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.
MLK dominated the conversation. He spoke in strong terms that didn’t allow for compromise with his ideals. Of course he compromised and cooperated on actual policy, taking what he could get when he could while always demanding more.
No one “owns” AOC
Agreed!
– but to the point: if nothing changes, swings state voters will make Trump our next President. Fish suggests a dominant message like this:
The United States was founded for the purpose of self-government, and our history has largely been an effort to expand the blessings of liberty to larger and larger groups of Americans. Finally, in 1965, we became a full democracy when African Americans in the South got the right to vote. That’s who we are as Democrats.
This country has its faults. We have a horrific history of racial oppression. But look at the incredible progress we’ve made, from the heinousness of slavery, to the idiocy of Jim Crow, to the mighty mind of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s what we Democrats are about.
The closing sums up the position:
Spreading the blessings of liberty to all Americans is what America is all about. Liberals have to proclaim how it was done in the past and how we’re going to keep doing it in the future. Talk about how you’re going to beat everybody who wants to go backward. Offer a stirring vision. Forget about prescription drug prices and quit treating voters like despairing stiffs in dire need of a government break.
To be clear, this is all about speech and elections, so when they say, “how you’re going to beat everybody”, it is NOT about physical attacking. It is about winning campaigns and swaying opinions.
Allll that said, I’m going to break with the above message. I don’t know if Fish is correct. He has a lot invested in the idea of looking at if and when politics can be won with “prestige” or requires a display of verbal “dominance” to appeal to the primal side of our nature. He has spent years arguing that to beat Trump, a candidate must hit that note. Maybe he is going down the wrong path. I don’t know.
What I DO know is that we will get Trump for 4 more years if swing voters in a handful of states aren’t convinced to vote (D).
This is rose-tinted glasses. He was very much not the dominant rhetoric in the 60s, with regards to civil rights. Was he a powerful orator? Absolutely. But he wasn’t forcibly subduing conservatives out of being racist with his speech, he was inspiring people.
I have no issue with the message that Democrats need to fix their horrible messaging (though I don’t think it’s entirely accidental; I think they have interests that don’t entirely align with the voters, and they have to be evasive), my issue is with the rhetoric of “domination”.
Trump is not an orator to look up to. He’s the opposite of eloquent. I think that what the author is perceiving as “dominant” rhetoric is just Trump being forthright about his intentions, where Biden often is not.
Biden can’t say, “I’m never going to put any limits on Netanyahu, but I encourage him to follow the law”, because many Democrats aren’t on board with that. Trump can say exactly that.
he wasn’t forcibly subduing conservatives out of being racist with his speech
No one suggested that. That’d never have worked.
he was inspiring people
Exactly!
I fear the article triggered you to only hear the word “dominate” with the most negative of connotations when that isn’t what this is about. This is more akin to saying, “My right hand is dominant” where you mean it is stronger and more skilled, not that it is beating up your other hand as in Alien Hand Syndrome. It is a
Remember when Obama had to address how badly he debated and brushed off his shoulder? That was Obama dominating the conversation. That’s what they mean.
Biden can’t say
Biden CAN say, “What’s happening in Gaza is reprehensible and I want it to stop NOW. The good people of Israel want it to stop, too. They want a new leader, an end to bloodshed, and a return of the hostages, and it is because of those good people that I will NOT abandon Israel. I will do everything in my power to end the conflict, but I will not leave an ally to face what would surely become a multilateral war.”
I’m no speech writer, but the point is to use active language, show a firm commitment, and risk that some will disagree. The article is espousing language like that for anyone running against Trump.
It is the same thing. And I think the author’s statement that it’s can’t be toxic masculinity because women do it too clearly shows he has no clue about toxic masculinity, or how this plays into it.
I fear the article triggered you to only hear the word “dominate” with the most negative of connotations when that isn’t what this is about.
I explicitly said
I have no issue with the message that Democrats need to fix their horrible messaging…, my issue is with the rhetoric of “domination”.
He is trying to create a ‘brand’ as it were, using the word dominance, to sell books. This isn’t a term in actual rhetoric and speechcraft.
And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he explicitly ties it into patriotism (the “virtue of the vicious”, as it were), and makes an appeal for Democrats to turn to pro-patriotism rhetoric.
Patriotism is a poisoned concept. Even in MLK’s time, it had taken on the meaning of love of the State as a political apparatus (which was explicitly pushed during the Cold War; being patriotic only meant loving Capitalism and American Democracy, and MLK’s so-called ‘Critical Patriotism’ was a round rejection of this stance). It’s only gotten worse since then, and no politician is going to move it back towards being about a love of the country as a community of peoples.
The interviewer rightfully asked him about patriotism and nationalism in the same question, but he only answered about patriotism.
One of the most striking ideas in Comeback is that liberals, over the last half-century, have made a grave error by abandoning patriotism and rejecting nationalism. In essence, you say, they’ve ceded the flag to the right, at great cost.
