Right-wing politics has a new secret weapon. Can the Left harness it? | Jeremy Heimans | Big Think

Right-wing politics has a new secret weapon. Can the Left harness it?
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The election of Donald J. Trump surprised many, most of all the Democrats. Jeremy Heimans, a political activist and the Founder of the online media company Purpose, explains it simply: Donald Trump won the internet, and thus won the presidency. Heimans is a political activist and the Founder of the online media company Purpose, explains it simply: Donald Trump won the internet, and thus won the presidency. It's largely the same way the NRA stays in the public eye: through dominating the conversation. Trump and the NRA, for all their foibles, are both masters at what Heimans calls "New Power" — being able to seize the moment and keep people talking — and anyone attempting to beat him needs to become a master at it, too. Jeremy's new book is the highly recommended New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World-and How to Make It Work for You.
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JEREMY HEIMANS:

Jeremy Heimans is a lifelong activist and the co-founder and CEO of Purpose, an organization that builds and supports social movements around the world.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Jeremy Heimans: The game of politics for many decades has been played as one in which you’re supposed to keep your head down, you’re supposed to be bland, you’re supposed to be uncontroversial; your job is to court as many people as you can in the middle.

Donald Trump from the very beginning took a different posture, everything he did was about unleashing the agency of a small number of intense supporters.

This was going to be a campaign in which you could unleash the things that you’d been thinking—maybe your mad uncle muttering at the television—and suddenly every mad uncle muttering at the television was empowered—was sent a signal by this man that those private thoughts could now be made public.

As Donald Trump’s candidacy unfolded he built and created a symbiotic relationship with what we think of as a vast, decentralized social media army that did his bidding during the campaign.

These were mostly young white men on forums like Reddit and 4chan and they developed a kind of culture of competing with each other, vying with each other, to produce the most creative, the most sticky, the most intrusive meme or message that would penetrate social media and then seep into the mainstream media.

So every day they would do this and in response to the events of the news cycle, be it Hillary Clinton’s latest comments, be it Donald Trump’s latest policy pronouncements, they would go take that moment and elevate it.

The mainstream media were generally confident that Hillary would win the election: she was ahead in the polls fairly consistently and because she had much higher favorables.
While both candidates were unpopular, Hillary’s favorables in public opinion polls were generally about ten points higher than Donald Trump’s.

But the people doing social media sentiment analysis, firms like ForeSee, were tracking and finding something very different. Their job is to track net sentiment on social media in connection to political debates. And what they were finding throughout the campaign was that while Donald Trump’s favorables were about ten points lower than Hillary, his net favorability on social media was about ten points higher than Hillary.

One of the most striking facts we discovered when researching this book was that the day that Donald Trump had the highest net favorability on social media was his darkest day of the campaign. It was the day of the Access Hollywood tape being released. And it was because at that day his supporters, who had such intensity of commitment to him, rallied around him. They surged to his defense.

And even though it seemed in the mainstream media like this was the day that was all losing for Donald Trump, on social media that day Donald Trump actually won.

He was elected because he intuitively understood what we call New Power. And New Power is this ability to harness the energy of a connected crowd.

And while Hillary Clinton had a very traditional relationship with her crowd, Donald Trump had a relationship that reflects what we now know you need to do in order to really build depth of commitment politically.

So the NRA understands intensity in the same way that Donald Trump does...

[oflunrazeuqram]

Was defeated by the most traditional of politicians.

[LowenKM]

So basically, the Right has taken the concept of voter-mobilizing 'Wedge Issues' to its logical conclusion... by simply turning *_every_* issue into a 'Hot Button' one (with a little 'marketing' help from the NRA, FOX News, Breitbart, Dennis Prager, etc.).

[humanperson]

Even if they can harness that power, should they?
It's basically unleashing peoples worst, most extreme & polarizing sides. I think we can all agree that, while effective, it is extremally immoral!

[Tiernc]

Lets not mince words: it's not "Depth of Committment", it's a *CULT*.

[rftulie]

Not necessarily a good explanation or solution. All demagogues are "intense, " almost by definition. Their appeal is visceral and emotional, not rational. It's not about "I've got some programs that will work, " it's about "I (and only I) can save you, can protect you, make your life better, bring us back to greatness, etc." That pretty much leads to a non-democratic future. I'm not even going to argue whether this particular country (the US) is really a democracy or not, but a demagogue, left or right, does not stand for the concept of the people having a choice in the way they are governed.

[TraversyMedia]

Left and right, liberal and conservative, democrat and republican. Stop treating politics like a God damn sports team and look at each issue intelligently and logically and make the country a better place. Stop fighting with eachother like dipshit children. I am so embarrassed of this country. I have been since 2015. We have actual enemies but our representatives are busy fighting eachother

[drdellaman]

A traditional politician just beat trump. So much for your theory.

[diddoinarow]

Big Think: no traditional politician can defeat Trump!

Joe Biden: Will you shut up, man?

[seanm]

"So this is how democracy dies with, thunderous applause"!

[raychang]

Trump won one election and this guy extrapolated it to conclude that no traditional politician can defeat him. What a genius!!!

[MGood-ijhi]

So basically a small dedicated  organized intense group can easily defeat a large unorganized less dedicated group

[sayingthethingstheywont]

1:04 I love how he says "young white men" as if that group is inherently evil.
Shows where he stands, couldn't expect any less from an "activist"

[dirkgonthier]

Well, he's got beaten by a more or less traditionel politician... :)))

[Nefariously_ignorant]

Rome did the whole 'populist politicians disregarding any and every rule to win' in it's final decades, it was an early notable sign that it's decay was causing it to fall apart.

America needs to fix this problem and hold *every* politician accountable for what they do in office.

Big Think needs to think harder

[downsouthhustla]

To anyone who TL;DR He's saying

The Left Can't Meme

[lishlash]

TL;DR: Trump crowned himself Troll King, inspiring legions of gaslighting online delinquents.

[ARedMagicMarker]

That's what I love about conservatives. Their permanent braggart arrogance is more laughable once the future unfolds.

[jtcali]

Narrator:
As it turns out, he was defeated by the most traditional politician in recent history...

[rakasin]

This video has aged just fine, cuz you couldn't expect the speaker to have predicted the pandemic. Trump would've won had he not mangled the response to Covid

[SY-mnqb]

2020 Biden slapped this video in the face hard. Most traditional professional politician ever