Why do Undecided Voters Default to Trump?
Brain science explains why EXPOSURE “trumps” INFORMATION
There is a scientific explanation for why under-informed voters seem to default to supporting Trump. It has to do with how language operates in the brain, and I have done my best to describe it here. If we believe the science, we might have to change the way we communicate with voters, and I know that will be hard. You may choose to disagree with me, but read this science first. Then you can decide.
In Brief
In a recent New York Times focus group of independent, undecided voters, two things stood out: 1. Most of them planned to vote for Trump. 2. They had absolutely no idea why. Most voters aren’t informed, they’re exposed to words and images that stimulate parts of their brains. Repeat exposure to a concept like “Trump” makes the Trump neural network grow physically stronger and eventually dominate people’s brains. Our best strategy is to dedicate our efforts and resources to exposing people to President Biden, to our candidates and to our values, until our neural networks become stronger than Trumps.
Meet Persuadable Pete – the undecided voter. What he thinks depends on which part of his brain we activate the most: whether we choose to push the red button or the blue button.
The Informed and the Exposed
According to a recent New York Times focus group, independent, undecided voters appear to be defaulting to Trump for no apparent reason, or at least no reason having to do with, well, reason.
You might think that we need to dedicate our efforts and resources toward informing these voters about who Trump really is and what he says he will do. Here’s the problem: even the voters who know about Trump and don’t like him, seem to be prepared to vote for him anyway.
This may only be one focus group, but clearly, this is happening at a much larger scale. Something has to explain the sheer volume of continued support for Trump, despite the mountains of negative press, indictments, and his clearly offensive and divisive behavior.
According to the neuroscience of language, there is a perfectly good explanation:
Most people do not follow politics or seek out political information. They are exposed to concepts as they go about their lives, mostly subconsciously. Repeated exposure to a concept, positive or negative, makes that concept grow physically dominant, causing your brain to develop a subconscious preference for that concept.
Relentless exposure to Trump has allowed him to grow dominant in people’s brains. Trump is powered by our attacks, like a cartoon supervillain who is blasted with energy weapons, but just feeds off the energy and uses it to grow bigger and stronger.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the science.
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The Science
The following is from my training on the science of messaging, based on the neuroscience of language and my work with George Lakoff, father of the field of cognitive linguistics.
How Language Works
Everything we know, feel, or have ever experienced, is stored in our brains, in a vast neural network consisting of billions of interconnected neurons. We use the term “frame” to refer to the subset of neurons that contains everything we know about a particular topic.
We have frames for literally everything: Baseball. Oprah Winfrey. Freedom. Italian Restaurants. Harry Potter books. Jogging. Sunglasses. Math. If we can think about it, it physically exists in our brains, in the form of a frame.
Brains store frames like computers store data: It’s there, but you can’t access it until it’s powered up. Words, phrases, and images act as triggers that switch on or “activate” frames, sending an electrical current through that neural network and waking up everything in it.
Here’s what happens physically when we are exposed to language, in this order:
A trigger word or image, such as “elephant,” enters through your eyes or ears.
Exposure to the trigger activates the neurons in the entire elephant frame.
That activated elephant frame then alerts your conscious mind.
What happens when I say “DON’T think of an elephant?” The elephant frame still gets switched on. Because exposure to a trigger word activates the frame before we become conscious of it, there is no way to stop a trigger from activating a frame.
Here is the first critically important lesson of framing:
Words impact people instantly and subconsciously, independently of the sentences that you put them in, and often, with the opposite effect from what you intended.
How Brains Change
Unlike a computer, the brain is biological; it grows and changes. When an electrical signal hits one of your neurons, it fires. The electrical charge jumps to the next neuron and it shoots a little bit of calcium into that gap. The more neurons fire together, the more they grow physically connected; they build a permanent bridge across the synapse.
When you are repeatedly exposed to the words and images that switch on a particular frame, its neurons grow more interconnected, and the whole frame becomes physically stronger. The same goes for associations between frames. This is called “Hebbian learning” after neuroscientist Donald Hebb who famously said, “What fires together, wires together.”
What does this have to do with Trump?
The stronger a frame or neural network is, the better it is at conducting electricity. As we know, electricity always defaults to the path of least resistance. Because thinking is primarily electrical, our subconscious thoughts also default to the frames that are better at conducting electricity – those that are physically stronger.
Our subconscious minds develop an involuntary “attraction” to frames that are physically stronger. Our brains interpret the physical strength of a frame as an indicator that the concept it contains is true or good.
The more we call attention to what Trump says and does, the more we activate the Trump frame. It’s like we keep pushing the red button on Persuadable Pete’s head, lighting up the Trump part of his brain, making it stronger, and making Pete more likely to default to supporting Trump in the election.
What does subconscious neural dominance look like?
Here are comments from one of the participants of the New York Times focus group. This is what they had to say about why they are supporting Trump.
