In a new book, political scientist M. Steven Fish argues that pro-democracy forces need to deploy a “high-dominance” political style to defeat Trumpism. And, he says, they need to stop being so squeamish about patriotism.
Too long to summarize. Quotes:
We tell this story about how the working person is desperate. Listen to the rhetoric: “You poor, struggling working families. We’re here to get you a break so you can squeeze by.”
That doesn’t work for the folks where I grew up, and it doesn’t work very well anywhere else, either. Working class people, like everyone else, want to be regarded as prosperous, as forward-looking, as self-reliant and living lives that are full of possibility. The Democrats’ message often ignores the human need for respect.
“Own” the libs? Nobody ever owned FDR, JFK or MLK. And can you imagine Lyndon Johnson having accomplished what he did, this historic legacy of progressive reform, without his high-dominance style? We need to recover that tradition.
Democrats need to overmatch Trump’s dominance, not emulate his style.
There is absolutely no contradiction between collaboration, cooperation and empathy on the one hand and dominance politics on the other.
I’m not sure why there’s the need to rebrand confidence to the term dominance, but I generally agree with the author. With that being said, I’m not sure I fully understand what dominance means or where the data comes from. It feels like there might be some cherry-picking here, because upon reflection I think even many centrist dems do draw hard lines in the sand on certain issues. In general I agree with the praise for MLK and for being more uncompromising on the issues that matter, and I also agree strongly with how important a positive uplifting message (It’s how AOC and many of the true progressives got elected) is and how very few democrats actually execute on this.
I, too, like the term “confidence” better than “dominance”. In an older NYT piece, the author cited this article as a study in dominance compared to prestige. I hadn’t read it, so I just did and while I,considered that article to be over-full of personal opinion, it did a fair job of comparing chimpanzee politics to Trump’s. Moreover, it compares human politics in terms of dominance versus prestige. Chimps get in physical fights for dominance, so for them “confidence” is not an accurate term, but for humans, “confidence” might be better.
I’m not sure why there’s the need to rebrand confidence to the term dominance…
These are two quite distinct things. The former presents a self-assured certainty in your position, the latter is more aimed at a willingness to call out another on the wrongness of theirs. It’s a tough role to play when the positions of any given constituent and legislator are so entrenched, but necessary. It’s a bit like the comics of the type where you have one side saying ‘kill all X’ and the other saying ‘protect X lives’ and it’s somehow a compromise to only kill a few X…
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I’m not sure why there’s the need to rebrand confidence to the term dominance, but I generally agree with the author. With that being said, I’m not sure I fully understand what dominance means or where the data comes from. It feels like there might be some cherry-picking here, because upon reflection I think even many centrist dems do draw hard lines in the sand on certain issues. In general I agree with the praise for MLK and for being more uncompromising on the issues that matter, and I also agree strongly with how important a positive uplifting message (It’s how AOC and many of the true progressives got elected) is and how very few democrats actually execute on this.
I, too, like the term “confidence” better than “dominance”. In an older NYT piece, the author cited this article as a study in dominance compared to prestige. I hadn’t read it, so I just did and while I,considered that article to be over-full of personal opinion, it did a fair job of comparing chimpanzee politics to Trump’s. Moreover, it compares human politics in terms of dominance versus prestige. Chimps get in physical fights for dominance, so for them “confidence” is not an accurate term, but for humans, “confidence” might be better.
great article, thank you.
My take from the article…?
confidence: believing that you are the best person for the job.
dominance: making everyone else believe that you are the best person for the job.
These are two quite distinct things. The former presents a self-assured certainty in your position, the latter is more aimed at a willingness to call out another on the wrongness of theirs. It’s a tough role to play when the positions of any given constituent and legislator are so entrenched, but necessary. It’s a bit like the comics of the type where you have one side saying ‘kill all X’ and the other saying ‘protect X lives’ and it’s somehow a compromise to only kill a few X…