Could The Transgender Bathroom Debacle Been Avoided?

Shocks And Aftershocks Rock Politics

The latest shot across the bow in the transgender bathroom access debate was the Obama administration telling schools and colleges nationwide that they must allow transgender students access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. This action, while in line with evolving social justice mores, doesn't appear to take into consideration any sense of empathy for those who recently experienced the social equivalent to a natural disaster.

In nature, tectonic plates generally move slowly and steadily, with little noticeable effect on their surroundings. Yet, when the shift on a fault line suddenly moves faster than expected, there are a myriad of effects including a violent disruption in the foundation and status quo -- an earthquake. If you happen to be close to that fault line, earthquakes can be incredibly scary situations: the ground that you once found safe and secure is suddenly moving right underneath you. And, as nature tries to settle in with the new normal, aftershocks follow as the fault line continues to adjust.

The recent spat consisting of laws and ensuing lawsuits over transgender people's access to public bathrooms in North Carolina is clearly an aftershock from the political earthquake created when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. This Supreme Court ruling was an unexpectedly robust achievement for the marriage equality movement. The speed of which gay Americans gained this right was nothing short of astonishing to all observers, detractors and advocates alike.

While progressives cheered and celebrated this sudden and abrupt social justice win, there seemed to be precious little concern -- nevertheless empathy -- in the progressive community for people who happen to live on that fault line who were shocked by the sudden societal shift. For these people, the ground under them shook hard, and the ideals they built up upon that fault line abruptly came crashing down around them. Yes, those on the losing side of the fault line did treat gay Americans like second class citizens with regards to marriage, but that doesn't change how it feels when a belief system -- wrong-headed as many may feel it is -- is overruled by sudden and clear national mandate.

Yet no one from the winning side of this social debate came to help calm fears or help make sense of the change for those whose foundations were rocked by this earthquake. Yes, in the arc of social justice, these people were inevitably going to feel the shock of social progress (they almost always do), but that doesn't change the real anxiety, fear and even anger that occurs when a foundation you've lived on has suddenly been so disrupted.

So it should be of no surprise that there are now aftershocks coming from those who experienced the earthquake. The transgender bathroom laws are just one of many aftershocks that will be felt in response to the initial quake.

In cases like this where social earthquakes occur, wouldn't it behoove the people on the winning side of the fault line to show some compassion and empathy to the losing side that took on the sudden and unexpected collateral damage? While it is understandable that the social progressives may not have much compassion for the views of social conservatives, shouldn't progressives at least feel compelled to have empathy for how these conservatives must feel now that they've lost a sudden, crushing defeat? Or is it all warfare now, where everyone's a soldier?

Would all of these LGBT-related laws and lawsuits transpired if more empathy and care were directed toward the social conservatives who were shocked and shaken by the gay marriage ruling? Probably. But if proper concern were given to the losers of this debate, the aftershocks may have been just a bit more muted, and the rationale slightly less justifiable.

No, That Anti-Trump Ad Is Not Brutal

Donald Gets Campaigns. Does Hillary?

Mother Jones recently posted an article entitled "Clinton Releases a Brutal Anti-Trump Ad." Take a look:

I can just imagine the ear-to-ear grins in the Clinton camp when they saw the Mother Jones headline, thinking, "yeah, we nailed it."

The problem, for Mother Jones and the Clinton campaign, is that the ad isn't the slightest bit brutal. Sure, Democrats who demonize Trump instead of studying him may get a thrill out of this and other similar negative ads, but a clear-headed perspective will lead to the real truth:

Hillary is not going to be able beat Donald Trump by attacking his weaknesses. She will only be able to beat Donald Trump by converting his strengths into questions and concerns. 

This is harder to do than it sounds, but it's the necessary work that needs to be done if the Clinton campaign is serious about winning the Presidential race.

This ad -- and the Mother Jones headline -- represents a microcosm of the challenge the Clinton camp is going to have running against Donald Trump in the general election: Mainstream media outlets like Mother Jones continue to see things through the blurry-cam lens of Washington establishment thinking, which re-enforces outdated thinking in the Clinton campaign -- the thinking that Donald Trump is anything resembling a typical candidate.

