A How-To Guide on Flipping Trump “Supporters”

PART I: EFFICIENCY IN TARGETING

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”

-Sun Tzu

Uncle Rick & Aunt Rita

So, it’s obvious that there a lot of people who are disgusted with the Trump circus. And I constantly see people wondering what they can do about it. They want to do something beyond just going to the voting booth. (By the way: you have to at least do that, m’kay. Register. Vote. Get other people to vote.) So what can you do beyond voting? Well, I’m about to tell you.

Now, one statement I constantly hear from disillusioned Democrats and Moderates after the Trump administration does something shocking is, “How can anyone support this?” The sentiment is understandable. There are times where it’s hard not to feel completely alienated from Americans who seem to be supportive of— or at least okay with— morally reprehensible policies like child-separation at the border or the strange reverence Trump seems to hold for authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin or Tayyip Erdogan. But before you turn away in disgust, I recommend taking a deeper look instead, because mentally-surveying these people is an important part of engaging them. And any chance that we have of ending this insanity is going to require engaging them.

Well, let me clarify a bit here. You need to engage some of them. The rest can be completely written off and ignored. Seriously. A lot of them are beyond help.

I know that the normal story-line over the past two years is that liberals need to understand the Trump voter and their economic anxieties. Well, I’m sorry but that just isn’t true. At least not for a surprisingly significant portion of them. In any given population, there is a relatively static subset of people who — all things being equal — will choose the absolute worst outcome. Every time. Ask 100 thirsty people whether they want to drink water or bathtub gin and you’ll be surprised how many choose the latter.

However, this reality is not all that shocking if you’ve ever acquainted yourself with something called the “Crazification Factor”. The term was coined after the 2004 Illinois Senate race between a then unknown Barack Obama and arch-conservative Alan Keyes.

Background story: the Republican Party suffered a late-in-the-campaign blow to their initial candidate, Jack Ryan when allegations of sexual misconduct torpedoed his campaign. Short on time and lacking a deep talent pool, the Illinois Republican State Central Committee brought in conservative, gay-hating, abortion-warrior, bomb-thrower Alan Keyes to finish the race. Aside from saying crazy things like Dick Cheney’s daughter was a selfish hedonist and gay marriage and families will “inevitably” lead to incest, Alan Keyes was also not even an Illinois resident. He had no historical ties to the state. He didn’t even establish legal residency until just a few days prior to the election.

(Somewhat amusing sidenote: in 2000 Keyes had denounced Hillary Clinton for running in a Senate race for New York state, stating: “I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton’s willingness to go into a state she doesn’t even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn’t imitate it.” [emphasis mine])

Long story short: as a last-minute, controversial, carpet-bagging candidate with literally zero ties to the state of Illinois, Alan Keyes managed to pull in a surprising 27% of the vote. As the original post on the Crazification Factor stated:

Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% crazification factor in any population.

Now, I’m not arguing that there is any scientific rigor to this analysis, but assuming that roughly 20–30% of the general population is irrational/crazy does seem to serve well as a rule of thumb. For instance, did you know:

If you think Obama is the Anti-Christ, should we be surprised that you think this guy is a terrorist?

Anyway, I could go on, but I think you get the point. A surprising chunk of your fellow citizens are, um… what’s the best way to put this… insane. So, it should come as no surprise to find that in a recent Monmouth poll, 25% of Americans said that they support Donald Trump and will not change their minds. Like, no matter what. A video could surface of Putin and Trump discussing plans to blow up Mount Rushmore with North Korean nukes while simultaneously grinding up puppies in a Ninja™ blender and 25 % of the country would be like, “I’m totally cool with all of that. MAGA!”

“Those puppies were liberal shills!” yelled Debra, your matronly co-worker.

And you know these people. We all do. Some of them are your family members. Some of them work with you. Some might even be your friends. They have MAGA hats or bumper stickers. They made excuses for COVFEFE. They talk frequently about how much better the economy is now that Obama is finally gone — completely disregarding the fact that the economy under Trump “…has continued growing at about the same rate it did before he took office…” (For a deeper look on this subject, check my admittedly depressing recent post on the economic undercurrents at play.)

I’m not asking you to disown, despise, or denigrate these people. There’s no need for that. I’m simply telling you to ignore them. Completely. Trying to persuade them is an absolute waste of time. You will be much happier and more productive by avoiding that Labor Day cook-out argument with your drunk uncle Rick who — in the process of twisting the cap from his 10th Bud Light Lime© with his new YETI™ t-shirt— swears that Trump’s philandering with a porn star doesn’t mean anything at all. In fact, it just proves that he is the modern-day version of the Biblical Cyrus — a flawed vessel for God’s ultimate will. (And yes, that is a real argument made by multiple people!)

Instead, you need to find and engage the Trump “Supporters”. What do I mean by that? Take a look at this:

This is poll data by 538 on Donald Trump’s approval rating. (Side note: I like to use 538’s poll as my baseline because it is a very well weighted aggregate of all credible polls, which creates the most reasonable assessment by smoothing out anomalies and biases.)

A quick eye-balling shows that the lowest point of Trump’s approval rating was 36.4%. The highest point, 47.8%. That’s a differential of roughly 11%. And that 11%? These are the “Supporters”. These are the fence sitters. Sometimes they like Trump, sometimes they don’t. Similar to Trump discussing his own net worth (under oath), whether they approve of this administration is based on their “general attitude at the time that the question may be asked”.

In other words, they are open to discussion. They are open to changing their mind. They see a video of Trump and Putin plotting a Rushmore demolition while grinding up puppies and they say, “Hmm. I’m not quite sure about this guy.” And that’s good enough for me.

This segment of Trump “Supporters” is the front line in the 2018/2020 elections. To get rid of the Trump Administration, these people have to be “flipped”.

The first question then is obviously: How can you differentiate between these fence-sitters and the cult members in the wild?

There are, of course, a few things that automatically demarcate Trump cultists — the Deplorables — from the more casual “Supporters”. For instance, if they own a MAGA hat or any other Trump memorabilia, you can safely avoid them. If they throw in Obama’s middle name Hussein whenever they talk about him, don’t bother. They’re a Deplorable. If they use the word liberal as a pejorative, they are a lost cause. You get the idea.

Something tells me this lady isn’t open to a policy discussion

But I’m gonna take it a step further here. I’m gonna move past the obvious. You see, according to a study published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, there are five traits that are common among Trump voters.

Well, there you go. Your Uncle Rick is entirely unchangeable. A proud “Deplorable”. There is no need to talk to him.

But what about your Aunt Rita? Yeah, she voted for Trump, but when you ask her if she’d like to travel internationally, she says that she’d like to see Venice before she dies. She works for a big, diverse company in the city. She rolls her eyes when your Uncle Rick drunkenly brings up Trump. She secretly confides to you that she didn’t really want to vote for Trump, but she just couldn’t stand Hillary. She can’t tell you why exactly, but she just knew that she was bad. But hey that’s okay, you just move right past that, because you have found one of the 11% to engage. You’ve stumbled onto the front line and you need to make the most of it.

And in the second part of this series, I’ll help you win over your ol’ Aunt Rita.

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