My city is in shambles.
I’ve lived here for over 20 years and I’ve never seen it like this.
Street rioters downtown are kicking in windows, banging up cars, and provoking dozens of fully-armored police officers desperately trying to control the scene.
This is a Portland that is unrecognizable.
And who’s name is all over this mess?
Portland, Oregon is seen as a very peaceful town. We’re the home of hippies, lumberjacks, and everyone in between. We all live in complete harmony. Granted it is the least diverse city on the West Coast, mostly it’s safe and welcoming. But not today. Not the last three days of rioting.
And of course, it’s not just us. Dozens of towns across the nation are in arms over Trump’s recent victory to become our next president. But it takes a lot to get this particular city to a frenzy it’s at now. I have always wondered what the L.A. riots were like. There’s a tiny slice of it here and it’s scary.
The media was so quick to accepting Hillary Clinton’s defeat and creating new stories about the philosophical aftermath. Now that Trump will be president, “what now?” thoughts are flooding the news.
But a lot of Portlanders are just not there yet. They are still in a state of denial, sporting “Not My President” war paint on their faces. They are still in a state of anger, tearing up the city in protest. For them, there is a long resistant road to the next stage of grief. The need more time to process the “death of democracy” before bargaining, depression, and acceptance creep in.
Before we pontificate on post-election “what now?” rhetoric, we still need more time with “how the hell did we get here?”
We know the polls were wrong (NY Times kept saying Clinton had an 85% chance of winning). But why were they wrong?
In a word, human behavior is unpredictable.
Everyone has an armchair philosophy of what really happened. I have mine too and it’s supported by a few ideas that a lot of people have forgotten about. Now, it’s too late but it’s important to revisit it.
To start, while Trump was working on his agenda to invoke his version of a glorious America from the past, people fell right into three major social phenomena that ensured his victory.
1. Mass Movements — Eric Hoffer explained his idea of mass movements in his book written in 1951, The True Believer. In it he describes how people come to power by leveraging an army of believers with allegiance to one compelling ideology. It starts with recognizing the under-represented outliers of society and never under-estimating their collective power.
“There are first the temporary misfits: people who have not found their place in life but still hope to find it. Adolescent youth, unemployed college graduates, veterans, new immigrants and the like are of this category. Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities. When opportunities are apparently unlimited, there is an inevitable deprecation of the present.”
These “temporary misfits” wanted a new ideology to replace the current one. It was one that harkened old American Values that were revised for our current era. It couldn’t just be the old Republican ideology reimagined.
“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”
Part of Trump’s victory was due to seizing the kind of people who had strong feelings about the way this country has been run in the last few years. His ideas struck a chord (or discord, if you will) with them. Millions of non-college educated white males aligned with a new leader who could clearly articulate their frustration. Their votes really counted because they were “the majority in the middle.” His campaign focused on swing states and counties with this demographic. For example, it did not make sense to Clinton why Trump was so focused on specific pockets of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but now we see why.
Like Hegel’s dialectic, Trump became the synthesis of all the opposing forces in our country that made up the stagnant base of our infrastructure. Quite simply, many were ready for a change in America, and Trump was the perfect spokesperson for this movement.
2. Mass Hypnosis — Though Hoffer explained the path to dictatorships of the past, the thinker and cartoonist Scott Adams predicted Trump’s rise to power months before he was even secured the Republican card. As he explained in an interview with Tim Ferriss on September 15th, 2015, most everyone else missed what was happening when Trump talked.
“Trump’s powers of persuasion are better than I have ever seen from a living human.” ― Scott Adams
Adams immediately recognized that Trump is a master at rhetoric and mass hypnosis. This involves strategic inductions, pattern interruptions, and linguistic sequences that are only obvious if you studied the craft. But when you do learn a little bit of it, it’s quite shocking. People often dismiss hypnotism because of its negative connotations. However, many people in business and therapy swear by it.
It makes sense Trump is a master hypnotist. He is a salesman and great at his craft, specifically negotiations. Big business deals are about negotiations. In this skill set, psychology and linguistics is a big part.
If you’ve ever been in a high-stake negotiation that has dragged on, it’s surprising how it’s often more about understanding human behavior and less about money or business. Sometimes it’s about the opponent rather than the deal, which is intentional.
As Adams outlines, Trump knows all of this and how to apply it to campaigning. It really didn’t matter how bad the news painted Trump (often, to his own fault). Trump knew his target. He knew the right things to say to the right people. His words were like mantras to some and this made for a lasting hypnotic impression.
The thing is hypnotism is done while you are awake, but it is known for deeply penetrating the subconscious. Even if people do call it psychological mumbo jumbo, it has a profound affect on many subjects susceptible to it. These inductions are not trances, but a subtle form of control that is powerful.
But just how powerful is it? So powerful that you can practically get away with saying anything. Think of all the terrible insults Trump gave people. And because of it, he’s been called a womanizer, tax defrauder, liar, and thief. Whether any of it is true or not, it doesn’t matter. Somehow he took the attention of a lot of people and converted their doubts to mass adoption to his ideas. Soon, people were okay with his bad behavior because his grand vision overshadowed any of his transgressions.
It’s important to note that there are many well-known scholars of hypnotism and it is very much still thriving today. Just a few names that come to mind are Milton H. Erickson, Fritz Perls, and Tony Robbins.
