Tag: trump

The Art of the Not-Making-a-Total-Putz-of-Yourself

If nothing else of substance, the last couple days of RNC Trump Speech brouhaha have offered a pair of very important business lessons.

art by DonkeyHotey https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/
(art by DonkeyHotey)

My initial impression was that we were looking at this kind of fantastically gobsmacking paradox:

A candidate renowned for his wealth and business acumen is either unable to afford or incapable of selecting competent help.

But according to this article, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Skilled workers are perfectly happy to hold their noses and accept Trump dollars, but their employer is totally unable to actually use the tools he purchases.

This puts me in the mind of a business aphorism (which I believe I first heard from Ramit Sethi):

A students hire A students; B students hire C students.

To mansplain: An A student knows what good work looks like, that good work is hard, and is confident that they can reliably produce good work through the judicious application of hard work.  A students want to see good work, and do not want to look like putzes, so they choose subordinates who are as capable as themselves (if not more so).  B students may occasionally do good work, but since they don’t know this other stuff (about how to judiciously apply hard work to reliably produce that good work), they can be pretty insecure.  They hire down the ladder to shore up their ego.

But, of course, Trump is proving to not even be a B student; the B student is insecure and frustrated because he or she knows what good, consistent work looks like—they just can’t produce it.

Trump is a C student wallowing in the depths of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.

So, to revise:

A students hire A students; B students hire C students.  C students hire an A student, a B student, two C students, a guy on Craigslist, their cousin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mike Tyson, six doctors, and a personal trainer, follow none of their advice, and then scream at them when they get the C they earned.

This Article is About Brexit, but Shows Us Why Trump Will Be Elected

This is an enlightening read about how Brexit played out so “counter-intuitively” (from the perspective of progressive United Staters), as well as an informative glimpse into the somewhat icky complexity of the EU (for example, I previously had not appreciated the extremely pro-business and anti-labor implications of EU policy).

But that’s not why I’m sharing.  I’m sharing because this article inadvertently lays out pretty clearly how Donald Trump will end up getting elected:

Democracy is premised on the idea that there’s a range of things to vote for, and you vote for the one you like. If there isn’t a range, it fails (and turnout plummets). …

A problem is that the so-called “debates” that have been going on all refer to something monolithic called “immigrants”, and in the unitary sense intended there’s no such thing; arguments like “immigrants is good” vs “immigrants is bad” just aren’t talking about the same people. What you’re talking about is the comfortable articulate middle-class world, which is a million miles away from 20 blokes forced to sleep in a damp garden shed in between picking cabbages, being charged half their pitiful wage for “rent” and “transport” and being used to undercut guys from Boston or Spalding (who would have worked, but not like this). Similar things apply across our wrecked manufacturing base (aka almost everything north of Cambridge). Everyone in this system is getting screwed except the scumbags running it. And even worse is the system which facilitates and encourages it.

There is a huge and growing disconnection between happy middle-class life in urban centres and this kind of thing down at the dirty end — they’re different planets, different universes. … The referendum was swung by a huge slab of population who are being taken for granted and ignored in precisely this “you don’t count” manner.

…

Lots of people don’t do that; they have the intuitions but can’t articulate them, so they hang the feel of it on anything they can find, eg “foreigners”. If you demonstrate to them that what they’re saying is wrong, they just look uncomfortable and shift ground, because it was never about that in the first place. Just because they can’t articulate, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem or that they should be ignored; they’re humans with real, immediate problems. Yes, a very few will be impossible neurotic bigots at a deep psychological level, but the majority are simply trying to say something and can’t manage it. The happy middle-class urban world tends to mock this or be sanctimonious about it in a PC way (“racists!”); I find this cruel and disgusting.

Please check out the whole thing—it reads quicker than the author warns: “I want to stop something exploitative, divisive and dishonest” — conversation with a Leaver, by Oliver Humapge and his dad

Hard to Believe It’s Just 213 Days Until Disaster Time! #America

art by DonkeyHotey https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/
(art by DonkeyHotey)

So, about a year ago I wrote about Trump for the first time: “Listen: If We Don’t Start Taking Trump Seriously, He Will be President #FACT #NotJoking”

I still think much of what is in that post is true, but realize that I’d failed to comprehend the scope of our national fuck-up.  Back in August 2015, I was seeing this as something liberals were messing up, by not taking Trump seriously and at face value.  It never dawned on me that it was all of us—left, right, center, and nutbag—who were botching this.  Yeah, even his supporters—even the worst among them, the vicious racists, the violent thugs—have it wrong, ’cause I think Trump is probably right about himself: He isn’t racist. Yes, he’s almost certainly a White Supremacist (in that his default and unexamined worldview privileges a White perspective in the same way as the sighted privilege the visual spectrum), but he really isn’t racist, per se, because a racist really does truly believe something—albeit something gross and erroneous.

