The Social Engineers and a Synthetic Candidate

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Gad Saad, a Canadian professor who seems a lot saner and more courageous than the general run of academics, has published an article in Newsweek:  Kamala Harris is Hoping You Turn Your Brain Off and Vote on Emotion.  He cites actor Ben Stiller on the reasons for his support for Harris:  “All the energy and excitement that is around this movement right now.”

Emotional appeals are of course nothing new in politics: Plenty of people surely voted for John F Kennedy because he seemed more ‘youthful’ and ‘vigorous’ than did Nixon.  And, as Professor Saad noted, emotional appears are also common in commercial marketing–“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” is an old saying in sales and marketing. And constructed iconic figures such as Betty Crocker have long been common.  Still, it is also true that the marketing had better not depart too far from the truth about the product: if the steak is no good, the restaurant isn’t going to be getting a lot of return visits. If the cake mix results in an inedible cake, the customer is probably not going to buy that brand again.

Although emotional appeals are nothing new in politics, it seems clear that the Harris/Walz campaign is taking such appeals to new heights/depths. The characters projected for Harris and Walz has been constructed by some very smart people based on their assessment of what will sell.  Does ‘opportunity’ poll well? Then have her talk about the ‘opportunity society.’  Is ‘freedom’ valued by most Americans?  Then have her use that word a lot, regardless of how disconnected it may be from her actual policies.  Indeed, the strategy appears to be to have her delay talking about policy as long as possible, similar to the way an overpriced restaurant may want to avoid having you see the actual menu until you’ve already made a reservation, parked (with valet parking) and have your entire party sitting down at the table.

There’s a pulp novel from 1954, Year of Consent, which projects a future United States which is nominally still a democracy–but the real power lies with the social engineers, sophisticated advertising & PR men who use psychological methods to persuade people that they really want what they are supposed to want. When I reviewed this book in 2021, I saw some disturbing parallels with our present society.  Today, and especially in the context of the Harris/Walz campaign, the parallels are even more disturbing. Review is here.

In the world posited by this novel:  While the US still has a President, he is a figurehead and the administration of the country is actually done by the General Manager of the United States, who himself serves at the pleasure of the social engineers. Don’t we see a great deal of this today, with the increasing power of the administrative departments–and, especially, the figurehead nature of the current President, all highly dependent on the goodwill of the Communicating Classes?  And isn’t the rage against X/Twitter and Elon Musk driven by the perception that this platform dares to defect from the unity of those Communicating Classes?

Are there enough people in the US today who are willing to seriously think about issues and policies, rather than just supporting and voting for what gives them a positive instantaneous feeling of some kind?  By analogy, will they evaluate the car for reliability, performance, mileage, and crashworthiness, or will they just go with the model that shows the car with happy and attractive people?

And how can rational candidates do a better job of coupling solid policy stories with emotional appeals that are truly relevant as well as hard-hitting?

17 thoughts on “The Social Engineers and a Synthetic Candidate”

  1. The problem is an honest candidate would have to sound like Winston Churchill in his darkest days — nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears.

    If We the People took the issues with a bankrupt, de-industrialized, import-dependent, over-lawyered society seriously, then candidates would have to address the difficult choices which lie ahead. But We the People clearly don’t take those issues seriously, and the candidates might fairly be said to represent us accurately.

  2. From Mario Draghi’s new report on EU versus US economic competitiveness:

    “Across different metrics, a wide gap in GDP has opened up between the EU and the US, driven mainly by a more pronounced slowdown in productivity growth in Europe. Europe’s households have paid the price in foregone living standards. On a per capita basis, real disposable income has grown almost twice as much in the US as in the EU since 2000.”

    https://x.com/patrickc/status/1833127988512305352

  3. I have worried for some time about this election being “poisoned chalice” for Trump. Maybe he can get us going quickly enough to avoid the crash I see coming. For the sake of my children and grand children, I hope so. The Democrats have “bet the farm” on the lunatic “Modern Monetary Theory” which asserts that debt never needs to be paid off. If you print the money, you can’t spend too much. Disaster lies that way but those who would defy reality are immune to logic.

  5. Trump and Harris were speaking to different audiences in their debate tonight. Trump hammered Harris on national security, law and order, the economy, the Biden administration’s incompetence and corruption. Harris spoke most forcefully about abortion, and about how we all need to get with the times and vote for leaders who will think positive thoughts and share our morning affirmations (that’s only a slight exaggeration).

    We shall see — not so much which candidate convinced the most voters, but how many American voters still respond to adult appeals to reason and experience as opposed to feelings.