As Adams points out, Tony Robbins has been an advisor of Trump for decades. It’s hard to tell if Trump is a natural at communication and mass hypnotism, or if it’s his expert training talking. Either way, no one can deny that whatever he is doing and whatever he calls it, it is highly effective.
3. The Perfect Platform and The Jesse Ventura Effect — Michael Moore is another famous person that correctly predicted that Trump would be president despite his misgivings for the candidate. On December 29th, 2015 he told Business Insider that with absolute certainty Trump will be the next president. In his blog a few weeks later, he detailed the five reasons why Trump will win.
If you read it, pay attention to reason #2 and #5. Reason #2 he sarcastically alludes to the “endangered white male” and how there must be a stop to all this liberalism in our country. God forbid women, gays, and black people have their day in the sun only to eclipse white males. In a way, Trump was giving these rural white males a platform to vent their deepest fears and take a stand before the are forgotten.
Moore’s reason #5 talks about the Jesse Ventura Effect. Back in the 90’s Minnesota elected former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura to serve as their governor. Like Trump, he had zero background in politics. But Minnesotans voted for him anyways, as a means to thumb their nose at the establishment. And back then, Ventura knew he was giving a good amount a people the right platform to get their message out. It didn’t matter if their party was represented by someone who previously made a living doing staged bodyslams and comical acrobatics. He was in it for the vote, they were in it to prove a point.
In all, there are more than the three social phenomena that caused Trump to win the presidency. There are dozens of things that contributed to it, most stacking in his favor.
But now that we have a grasp on how something so unpredictable could happen, we have to deal with the reality.
Donald Trump will be our next president.
So how can Americans deal with it without rioting and making things worse?
I too can appreciate a good protest, but not when innocent people and things get damaged.
So here’s my ad-hoc solution:
Pro-Trump Advice
If you’re in favor of Trump, make sure to hold him accountable for the reasons why you voted him into office. That is, make sure he doesn’t slip into the typical political routine where people just say things to get elected.
Keep his policies in check. You can track political promises on the Pulitzer Prize-winning website, http://www.politifact.com. Call Trump out if he fails you, politely of course. Keep him honest.
And though some people believe that Trump should go through ten years of sensitivity training before taking office, there is simply no time and he would never do it. We can only hope that his advisors and the vox populi (you) bring things to his attention to encourage positive change.
We do still live in a democracy and there is no absolute rule. We must never forget the power of our united voices.
Anti-Trump Advice
If you’re not in favor of Trump, find a way to peacefully assemble and share your ideas. The government is not deaf to us. In a way, Trump getting into office is our own damn fault. Non-Trump supporters were fooled. Hillary Clinton, who vastly outspent Trump in campaign money, couldn’t even buy her way to the top with supporters.
It’s about trust and communication, like all good relationships. It starts with trusting ourselves and then learning to trust others — but they have to prove it to you. Trump will never have your approval. But what president in history ever has? Approval ratings are all across the board and no politician can ever satisfy everyone.
So trust your camp. Create coalitions to keep your vision of democracy alive together. Of course these groups already exist, but find something positive to do in this aftermath. What’s happening now, the violence, it shows the Trump administration that you’re on their level. You fight fire with fire and insults with insults. You must be smarter and more mature than this.
Don’t let your anger tear your city apart. After every game, a sportsman or sportswoman is supposed to shake hands with the opposing team. In the end, we’re all Americans. What are we showing to the world when we are destroying ourselves?
Hell, there is already talk about flights to Mars. We have to be a united world community and represent humankind in the best way. We’ll have to work together no matter what. None of this will happen if we can’t see past things we can’t change. We must take it and move onward.
It might seem dismal now, but things can change with peaceful and intelligent solidarity. And when a group of like-minded individuals like this get together, look out.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Meade
Indeed, some people are introverted rebels and they too can make a significant contribution to healing and/or progression.
But how?
Maybe it starts with listening to punk rock.
Let me explain.
In my teens, I was forced to listen to the punk band The Dead Kennedys (how’s that for a provocative band name?). My friend Greg would constantly sing DK lyrics to me as we walked to and from class. At first it was annoying, but I started to notice something. Not only was he really into it (frantic air guitar and all), but the lyrics were smart. DK took on all the historical crimes and social issues of the time.DK was critical of all the historical crimes and current social issues.
Later when I learned about DK’s front man Jello Biafra and his long history of “asymmetrical activism” as I called it, I developed a great amount of respect for these intelligent punks. They were rebels with a cause. They were anti-skinheads, anti-establishment, and anti-conformity: everything I stood for at the time. I won’t say that DK and punk music saved my life, but they showed me how to do something positive with all the negative energy around me.
Punk music (or any hard music) has a way of allowing you to feel something without having to do something bad. A lot of my fellow Portlanders feel this way. They need to be more productive with their anger. Maybe they just need to make music. Anything but riot.
Can you right wrongs by creating songs? Not really, but you can get people to think about what’s really happening around them. Your art, music, and writing — it all has a voice and it deserves to be heard. With all your pent-up frustrations, begin your catharsis by becoming a change agent. Create meaningful art and share it with everyone. You’ll be surrounded with like-minded, progressive people in no time. And together you can make a change, move the needle, and perhaps turn a bad situation into something good.