Bill Clinton on stage to discuss his forthcoming novel, The President is Missing, in Toronto, Canada, June 22, 2018. Dominic Chan/Press Association. Jonathan Haidt is a lifelong Democrat whose objective is to employ what is actual about human behavior to the liberal advantage, with a method tailored, like Dale Carnegie’s, to entice a civil conversation with Republicans.
His 2012 publication is getting another romp into popularity, what with the polarization of our contemporary culture. The outcome presupposes that mutual understanding will win concessions from Republicans at the polls. Haidt almost seems to imply that liberals might best sink to the Republican level (the Karl Rove method?) in the conduct of a war we call electioneering. “I didn’t blame the Republicans for trickery. I blamed the Democrats for psychological naiveté.”
At the very least, he seems to advise liberals to phrase their positions so as to just enough misrepresent the liberal creed to make it satisfactory and relatively more harmless to Republican voters. Haidt acknowledges the mystery and success of Bill Clinton, who “knew how to charm elephants” – the subconscious intuitive aspect of our being. In reality, Clinton had made it a policy to be a clean cut boy to the moneyed interests, which has been the norm, and with Citizen’s United, a part of the problem negatively influencing fair and open elections.