Let's be clear: If Donald Trump were a regular candidate, this ad would have indeed been "brutal." But the very fact that Donald Trump has said the things he has said -- and yet is the presumptive Republican nominee -- is a clear indicator that this particular candidate runs on charisma and cult of personality. With Trump, there is a relationship deal he makes with everyone he speaks to: "If you like what I say, then I meant it. If you don't like what I say, then don't worry, I didn't really mean it." This implicit "deal" may be a deal-breaker for some, but for many, it makes them feel special -- like they are in on the grand plan.  It's interactive, and, as we've seen, it can be contagious.

If the Clinton campaign doesn't soon come to grips with the fact that they need to first decipher Trump's appeal before using their (suddenly outdated) political instincts, they may be just as culpable as the 16 Republican presidential candidates in letting Trump waltz into the Oval Office, essentially unchallenged.

Yes, the primaries are rigged, but they can be rigged better

Swing States, USA

There has been much scuttlebutt this election season about how the primary process isn't democratic enough and how it's "rigged" to benefit establishment figures over insurgents. Here's the hard truth:

Primaries are rigged by design.

They are setup this way because the only objective of a political party is to have their nominee win the national election, full stop. As a result, the major national parties do leverage some democracy to make the process somewhat representative, but ultimately, primaries on both sides are setup to empower state delegates to nominate candidates.

Introducing Swing State Super-Weighting 

Given that the parties' primaries are designed exclusively to find the strongest general election candidate, it is arguable that the political parties should take this to its logical end and further rig the primary process to add additional delegate weight to the electoral college swing states (i.e., FL, NC, VA, OH, etc.). Implementing swing state super-weighting would help ensure that a party's nominee has proven to perform the best in the most important states in the general election.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Is a Democrat winning Oklahoma over other Democrats in the primary really going to help predict general election performance? 
• Will a Republican winning a California primary over other Republican candidates show any kind of real general election strength? 

Looking at this through a strictly analytical (and non-democratic) lens, primary performance in "base states" for each respective party seems trivial at best, and a distraction at worst. Case in point: Donald Trump's recent clobbering of his opponents in New York seems to have re-invigorated his campaign, yet practically, Trump will not win New York in the general election, so it should have much less bearing on the Republican nomination process.

Replacing Bad Rigging with Better Rigging

As a result of the historic success of Bernie Sanders' insurgent candidacy, the Democratic Party has been put on the defensive with regards to superdelegates because these insider delegates symbolize the least representative aspect of their primary system. The Democrats would benefit far greater (from both a primary effectiveness and PR perspective) by replacing superdelegates with swing state super-weighting of delegates. Instead of party insiders picking the winner before the primary process even begins, candidates would earn additional party support based on how they actually performed on the most important states in the primary process.

Republicans do not have superdelegates (although it's a safe bet that a lot of party managers wish they had them now!), but they have all sorts of other non-democratic systems to help ensure that their candidate is the most likely to win the general election: winner-takes-all state primaries, state conventions, post-election horse trading, and more. These all reek of thumb-on-the-scale maneuvers that Donald Trump has exploited and as a result has tarnished the Republican party brand. Changing to swing state super-weighting would have the same positive effect it would have for the Democrats: it would better identify the candidate most likely to win the general election while being more transparent and obvious as to why and how the system is undemocratically rigged.

Replacing Rigging with Democracy Introduces New Problems

Another school of thought is that primaries should be more democratic and less driven by party managers tipping the scales in favor of electability. This approach could work as well, but it would require heavy regulations applied to the national parties, ensuring that they play by the same rules so that the process were truly democratic. For example, currently, primaries happen in a sequence, state by state, giving certain states more voting weight than others. This is not democratic at all, yet we accept it because we're used to it, but we've also bought into the idea that limiting voting to a small set of early states helps ensure that candidates of all levels of financial resources can afford to get their message out to the people, and fairly compete with candidates with much larger resources.

Yes, the "free market" system that the political parties enjoy now does favor establishment candidates, but a fair and completely democratic national primary process would have, for example, enabled only Donald Trump and Jeb Bush to be viable Republican candidates, and would have completely shut out a viable Bernie Sanders candidacy. In addition, any kind of regulation applied to political parties may unintentionally lock out new political parties looking to gain a foothold in our body politic.