Are the Democrats bad at messaging? Yes, absolutely. But it’s not because they’re not waving enough flags, and cheering on The American Nation enough. It’s because they’re ignoring the realities of who is harming us. He talks about FDR pissing off the plutocrats in his speech; that’s what we need more of now.
Crowing about policy changes without being truthful about the reason we need them is the problem. Trump pointed that finger at The Swamp, meaning coastal elite politicians. He was half-right, because many politicians are perpetuating the policies harming everyday Americans, but he was ignoring the corporate money influencing them to do so.
We need to be pointing the finger at the corporatocracy.
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MLK dominated the conversation. He spoke in strong terms that didn’t allow for compromise with his ideals. Of course he compromised and cooperated on actual policy, taking what he could get when he could while always demanding more.
Agreed!
– but to the point: if nothing changes, swings state voters will make Trump our next President. Fish suggests a dominant message like this:
The closing sums up the position:
To be clear, this is all about speech and elections, so when they say, “how you’re going to beat everybody”, it is NOT about physical attacking. It is about winning campaigns and swaying opinions.
Allll that said, I’m going to break with the above message. I don’t know if Fish is correct. He has a lot invested in the idea of looking at if and when politics can be won with “prestige” or requires a display of verbal “dominance” to appeal to the primal side of our nature. He has spent years arguing that to beat Trump, a candidate must hit that note. Maybe he is going down the wrong path. I don’t know.
What I DO know is that we will get Trump for 4 more years if swing voters in a handful of states aren’t convinced to vote (D).
This is rose-tinted glasses. He was very much not the dominant rhetoric in the 60s, with regards to civil rights. Was he a powerful orator? Absolutely. But he wasn’t forcibly subduing conservatives out of being racist with his speech, he was inspiring people.
I have no issue with the message that Democrats need to fix their horrible messaging (though I don’t think it’s entirely accidental; I think they have interests that don’t entirely align with the voters, and they have to be evasive), my issue is with the rhetoric of “domination”.
Trump is not an orator to look up to. He’s the opposite of eloquent. I think that what the author is perceiving as “dominant” rhetoric is just Trump being forthright about his intentions, where Biden often is not.
Biden can’t say, “I’m never going to put any limits on Netanyahu, but I encourage him to follow the law”, because many Democrats aren’t on board with that. Trump can say exactly that.
No one suggested that. That’d never have worked.
Exactly!
I fear the article triggered you to only hear the word “dominate” with the most negative of connotations when that isn’t what this is about. This is more akin to saying, “My right hand is dominant” where you mean it is stronger and more skilled, not that it is beating up your other hand as in Alien Hand Syndrome. It is a
Remember when Obama had to address how badly he debated and brushed off his shoulder? That was Obama dominating the conversation. That’s what they mean.
Biden CAN say, “What’s happening in Gaza is reprehensible and I want it to stop NOW. The good people of Israel want it to stop, too. They want a new leader, an end to bloodshed, and a return of the hostages, and it is because of those good people that I will NOT abandon Israel. I will do everything in my power to end the conflict, but I will not leave an ally to face what would surely become a multilateral war.”
I’m no speech writer, but the point is to use active language, show a firm commitment, and risk that some will disagree. The article is espousing language like that for anyone running against Trump.
It is the same thing. And I think the author’s statement that it’s can’t be toxic masculinity because women do it too clearly shows he has no clue about toxic masculinity, or how this plays into it.
I explicitly said
He is trying to create a ‘brand’ as it were, using the word dominance, to sell books. This isn’t a term in actual rhetoric and speechcraft.
And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he explicitly ties it into patriotism (the “virtue of the vicious”, as it were), and makes an appeal for Democrats to turn to pro-patriotism rhetoric.
Patriotism is a poisoned concept. Even in MLK’s time, it had taken on the meaning of love of the State as a political apparatus (which was explicitly pushed during the Cold War; being patriotic only meant loving Capitalism and American Democracy, and MLK’s so-called ‘Critical Patriotism’ was a round rejection of this stance). It’s only gotten worse since then, and no politician is going to move it back towards being about a love of the country as a community of peoples.
The interviewer rightfully asked him about patriotism and nationalism in the same question, but he only answered about patriotism.
Are the Democrats bad at messaging? Yes, absolutely. But it’s not because they’re not waving enough flags, and cheering on The American Nation enough. It’s because they’re ignoring the realities of who is harming us. He talks about FDR pissing off the plutocrats in his speech; that’s what we need more of now.
Crowing about policy changes without being truthful about the reason we need them is the problem. Trump pointed that finger at The Swamp, meaning coastal elite politicians. He was half-right, because many politicians are perpetuating the policies harming everyday Americans, but he was ignoring the corporate money influencing them to do so.
We need to be pointing the finger at the corporatocracy.