Rush: Scott Adams Nails It on Trump's "Pacing and Leading"

[mystery-ak]

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/09/26/scott_adams_nails_it_on_trump_s_pacing_and_leading


Scott Adams Nails It on Trump's "Pacing and Leading"
September 26, 2016

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You all read the cartoon Dilbert?  You've heard of the guy, right?  He's got an interesting piece here.  It's a very long piece about why he switched his endorsement from Clinton to Trump.  And there are a number of reasons.  I want to focus on reason number five that he gives.  This is really, really insightful.  I'm looking at the clock.  I'm gonna need more time for it than I have before we have to go to the break.  So let's do that.  Let's go to the break, I'll come back and I'll share with you what Dilbert's theory, number five here, his explanation, why he's decided to switch from Clinton and is voting for Trump.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  Reason number five from Dilbert.  This piece, by the way, was published on September 25th, so just yesterday.  The guy's name is Scott Adams.  Reason number five:  "Pacing and Leading."  This guy talks about Trump as a leader.  We don't hear that much. The Drive-Bys of course never will talk about Trump as leader.  His surrogates do.  His supporters and people who've known him and worked with him do. His kids talk about it all the time. But it's not part of the general campaign resume of Trump.

But this guy says, "Trump always takes the extreme position on matters of safety and security for the country, even if those positions are unconstitutional, impractical, evil, or something that the military would refuse to do." Trump still stakes out extreme positions -- at the beginning. "Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump 'paces' the public -- meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some."

So he accomplishes relating to them.

Such as, take whatever he said about defeating ISIS, refugees, vetting Muslims, the wall, what have you. He is matching what he knows his supporters' positions to be in their emotional state.  Remember, Trump knows it's not what he says that people will remember; it's how he makes them feel.  So he establishes that he relates to 'em by staking out an extreme position.  And after he's got them, after he has paced the public and gotten them to listen, then he leads, meaning he matches them in their emotional state.

"He does that with his extreme responses on immigration, fighting ISIS, stop-and-frisk, etc." Here's the key: "Once Trump has established himself as the biggest bad-ass on the topic, he is free to 'lead,' which we see him do by softening his deportation stand, limiting his stop-and-frisk comment to Chicago, reversing his first answer on penalties for abortion, and so on. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump look scary.

"If you understand pacing and leading, you might see him as the safest candidate who has ever gotten this close to the presidency. That's how I see him," writes Dilbert's Scott Adams. "So when Clinton supporters ask me how I could support a 'fascist,' the answer is that he isn't one. Clinton's team, with the help of Godzilla, have effectively persuaded the public to see Trump as scary. The persuasion works because Trump's 'pacing' system is not obvious to the public.

"They see his 'first offers' as evidence of evil. They are not. They are technique." By the way, this is instinct.  Pacing and leading... It can be strategized.  But this is something you either have or you don't have.  You can be taught this, by the way.  You could learn this. But it's very difficult for people to actually say something that everybody else is gonna think is extreme.  Most people don't want the flak. Most people don't want to deal with the criticism.  But if you know it's just your opener -- it's how you establish and relate yourself -- and then once you've got people, then you lead, and they will follow you, because you've made the emotional connection.

This guy says this is what Trump does naturally.

END TRANSCRIPT

[HoustonSam]

Trump still stakes out extreme positions -- at the beginning. "Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump 'paces' the public -- meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some."

So he accomplishes relating to them.

Such as, take whatever he said about defeating ISIS, refugees, vetting Muslims, the wall, what have you. He is matching what he knows his supporters' positions to be in their emotional state.

"Once Trump has established himself as the biggest bad-ass on the topic, he is free to 'lead,' which we see him do by softening his deportation stand, limiting his stop-and-frisk comment to Chicago, reversing his first answer on penalties for abortion, and so on. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump look scary.

"If you understand pacing and leading, you might see him as the safest candidate who has ever gotten this close to the presidency. That's how I see him," writes Dilbert's Scott Adams.
END TRANSCRIPT

I heard Rush citing this today.  This is a bogus theory of leadership and of persuasion.

