Influence Strategy: The Plays That Delivered The Donald
November 9, 2016With gratitude to the terrific team at SiriusXM POTUS, our coverage of the plays for the 2016 presidency began 26 months ago, Aug. 27, 2014 with Joe Biden drafting his boss, Jeb Bush running coy deflects, Chris Christie finessing the Bridgegate label, Hillary Clinton booking prime-time preenings, Ted Cruz holding a crouch-to-pounce position, Rand Paul lofting trial balloons, and Rick Perry running crazy ivans on a state prosecutor.
By way of subtle pings, Martin O’Malley, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Elizabeth Warren were mere saplings in the garden of two dozen presidential hopefuls. And, yet, the two whom history will recognize as the leaders of real movements, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, were still in their shells, presumably weighing their worth with the people who might follow them.
How Hillary Clinton snuffed out Sanders and how Trump then shellacked Hillary, among other rhetorical skirmishes, is a showcase to the essential discipline I call influence strategy, the lesser-understood half of the strategy pie that describes in specific units the moves and countermoves beneath our motives and means of influence. Whether in stump speeches, late-night tweets, late-night skits, debates or through dueling surrogates, what we witnessed was two full years of calculated moves — some cunning, some less-so — by relative masters of rhetoric and the 24 plays of the Taxonomy of Influence Plays.
Now, with Trump’s stunning victory, the most pregnant question is, How did he do it? And if influence strategy is the essential discipline of politics, What plays did he run? With what effect and consequences? Below is a selection of posts that shed light on the methods and madness that guided the billionaire to the White House.
June 18, 2015 Hillary’s Peacock, Jeb’s Crowd and Donald’s Trump
July 21, 2015 The Plays to Counter The Donald
Aug. 20, 2015 Succumbing to Trumpism. It’s Just Business.
Oct. 20, 2015 How Donald Put Jeb into Checkmate: Beware the Dreaded Zugzwang
Nov. 30, 2015 How to Beat The Donald: Encourage Him
Jan. 21, 2016 Rx for Trump Haters: Help Him
March 10, 2016 It’s Counter-Intuitive: Four Plays to Stop The Donald
April 27, 2016 Trump Wants Hillary to Be a Man. And She’s Taking the Bait
May 11, 2016 Trump v. Ryan: Observations and Predictions
May 16, 2016 Surrogate Stunts: What Evel Knievel and Donald Trump Have in Common
May 26, 2016 The Great Sorting: Slytherin Problems in the GOP
Aug. 1, 2016 Why Trump is Toast: He Won’t Dance the Disco
Aug. 11, 2016 Stolen Play: Trump and Temperament
Sept. 1, 2016 Tick-Tock Trump: Four Plays in Four Days
Sept. 13, 2106 Basket Case: How Trump Beat Hillary’s Deplorable Attack
Sept. 28, 2016 Bait and Wait: How Hillary Trapped a Strategy-Free Trump
Oct. 29, 2016 Final Debate: How Hillary Beat The Donald, and The Donald Beat Himself
Nov. 2, 2016 Plays and Politics: Explaining Hillary’s Defeat
You run plays. Plays are run on you. And, for better or worse, the new master of this art and science is our new president. Strap in, the midterms are just around the corner!
Post by Alan Kelly
Graphics courtesy of Playmaker Systems, LLC