Republican Messaging and Plato

Note: Because of the danger that Twitter may go the way of MySpace, Facebook, and Tumblr, I figured I’d better go back to making videos for my YouTube channel, even though I totally hate how I look and sound. Besides, I’ve been told that there are people who don’t like to read–something I have trouble believing, but I have it on good authority. So anyway, this blog post started as a video, which you can see here. What follows is a transcript.

*  *  *

You probably clicked on this because Plato is in the title 🤓 but you’ll have to wait for the good stuff because I’m going to start with political messaging and why Republicans have baked-in advantages.

Politico reported that when Trump announced a rally in Florida with Rubio — but not DeSantis— the “apparent snub” angered some people within DeSantis’ orbit, who complained that it mean fewer people would pay attention to DeSantis.

This tells us that even with everything we know about Trump’s lawbreaking and attempted coup, he is still hailed as the leader of the Republican Party and the Republican leaders still line up to kiss his ring.

A cherished theory has been circulating on social media since 2016, which goes like this: Trump keeps breaking laws because the Democrats are not doing enough to expose his lawbreaking or stop him.

Another theory is that the Democrats are not good enough at messaging.

I propose instead a two-part theory:

1. The Republican Party supports Trump because he is a lawbreaker and insurrectionist, and
2. The Republican Party controls an effective disinformation machine.

These two things go together: The way to build an effective anti-democratic party is by creating an effective disinformation machine. Democracy requires truth and an intact public sphere. All the jurors have to share the same set of facts or rule of law won’t work.

Autocracy relies on myths and lies, like this, “Vote for me and I will keep you safe from your enemies!”

You can see right away that the Republicans have a few advantages.

Advantage #1: A Liar Can Create Great Soundbites

The truth is always more complex. According to the “messaging has to be simple” theory, if you have to explain, you lose.

For example, Ted Cruz said:

The truth: More Democrats vote by mail and mail-in ballots take longer to count because

• • • with in-person voting, the curing and checking happen when the voter votes. With mail-in ballots, the process happens after the ballot arrives which delays the counting,
    • most states look at postmarks and therefore accept ballots that arrive late, if the ballot was postmarked on time,
    • Republican-controlled state legislatures like Pennsylvania passed laws forbidding the early ballots to be counted before election night, enabling people like Ted Cruz to spread that lie,
    • etc.

The truthteller must also explain that Ted Cruz is setting up the Republicans to accuse the Democrats in blue cities of cheating when it takes longer to vote, thereby repeating what happened in 2020 and deliberately undermining the integrity of elections.

See the problem? Lying is easy. The liar has the freedom to make the lie super interesting and to play to the audience’s fears and biases.

The truth is always more complex and nuanced–and boring.

Advantage #2: Destroying is easier than building

As I mentioned last week:

An anti-federal government movement has been taking root in the Republican Party for decades. In the 1990s we saw the rise of anti-government militias. When Steve Bannon talks about the “deep state” he means the rules and regulations put in place since the New Deal. When Steve Bannon talks about destroying the deep state he means dismantling the laws that he doesn’t like.

You can either roll back federal power slowly through systematic deregulation, as the Republicans have been doing for decades, or you can bring in a wrecking ball.

Trump is a wrecking ball. Trump supporters are on board with his wrecking ball tactics because they don’t believe that the federal government represents them. They think the federal government is helping “others” replace them. (This is the “white replacement theory“)

The Confederates were opposed to the federal government because the federal government wanted to end slavery. The segregationalists were opposed to the federal government because the federal government wanted to end racial segregation. People who want to cheat and steal are opposed to the federal government because of the regulations put in place since the New Deal that outlaw things like money laundering and price fixing.

Confederate sympathizers and segregationalists are still with us. Now they call themselves Republicans.

In 2018, I wrote an article for Slate Magazine entitled, “Why Trump Supporters Will Believe Any Lie He Tells.” Drawing on research from psychologists, I argued that Republicans are lying on purpose because they know the lies destroy. It’s another way of being an insurrectionist.

This brings me to the next advantage: Their audience, authoritarians, need simple messaging.

Advantage #3: Authoritarians Need Simple Messaging

After World War II, political psychologists like Theodor Adorno asked whether there were authoritarian character traits in. In his book, The Authoritarian Personality (1950) Adorno described the traits of the authoritarian personality (also known as the “anti-democratic” personality). Today’s political psychologists have continued the work and have defined the authoritarian personality as, among other things, having a low tolerance for complexity, which includes diversity and globalization). Political psychologist Karen Stenner calls them “Simpleminded avoiders of complexity.”

Should be clear that if you are speaking to an audience of “simpleminded avoiders of complexity,” the message: “DEMOCRATS BAD, REPUBLICANS GOOD” can work. It also seems clear to me that a more sophisticated audience, one that not only embraces complexity but understands that the truth is naturally complex, will reject this kind of simple messaging.

America has a history of authoritarianism. Slavery was autocratic. Racial segregation was autocratic. The idea that women belong in the home and are basically baby-making and men-serving machines is autocratic.