Repeal and Replace the Rigging

Despite how rigged the current process is, it has some under-appreciated features that many critics take for granted. But that doesn't mean we can't rig it better. Both parties should consider scrapping their existing sloppy and parochial rigging systems and replace them with a more effective, transparent and easier-to-justify system like the swing state super-weighting approach..

There is no perfect system, but a rigged primary system that favors swing state performance will make more sense to voters -- and it will actually work better for political parties -- than the current rigged system. This win/win prescription may be just what the doctor ordered for angry voters and struggling political parties.

New York Democrats: Why You Should/Shouldn't Vote for Bernie Sanders

source: Donkey Hotey

New York Democrats,

You are in the enviable position to help determine the trajectory of the Democratic nomination process (Trump appears to have the Republican race in NY locked-up, so no drama there). If Bernie wins, he gains significant momentum and energy, even if he still doesn't have the math to technically win enough delegates. But momentum and energy do matter, because with enough of a surge, those undemocratic super-delegates could bow to pressure to switch sides.

Bernie and Hillary represent two different versions of the same Democratic philosophy: economic protectionism combined with social liberalism. As outlined in a prior article, Hillary is a 1990's Democrat (or, New Democrat as they called it back then), which had her starting out her candidacy as a neo-libertarian candidate, combining moderate economic liberalism with moderate social liberalism.

Hillary is a moderate at heart, primarily because she grew up in politics at a time when Democrats were still licking their wounds from the Reagan rout in the 1980's. Bernie is a true Democrat at heart, bringing the verve and moral justice argument back from the dead and showing "New Democrats" that they don't have to continue to bow down to the alter of the Reagan Revolution anymore.

Which version of Democrat makes sense in a post-Reagan, post-Bush, and post-Obama world? Let's break it down into pros and cons for the iconoclastic insurgent Bernie Sanders:

Reasons to vote for Bernie:

• Authenticity: He truly believes in his message and does not appear to be a traditional, modern politician that bobs and weaves to make voters like him.
• Problem identification: He has shown an ability to identify problems that people feel need to be addressed urgently.
• Empathy: He appears to have a lifestyle much more like the average American.
• Leadership: He does not self-identify as a natural people leader, which could mean he's actually a highly-effective leader.
• Accessibility: His language and framing of issues speak to citizens of all educational backgrounds.
• Honesty: Bernie has shown an penchant for straight-talk. Compared to his competition in the race, this provides him with a significant political advantage.
• Government-based solutions: For people who have lost all trust in non-Government institutions (Wall Street, Corporate America, lobbying firms, SuperPACs), Bernie's prescriptions rely heavily on government to ensure a more fair and equitable environment for citizens from all walks of life. 

Reasons not to vote for Bernie:

• Problem-solving: He has not shown an ability to define solutions that will work in a non-idealistic political universe. "Breaking up the banks," "Free college tuition," and "Single-payer healthcare" solutions are the policy equivalent to cotton candy as a prescription for the flu. 
• Navigating complexity: His simplified versions of the problems and solutions speak to a lack of interest in things like differences in opinions and unintended consequences of policy decisions.
• Integrity: While most Bernie supporters feel he is brimming with integrity, I would suggest that his battle-cry of "How can Hillary take money from Wall Street and not be beholden to Wall Street?" rings hollow. Case in point: President Obama took money from Wall Street in both of his campaigns, and yet he pushed incredibly hard to enable Wall Street reform. If you recall, Dodd-Frank was passed under Obama's leadership, and Dodd-Frank was significantly watered down by Congress. Wall-Street-funded Obama wanted the reforms to go much deeper. 
• Over-reliance on government: The vast majority of Americans do not think the government is competent enough to manage large programs. To suddenly trust government with even more responsibility may not pass the sniff test for a general electorate if Bernie makes it into the general election. It's a real toss-up, though: plenty of Americans also do not trust non-governmental institutions either. But the benefit of non-government institutions is that there are a diversity of them, and they can change over time. Once the government manages something, it's historically practically unheard of to change ownership to another non-governmental entity. 

Bernie Sanders is an incredibly disciplined candidate. His message discipline enables him to connect with voters who share his concerns about the problems our nation faces. But for every benefit in a candidate, there is usually an equal and opposite drawback.

Knowing this, New York Democrats, you should not base your vote purely on your feelings from the last rally or television commercial -- your vote should take into account the real pros and the true cons of your preferred candidate.

