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Who Do Our Arguments Persuade?
On the member feed, Benjamin Glaser has a post titled “You Want to Know Why Ted Cruz Can Win?” that discusses the senator’s new campaign ad and the shocked reaction at its high quality from the Washington Post. It’s an eye-catching and powerful ad … to me. Big deal. But I was going to vote Republican anyway.
I keep wondering what will convince the people who don’t agree with us, but might be convinced. I don’t know the answer to that but, over on NR’s Postmodern Conservative blog, Peter Spiliakos has an interesting point of view. His conclusion: it’s is time to move past the Baby Boomer model of persuasion:
We are in a different place now [than we were in the 1980s]. Rove wasted $300 million in the 2012 cycle trying to get general election voters to oppose Obama. Murphy is in the process of wasting over $100 million trying to get Republican primary voters to support Jeb Bush.
The old political shorthand no longer works. It means nothing to Millennials. It means nothing to voters who immigrated to the US post-1980 and it means nothing to those voters’ children. That doesn’t mean that these voters are on the left. Many of them might be skeptical of tax increases, and they might start with the presumption that late-term fetuses are human beings, but they have no connection to the old political clichés. Cutting taxes to revive the economy is something that rich people say – and only about cutting taxes on rich people. The locution “culture of life” is something they have never heard from anybody they know. The old conservative political shorthand is immediately tuned out.
He continues:
… We need to slow down. We can no longer assume that people know what we are talking about. The voters that we need might have partially overlapping policy preferences with conservatives, but they don’t know it, and the language we use (even the language of establishment Republicans who can’t shut up about how inclusive they are) is repellent.
After reading the post, I went back and watched the ad to see what popped. First, Cruz’s use of the terms “mainstream media,” “economic calamity.” Second, its proposal for three actions: tripling the Border Patrol, building a wall that works, and securing the border.
I know what he means, I like that he gave specific actions to take. But, again, he doesn’t have to persuade me. How do these terms and actions fit with the NR post?
Published in Politics
What are “we” actually trying to persuade “them” to do? Persuade them to change their entire worldview? Persuade them that our specific policies will help them fulfill their worldview? Or just persuade them to vote for candidate/party X? These are three drastically different types of persuasion.
We know it’s possible to convince an undecided voter to choose a Republican over a Democrat from afar. But persuading somebody that more people will have more access to better healthcare through a bottom-up system can easily take years of intense discourse, the kind that isn’t possible through television ads, op-ed pieces, or online blogs.
And this leads to the next question: is there much value in electing the “right” candidate if a crucial number of his voters don’t actually support his specific policies? Witness George W Bush’s attempt to reform Social Security.
I remember putting down liberal fascism, which was one in a series of books I read cover to cover, because my wife wouldn’t let me buy another till I finished the one I had. My wife looked at me and said, ” what? ” I softly answered, ” we’re talking to ourselves “.
The problem is that both sides are still arguing about things that are over. We need to focus on tomorrow. Start fresh.
Also, I’m not sure much has changed since I wrote this.
Agree entirely. This is why Trump is doing so well – he’s speaking to the voters we have today, not the voters we wish we had.
There is a who and a how in answer to your question.
Who are you persuading?
How?
Cruz is on to something with this ad on immigration which focuses on job fears and plays a populist theme, not fear of immigrants themselves. The latter is politically incorrect and would not work; the former is something that is a concern of younger voters and a theme that can be expanded upon.
And this shows the bigger problem: most people already think they’re right, and take offense at trying to be persuaded.
We constantly ask “how can we show group X they’re wrong?” Yet as soon as anyone tries to tell us we’re wrong, we tell them to go pound sand. Why should our sparring partners treat us any differently?
Krauthammer made a fascinating point in Nordlinger’s podcast. Trump is essentially saying political philosophies don’t matter. You want America to be great and I’m the best guy to make it great. I’ll work out the details on a case by case basis.
I think as our society becomes more “educated” (that is, more trained) and less religious, there is less philosophy in us. We do things based on calculation and data rather than for reasons. I think Trump appeals to those people who have no guiding ideas.
Arguments won’t work on those people at all.
I was listening to Jay Nordlinger’s Q&A podcast and he was interviewing Tucker Carlson, who said something interesting (well to me anyway). I am paraphrasing, but he said that we have been too rich and too free for so long that we have become stupid, the example being familes of inherited money over several generations, they become decedant and stupid. Why people can’t see that the media lies to them or destorts the truth on a constant basis, I don’t understand? Why do people put blind faith into a politician who has really done nothing to deserve it except say some nice, fluffy words and offer you free stuff without actually letting you know how it will be paid for? This is a problem in a democratic, republic where we need an eductated and informed voting base.
