Why Trump Won and What Psychology Says We Can Do About It

This is a good time to remember what Karl Rove, George W Bush’s campaign manager told journalist Ron Suskind.

Rove said that guys like Ron were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

Rove said, "That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

This has been the GOP strategy for well over a decade and it has been very effective. So what's an effective counterstrategy?

Their strategy is to tangle us up studying their confident fabrications. So we should stop being shocked by their litany of fabrications, stop addressing the fallacies one by one as though they’re presented as reasonable proposals, and stop defending our beliefs as though we were engaged in a realistic debate. They’re not debating reality at all, they’re just posturing at infallible invincibility. Every time we defend our beliefs they just cast doubt on us thereby adding to the false impression that they’re infallible and invincible. They invite people to ignore reality and join them in their imaginary permanent winner’s circle.

In the long run, ignoring reality does not make anyone a permanent winner because, in the long run, reality wins all debates. For example, even if everyone on earth became a climate change denier, climate will still change.

So I'd hope that whoever we run next is as cocky and single-minded as Trump, focused tenaciously and exclusively on discrediting the overarching strategy Karl describes, not discrediting it on moral grounds but for everyone’s self-interested practical reasons. The no-growth formula is like a drug addiction, fun in the short run but it will kill you in the long run.

So what is their strategy? It’s simple. I’ll call it the no-growth formula, a formula for pretending that you never having to grow or learn from anything ever again. All it requires is an unflinching ability to lie with a straight face, an ability to play infallible judge over every decision, and a handful of rhetorical tricks for turning the table on everything and everyone in your way, retaliating against all challenges with counterchallenges tenfold.

And here's why attacking the formula itself, and not the litany of lies the formula generates could work. If we accuse them of using the formula, they’ll deny it which only proves that they use the formula.

“This guy doesn't think. He just automatically says whatever makes him sound infallible.”
"That’s not true."
"See, he did it again."
"No, you're the one who makes stuff up."
"There he goes, like a robot turning every challenge back on the challenger."
"I'm not doing that. You are."
"There it is again. See that, folks?"
"Well, you do it too."
"Always defensive."
"I am not!"
"See that? He’s proving my point."

The no-growth formula is their MO, their only trick, their one-size-tricks-all, wall to wall formula. Everything they say and do is in the service of keeping the formula working. We shouldn’t mince words about it. The no-growth formula should be our singular focus too.

The no-growth formula is an appealing and addictive drug. Call it myopium – myopia or short-sightedness as the opiate of the masses. The GOP doesn’t have a monopoly on it. Many pushers sell it, including many leftists, spiritualists, and self-help gurus. It’s an old drug. The no-growth formula has enabled religions and dogmatists to addict the gullible for ages.

It’s a cheap high in that the no growth formula is a single simple trick any fool can use. It’s much simpler to use than careful thought about reality. You get the buzz of confidence without any of the due diligence. You become a legend in your own mind like so many Trump supporters are, even though the rest of us know they’re a bunch of one-trick phonies.

This election was a referendum on the no-growth formula and alas, it won. But cheer up. There are more referendums on it.