The 2016 election: Why it's so different

The 2016 election cycle in America has been unique, even by American standards. We are all witnessing the fascinating results of this unique political dynamic: a 74-year-old democratic socialist that is killing it with young voters, and a 69-year-old nationalist "billionaire" who poor and under-educated people trust to represent them the best in Washington.

Further, while Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump certainly have their differences, there are a few similarities that are so important to voters that, when in open primaries, many voters were deciding between these two candidates, regardless of party affiliation.

Since nobody paying attention could ever confuse Bernie with The Donald, this dynamic needs to be unpacked.

We've been led to believe that our two main national parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- create political platforms, and run and support candidates that they believe best represent their specific constituency of voters in the nation. In broad strokes, the Democrats have traditionally run on a platform of social liberalism and economic protectionism and the Republicans have run on social protectionism and economic liberalism.

These at-odds platforms, in theory, should cover most voters enough to suffice and ensure a representative governing body, right?

Wrong, of course.

In math class, I learned about something called combinatorics. It sounds fancy, but it's pretty straight-forward: it's a branch of mathematics focusing on countable discrete structures. In layman's terms, it's about figuring out how many variations can exist in a given system. Who would have thunk that combinatorics of all things can help us see what's missing in our mainstream political discourse?

Well, it can.

If we look at the existing two-party political system, we have, in broad strokes:

• Economic liberalism & social protectionism (Republicans)
• Economic protectionism & social liberalism (Democrats)

Based on a combinatorics calculation, the combination of 2 items in a group of size 2, there are 4 possible permutations**. As a result, there are 2 combinations that are not addressed by existing political containers:

• Economic liberalism & social liberalism (Libertarians)
• Economic protectionism & social protectionism (Populists)

** For the sake of brevity and focus, we can't explore all the 16 permutations there would be if "moderate" was added as a dimension for each political dimension.

Now, let's map these political systems to the remaining candidates in the race:

• Hillary Clinton is, at heart, an 80's/90's Democrat, which is defined as a moderate economic liberal & social liberal ("Libertarian-lite"), but has been coerced (by Bernie's success) to run as an economic protectionist and social liberal -- a traditional Democrat.
• Bernie Sanders is an economic protectionist & social liberal - placing him straight in the Democratic party camp.
• Ted Cruz and John Kasich are economic liberals & social protectionists, placing both of them clearly in the Republicans camp.
• Donald Trump is, at heart, a deal-maker with very little political "true north." However, as a practical matter, he is officially running as an economic protectionist & social protectionist -- a Populist. 

Looking at this mapping, we have some seriously bizarre dynamics at play: 

• We have three distinct political systems in the race: Democrat, Populist and Republican. 
• Both leading candidates -- Donald and Hillary -- are running on platforms that they aren't truly aligned with in their hearts, despite the fact that one of them is considered to be a "straight shooter." 
• The leading candidates aren't a Democrat and a Republican; rather, they are an unwillfully coerced Democrat and a willfully-coerced Populist. 
• Bernie, the self-described "Democratic Socialist" in the race, is actually running on a traditional Democratic platform, which shows you just how moderate mainstream Democrats have become since the 1980's, forced into moderation largely by the political tide of Reagan.

This helps explain what makes this race so unique: Officially, we have two parties running against each other, but in reality, we have three distinct parties competing with each other (and if Rand Paul were still in the race, then we'd have all four political combinatoric parties in the race!).

Trump and Sanders have become iconoclastic and share so many swing voters because they are both representing economic protectionism in their platforms. This tells us that there is a real hunger for economic protectionism, which, interestingly, is not where either the modern Democrat or Republican party is right now at the national level. This represents a crisis for the political elite who believe that long-term gain in free trade and unfettered capitalism outstrips the short-term pain. 

The Trump and Sanders parallel phenomenons point to the reality that our major national parties aren't offering up enough diversity to satiate a significant proportion of the electorate. Bernie and Trump are live-action lessons for a free democracy: Where there's a political itch, a candidate will eventually come along to scratch it. And if that candidate wins, it can bring the party with them.

With Donald Trump, deal-making drives policy

In The Trump Diagnostic, I determined that deal-making is at the core of Donald Trump's value system. Unlike most candidates running for public office, Donald Trump doesn't have a political ideology that translates into policy; rather, it's a deal-making ideology that translates into policy.

