The Political Mind: Q&A with Dr. Lakoff
In today's edition of FrameLab: First, a link to a thoughtful piece by Antonia Scatton, who writes a
'This infantile "I want a big daddy figure to reassure me" attitude goes a long way to explaining how Trump got a second term.'
In this edition of FrameLab: First, a seven-minute read about a very strange New York Times op-ed that argued for authoritarian leadership in response to natural disasters. Second, the answers to Sunday's challenge re Social Proof. Third, a brief note on the FrameLab Book Club.
Yesterday, the New York Times opinion page ran a bizarre op-ed in which Amy Chozick, a former NYT reporter, made a stunningly forthright argument for authoritarian leadership. Her essay used tortured logic to promote strongman leadership as an answer to natural disasters.
Chozick, a Los Angeles resident whose house remains standing, wrote that the city's unprecedented fire disaster makes her pine for the authority of a man with a "dollop of despotism." She said the tragedy lacks a clear "protagonist," which she defines as a strong male hero who can swoop in and magically save the day.
I generally avoid sharing pieces I find irksome, but I'm making an exception here. Chozick's op-ed provides an almost perfect example of what Dr. George Lakoff calls "strict father" morality. The piece also reminds us of a crucial fact: Fear can make people more inclined toward authoritarianism. Let's take a deeper look.
From Chozick's piece (click here for gift link):
Why is it that the town that gave us Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith (OK, there was the Slap but he still saved the world) cannot find a lead character to try to save us from this catastrophe? This state loves a charismatic action hero so much that it birthed the Terminator's political career
She also points to real-life figures, like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after 9/11 and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during Operation Desert Storm, as examples of the kind of leaders LA needs right now:
As any screenwriter will tell you, a protagonist does not need to be perfect. We actually prefer that they be flawed, as long as they are ours. I can't keep up with Rudy Giuliani's criminal indictments, but after Sept. 11, America's mayor stood at ground zero and assured a broken city that the terrorist attacks would only make us stronger.
Giuliani's indictments stem from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election for Donald Trump. But this doesn't matter to Chozick. It only matters that he was mayor of New York when Al Qaeda attacked the country – a country that Giuliani himself tried to destroy 20 years later.
Chozick, now a screenwriter, clearly has a case of Hollywood brain. But movies are fun because they can create neat fictional worlds where anything is possible. Reality, on the other hand, is messy and rigid. And Chozick's piece goes beyond mere Silver Screen escapism. She advances a political argument in favor of dictatorial leadership styles, and she does this at a moment when the nation is on the brink of an authoritarian presidency.
Let's examine her logic.
First, in true pro-authoritarian fashion, Chozick roots her piece in false claims. She asserts that elected officials are absent from the scene of the fires, but that's not true. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been in the affected communities daily, holding press conferences and securing billions in federal disaster aid from President Joe Biden. Here's a CNN clip of Newsom being interviewed by Anderson Cooper while fires literally burn in the background!
"I’d settle for some reassurance that there is a plan," wrote Chozick. "That it’s going to be horrific, but that we will get through this. Los Angeles will endure and rebuild. Together. For someone to, you know, lead."
Newsom has done exactly this. He announced plans to suspend specific environmental regulations to help rebuild what he cinematically called "Los Angeles 2.0." Additionally, he announced that he is organizing a "Marshall Plan" for the county's recovery.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass drew legitimate criticism for having been in Ghana when the fires started, but she returned quickly. In addition, much of the destruction has occurred outside the city's limits, in areas controlled by county government. Regardless, the mayor has held daily press conferences and briefings about the fire and the city's response. So the headline of Chozick's piece, "Los Angeles is being crushed under the weight of inaction," is unsupported by facts. In fact, there is a massive international effort underway in Los Angeles County. As I wrote last week, there is also a concerted Republican effort to spread misinformation about the fires and stir up anger against Democratic leaders.
After setting up her argument with false claims, Chozick moves on to her solution: a strong movie superhero or, at least, a leader with authoritarian tendencies. She name-checks actors like Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and Will Smith – as if their fictional movie antics are somehow real. Would Dirty Harry's 44 Magnum stop a wind-driven wildfire? Pure drivel.
Chozick then gives real-life examples, including Giuliani, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Gen. Schwarzkopf. She acknowledges that some of these men have problems. Giuliani has his criminal cases, Cuomo resigned after facing multiple examples of sexual harassment, and Gen. Schwarzkopf was a tough man who (she oddly speculates) "would have made his interns cry."
"That's OK," writes Chozick. "We don't need cuddles. We're terrified."
Now, let's examine her frames.
First, there is the Movie Strongman frame. All the potential heroes Chozick names are men. Her decision to exclude any women from her pantheon of heroes seems deliberate. In her worldview, only men – including fictional ones from the movies – have the strength to handle a major crisis.
Not only are they men, but some are movie characters who violate rules. Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis played rogue cops who often break the law to dole out justice. They beat the bad guys by also being bad guys. However, while their tough guy approaches work on fictional movie criminals, it's unclear how a rogue cop could stop multiple raging wildfires whipped up by the Santa Ana winds. The maverick hero with gun character doesn't really fit the frame of a natural disaster.
