{"id":206,"date":"2016-11-12T12:39:21","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T17:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=206"},"modified":"2016-11-12T12:39:21","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T17:39:21","slug":"what-colors-your-neck-same-as-my-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=206","title":{"rendered":"What Color’s Your Neck? Same as my hat."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the-donald-doll\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a psychologist. I\u2019m old, experienced and, of course, interested in human behavior. I\u2019m tired of the \u2018he said, she said\u2019 (quite literally) arguments around Hillary and Donald. For every juicy sound bite trotted out to vilify one, an opposite and very often equally shocking tidbit surfaces about the other. Politicians are not expected<\/em> to tell the truth<\/em>. They\u2019re expected to spin, cajole, pander and otherwise offer a \u2018platform\u2019 intended to cultivate a base of support that will get them into office. We expect them to deny or rationalize their \u2018crimes and misdemeanors\u2019 (\u201cI am not a crook\u201d. . . quoth Richard Milhous Nixon). They are expected to lie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And so \u2018the Donald\u2019 must be given full marks for doing this slightly better \u2014 dramatically, if one surveys the electoral college result \u2014 than his opponent. What he did stunningly better was to know and understand his target market. And what Hillary failed to get was that her gender, her knowledge and experience, her cool, unflappable intellect, her egalitarian platform, and her, by comparison, minor transgressions could not overcome her image as an elite and aloof gal. At core, she failed to connect. And Donald did.<\/p>\n

Trump won on a mobilization of a broad (and hitherto, untapped) base that understood what he said (and did) \u2014 and didn\u2019t care. On a base that easily grasped his crude, rude style, his non-sequiturs, his fact-less, sweeping, outrageous and unsupportable claims. He was talking their language. The over-the-fence, in-the-bar, bowling alley or duck blind chatter that this base not only understood, but lived. Nothing nuanced or subtle here. Just plain, old-fashioned bullshit. Lots of it. Piled higher and deeper (as the acronym PhD, somewhat ironically expands to). For the first time this base had a real option, someone they could identify with. They were not being asked to make a choice between two, largely inaccessible, lofty options. And so they voted. . . and voted. . . and voted as never before. A liar, a braggart, a philanderer, a sexist, an abuser \u2014 who cares. We understand his message. So the man that made his fortune as much by cunning as intellect \u2014 street smarts generally trump (oops) wisdom \u2014 has done it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a psychologist. I\u2019m old, experienced and, of course, interested in human behavior. I\u2019m tired of the \u2018he said, she said\u2019 (quite literally) arguments around Hillary and Donald. For every juicy sound bite trotted out to vilify one, an opposite and very often equally shocking tidbit surfaces about the other. Politicians are not expected to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}