Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Trump & Mansplaining

by Jordan Owen
(c)2016

Donald Trump has just secured the electoral college votes necessary to become the next President of the United States.  Those like myself that long for some 11th-hour miracle that will keep Trump from ascending the throne (and at this point that's exactly what it is) are seeing what few hopes we had left teetering on the brink of oblivion.  I would hold out hope for the CIA and the FBI to deliver a devastating revelation that shows Donald Trump to be directly tied to the Russians but even now there's more evidence tying him to that than there was connecting Nixon to Watergate and that still hasn't been enough to unseat the Donald.

Last time I spoke about why Donald Trump won I focused on some broader issues that the left used to alienate middle of the road voters.  Interestingly, my commentary on Trump seems to have opened an avenue of discussion with the left that I didn't previously have. Knowing that we share a common dislike for Donald Trump has given me a sort of bridge to communicate to the left, at least in some small part.  As I've said previously, I don't think that many people come to libertarianism straight on- we come at it from the left and the right, generally out of disillusionment with the side we were "born" into.  In my case, that's the left.  So understand that I'm not trying to convert anybody to the libertarian credo nor am I thinking that I'll reach everybody on the left but for those who want to listen, here's more of what you need to know.

One of the current pariahs to modern liberals is Dilbert creator Scott Adams.  He came out early on claiming that Donald Trump would win the presidency with his cunning use of branding.  For that, Adams was tarred and feathered by the 5th estate of blogosphere news sites.  They attempted to get Dilbert pulled from newspapers and rabidly branded Adams as a closet Alt-Right reactionary. And for what? Simply showing you the exact tools that Donald Trump was going to use to win.  You should have been praising his name for that- you could have seen it coming a mile away and countered Trump effortlessly but no- you refused.  You demanded Scott Adams' head on a stick and relegated him the status of a talking head on minor news outlets when he should have been front and center.

Adams' general observation about Trump's technique was that he knows how to brand people.  And he's right- "Crooked Hillary" is still a trending hashtag after all this time.  He applied lesser brands to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and all of his other opponents and they fell one after another.  Those brands stick in people's minds because they become perceived as axiomatic; that is to say the recipient of the brand can't further speak without appearing to be endemic of the brand that's been put on them.  Jeb Bush is low energy? Actually no, he's not- he's thoughtful, erudite and contemplative- all things that are positive traits in a leader.  Trump actually cannot beat those qualities- he's loud, brash and impulsive in the extreme.  But what he can do is rebrand Jeb Bush so that qualities we should see as positives come off as negatives.  Hence the "Low Energy Jeb" brand.  And forever after, Jeb Bush sounds low energy.  Trump deflated the campaign of a veteran politician with a long track record of winning public office like it was nothing.  Adams was damn right about Trump's skill at branding.

What's amazing is that the left, the academicians of which pride themselves on teaching "media literacy," seem remarkably unaware of what branding is and how to caution their students against it.  If you still doubt the power of branding, consider this question: what do you call the little sticky strip that you put on a cut after disinfecting it?

Seriously- give me the first thing that pops into your head.

You said BAND-AID didn't you? Well guess what- the item in question is actually called an "adhesive bandage." "BAND-AID" is the term used by Johnson & Johnson to market their product and they have branded that term on the public psyche to such a degree that we think of the product itself as being identified by that name.  Here's another one- think of copy machines.  When you use a copier you're "copying" something or "making a copy," right? Okay- think of as many synonyms for that as you possibly can.  I bet "xerox" was among them, right? That's not a verb- but it became one thanks to the Xerox company. Originally founded in 1906 as the Haloid Photographic Company, Xerox achieved its workplace ubiquity when it introduced the xerographic duplication process that was instantly and obviously more efficient than other methods and as such duplicating documents became known as "xeroxing" them. That is the power of branding.

So what does the left need to know about this? Well, mainly that they've been using it themselves without realizing it.  Few examples of leftist cultural branding have been as insidious and damaging as the concept of "mansplaining." That is branding, just like "Low Energy Jeb" or "Crooked Hillary." Ostensibly, "mainsplaining" refers to behavior wherein arrogant, chauvinistic men condescend and talk down to women and presume that they are right and the woman is wrong simply by virtue of their gender.  So foul and odious is this notion in modern society that any man accused of "mansplaining" can only shut up and fall in line lest he become branded as a "mansplainer."

And that's just how the left has operated for eight years- it has refused to engage in serious discussion of the ideas and has, instead, focused on controlling perception. Perhaps I'm wrong- perhaps the academics do know how branding works and they're teaching kids how to use it.  Sorry, but you were only supposed to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, not turning Gryffindor into Slytherin.

In the past I've had the accusation of mansplaining levied at me.  I recall a couple of years ago I offered my thoughts on the concept of mansplaining in video form and I a group of left leaning bloggers convened on a round table podcast discussion to talk about how my video on mansplaining was itself mansplaining.  Well, in truth it wasn't- and there's no such thing as mansplaining. I'm simply sitting here offering my opinion which you make take or leave at your discretion.  I've said nothing that suggests I view my opinion as inherently valid simply because of my gender nor is my intended audience a specific gender.  But to identify me here as a "mansplainer" shuts down actual consideration of my ideas.

That is what Donald Trump did to his political betters and it is what the left has done and continues to do.  I bring all this up because MTV- that once great cultural juggernaut that has now been reduced to asinine morality lessons- just put up a video request for white people in 2017.  Among the many requests they made to white people was to stop mansplaining.  To the dwindling contingent of MTV viewers who buy into this sermonizing, understand that you are not reaching anybody, only pushing them away.  And you pushed them right into the arms of Donald Trump.

So stop it.  Stop using branding as a weapon.  Call it out when you hear it rather than trying to cast a more devastating curse on your right wing wizarding adversaries.

I'm not opposed to branding.  When used properly, branding is a tool of intellectual codification by which larger concepts are brought into focus and encapsulated, creating easier and more productive dialogue. Branding helps us move forward as a species.  You know, humanity. That thing we were branded as so long ago.  So start using branding for good.  Use it to be insightful and uplifting, not bitchy and catty.

If the left wants to make good on it's late 1960's promise to be an atmosphere of inclusive compassion and deep spiritual love- sort of like Christianity with drugged out sex orgies- then it needs to let go of weaponized branding.  That's #weaponizedbranding, btw.  Retweet it.

The left has got to realize that it's time for a reformation.  The conservatives figured it out- boy howdy did they ever.  After 8 long years of the dumpster fire that was George W. Bush and getting stomped on twice by the Obama administration, the right finally figured out that it was time to stop alienating people who were 95% in agreement with them already by catering to bugged out loonies on the distant fringe.  You'll notice that former GOP mainstays like evangelical church goers along with homophobia and pro-life agenda items have all taken a quiet back seat this time around.  The Donald touched on them in passing when he did at all and he even commended pro-gay conservatives time and again.  Hell- he'd probably have said nothing at all about abortion if the more left-minded in the media hadn't kept prodding him on it.  The left needs the same reformation.  Realize that someone who thinks abortion is murder but doesn't try to force their views on you is your friend, not your enemy.  Realize that someone who believes that homosexuality is morally wrong but that their own moral imperative to be kind, compassionate people is infinitely more important is your ally in the larger goal of human love, not your enemy.  Realize that rejecting long held institutions of religion doesn't make you immune to the kind of dogmatic thinking that pushed you away from those institutions in the first place.

But above all, follow the Bill & Ted maxim: "Be excellent to each other."

That's #Beexcellenttoeachother, btw.  Retweet it.

Kind regards and Happy Holidays,
-Jordan

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