A good friend of mine wrote me recently. He
complained about smug Leftist neighbors who are “making decisions to ‘feel
good’ with virtually no regard for true factual input or testing.”
I get this a lot.
If you want to understand
Donald Trump, you need understand why this complaint is myopic. Once you do
understand, you’ll never see politics the same way again. You’ll also begin to
grasp that Leftism does work, and that you’ve just failed to understand how.
Which is why you lose so often.
Want a clue?
“Feel good” about what?
Not about being right, which is
best described as “useful, to a point.” Aristotle noticed* over 2,000 years ago
that many people aren’t persuadable by logical arguments. So what’s the
“feeling good” all about?
The Right’s favorite mistake
Try this on for size: People
often take public positions in an attempt to increase their social status.
If you’ve been in a corporate
setting, or settings with certain friends, I don’t need to offer further
examples of this idea. You’ve seen it happen, and you also know that you need
to be “reading the room” at all times before you speak and act. Failure costs
status. People notice this dynamic, and act
accordingly.
I didn’t say it was an ideal
state of affairs. But a truly rational person must notice reality. My friend
and his wife are picking up on a “we’re higher status than you” signal, and
it’s part of the reason they’re so upset.
Macro examples also abound:
Do you really think it’s a
coincidence that Leftism and its “Diversity Pokemon Points” amount to a full
caste system?
Do you have any doubt
about the Left’s hatred for those who will not
stay in their assigned status? Have you noticed their quickness to turn
on their own allies? Fail to follow the latest fad, and your status is demoted.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that
endlessly callous virtue signaling is the identifying badge
of our modern try-hard Striver Class.
Maybe that’s because American
public education is now a 20-year Milgram
Experiment. Where the meta-message inside political
correctness is to override your own judgment, in favor of deliberately-shifting
judgments from people with higher status.
Before you dismiss all this as
trivial, out-of-control leftist status signaling was the behavioral engine behind China’s Cultural Revolution,
which killed tens of millions.
These aren’t accidents. They’re
clues.
Leftism isn’t a policy machine
or an economic machine. Its economic results would tell you that much in a
hurry. But the machine keeps running. Which means it must work for something.
The correct question is: in what way does it work?
Analysis:
Leftism is a status machine. A
very, very successful status machine. Conservatives have lost status battle
after status battle, often because they fought it as a policy
battle. It rarely is.
That’s conservatism’s most
consistent and most damaging mistake.
From theory to practice:
Trumping the media
President Trump’s systematic
thrashing of the leftist media is the example that illustrates the
theory. See his literal thrashing in the YouTube above.
Conservatives complained about
the media for a long time. Aristotle’s dialectic approach, against people
uninterested in truth. Net effect? Very low. Sad!
So let’s apply what we’ve
learned.
Why do the media have
power? Because they have social status with ordinary people.
Are we still hearing about Watergate — decades later? The Pentagon Papers? How
many movies seem to exist just to show journalists as heroes?
Or let’s take a different tack:
What’s the attraction of such a low-paying profession? Status given by the
profession, and status from rubbing shoulders with high-status people. Status
by acting as a vector for status signals, which is what every women’s magazine
is.
Ditto publications like
WIRED, which is just Cosmo for geeks.
The media offers people clues
about what things are high status within the areas they cover. People notice,
and act accordingly. Yet most conservatives still don’t understand Trump’s
response:
If I lower the media’s
status, I will wreck their power.
So The Donald says that the
media has “some of the most dishonest people” he has ever seen. Not an arm’s length
complaint. A direct and personal status attack, rooted in truth.
Trump also acts in ways that
cause journalists to fulfill his pre-suasion labeling. He makes
“outrageous” statements, which many people outside the Beltway Bubble agree
with. Those statements receive over-the-top media attacks, which make his
enemies look ridiculous.
Then events swiftly show that Trump
had a point. Trump rubs it in, using the media’s own “Fake News” term against
them and pouncing on every sloppy and dishonest mistake. As a final topper,
Trump makes the dishonest media a focus during every massive rally. Which
strengthens his out-grouping effect among participants and viewers.
He uses ridicule and lèse
majesté, not bended knee and appeals — note that subordinating word —
to logical argument.
The result?
American belief in the
credibility of their news media is now at about 32 percent. That’s the lowest ever
polled, and an 8 percent drop from the lowest point of the 2008-2015 period.
The media has lost audience, and a lot of power.
When Vogue tried to damage
Melania by ripping her wardrobe, activists promptly made memes from a photo of the weird-looking critic. Like this
comparison of Vogue critic Lynn Yeager and Melania:
(Note the photo of her is not a photoshop – Google the images of Lynn Yaeger, that’s how Vogue’s famous fashion critic really looks.)
The attack instantly lost its
power.
Facebook has tried to fight
these trend lines by flagging items as “fake news.” Recently, the social media
giant decided to stop. Too many people sought out flagged articles.
Or, put another way: In many
circles, the mainstream media’s status has become negative.
What an amazing amount of
damage to a hostile institution.
Rational people notice and
acknowledge real-world results. Even the Left has noticed.
So, why hadn’t anyone ever done
this before? In fairness, Newt Gingrich had some success in the 2012 primaries,
and Ted Cruz has also tried. But they lacked the full array of tools. Worse,
they didn’t understand how to make the media their enemy.
Once you understand
conservatives’ biggest and most consistent mistake, it all becomes clear.
Now, how about a 12-step
program to finally stop making the same mistake? That will be a coming
TTP attraction.
*Cf: Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I Part 1: “Rhetoric
[as opposed to logical dialectic argument – JK] is useful (1) because things
that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over
their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to
be, the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed
accordingly. Moreover, (2) before some audiences not even the possession of the
exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For
argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one
cannot instruct.”
Joe Katzman is a long time
TTPer and contributor. He is the Editor Emeritus of Defense Industry
Daily This article originally ran in The Daily Caller. If you’d like
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