In a recent interview he gave at the New York Times, Trump solidified just how much deal-making is at the core of his value system, and how it would inform his policies. It's remarkable how cohesive and consistent his policies are once you identify what's at the core.

It's also a fascinating study on how a Populist candidate can tie the political analysis class into knots. There truly is no left/right dimension to his slew of proposals, yet there is certainly an element of innovation to most of them. He essentially wants to re-negotiate almost all treaties, including those with Japan, South Korea, and even NATO. And, with typical Art of The Deal bluster, he of course threatens to abandon treaties that are no longer in America's favor.

In this interview, we also learn that he prefers to get foreign policy information from former generals, and not foreign policy experts. This fits neatly into his authoritarian style, and re-enforces the notion that he thinks very highly of his own ability to determine the appropriate tactics, coupled with a mistrust of any kind of establishment that reeks of elitism or political correctness. He does not want to hear "You just can't say that to the Saudi's." If anything, that's just ammo for him to go guns blazing with a snappy retort like "Oh yeah? Watch me." Some Americans will see this kind of response as a breath of fresh air when it comes to leadership because it reflects a belief that all the existing social morays are just there to sustain a status quo that is no longer acceptable. It almost has an action movie protagonist quality to it - where quick-wittedness and absolute strength break down oppressive systems and the world is saved in between 90 and 120 minutes. Others, of course, see this kind of person as an overconfident and under informed blowhard who is so full of himself that he can't get out of his own way, and will end up blowing up the planet as a result.

Which is to say that, despite all of Trump's clear shortcomings as a presidential candidate (oh, can  people count the ways), it would be wise to pick apart and disassemble some of the novel and politically innovative ideas he's advancing. Should we break away from NATO? Of course not. But should NATO be significantly reformed to address the new challenges the West is facing? Absolutely. The thing is, nobody was even talking about re-thinking treaties at all until Trump arrived.

The Trump Diagnostic

"Trump is a bully!" "Trump is an outsider" "Trump is an authoritarian!"  "Trump can't be bought and sold!" "Trump is a racist!" "Trump is authentic!" "Trump is a con artist!" "Trump is Hitler!"

There is no shortage of blistering critiques and hopeful opinions of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. But what there is a shortage of is a diagnostic of Trump Dynamics - analyzing the way he operates so that we can best understand why he has run his campaign the way he has so far, and, more importantly, how we should interpret him so that we can best assess how Donald Trump could be as President of the United States.

Many readers likely just squinted, squirmed or winced when reading "how Donald Trump could be as a President..." for good reason: Donald Trump doesn't fit too neatly into our mental model of what a President says, does, or sounds like.

Yet, here we are in the Spring of 2016, and it now appears that there is a real chance that Donald Trump could not only win the Republican nomination, but also win the Presidential race. Even if he doesn't win either race, his candidacy has not only made waves in mainstream political thinking, but has exposed rifts within the Republican party and many traditional voting blocks around the country.

For these reasons, it's worth deep-diving into what makes Donald Trump tick, because even if he doesn't ultimately succeed in his bid to run the country, he has already created a ready-made template for future candidates to utilize.

Note to readers: Before we dive in, bear in mind that this article will neither condone nor assail Trump's character, character flaws, or unique character attributes. As stated above, this is a diagnostic, not a review. If you are looking for an opinion on Trump as a person or as a candidate that either challenges or reinforces your beliefs about him, there are plenty of hot takes you can feast upon on the interwebs. 

This Trump Diagnostic will be broken out into three dimensions: Communications, Politics, and Values.

Trump Communications

Trump's primary communication style is sales (or as Scott Adams puts it, persuasion). Persuader, salesman... these are different words for the same style and same purpose: The sole objective of all Trump communications is to get you to see things the way he sees them. Once he has done that, then you are drawn to him. He no longer needs to do any work. It's hard work on the front-end, and very efficient on the back-end. Just like in sales, the first contract is hard, and the renewals are far easier.

A politician as salesman seems to make a lot of sense since politicians need to campaign in order to get elected. However, it's actually not a common communication type. Most politicians are evangelists: They hold a set of philosophical and/or political beliefs that guide their reason for running for office. They then share their beliefs with people during a campaign in an effort to convince voters that what they stand for is what would work best for voters.

