expressed concern over the dangers families faced while traveling in automobiles, since protective child safety seats had not yet been developed and adult seat belts were not yet standard equipment.
Father and child (in the pre-safety equipment mindset) – Photo by Felipe Daniel Reis
Revolutionary as it was, I would not have been writing about the 1955 patent of a cutting edge chemical known as BPA, which for decades thereafter poisoned infants and children through contaminated baby bottles and Sippy cups until the FDA banned its use in these products, in 2012.
While it would have been socially unacceptable, I might have written about the customs of the day that relegated fathers to roles of provider and protector, denying them the opportunity to nurture their children and share equally, with mothers, in domestic chores and homemaking.
I would have been more than remiss, had I not written about the trauma experienced by people of color who were both routinely denied basic civil rights and subjected to extreme violence when trying to simply create a better life for themselves and their children.
I certainly would have written about the plight of women and mothers — and by extension families — who at the time had relatively little political power, limited professional opportunity, and were subject to persistent sexist norms. Though I probably would not have written about the domestic and sexual abuse women experienced because, as a country, we did not even begin seriously addressing these heinous crimes until the 1970s — and later.
And it would have been beyond taboo for me to write a column about the challenges parents faced when helping their gay, lesbian or transgender children triumph over discrimination and intolerance.
So, while I am not immune to experiencing fear-based nostalgia, calls for returning to bygone eras remind me that we humans often yearn for something we don’t have — and even harder for something we fear losing — all the while neglecting to appreciate what we already have gained. And this leaves us ill equipped for the hard and necessary work of identifying goals and actions that will guide us to a future that unites, not divides, us.
So as a father — in 2016 — I both celebrate, and seek to build upon, the gains we have made since the 1950s, regardless of who is president, because for me, hope trumps nostalgia.
I read a comment by the author of a new book called President Obama Created Donald Trump, claiming that President Obama saw himself and the country as post-racial, and thus didn’t prepare for the consequences of “the catalyst for racial backlash and unrest” that led to Trump’s nomination.
The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau
Interesting theory. But it sounds to me like blame-the-victim. I’m too young to remember FDR, who I know was adamantly hated by conservatives—and who, despite that hostility, was elected four times. When the Republicans got power again in 1952, their standard-bearer was no radical demagogue. It was Eisenhower, a moderate who feared the oligarchy and was the first to call it “the military-industrial complex.”
Obama has borne the brunt of more hostility than any US president in my lifetime (much of it due to his color)—and handled it with remarkable grace. In this author’s view, he is somehow to blame for racism?
Here’s my contrasting view: When the Democratic Party and especially (Texan/Southerner) LBJ began to get serious about undoing racism, the Republicans, starting at least with Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy (if not earlier) began courting and nurturing the most racist right-wing fanatics in the party. Richard Viguere and his ilk brought fundraising, marketing, and organizing prowess. Reagan came to the party with a new economic agenda geared toward the 1%. Bush II added megalomaniacal ignorance and disastrous foreign and economic policies, yielding two wars and the Great Recession–and a hankering for “change.”
So people are eager for change. We saw it in the remarkable primary successes of not only Trump but Bernie Sanders (who I supported and voted for, incidentally—and like Bernie, I’m voting for Clinton next month). People feel disenfranchised, powerless, and thoroughly disgusted with the Establishment. Hillary Clinton, destined perhaps to be an even more hated president than Obama or FDR, is the embodiment of that establishment, as is Jeb Bush–one of the first GOP candidates to drop out.
Trump stepped into the vacuum, with lowest-common-denominator messages of hate masked in “Make America great again” rhetoric. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of his statements closely parallel quotes from Hermann Goering:
Trump: “I love the poorly educated!”
Goering: “Education is dangerous—every educated person is a future enemy.”
Trump: “The security guys said, Mr. Trump, there may be some people in the back with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody with a bag of tomatoes, just knock the crap out of them, would you? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”
Goering: “Shoot first and ask questions later, and don’t worry, no matter what happens, I will protect you.”
Trump: “By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
Goering: “Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning.”
