ABSTRACT: “It’s the candidate, stupid!” If we want to win again, we need to embrace charisma. As per Obama, charisma in the pursuit of noble goals and ideals is a noble trait and not a surrender to a ‘cult of personality’.
There was an interesting op-ed in the NYTimes on 11-18-16 — ‘The Right Way to Resist Trump’ by Luigi Zingales. The author’s primary thesis is that the best parallel for understanding our political predicament is Italy’s experience with Berlusconi. One passage in the article really resonated with me, but not in the way the author intended:
“Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity.”
This could be paraphrased as a psychosocial observation — avoid interactions which trigger reflexive amygdala responses. Or to put it another way, don’t say shit which sets off peoples’ lizard-brain defense of their tribe in such a way that they never hear what you have to say. (I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. Frontal ad hominem attacks on Trump is, quite simply, playing into his hands. Despite how good it feels, I think it is imperative that we avoid the impulse to simply smack him in his smug face since it just strengthens the tribal identity bonds with his supporters.)
It is at this point that the article veers off into the thesis that the road to success are ‘issues , not character’. He avers that this was at the root of the success of Matteo Renzi and others.
Wrong. the key to success of such politicians as Renzi and Trudeau is the fact that, at a basic psychological level, they are likeable. The key to defeating a master of psychology is to one-up them with a MORE seductive personality. In my opinion, the author misses the bigger point underlying his own article — we are deluding ourselves when we fail to understand that primal psychology trumps (forgive me - I could not resist!) facts. Which brings me to Jason Kander…
If you haven’t seen the Kander ad illustrating this blog entry, go see it. I’ll wait…
Kander ad
OK, in my opinion that was, hands down, the best ad by a Democrat in this election. Let’s dissect what made it so good. First off, he starts off by saying that Blunt has attacked him on the issue of guns; he doesn’t declare upfront that Blunt is wrong or bad or a wimp. On the surface, this begins as an issues-oriented ad about having common sense about the 2nd amendment. But consider what is happening while he talks — he coolly, efficiently assembles his rifle. It is verve, competence and energy incarnate. By the time he gets to his denouement “I’d like to see him do this”, he has deftly managed to do an end-around the typical conservative’s emotional reflex to tune out his opponent’s message. When he loudly pulls the the bolt on that rifle, EVERYBODY’S lizard brain goes aflutter.
I don’t want to re-invent the wheel so let me turn it over to a prior observation by Jon Stewart:
"There are politicians who are either rendering their inauthenticity in real enough time to appear authentic, and then there are politicians who are rendering their inauthenticity like if you have a Mac and you want to play a Microsoft game on it, there's this weird lag."
My personal opinion is that HRC’s “flaws” were the culmination of 30 years of unrelenting political attacks which made her abnormally gun-shy and preternaturally deliberative. Unfortunately for her and us, that psychological ‘hitch’ was her undoing. Deserved or not, we can never again ignore the role that ‘deep story’ (see Arlie Russell — ‘Strangers in their Own Land’) and primal psychology plays in political deliberations.
Like Obama, Kander has the advantage of being unabashedly progressive AND extremely likeable at the level of the lizard brain. Yes, he lost his Senate race...but by 3 points in the blood-red state of Missouri. There is no hint of a ‘lag’ or ‘stutter’ when he speaks. Candidates like him are the future of the Democratic Party and should be promoted at a national level.
I leave you with Kander’s campaign valedictory: No pass!