I honestly don’t think Trump believes anything: He is an absolute empty vessel, the final fantastic, horrific, awful expression of American post-modernism: A perfect surface with no substance, a mirror-less mirror.

Is he a great negotiator?  No.

Is a great businessman?  No.

Is a statesman of any stripe? No.

Is he even a politician, in any conventional sense of the word?  No.

But he is possibly the greatest salesman this country has ever known, in part because he has perfected the sales process beyond the need for any product at all.

That said, there is something I’ve begun to question about that year-old post: How do prevent this mercurial, bellicose, void human-mask from entering the Oval Office.  Last August I counseled Compassion and Reason—and while I stick with Compassion (’cause I always do), I think Reason is useless here, because his sales process is crafted to short circuit and judo-throw reason.  Reason is the obstacle that Trump’s method is custom designed to overcome (for real; go read the Sales Playbook!  Many sections are devoted to jujitsu-spinning hesitation and reasonable objection into signing on the line which is dotted).

So while I counsel Compassion for Trump supporters, I also counsel Contempt—not for the voter, but for the Skinsuit with Hair Plugs himself.  Make Trump the object of dismissal, scorn, and visceral disgust.  Take the shine off his product-less product—make it not only not worth the money, but not worth the time or attention.

He is a Ding-Dong dropped on a fresh, warm dog turd.  

He is a mouthful of maggots on a sunny day.  

He is the smear at the bottom of a commercial kitchen trash can.  

Not a president, not a candidate, not even a man; let him be the strange, nihilistic object he has made of himself, a solipsistic point in a one-dimensional Universe, convinced he is a God.

Later, on November 9, he will be deserving of our compassion; he can be a man again, and rejoin humanity.

But until then . . .

The Trump U Sales Playbook: A Marvelous Primer on the Dark Art of B2C Sales

I wanna start with an apology: Based on a very brief hot-take published in Slate, I posted this quip:

After seeing the these two Jon Oliver episodes (vol 1 and vol 2), I finally dug into the 2010 Trump University Playbook in earnest (as opposed to just re-reading the same nibblets everyone was passing around). And you know what? This playbook is special.

Since the Slate excerpts were chosen for the lulz, not the insight, all I saw was what was there: Standard-issue sales training materials, with the genre-mandated jankety English and flop-sweat sheen of Glengarry Glen Ross bravado.  If you have experience with consumer-oriented sales (i.e., “B2C”—that’s “business to consumer”, generally contrasted to “B2B,” which is “business to business”), none of this is that unusual. And so that’s what I tweeted.

But, of course, I was looking at it as someone who’s worked in sales, studied the psychology of selling, written sales copy, and slogged through a lot of terrible sales material and ethically questionable sales advice.  After digging into the playbook with my “Normal Human” eyes on, I’m seeing the ickiness much more clearly. That fantastic, revelatory ickiness.

Give these materials a gander, esp. the “Sales Playbook” section starting around pg. 96.  Read it, and get a sense of what a steep disadvantage you are at, as a normal human thrust into a professional sales situation (e.g., buying a car, sitting down with a “financial advisor,” being dragged to court, being interrogated). 

This is, in fact, a pretty tight textbook on the dark arts of high-pressure sales/persuasion situations where there is a built-in power differential that favors the seller. 

Frankly, if Trump U really wanted to give students value, then screw real estate investing; they should have handed out copies of this. “Here’s how we suckered you; go forth and sucker others!”

Maybe not worth $995, but certainly worth more than nothing. 