While his psychopathologies and abusive behaviors (not just the groping, but the lying, cheating, physical intimidation, psychological intimidation, threats of violence, etc.) go beyond even the Republican Party of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Trump’s thinking is a logical extension of his party’s reach for the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. He is the next iteration of a pattern that began in the GOP nearly 50 years ago. He is merely the next step the Republican Party has aimed toward for decades.
I have noticed that many successful startups are advertising that they donate x% of their profit to someone in need or they help someone have a better life,etc. What do you think is the importance of such messages to gain initial traction and how does it help grow the company?
By the time I saw the post, several other people had jumped in to tell him that social entrepreneurship isn’t just a marketing trick. It must be genuine.
How some people view the world—Opportunity for businesses that genuinely care
I agree, but there’s more. Here’s what I wrote:
Yes, social giving has to be genuine–motivated not by marketing but by sincerely helping the world–but if you’re doing that, you gain huge marketing advantage if you handle it right.
Keep in mind: charitable give-backs are NOT the only model. I’m rather a fan of creating products, services, and business cultures that directly *and profitably* turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. In fact, in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World–which is focused on this aspect–charity givebacks account for part of one chapter out of 22 chapters. In my speaking and consulting, I help companies actually develop these kinds of approaches. You can get a very quick early-stage introduction by spending 15 minutes with my TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare” https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 (click on “event videos”)–but recognize that this was 2 years ago and the work has evolved a lot since then.
All other things (such as price, quality, convenience) being comparable, consumers “vote with their feet” to support ethical, green, socially conscious companies. So you, as a startup, have the chance to look at the skills, interests, and wider goals within your company…create products and services that match these skills, interests, and goals with wider goals like the Big Four I mentioned at the beginning…and market them effectively to both green and nongreen markets (which has to be done differently, as I discuss in the book). But please, do it with good intentions! (I can help, BTW.)
Mind you, I share your distrust of electronic voting machines without paper backup. Yes, they can be manipulated. They likely were in 2000 and 2004.
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
But you will lose because you underestimate the decency of the American people. Your views AND your tactics are so repugnant that you even got ME to vote for Hillary Clinton—not because I’m so in love with her (actually, I have lots of issues with her), but because I want your margin of defeat to be so “yuge” that it dwarfs the margins of even Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972. I’ve voted third-party before, and there’s a third-party candidate this year that I could feel somewhat comfortable voting for.
You will lose because of your racism…your misogyny…your constant bullying and name calling…your attempts to shame people for being disabled, losing a son who defended our country, surviving years of torture and horrible conditions as a POW who stood true to his beliefs…your untrustable temper…your veiled threats of violence…your refusal to disclose your finances, which the New York Times called “a maze of debts and opaque ties…your 40-year history of cheating small business owners, lying, and showing your contempt for others.
You will lose, by a landslide, because you do not speak for the American people. The American people are better than you—and we deserve better leadership than you offer.
The two big messages of the Democratic Convention were Hope and Inclusion. Hope, of course, was one of the two themes (along with Change) that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008.
I have plenty of issues with both Obama and with Hillary Clinton—but government is supposed to be bipartisan, not spoil-sport-losers-blocking everything. The Democrats even allowed George W. Bush to govern, despite his awful, destructive policies from which the country is still recovering. That Obama has been able to get anything done in this climate (and as those two links above prove, he’s done quite a bit) is remarkable. That the Republican Party has thwarted the will of the people over and over again these 8 years is shameful.
Obama also has a tendency to “roll over and play dead” unnecessarily. To name one example, that he gave up so easily on filling the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Scalia’s death is shocking—and very bad precedent. As a former community organizer, Obama should have had a clue about how to break he deadlock—keep the apparatus that twice elected him president active, to deluge Republican legislators with calls and letters supporting particular pieces of Obama’s agenda—to keep people involved and motivated while at the same time disassembling Republican intransigence, making its revelry in being “The Party of No” politically difficult. Obama could have organized a backlash in the 2010 election and accumulated massive majorities in both houses. But he let his eager champions wither on the vine.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Inclusion may not be as powerful as hope, but it’s a very strong meme nonetheless. This year’s Republican candidate openly embraces hostility to inclusion—attacking Mexicans and Muslims along with immigrants in general, mocking disabled people, and even attacking the patriotism of decorated war hero Senator John McCain. So it’s a good move for Hillary Clinton to reclaim the emotional territory she gave up to both Sanders and Trump during primary season—and in this case, I do think it’s genuine. The first night of the convention, especially, was all about outreach to those who’ve felt disenfranchised (including the millions of supporters of Bernie Sanders). Clinton’s good dose of Policy Wonk may also be the antidote to Trump’s sketchy sound-bite promises about how he would govern.
