Are We Unpersuadable?
The seventieth Republican primary debate of the season is in the books, which by now must require several extra pages like frequent travelers get in passports. And unless writers everywhere are all about to have one of those sudden moments of clarity, the analysis that follows will be a bit like the one that follows a boxing match: who got in the appropriate jabs, who was more subtle at dodging attacks from his opponents or questions from the moderator, and so on.
Largely absent from the analysis, of course, will be the question who provided a more persuasive vision of America under their presidency. A simple reason for this might be because the voters will ultimately determine the answer to that question. I think the more likely answer, however, is that persuasion is simply no longer the point of this—or any—political campaign. In short, persuasion may be obsolete, at least in American political life, and maybe beyond that.
Let’s get this out of the way now: persuading someone is hard. Really hard. To PERSUADE is different from selling someone a vacuum cleaner, where the only goal is the immediate transaction.To persuade is to cause a shift in conviction, so that the persuaded will are not only permanently realigned to a new viewpoint, but will happily advocate that viewpoint to others. Ideas are not transactions; they have life, and tend to grow wildly or wander off when not secured. Try to think of the last time you were truly persuaded, particularly to reverse your existing beliefs. It might take a while.
Ultimately, persuasion requires a certain degree of trust, which may explain why politicians don’t even bother. Public trust in institutions is at its lowest in years, according to PR firm Edelman. Public opinion in Congress has been similarly sour. The only people that seem likely to trust a candidate, then, are his or her supporters, who hopefully don’t need to be further persuaded.
So each election is then between two people each of whom if elected will ultimately be mistrusted by a plurality of their electorate if for no other reason than the office they hold. Not only does a candidate likely have insufficient trust to persuade ambivalent voters, they also likely do not have the time. As absurd as it seems to suggest that current election cycles are not long enough, persuasion takes a long time, at least relative to the attention spans of strangers.
This is probably as good a time as any to note that for a candidate, the point of an election is to win. Elections are won by whoever has more votes on election day. Everything else is errata. In this age (insert cliches about the speed of media here)—or indeed any age, fear is a far more effective election mobilizer than persuasion ever will be.
But maybe those imaginary efforts at persuasion would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. The mainstreaming of online communities has also made it possible for everyone to find that long-sought-after niche of “people who agree with them”, simultaneously calcifying believes while causing a sort of group amnesia on how to debate an issue without resorting to personal attacks or contests of volume. One day, there might be a moment where the voting public demands as one to be spoken to like adults who are capable of understanding nuance and making an independent choice. Today, however, is not that day. Tomorrow’s not looking great either, but I could be convinced otherwise.