Leaders far more frequently have to balance the attitudes of their followers, rather than mirroring their followers' emotions.  When the followers are too emotionally high the leader has to give them a cold dose of reality.  When the followers are too low the leader has to build them up.

Mirroring the emotions of the followers is not leadership, it is demagoguery.  It does not persuade the followers about the virtue of the idea or the necessity of the mission, it simply appeals to the gallery in order to build personal loyalty, often at the expense of the idea and even the mission.  Churchill stood alone in calling England to a war footing during the 1930s and was ostracized for it, and when he was finally elevated to Prime Minister he promised his people only "blood, toil, tears, and sweat."  Lincoln did not incite emotions of vengeance in his 1864 campaign or his second inaugural address, rather he called to "bind up the nations wounds" with "malice toward none and charity to all".

The argument that only one "trained in persuasion" can understand Trump's fictional virtuosity is a transparent, weak attempt to pre-empt rebuttal.  It demonstrates not Adams' insight, but in fact ignorance and Adams' own inflated self-assessment.  At first we were to believe that Trump was the simple, direct "tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may" non-politician.  Now we are to accept that he intentionally was *not* telling it like it is, in order to convince people of the opposite of what he was saying.  This is simply an insult to the intelligence of anyone who actually thinks about what is happening in this campaign.

"Pacing and leading" does not persuade anyone that the second, moderated position is actually the better position.  It simply puts the followers out on a limb because of their prior support for the demagogue who stoked their emotions, so that their personal pride causes them to swallow the now-reversed argument rather than backtrack on the mania they  previously expressed.  And even this assumes that the demagogue has the intelligence actually to consider both the initial attitude of the followers and the superior value of the second, more moderate position, which intelligence is sadly lacking in the case under consideration.

Adams' argument confuses persuasion with loyalty, and virtue with cult.

[ABX]

I heard Rush citing this today.  This is a bogus theory of leadership and of persuasion.....

Exactly, this isn't a sign of leadership, this is an auditory manipulation technique from Neurolinguistic Programming.  It is funny that when Obama used it, red flags went off everywhere about how he is using it to manipulate the masses. At that, Rush made a YUGE! deal of it when he found out that the father of modern day NLP, George Lakoff (remember 'rhymes with'?) was one of Obama's speech writers. Now, these manipulation techniques are being praised as a sign of safety and good leadership? Good grief. 

Sources showing how Obama was condemned for doing the very same things:
http://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama%27s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_Speeches.pdf
https://kennyspuathoughts.com/2013/02/20/how-president-barak-obama-used-nlp-to-mesmerize-the-masses/
http://www.theobamafile.com/_oddsnends/Neuro-LinguisticProgramming.htm
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/obama-neuro-linguistic-programming-mind-control/
http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/06/23/obama-relies-on-nlp-to-cloud-minds-and-avoid-diplomacy-with-iran-over-its-nonexistent-nukes/
http://www.nlplifetraining.com/personal-development/speech-patterns-barack-obama-by-ed-percival
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2120730/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3316030/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2171582/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2662063/posts
http://www.learningnlptechniques.com.sg/influence-like-obama-nlp

[ABX]

And just to add a bit to what I just posted, check out the search results with the exact same term Trump is praised for; "Pacing and Leading":

https://www.google.com/search?q=Obama%2C+%22Pacing+and+Leading%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

[INVAR]

I heard Rush citing this today.  This is a bogus theory of leadership and of persuasion.

No it is not.  It is a very, very persuasive tactic to lead an entire people into surrendering themselves to you.

"Trump always takes the extreme position on matters of safety and security for the country, even if those positions are unconstitutional, impractical, evil, or something that the military would refuse to do." Trump still stakes out extreme positions -- at the beginning. "Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump 'paces' the public -- meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some."

So he accomplishes relating to them.