The themes of inclusion, hope, and competence were in tremendous contrast with the Republican Convention, whose dominant message was fear—expressed in xenophobia. The other message of the Republicans was “we don’t have to give a crap about people we can beat up”–a big rallying point for those who agree, but a big push-away for anyone who might be a potential victim–and that’s a LOT of people. This is essentially the message of fascism, and it scares me to see it coming out of the mouth (and Twitter feed) of a nominated major-party candidate for President.
And this is why I will vote for Hillary even though my own politics are closer to Jill Stein’s, and even though I live in a state that will vote Democratic no matter what. I am not thrilled about voting for Hillary, but I will vote for her. I consider Trump the greatest threat to democracy and liberty in my lifetime. His repeated use of Hitlerian memes is very troubling. And I think very deliberate. I want Trump’s margin of defeat to be so “YUGE” that we never see his ugly politics again.
Looking at the election as a whole, I’d bet that Trump, a master marketer for decades, has studied NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming—an extremely powerful approach to getting inside people’s minds through the use of deep psychological triggers) and is far better at getting his (loathsome) message across than Clinton is. The Republicans have been using sound bites that appear to be based in NLP techniques for over 30 years, but Trump has taken it much deeper. Clinton, by contrast, is an old-school politician who hasn’t quite figured out the 21st-century shift in marketing from push to interactive. And Sanders has probably not studied marketing but he’s a natural. His brand is wrapped in an integrity that neither party nominee can offer—and he has a long background in (and deep understanding of) community organizing as well as electoral politics. When he started as a politician, Vermont was not exactly a progressive hotspot. I believe he helped create the climate where his state is now among the bluest in the nation.
Interestingly, all three are around the same age, spanning from Clinton’s 68 to Sanders’ 74 (Trump just turned 70)—yet the oldest, Sanders, had the strongest appeal to youth. And the younger candidates, from O’Malley to Rubio, were all eliminated months ago.
In other years, I would probably vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. I voted for Nader twice. I love what Stein says. And I live in Massachusetts, where my electoral votes will go to Clinton no matter what I do—which is why I was able to vote for Nader.
But not this year. I feel in my heart that every vote for Green is one more invitation for Trump or someone similar to come back and try again. I want the margin of victory to be so large that we never have this breed of politics in a national election in our lifetimes–an utter and total repudiation. I also utterly dread the idea that Trump could appoint perhaps three more Clarence Thomases. And I note that the country just barely survived the wreck of the far more moderate George W. Bush’s eight stolen years in office. This one must be too definitive to steal.
Not that I’m calling George W. Bush a moderate. He and his henchmen (should I say puppeteers?) were extremists as we understood the term, until Palin and Cruz and Huckabee et al. came along and redefined it. But even they did not wallow in blatant racism. Even they did not have the chutzpah to openly cheat people in numerous business ventures. Even they knew better to openly make denigrating comments about women while bringing forward their misogynist laws. Even they refrained from attacking John McCain because he was taken captive in Vietnam.
I was just in Canada. Everyone wanted to talk about Trump and how scared they were of him. Literally, strangers would hear our American accents and come up to talk with us. If this country turns fascist, I want to say that I at least voted to block it. I can’t find motivation to work on Hillary’s campaign, but that much I can do.
I feel that Hillary Clinton, underneath it all, has a good heart. She actually does care about people. Yes, she is a flawed candidate. She will be a militarist, pro-Wall Street president, ’tis true. She has shown poor judgment on several occasions. She lacks the charisma and outsider status of both Bernie and Trump. Her ethics are sketchy. But Trump has no ethics at all. And a President Trump would be a living reminder that Hitler came to power originally in an election.