You can boil this down to the following: Sales communications is predicated on moving inventory and making the deal. Evangelism is about aligning beliefs around problems and solutions.

The advantages of sales communications over evangelist communications include:

• Evangelism can draw but also repel people; whereas sales is a connection approach, not a selection approach.
• Sales messages don't scare people; evangelist communications can scare those who don't believe in the message.
• Evangelism requires a constant stream of convincing to keep the problem and solution frame in focus. Sales requires up-front convincing, but once the connection is made, it's harder to disengage.

Trump also employs other strategic communications devices that serve him quite well as a candidate, including:

• An expressive face, which conveys to the viewer that he's fully involved in what he's saying, and does not often say things that other people think for him.
• A passionate style, which indicates that he firmly believes in what he is saying.
• A simple, clear and basic message that underpins any complex thoughts. He may be a "very smart man" as he claims he is, but he rarely lets his smarts allow him to delve into the depths of complexity. This device serves him particularly well as a populist candidate, a style of candidacy where simplicity and clarity are valued over complexity and nuance.

Yet, while sales is his primary communication style, he tag-teams with another style when he feels threatened or under assault: antagonism. This aspect of Trump's communication style is often misdiagnosed as bullying, and reflects his preference to convey power so that he can win. He has learned that by appearing to be the alpha dog, he can easily gain the upper hand in a confrontation or deal when he is actively belittling and disarming his adversary.

It's important to delineate antagonism from bullying, because behind each is a different purpose. Based on people who know Trump, his primary rationale for antagonizing people is to win, not because he has a deep-seated hatred or disdain for people. In fact, he has demonstrated many times that an "enemy" or "bad guy" can instantly become a "good guy" and a "friend" based on the immediate circumstances surrounding their relationship. If you're benefiting Trump, then you're a "good guy." If you are causing him problems, then you're a "bad guy." It's entirely situational.

Trump Politics

A typical American political axis is on the "Progressive/Liberal—Conservative/Libertarian" scale on any given issue. Most successful American political figures amass most of their issues on one side or the other on this axis in order to get the political party and funding apparatus behind them.

If there is any one thing that most people seem to get wrong about Trump, it is trying to pinpoint where he is on the Progressive — Conservative scale because he doesn't operate on the this traditional political axis. Instead, his positions traverse the "Nationalist—Fascist" political axis.

Nationalism and Fascism are loaded words in our political language, and as a result they seem wrong, and for good reason. However, these political philosophies can be quite attractive if not labeled as such.

For instance, Nationalism can be compelling if you feel like your country is being infiltrated or weakened because nationalists put "you" (the citizen) first. Who doesn't like coming first? And, with America being culturally and racially a dominant neo-European nation in its past, many will presume and infer that nationalist ideas will also protect the eroding power of the existing ruling class. Similarly, Fascism is typically seen as the "third way" between capitalism and socialism, putting the profit motive at the heart of the philosophy (like Capitalism) but also happily offers national support systems like welfare, healthcare and other benefits that "you, the citizen" deserve since you are #1!

This political orientation makes policies — building a wall (Nationalism), not reforming Social Security (Fascism), barring all Muslims (Nationalism), ensuring people "aren't dying in the streets" (Fascism) — to seem like a grab bag of progressive and conservative positions. But looking at it through the Nationalist/Fascist lens, it makes a lot more sense.

When Nationalism and Fascism get expressed through his sales and antagonistic communications styles, we start to see uncharacteristic behaviors for a national political figure in America. This mixture has led to the recent spate of aggressive posturing and violence-baiting that have started to alienate followers who had been focused on his unique story as a self-funded outsider, while further solidifying those who are looking for a more hard-core tone and approach as a way to blow up the political status quo in Washington.

Trump Values

Donald Trump's values are so simple yet are still widely misunderstood. Trump's core value is making a deal. Or, as he artfully puts it, The Art of the Deal. It should be of no surprise that his seminal book reflects his core value. Springing from this core value are supporting values, including fairness, strength & power, and simplicity & clarity, and, of course, winning.