Re: Life under the Trump presidency:
“I just saw the flow. It seemed to flow, like the gas or even your shopping or just about anything that mattered to us. It just kind of flowed. It had a better flow. And you got to understand, it’s coming from a person that, I’ve hated this man since I was about 17. I always thought he was a pig. OK? I do. I can’t stand the man. But I voted for him three times.”
This person consciously hates Trump, yet seems to be subconsciously and irrationally compelled to vote for him anyway.
This type of response is not that unusual. In every focus group I have every witnessed involving “swing” or “undecided” voters, I have seen some of them struggle to explain their own choices and behavior.
Repeated exposure is also how unfamiliar and even abhorrent ideas become normalized. As absurd as it may seem, the more we get people to visualize the abhorrent things Donald Trump will do if re-elected, the more people’s subconscious minds come to feel that those abhorrent things are increasingly acceptable.
Once again, our voter:
Re: If Trump is convicted before the election:
“To me, it doesn’t affect anything. His life, he puts it right out there. I’m sick of hearing it, but it’s him. So if I’m going to vote for him, that’s part of what I accept.”
This person is blithely dismissing criminal, even treasonous behavior. The fact that they claim to be “sick of hearing it” is all the more indication that repeated exposure is driving this person to normalize behavior that should disqualify any candidate for office.
Conclusion: Push the Blue Button
Like the “bad vibes” in people’s misinterpretation of a miraculously good economy, we have to accept the fact that many, many people do not know why they have the feelings and preferences that they have.
So, how do we win a public debate that is happening at the subconscious level?
We have to make the Biden frame the default frame in people’s brains. We have to make the frames containing our candidates, ideas and values the strongest frames in people’s brains. The only way to do that is to make them physically dominant through repeated activation, triggered by repeated exposure to the words, phrases and images that activate our frames.
As I transition this newsletter into the election cycle, it will become less educational and more actionable.
I will try to provide the clearest instructions I can about what to say, what words to use and why. I will do my best to explain the strategy behind the recommendations: what frames we want to activate, what we do or do not want people to be talking about, and what associations we do or do not want people to make.
I will also do my best to provide ways of criticizing what Trump says and does, without giving him the attention that is the fuel that powers his candidacy. This is difficult, but possible.
I will need your help to meet this challenge. Please reach out to me if you have any interest in helping me find the right language, educating me about the issues, sharing your research, or just brainstorming.
Thank you for reading and subscribing! I hope you find this useful in your work.
In solidarity, always,
Antonia
NOTES:
MUST READ:
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
"I will need your help to meet this challenge. Please reach out to me if you have any interest in helping me find the right language, educating me about the issues, sharing your research, or just brainstorming.” Antonia
Hello Antonia,
Here is some brainstorming from a retired psychologist and former marketing writer.
One difficulty we are facing here is the repetition of MAGA messaging over MAGA dominated media. Many voters who are tuned out and identify themselves as “independent“ do not really fit that label. Such independents may more accurately be described as easily hypnotized.
I wonder if there are alternative strategies for inoculating people against the compulsion that is activated by feeding the frame?
And before we get too alarmed about the vulnerability of uncommitted voters, there are many who are already committed to Democratic values. These include especially young people who care about specific issues, such as climate change, difficulty affording housing and school. Their connection to such issues is a frame. Many such voters are best reached by their peers in personal conversations.
An increasing number of people who subscribe to main stream media are writing comments and letters to the editor to hold them accountable for reinforcing framing and repeating fears that can demotivate Democratic voters. I have done so and have seen the influence start to take hold. Some opinion writers in those media are aware of the threat. We can quote their columns to amplify their voices.
A growing army of activists across the country are building a powerful ground game to reach uninformed, first-time and infrequent voters. The evolving strategy is to have multiple contacts and prime them to be ready to vote when the time comes. A similar approach is to contact neighbors who are identified as infrequent or uncommitted voters and to start having conversations with them now. We can also reach people nationally via post card and letter writing campaigns. This would be a kind of inoculation against the framing influence that you describe.
Also, there is the Words that W!n messaging strategy of a truth sandwich. You start with stating a shared value. Then you identify a villain generically. You complete that message with a vision. This kind of message is repeated in advertising, letters to the editor and social media.
Another way to accomplish the reinforcement of our own frame is to put Biden/Harris bumper stickers on our cars and similarly to add bumper stickers for local candidates to build name recognition.
And, we can post in all media about blue values. A really good place to start is the wonderful speech by Hakeem Jeffries when he accepted the position of Minority Leader of the House. If you look it up you will find that he went through the entire alphabet, contrasting Democratic with Republican values. Highlight the Democratic ones, many of them brief enough for bumper stickers and signs.
Let’s get to work. Together we will win this fight!
I have read several of George Lakoff's books and have listened to many of his YouTube videos. I understand frames and work to build some in my group of Democrats. I would be interested in hearing what you have to say.