One thing that has happened as the political parties have realigned is that the authoritarians have tended to congregate in the Republican Party. This gives Republicans yet another advantage: their audience needs simple messaging.

Okay, you might ask. What about the moderate Republicans, those who are not racist and who do not cheer violence? This brings us to another Republican advantage: The Truth Cannot Penetrate The Right-Wing Hermetically Sealed Disinformation Universe.

Advantage #4: The Republicans Control a Hermetically Sealed Disinformation Universe

During the first televised hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack, Bennie Thompson said:

“Donald Trump oversaw and directed a coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn an election.”

Liz Cheney said:

“Trump knew his effort to overturn the election was illegal & unconstitutional. He did it anyway.”

It seems to me that Cheney and Thompson can’t be faulted for “bad messaging.” Their messages were direct and simple and powerful.

But Jim Jordan responded with:

Jim Jordan and his Republican friends then went on to blame Biden for high gas prices.

Truth tellers look at the facts and make sure that their statements reflects the facts. A liar (Jim Jordan in this case) ignored the facts and creates the narrative that he wants to be true. The idea is that it doesn’t matter what the truth is. What matters is what people believe.

For this technique to work in the political arena the liar needs a well-oiled propaganda loop and hermetically-sealed disinformation ecosystem. And guess what? That’s exactly what the Republicans have.

Advantage #5: Authoritarians fall in line. Non-Authoritarians Tend to Splinter.

Authoritarians move in lockstep and like to have sort of uniform or identifying clothing (MAGA hats, anyone?) If you have a smaller group, but they all fall in line and do what they’re told, you have an advantage over a big-tent group of non-authoritarian free-thinkers.

Democratic / anti-Authoritarian Messaging

You may still be thinking, “Yeah but the Democrats can still be bad at messaging.” Okay, let’s look at some examples.

On Thursday, Judge Jackson, warned that “today the dark shadow of tyranny still threatens democracy,” as she issued the second-longest sentence to a Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted Officer Michael Fanone.

The “dark shadow of tyranny still threatens democracy,” coming from a federal judge seems like a strong message, but nobody is talking about the criminal trials of insurrectionists possibly because there are so many that people are overloaded. As of October 17, at least 928 people have been indicted for participating in the attack on the capitol.

But remember when Trump tweeted something outrageous or racist or horrifying, and everyone talked about it for days? That’s because demagoguery works.

Outrageousness is rewarded. Demagogues steal the show and dominate the stage.

Rule of law and the normal functioning of a democracy is boring in comparison. It’s harder for people to pay close attention to boring.

I am not an expert in messaging, but this one seems strong:

What Mehmet Oz means when he says abortion should be between "a woman, her doctor, and local political leaders." #PASenateDebate

Thx @amyschumer pic.twitter.com/qMBSCbOMIY

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 26, 2022

 

We Are Bombarded With Too Much Information

Another problem is that we are undergoing a disruption in how we get our information. In his Youtube video series, Snyder Speaks, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder compares the Internet to the invention of the printing press. These rapid changes in how we get information require a period of adjustment as people learn to separate misinformation and disinformation from facts .

We live in a 24-7 news cycle in which media outlets compete for clicks, and consumers of news are bombarded with a constant stream of headlines, snippets, and opinions.

The result is that droplets of facts are lost in the cascade of irrelevant information and baseless opinions.

The two theories that the problem is that Democrats are bad at messaging and that the Democrats haven’t done enough to stop or draw attention to Republican lawbreaking have something in common: Both blame the Democrats for the Republican lawbreaking.

Now at last we come to Plato.

Plato’s Theory of Democracy

This is from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:

Plato argued that democracy is inferior to monarchy, aristocracy, and even oligarchy because democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary for the proper governance of societies.

According to Plato, most people do not have the kinds of intellectual talents that enable them to think well about the difficult issues that politics involves. But in order to win office or get a piece of legislation passed in a democracy, politicians must appeal to these people’s sense of what is right or not right.

Hence, Plato concludes that the state will be guided by very poorly worked out ideas that experts in manipulation and mass appeal use to help themselves win office.

In other words, Plato’s theory is that democracy is fragile because the person who is an expert in manipulation and mass appeal will win, not the person best equipped to govern. In the words of Angie Hobbs, a Professor at the University of Sheffield, Plato’s theory of the flaw in democracy “provided a chilling account of how democracy can be subverted into tyranny by an opportunistic demagogue.”

It’s easy to stir people’s emotions. Demagogues have advantages, particularly in the kind of information disruption that we are experiencing now. If we want democracy to succeed, if we want to prove Plato wrong, the task is to educate Americans and teach them to love democracy and rule of law with all of its shortcomings.

I talked about all the Republican advantages. The pro-democracy pro-Truth party has one advantage which, if used, will constantly give the pro-democratic party the upperhand:

There are more of us than them. People who want democracy vastly outnumber the people who don’t, which brings me to this question:

Do you have a plan for voting?

We voted. No, we did not commit Doggie Voter Fraud. We had one ballot between us. It was easy because JJ is a Democrat.