A quick assessment of Trump's supporting values:

• Fairness is always in the eye of the beholder, and Trump sees himself as a "fair dude" and readily weaponizes fairness in order to hold others accountable to what he considers to be fair. He believes that when he does deals, he's always "fair," and often accuses people who try to one-up him to be "unfair." One salient example of Trump's core value of fairness is his golden rule of being "hit": he will not attack until he is attacked. But when he's attacked, he goes for the jugular. He considers this to be "fair" because he is just defending himself and also protecting himself from future "hits."
• His strength and power are often misconstrued as outing him as an authoritarian. The thing is, he can't be a real authoritarian because his core value is not to tell everyone what to do. His core value is to make the deal. As a result, what we're seeing looks like authoritarianism, but what it really is is posturing in order to try to be in a stronger negotiation position.
• His capacity for complexity may be limited, or he may strategically employ simplicity and clarity. Either way, the result is that when times are tough (which is what many Americans feel, rightly or wrongly), leaders who value clarity and simplicity tend to be the most attractive because they offer the most expedient result.
• His penchant for winning has actually been a platform of his candidacy, which is obviously much more appealing to voters who feel like America is losing its edge. Winning is not a typical value, but it seems so fundamental to his core value of deal-making that it needs to be identified as a supporting value.

Unlike most other politicians who actively lobby the voters and colleagues to believe in their prescriptions for shared success, Trump spends all of his time in the moment and getting the best deal possible based on the situation immediately at hand.

Navigating Trump

Based on this diagnostic, some of the negative accusations made toward Donald Trump align with his politics (nationalism/fascism), yet most do not align appear to align with his values. This may help explain the divergence and dissonance in feelings with regards to Trump. We are left wondering, at any given time, which is more core to Trump: his politics, his communications, or his values.

Assuming that Trump's hierarchy of psyche follows the traditional pattern, then we are left with his values informing his politics, and with his communication style being in service to both. With this assumption, we will now be able to discern Trump's values rhetoric (which is core and unmovable) from his political rhetoric (which is transient, varies based on the situation -- and often exposes him to either making things up or just downright lying).

This analysis provides us with a handy tool and guide for putting Trump's statements into the proper context. Let's briefly explore how this works.

Positions that are political, and are therefore subject to change in order to make a deal:

• Ban Muslims until we "figure out what's going on"
• Build a wall against the Mexican border
• De-fund Planned Parenthood (unless they stop doing abortions)
• Tax cuts for corporations and tax increases for hedge fund managers
• Repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
• Address corporate inversions to bring companies back to the U.S.
• Accept Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage
• Cut the Dept. of Education, esp. with regards to Common Core
• Cut funding to the EPA
• Deny entrance for Syrian refugees
• Remove gun control regulations
• No national minimum wage raise

Positions that are based on his core values, and are therefore fundamental to his candidacy and persona:

• Make Mexico pay for the wall
• Reduce trade deficits with China, Mexico and Japan
• Politicians are stupid, and make bad deals
• Challenge the current "free trade" ideology in Washington

This sample set of Trump statements and policy proposals clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of what Trump says are not based on his values, and therefore are to be taken with a yuuuuge grain of salt. Yes, many of us already know this about Trump, but with this analysis, perhaps we may now know precisely why, where and how he may change his tune. A President Trump would likely surprise people on both sides of the aisle when his deal-making ends up overriding most proposals he has put forth to-date.

Importantly, we can also discern from this diagnostic that most of the rhetoric that sounds like race-baiting, authoritarianism, thuggery and bullying reflects his politics and communication style; not his values. Meaning, most of the statements and positions that many detractors find troubling are nothing more than transient tactics designed to fulfill his core objective - to make the deal. Does that excuse the rhetoric and its affect on people? Nope. But it arguably could delineate Trump from truly dangerous and "terrifying" world leaders that his detractors compare him to.

Summary/TL;DR

If we can agree — based on 30+ years of history in the public eye and parsing his statements as a candidate carefully — that Trump's core value is making a deal and everything else he does is in service to this, then it begins to make sense why so much of what he says is throw-away rhetoric with very little enduring value. In fact, this helps explain why Trump himself puts such little stock into being accurate in his own statements!

Only when we can effectively delineate Trump's values-driven statements and policies from his tactical, political rhetoric will we be able to identify the true Trump vs. the one that is so expertly dominating the media, the zeitgeist, and the national conversation.