Part 2: Who’s Your Daddy? Time for Democrats and Mainstream Media to Get Smart about How to Play the Game of Power Politics
It’s time for Democratic voters, politicians and donors to get smart about how to play the game of power politics. Democratic politicians need to develop more toughness, resolve and vision. Democratic voters need to be aware of political realities, such as the consequences of over-compromising with Republicans. Mainstream media need to get tougher and more objective too, because they have been bending over Rightwards for decades to try to avoid being accused by the Right of Left Wing bias.
This essay is part 2 in a series. Here is the first part.
George Lakoff, the renowned cognitive linguist, has written much about two models of government: the Republican Strict Father Model and the Democratic Nurturant Parent Model. These originated as models of parenting but are also used as models of government. Lakoff advises Democrats to appeal to the public, using their Nurturant Parent model of government.
Actually, in research, neither of these types of parenting is found to be ideal. They both have serious limitations. The parenting style that produced the most successful children was a combination of the two, called authoritative parenting — a style that is both “demanding and responsive.”
The Strict Father model may be too rigid, and not responsive or compassionate enough, to be ideal.
The Nurturant Parent model may be too weak, and not challenging or tough enough, to be ideal. This may be the case both in governing and in parenting. Democrats should expand the Nurturant Parent model of governing, and step into an Authoritative model of campaigning and governing. They can still be responsive to the public, but must also become strong enough to offer genuine vision and leadership more often.
Democrats too often have looked up to Republicans as Strict Fathers, because the Democrat’s own Nurturant Parent model just didn’t function well in some situations, especially in war time. At such times, Democrats seem to believe in Republicans, and the Republican model of government, more than they believe in our their Democratic leaders or their own Nurturant Parent model of government.
This has also happened, to a lesser degree, on the subject of economics. Bill Clinton, although a great president in many ways, over-compromised with Republicans on economic deregulation. All recent Democratic presidents have done so. This led to many of our severe problems, including dominance of media by a small group of companies, and ultimately Right Wing dominance of media.
Mainstream media have often followed along too, preferring Strict Father politicians to Nurturant Parent politicians, especially in the areas of war and economics. Mainstream media also continue to this day to accept numerous articles, and interview numerous guests, who are proponents of trickle down economics. They do this despite the fact that policies based on this method have repeatedly been proven not to work over decades.
Mainstream media have been easily led in Right Wing directions for many other reasons too, such as their longstanding habit of “covering both sides” even if one side is lies. The mainstream media’s unwarranted trust of those who ascribe to the Strict Father model of government, is just one more reason to add to the tall pile of reasons why mainstream media keep leaning more and more Rightwards politically over time.
Mainstream Media Have Unintentional Right Wing Bias
Social media companies also have ways of organizing their users’ experiences that are fully exploited by Right Wing propagandists. This results in social media being used as a powerful vehicle for Right Wing propaganda.
Life Imitates Bots and Trolls: Deceiving the Public through Fake Crowd Creation and Other Lies
Our nation fell under the sway of an experience that was similar to nationwide posttraumatic stress disorder after 9/11. Many Democrats and people in mainstream media then passively looked up to fiercely confident neocon Republicans who turned out to be liars. Many mainstream media outlets are still doing it. This is why news shows and newspaper columns are filled with neocons who have been wrong about everything for decades. This needs to stop.
We Democrats need to beef up our capacities to be confident and powerful. Democrats aren’t unusual in lacking such qualities. Most humans aren’t particularly brave. Right now, most Democrats act like your average person. Most Republicans are pretty weak too. However, they often follow leaders who have an authoritarian style and who thus demand high loyalty and unquestioning belief from their followers. Thus most Republican voters act like your average person does when pressured by an authoritarian organization to which they belong. Robert Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist and researcher, has studied authoritarian followers extensively.
I will give Joe Biden a grade of E for effort, for talking about beating up President Trump. At least he realizes that Democrats need to become tougher — which is more than some other Democratic politicians realize.
Biden needs to try again to be tough in a different way. This time, he and other Democratic politicians need to think of ways to be tougher which result in winning back Congress and in enacting constructive legislation. I don’t think the macho posturing adds anything.