But Chozick's desire for a strong male authority figure perfectly fits the definition of strict father morality. From The ALL NEW Don't Think of An Elephant:
The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world ... What is needed in this kind of a world is a strong, strict father who can protect the family in the dangerous world.
In strict father morality, father knows best. The authoritarian leader – the strong daddy figure – has total power. He is above the law because he is the law, as in a typical Eastwood movie. However, Eastwood's rogue strongman characters are fictional. This fantasy of the heroic strongman is dangerous and naive when applied to politics.
Case in point: Andrew Cuomo, whom Chozick cites as a hero. In addition to her Movie Strongman frame, Chozick introduces a Flawed Strongman frame. This frame includes the deeply flawed man who still manages to appear confident and strong. For example, Cuomo won plaudits for his daily press briefings in the early days of the COVID pandemic. Yet investigations later revealed that he was hiding nursing home deaths from the public, and he eventually resigned in disgrace after a sexual harassment scandal. But those parts of the story are not important to Chozick. It only matters that Cuomo appeared strong while hiding his flaws, which include lying about the death toll. (And let's not forget Donald Trump, an extremely flawed man and strict father-type leader who mishandled a pandemic that killed one million Americans on his watch – but did so confidently.)
Amazingly, Chozick also names Arnold Schwarzenegger as someone who could do a great job in a crisis. But Californians don't have to guess when it comes to Schwarzenegger's leadership. In 2003, he used his action hero status to become California governor, pledging to be a "Govenator" who would "blow up" the state bureaucracy. He left office in 2010 amid dismal approval ratings and a massive budget deficit. Even the actual movie star hero-turned-politician couldn't live up to Chozick's fantasy. (Plenty of natural disasters, including massive wildfires, occurred during Schwarzenegger's terms in office.)
I could go on, but the point is clear: Chozick's arguments don't make logical sense. Instead, she is expressing an emotional desire for a strongman leader to make her feel safe. Now, this part does make sense. That's because research shows that feelings of fear and insecurity are "linked to the rise of autocrats and the erosion of democracy."
From Michelle Gelfand, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland:
It’s a simple principle, one that is causing democracies all around the world to unravel. When people experience threat – whether actual or imagined – they begin to “tighten”. In physical terms, they tense their muscles, ready to defend themselves. In political terms, they begin to crave security and order in a community that seems to be collapsing. Authoritarian leaders satiate this need by promising quick, simple solutions – and, above all, a return to the tighter social order of yesteryear.
Since Chozick covered politics for the New York Times, I assume she wrote exactly what she meant to say. When you isolate the basic arguments, it's hard not to see her piece as an endorsement of authoritarian rule, since the entire world is currently beset by crises. In her piece, she takes the role of a helpless child hoping to be rescued by a strict father with all the answers and little regard for niceties.
"I am not calling for a bully, but successful leaders through epic disasters have a dollop of despot," she writes.
But despots rarely settle for dollops, and many autocratic leaders around the world are actively worsening the planet's crises, especially global warming. Historically, strongman leaders use crises or emergencies to erode democracy and seize more power. In Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes:
Shock events, or grave incidents that often prompt declarations of states of emergency, drive forward authoritarian history. They propel some individuals into office and give others who are already in power the excuse to do things they’ve wanted to do anyway, like securing their hold on government and silencing the opposition. In such situations, the temporary state of emergency may become normalized, “no longer the exception but the rule,” as the anti-Nazi philosopher Walter Benjamin put it. For a century, knowing how to capitalize on calamity, whether you had something to do with it or not, has been an essential strongman skill.
Trump has wasted no time in trying to exploit the fires and use them as a political weapon. He built his political career on fear, and on the lie that he alone has the power to magically fix the country's problems (which he fails to do). Trump instinctively understands the politics of fear. He knows that his power will increase in direct proportion to the amount of fear and uncertainty he can create in the brains of Americans. Exhibit A: Amy Chozick, who has (perhaps unwittingly) given us an amazing demonstration of this effect.
In this world of crisis, we need leaders motivated by empathy and responsibility, not performative shows of false strength. We also need voters who understand that collective action, rather than political scapegoating, is the only way to solve our most pressing challenges. If we fall prey to easy answers and strongman myths, the future will grow ever more bleak.
As one New York Times reader put it in a comment posted on Chozick's op-ed: "This infantile 'I want a big daddy figure to reassure me' attitude goes a long way to explaining how Trump got a second term."
Many of us in California have friends and family impacted by the fires. Over the weekend, I saw a mile-long line of vehicles waiting to donate items to those affected by the fire. Moments like these require empathy, care, and community action. If you wish to help, this article from NBC News contains a list of vetted organizations that are helping.
Dozens of readers responded to Sunday's post on social proof, headlined "90 percent will click this post. Here's why." The post challenged readers to find the three instances where I used the social proof tactic in the newsletter. FrameLab reader Sarah J. won the signed copy of The ALL NEW Don't Think of An Elephant by emailing the correct answers in less than 15 minutes. Here are the correct answers:
Many of you had creative and well-reasoned answers not listed above!
Apologies to the 138 subscribers who joined our glitchy Zoom meeting on Sunday! Bandwidth issues forced us to shut down the meeting after 15 minutes due to constant freezing and rebooting. We'll figure out the technical issues and get this back on track, but thank you for your enthusiastic showing! We truly appreciate it.
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