RECOMMENDED READING: 2010 Trump University Playbook

Listen: If We Don’t Start Taking Trump Seriously, He Will be President #FACT #NotJoking

credit: DonkeyHotey
This excellent and instructive set of posts really concisely analyzes the marketing savvy underpinning Donald Trump’s political crazy talk. Consider it mandatory reading for anyone who 1) currently lives and votes in the United States or 2) ever plans to attempt to earn any money in any manner:

This analysis aside, here’s why I’m absolutely convinced that, if we stay the course, Donald Trump will be President:

I see smart, political-aware, left-leaning progressives once again doing exactly what they did when George W. Bush ran: Bemusedly watching a desperately outclassed clown-candidate fumble every media event like a stumble drunk, and then archly snarking: “Who are all these people that are supposed to vote for this guy? I don’t know anyone who would ever vote for him!”

And that dumpster-fire of a President got elected twice—and put tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in their graves. So, howsabout we don’t go and do the same dumb, cynical bullshit again?

Just to be clear: I’m not suggesting you go out, insult and dogpile on pro-Trump folks—’cause that’s exactly the way we got Bush elected twice; a shrill liberal freak-out is baked into Trump’s strategy. I’m suggesting that we really set our minds to trying to understand how it is that folks who are enthusiastic about Trump got to that place, without assuming it’s because they are “dumb bigots.”

If you’re wondering, “Jeez; how the fuck do I talk to someone who is head-over-heels for Trump?” My experience: Make sure that your side of the conversation only consists of questions. And not thin-ass rhetorical questions like “Why do you love that bigot, stupid?” Real questions, like: “OK; why do believe Mexican immigrants are disproportionately criminal? Is that actually true?” ’cause 10 minutes of googling reveals this table:

Compiled be a very reliably Conservative writer, Heather Mac Donald, and based on DoJ National Crime Victimization Survey data. You’ll note that, as perpetrators, Hispanics account for 14.8% of violent crime, despite being 17.1% of the total population—in terms of violence, they’re actually underperforming [insert your own “lazy Mexican” joke here, bigot].[*]

The point here isn’t to zing anyone; it’s to compassionately invite them to join you in a place where reasonable humans will begin to properly question how reasonable this American Savior’s claims are.

Anyway, the Big Picture: Let’s maybe stop being Trump’s strawman, ok?

photo credit: DonkeyHotey

[*] Since my regular readers seem to deeply enjoy my penchant for footnoted fact-based poindexterity, here’s a fun set of tidbits:

  1.  While Hispanics lag behind in committing violent crimes, they are victims of 17.7% these crimes (as calculated from Table 5 numbers in the 2013 DoJ Criminal Victimization bulletin)—about what you’d expect, given that they’re 17.1% of the population. All that said, does my data disprove Trump’s claim? Clearly, no: “Mexicans” are a small subset of “Hispanics” and “undocumented Mexicans” an even smaller sub-set of that. Can we expect differences in behavior among these groups? Maybe, but if anything undocumented immigrants appear to commit violent and property crimes at a *lower* rate than their naturalized peers.
  2.  As part of his “We need a wall and Mexico needs to pay for it!” spiel, Trump repeats the conservative canard that: “[The Mexican government has] even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States.” In case you’re wondering, here’s the pamphlet in question. My Spanish isn’t superfantástico, but this comic book clearly begins by telling people that the safe way to immigrate is through official channels with appropriate paperwork, and warns that unofficial crossing is both dangerous and illegal. It goes on to describe the dangers of crossing the desert, forging rivers, being victimized by human smugglers, and then being victimized by employers once you are across the border illegally. It strongly discourages using false documents, lying to American law enforcement, fleeing law enforcement, being armed in any way, or breaking the law in any way. If you get in trouble, the pamphlet advises, you have certain rights, and should contact the consulate. The pamphlet closes with: “This [guide] does not promote crossing [the border] without legal documentation required by the United States government; its objective is to make known the risks and to inform about the rights of migrants regardless of their legal residence.” It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill government document. It was published 11 years ago and “thousands” of copies were distributed; at the time it was published, even folks of a seemingly anti-Mexico persuasion found the idea of using this as an “invasion blueprint” laughable: “But as a survival guide for Mexicans seeking a better life in el Norte, Guía del Migrante Mexicano fails miserably.” As near as I can tell, it hasn’t been in print in ages; in fact, the only place you can find it online anymore is on White Nationalist websites, as an inflammatory example of the immigrant invasion, or whatever.
    Nonetheless, this historical footnote is prominently featured in the platform of a 2015 U.S. presidential candidate, where it is characterized as a guide to “illegally immigrate to the United States.”