But, if you break things down to a micro level and ask them if they would manage their own household budget the way the federal government does. They can understand it that way, but you have to break the argument into tiny bite sized morsals and explain to them in real life terms. Most people can’t connect the dots between leftist polcies and why they feel the country is going in the wrong direction. You have to be a dot connector. Then maybe you can persuade them, and understand that some people just can’t be persuaded and to not waste your time on them.
Of course, this is the exact same statement as the No Labels/Bill Maher tagline “I’m not ideological, I just support what works” that young intellectuals in places like Silicon Valley love to tout. Only in this case, it’s being phrased in an anti-elitist context.
Which shows this fight is probably more about class warfare than actual trends in political philosophies (or the absence thereof).
It means nothing to Millennials
True. We will never persuade the several generations of Americans who have been brainwashed by the government schools to accept their cartoonish version of conservatives as bigoted redneck gun nuts with an extra thumb whose parents are probably first cousins. Think they’d want to be aligned with that? We have done, not just a poor job, but zero job of counteracting it. Allowing the left to define us unchallenged has been one of our worst mistakes.
I hate that tagline because nothing they support, actually works.
This is non-persuasive to the lefties. You see, they passionately believe and know that the “rich” (itself an ambiguous and fraught term, encompassing both individuals and businesses) are not paying their fair share. If only the “rich” were forced to pay that share, our government would not be in debt, and the whole budget discussion would be moot.
In fact, they believe that even more free goodies would be available if the “rich” would just pony up. College should be free. So should housing, food, medical care, etc.
My time on Ricochet (4+ years I believe) has convinced me that politically active conservatives are completely divorced from reality, have no concept of time and how it affects peoples lives, talk only to themselves, and whose idea of “substance” boils down to self-flattery and in group virtue signaling.
I could not agree more.
Yea, until I explain to them that according to the IRS they are the “rich”. They don’t like it when I say that.
So how (or can) we rectify that?
Because someone else should be made to pay for it. They’ve been holding out on you. You are poor / deprived because of them.
Many people don’t seem to understand that compared to much of U.S., as well as the world, they are the rich.
Of course they don’t, because they believe you are a pernicious liar and a tool of the rich, or else blind to “what’s really happening”.
But they are jealous because they see that other people have more.
Could you expand on “no concept of time and how it affects peoples lives?”
Nobody is actually telling them how much money we spend on such, how much money we have, where it comes from, and what not.
Nor do they have time in their lives to deconstruct the OMB published information to find it out.
Nor do conservatives have plans that don’t boil down to “Magic because economics or something.”
So in other words, Ricochet members act exactly as any group of humans with shared worldviews would? I.e. we’re acting the way any normal people do? What an indictment.
Of course, it’s also interesting how any such group always has a few people in the edges convinced of their incredible superiority to the group, yet who prefer spending their limited time remaining in the group so they can constantly explain to their inferiors how superior they are. Which is an obvious sign of their superiority.
As I’ve said so often before, I don’t know if we can unless we can find a way to take back control of the school system. The damage they do is so powerful. So it won’t happen tomorrow, that’s for sure. But I do think if we can win back the White House this time and have someone with strong foreign policy, we can make a dent in showing people what conservatism really means and can do.
I’ve tried. Good golly how I’ve tried. The lefties will not be convinced. I tell one relative just how much in benefits the govt doles out already, and they refuse to believe it. Can’t even get to the sources of that money if they don’t believe the end spending in the first place.
Maybe because I live in a super blue state. But Ricochet is my only connection to real conservatives, who want to discuss conservative things. So I am not divorced from reality when it comes to liberals. Most people I know are not die hard leftist (although a few friends of mine are) most people are really just low information types, who are “default liberals” as Andrew Breitbart put it.
Most people just go about their lives, go to work, raise their kids, and get all their news from mainstream sources who skew left, so they skew left. They get the report on the news and that is it, and they will end up forming their opinion based on what they saw on the news. I believe these people are persuadable but you have to be able to break down the argument in non-ideological terms and in micro, real world scenarios so they can get it. A lot of conservatives get into the ideological weeds and discuss the constitution, and the founding, and right there you lost them (it’s sad but true). I do believe it is possible to persuade the more low information types, but it has to be done simply.
Some of you have touched on the “fear factor.” I think the reason that Trump is appealing across parties is that people are afraid–not just of immigration or a poor economy, but just gut-wrenching, eye-bulging fear. They see Trump as the man who is fearless and not afraid to fight for them, no matter what. And they are happy to line up right behind him.
We should not be trying to persuade everyone. Concentrate on who you need to persuade to get elected and who you need to disillusion in order to discourage them from voting for your opponent – that’s a much smaller universe.