Such as, take whatever he said about defeating ISIS, refugees, vetting Muslims, the wall, what have you. He is matching what he knows his supporters' positions to be in their emotional state.  Remember, Trump knows it's not what he says that people will remember; it's how he makes them feel.  So he establishes that he relates to 'em by staking out an extreme position.  And after he's got them, after he has paced the public and gotten them to listen, then he leads, meaning he matches them in their emotional state.

That is EXACTLY the same tactic and blueprint that Mussolini used in the 20's and Lil' Adolph and Uncle Joe used in the 1930s.

It works.

And it is exactly how genocidal regimes are born and empowered by the masses.

[ABX]

No it is not.  It is a very, very persuasive tactic to lead an entire people into surrendering themselves to you.


That is EXACTLY the same tactic and blueprint that Mussolini used in the 20's and Lil' Adolph and Uncle Joe used in the 1930s.

It works.

And it is exactly how genocidal regimes are born and empowered by the masses.

If you don't want to go so far as those genocidal maniacs, you can use Juan Peron as an example. At that, he not only ran on many of the same populist positions around trade and manufacturing, he was a master at populist pop culture manipulation of his time. You'll find a lot of parallels with Peron.

[HoustonSam]

No it is not.  It is a very, very persuasive tactic to lead an entire people into surrendering themselves to you.


That is EXACTLY the same tactic and blueprint that Mussolini used in the 20's and Lil' Adolph and Uncle Joe used in the 1930s.

It works.

And it is exactly how genocidal regimes are born and empowered by the masses.

Fair point @INVAR, I should have said that it's a disreputable approach to leadership.  Clearly it is effective.  However I maintain that this theory confuses persuasion with loyalty, and they are not the same thing.

[massadvj]

I teach marketing, and ironically I teach my students to do the opposite.  In the end, this "pacing and leading" strategy is going to lead to dissatisfaction because at some point the "customer" is going to compare what he got to what he was promised and expected.  If what he receives is less than what he expected, then he will be an unsatisfied customer.

In general, it is better to lead customers into their transactions having low expectations, and then deliver more than they ever dreamed of.

[skeeter]

Its also known as demagoguery.

Real leaders convince and lead. Demagogues 'pace and lead'.

[HoustonSam]

I teach marketing, and ironically I teach my students to do the opposite.  In the end, this "pacing and leading" strategy is going to lead to dissatisfaction because at some point the "customer" is going to compare what he got to what he was promised and expected.  If what he receives is less than what he expected, then he will be an unsatisfied customer.

In general, it is better to lead the customer into the transaction having low expectations, and then deliver more than they ever dreamed of.

I think that is exactly why so many people became dissatisfied with the Republican establishment and supported the insurgent Trump and Cruz candidacies in the primaries.  But because the pro-Trump crowd (not meaning all who have decided to vote for him) has invested so much in their personal loyalty to him, they cannot acknowledge any inconsistencies in his positions, no matter how obvious those inconsistencies are.

Respectfully I suggest that marketing to consumers is not quite the same thing as appealing to voters.  But I also argue that Trump is a brand, not a political philosophy, so perhaps the concepts of marketing will ultimately prove effective in analyzing his campaign, where traditional concepts of politics have failed or at least been seriously challenged by him.  How long will his brand-loyalty last?  What events will ultimately challenge the loyalty of his believers?

[massadvj]

I think that is exactly why so many people became dissatisfied with the Republican establishment and supported the insurgent Trump and Cruz candidacies in the primaries.  But because the pro-Trump crowd (not meaning all who have decided to vote for him) has invested so much in their personal loyalty to him, they cannot acknowledge any inconsistencies in his positions, no matter how obvious those inconsistencies are.

Respectfully I suggest that marketing to consumers is not quite the same thing as appealing to voters.  But I also argue that Trump is a brand, not a political philosophy, so perhaps the concepts of marketing will ultimately prove effective in analyzing his campaign, where traditional concepts of politics have failed or at least been seriously challenged by him.  How long will his brand-loyalty last?  What events will ultimately challenge the loyalty of his believers?

Time will tell. Personally, I never liked the guy.  Always thought he was all hat and no saddle.  That includes his buildings, which I consider to be rich in veneer but poor in substance, just like the man.