  6. Gavin’s and Jonathan’s comments remind me of the adage to the effect that a country gets the leaders it deserves. I thought this was coined by Robert Heinlein, but…! On checking (…Wikipedia; oh well…) its actual source seems to have been Joseph de Maistre. Specifically, “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.” – “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”

    I wonder. Maybe “deserve” is too strong a word; perhaps “reflects” would be more apropos.

    In any event, here are images of “Year of Consent”: http://wordsenvisioned.com/?p=10073

  11. Voting on emotion is nothing new. I read that Warren Harding was elected in the 20s because he “looked Presidential” – and of course, his administration was wracked with corruption and incompetency.

    I agree with Mike K – we are heading for something bad – amazing how this monstrous debt has doubled in so short a time, and what do we have to show for it?

  12. I have never been satisfied with the universal of “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” It fails empiricism in a historical sense. Also I would caution about using de Maistre as an example as he changed his philosophy after the French Revolution and would be more in line with the Progressive-Authoritarian Left that we have today in the US.

    Accordingly the use of emotion in democracy and the admonition thereof has a long lineage dating back to the Greeks. Even without emotion, there has been a long and “rich” history in this country of people not considering the issues before voting – machine politics for one, appeal to or against racial and ethnic identity for another.

    I would be half-joking about repealing the 19th Amendment, but since 2016 and Hillary it might be time to write a long study about the use of emotion and its appeal to women in making political decisions

    What we are seeing today with “vibes” is the convergence of two nasty trend lines; the development of political communications (propaganda) combined with the fact that the Democrats are desperate in their search for a national candidate to run. To use Marxist terminology, the presence of Kamala and the vibe campaign as a sign of the decay of the late-term Democratic Party. The problems with appeal to emotion is that they don’t come with an one-off switch. This will not end well.

  13. The way the Left has been ladleing out hate for anyone who does not share their hive mind, and their ability to get people to accept that those people should be hated, frightens me.

    Like Orwell observed, they are playing with matches, but don’t seem to realize that fire is hot. They may start a fire that cannot be stopped without the shedding of a lot of blood.

  14. Bill Brandt – September 11, 2024 at 2:45 pm
    Harding… administration was wracked with corruption and incompetency.

    Harding is IMHO one of the most underestimated Presidents. Yes, there was the Teapot Dome scandal. But against that, there was complete recovery from the second-worst economic crash of the 1900s (unemployment was higher in 1921 than any year except 1931-1940), the most successful arms control treaty ever (the Washington Naval Treaty), and the end of Wilson’s reign of terror against dissenters.

    He was sneered at by the “intellectuals” (who had loved Wilson, one of their own), and nobody wanted to defend a dead man.

  15. Political fakery goes back a long way.

    In 1840, the Whigs portrayed plantation scion William Henry Harrison as a “hard cider and log cabin” common man.

    Robert Heinlein noted that Wendell Willkie’s 1940 campaign included some of the cleverest public relations men in the country.

  16. Yes tea pot dome was small beer compared to the strategic reserve looting the veterans bureau how about shinseki

  17. The problems with appeal to emotion is that they don’t come with an one-off switch.

    You remind me of a comment made at Larry Correia’s site years ago: To the left, violence is a rheostat to be turned up and down as needed. To the right, it’s an on/off switch.

    I think we are getting perilously close to having that switch flip to the on position. The latest suggestion I’ve heard- from Bret Weinstein, if I recall, is that Trump may win but it just won’t be reported. That leads me to wonder if the regime would be brazen enough to simply refuse to certify his win, even if it was reported and widely known.

    I further think the regime has gotten very used to having the pretend opposition of the Geee Ohh Peeee and still hasn’t managed to process that the old establishment is effectively dead. It expects the Republican Party to fold no matter how brazen they are. But I don’t think Trump will fold, especially knowing he would likely be sent to his death in prison if he did. I think it very possible some states will back Trump. Switch position: On.

    But we got to this point because the tactics of the left- including their social engineering tricks- reached the point of diminishing return and ceased working. FDR got the ball rolling on the present regime with Social Security, which didn’t even start paying out until a person had reached the age of their expected death. Today, we have the regime airdropping foreigners into Red States and paying all their living expenses, just to be able to ballot-harvest.

    This is not success. I’m reminded of counterflooding. If your ship gets hit by torpedoes and starts taking on water on one side, you deliberately let water come in on the other side, to prevent your ship from capsizing. That can work, but unless you stop taking on water, you’re still going to sink.

    All the endless tricks and social engineering of the regime kept it on an even keel, even when the public deserted it. But it has never stopped taking on water.

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