Challenge, but also opportunity, for Trump
Crisis provides ability to see through Disney-like, Main Street U.S.A. façade
The correct and gracious phrase of one who loses an election is that “the people have spoken.”
On Nov. 8 more than 60 million Americans did far more than speak. They revealed themselves. Those who voted for Donald Trump, those registered voters who could not be bothered to vote, and those eligible but could not be bothered to register revealed their cognitive developmental moral perspective and acted on it. Yes, the pundits are correct that the three groups are frustrated with a political system they believe has let them down and are fed up with career politicians the likes of the Clintons. But there is more to explaining their action or the lack of.
In his gilded New York penthouse, in his private jet and overall life of luxury, the Donald could not be more different from the 60 million who voted for him. Yet they identify with him and his message resonates with them. There is good and an explainable reason for this.
What makes him popular and why people identify with him is the cognitive developmental moral perspective that is revealed by how he reasons and behaves. This is the common ground between him, his supporters and those who did not vote.
Sadly, morality as a focus of analysis has gone out of fashion. It hits too close to home. The revealed moral perspective of Nazi war criminals and Watergate conspirators in the ’60s and ’70s were troubling to the extent that the practice was abandoned. It has been replaced by a ghoulish preoccupation with symptoms such as who is Donald Trump and who are his supporters. Everyone is interested in the details of transgression, not from where they emanate.
Before exposing the moral developmental perspective of Donald Trump, his supporters and those who could not be bothered to register or vote, a brief primer on morality is necessary. Morality has to do with what is the right thing to do when there are competing claims; ethics is about following a certain set of rules; and values is about what you like. Of the three, moral perspective is at the core and determines how rules are followed and what is preferred. There are at least three levels and six hierarchically better ways of reasoning about what is the right thing to do.
Trump’s moral developmental perspective revealed by what he says and does is at the first preconventional level. At this level, might makes right and the right thing to do is to: take advantage of all situations and people; seek the path of least resistance; satisfy immediate needs without regard for broad or long term consequences; advance personal gain interests regardless of impact on the greater good.
People who function at this moral developmental perspective are situationally determined. Principles are incomprehensible and the only thing that can be predicted about them is that they are unpredictable except that whatever they do will be self serving. This can include being charming and appropriate if the situation requires it.
At the preconventional level of moral reasoning there is also the ability to create pleasing fantasies about one’s self and one’s future prospects. All those who voted for the Donald bought into his pleasing fantasies about who he is and what he can do on the world stage.
It would not be unreasonable to characterize the Nov. 8 results as a crisis of significant proportions. As in all instances of crises there is great opportunity and danger. The danger is obvious, the opportunity is not so much. It is there, however, in the unprecedented data created by the results. The 60 million who voted for Trump, the 100 million registered voters who could not be bothered to cast a ballot and the 40 million eligible voters who could not be bothered to register add up to an alarming number of Americans stuck at the preconventional level of moral reasoning. This is far more alarming than a four-year Donald Trump presidency.
As well, the crisis provides, the opportunity to see through the Disney-like Main Street U.S.A. façade. There is no real Main Street U.S.A. and America has never been great. The rhetoric of pleasing fantasy hopefully can now be replaced by the reality that pervasive adverse conditions in America, indeed the world, obstruct the innate developmental potential of most people. Stuck at the preconventional level of moral reasoning, the greatness of which all humans have potential remain unrealized.
If we can agree that obstructed development of the human potential is not just American but a global problem, the problem already is half solved. The other half requires that we collectively take responsibility for what is and work together to remove the systemic obstacles to the development of our innate human potential.