Whether it does add anything is an empirical question, that is, a question that could be answered by research. But is it that really the right question to ask: “Will you vote for me, if I talk about beating up the president who is from the other party?” That sounds like the wrong question to me — like a question from a party that hasn’t even decided on the broad outlines of who they are.
We need to look around for role models who are confident in mature and realistic ways. Or maybe they’re not always confident, but they get constructive things done and solve problems. This is what our nation needs.
Actually, the Parkland kids are better role models than many adults in some areas of political activism.
The Parkland Kids and the Power of Being “Naïve”
For years, many Americans thought that Republicans were the best party to handle wars, because the GOP acted so confidently about war. Many Democratic politicians acted as if the confident neocon Republicans were the experts on war. 58% of Democrats in the Senate and 39.2% of Democratic Representatives voted in favor of the Iraq War. Mainstream media certainly believed the neocons too — swallowing the false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
One reason why this happened is because many neocons had total confidence in their ideas. Total confidence is not necessarily good. Many emotionally unbalanced people like narcissists, paranoids and psychopaths tend to have total confidence in their ideas. Also, other people who don’t meet the criteria for such diagnoses, can have unrealistically high self confidence. That is, they can be totally confident that they can do things that in reality are clearly impossible to do. That’s out of touch with reality. Neocons have that kind of confidence.
Democrats need to become more confident ourselves — though not unrealistically so. And we need to become totally unimpressed with the kind of unrealistically high self confidence showed by the neocons who led us into the Iraq War. Just because someone is totally confident that Iraq has WMDs doesn’t mean they do. Just because someone is totally confident that the Iraqis will greet us as liberators, doesn’t mean it will happen.
One of many common and normal human reactions to trauma is to get that “I want my Mommy/Daddy feeling” and to look around frantically for a parent figure to take care of us.
This can happen at the subconscious level, so we are not necessarily aware that we are doing it. If we can become aware that we’re doing it, that’s a good thing. Awareness can help us a lot. If we’re aware, we can consciously express and understand our feelings and evaluate our options.
“Know thyself” is one of the main rules for how to deal with stressful situations, including politicians beating the war drums and propagandists doing psychological warfare, trying to persuade us of lies.
If you know you are scared, you are better prepared to fend off attempts by others to use your fear to manipulate you.
Some other individuals react to trauma in a different way — not with passivity, but with fierceness, unrealistic overconfidence and pretensions of being a competent Daddy, Mommy or political leader, even though they are nothing of the kind.
Citizens can feel so desperate after a traumatic event that they can grasp at straws. We may grasp at a straw — a fake Mommy or Daddy — hoping for security. A person who is unrealistically overconfident can appear to be competent. People may be fooled into choosing a fake leader, rather than a genuine leader. A genuine leader isn’t an all-powerful parent, but is capable of leading the nation through a crisis and taking constructive measures to solve problems.
We’re too easily impressed by unrealistically high self confidence and by con artists. Dealing with con artists is one of the
12 Lessons We Can Learn from the Time of Trump
In the above essay, I recommend Snakes in Suits as the first book to read to understand psychopaths and other con artists in government — since it is about how such characters behave at work. Most con artists are not psychopaths, but their behaviors are similar enough that this book will open the door to understanding both types of characters.
Both Democrats and media need to stop looking up to Republican Strict Father Model types of people. Democrats need to develop more power and strength of our own. That will help us to ask the right questions in focus group research, to win elections and to govern more competently.
Mainstream media also need to stop looking up to Strict Father Model types of people who are unrealistically confident but who are wrong almost all the time. These types should no longer be given so many newspaper columns. They ought to be interviewed less often — or not at all — on TV and radio. The public benefits when media publish articles by, and have interviews with, people who understand the issues our nation faces. We need to stop hearing so often from people who are ignorant and yet have delusions of competence.
In the case of media, this can only happen if mainstream media survive. It may not, without the help of large donors who value objective journalism, to counteract the massive Right Wing media empire that now dominates our elections and our government.