It is very disturbing to me that a thin-skinned bully who has made it abundantly clear he cares only about himself and his own money and power could secure the nomination, even among a group of looney-birds so extreme that Jeb Bush seemed like the moderate (he’s not). If Trump wins, it really raises a deeper question for me than how will we survive his presidency and what do we do if he refuses to step down when his term is over. It raises this: do I want to live in an America that would elect this monster?
I watched three inspiring hours of the convention last night, including Bernie’s speech as well as those of Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and various members of Congress, Latinos, blacks, people with disabilities, and a gay NBA star, usually right after they played a clip of Trump bashing that constituency. It brought home a point that Trump seems to utterly miss and Hillary really gets: that our diversity is a key part of our strength as a nation. It was very effective in showing the vast contrast between Hillary and Trump and made many of the right noises about a progressive agenda, noting over and over again that this year’s platform embraces much of the Sanders agenda.
It made me feel much better about my decision months ago that I would vote for her if she is the nominee, and sparked my decision today to publicly endorse Hillary Clinton.
Someone faced with doubt rarely brings her best self to the table. Doubt undermines confidence, it casts aspersions, it assumes untruths…
[W]hat happens if you begin with, “the benefit of confidence” instead? What if you begin by believing, by seeking to understand, by rooting for the other person to share their best stories, their vision and their hopes?
I’ve never articulated this, but it’s a key part of my business philosophy. I assume the best intentions, and the ability to rise to greatness. Sometimes there’s a lot of doubt to overcome.
A client of mine who has now worked with me for several years first approached me by mailing a poorly written typewritten manuscript (probably typed in the 1970s) to my postal address, without including either a phone number or an email, with an almost incomprehensible cover note. I overcame my skepticism and modified and printed out a copy of my response to book shepherding queries, and told him in the letter that he had to give me an email address and phone number, and to get the book into a computer so I could send it to an editor. While I didn’t really expect to hear from him again, I think I may have gotten the job because I was polite and responded as I would to any other prospect. I said nothing dismissive or condescending and simply outlined the (many) steps it would take to turn this into a publishable and published book, and some idea of how much that would cost. He has done everything I suggested and the final book was so good that it won an Ippy Award and the screenwriter we hired to do a movie treatment fell in love with it.
While this was an extreme case, quite a few of my book shepherding clients were starting from an extremely rough place (including several whose first language was not English). They spend several tens of thousands with me by the time the project is done—and they are thrilled and amazed by the finished product. Quite a few have won awards.
On the green and social entrepreneurship profitability/product development and marketing consulting side of my business, I see similar patterns. Some companies would like to go green but have no idea. Others are already going down that route but would like to find a way to tie their work to something bigger. They want to do something that turns hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Again, the process can be long and slow, but the results are worth it.
So while I’ve never articulated Godin’s “Benefit of Confidence,” I’ve lived it. Thanks, Seth.
The Cracker Jack box as it appeared during my 1960s childhood (courtesy of Wikipedia)
It didn’t matter that the prize was something worth about 2 cents, something not even worthy of being called a tchochke. It was the thrill of the hunt, searching through all that icky sticky stuff to locate the prize—and the thrill of mystery, never knowing what, umm, “treasure” you’d find. Sometimes it would be something really cool, like a spy decoder ring. But like any other grab-bag item, sometimes it was truly worthless. I knew kids who bought CrackerJack just to get that prize.
At that time, the company was owned by Borden, whose Elsie the Cow was another advertising icon of the period. It’s now owned by Pepsico’s Frito-Lay division
I’m sorry, but that is just not the same. From a branding point of view, I think it’s a huge error. Cracker Jack’s whole brand is built around nostalgia, Americana, baseball, and that unforgettable jingle. Sure, digital natives will redeem their QR codes and not think twice about it. But they won’t know what they’re missing. And those who can’t afford or choose not to use smartphones are left out entirely. Plus, their kids will never hear their parents scream at a bad driver, “Did you get your license in a Cracker Jack box?” A piece of American culture is disappearing.
In Cracker Jack’s earliest days, during a baseball corruption scandal known as the Chicago Black Sox scandal, a fan reportedly went up to the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson and begged, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” Maybe now, we need to say, “Get back on the track, Jack!”
