Thread by @ThyConsigliori

30 June 2020 #MAGAanalysis

Learning to speak Dornsife-ese

As you know, I've been giving deep thought to the question of polling, and I've found part of the answer in Dornsife's work, yet again! You will want to read this document again and again:

pressroom.usc.edu/usc-los-angele…

2) The Dornsife method is built around a beating heart of wonderful questions, here:

"What is the percent chance that:
(1) you will vote in the presidential election?
(2) you will vote for Clinton, Trump, or someone else? and (3) Clinton, Trump or someone else will win?"

3) For all the work I've done on topic, there was still something nagging at me underneath, not yet conscious. I found it, and it is this. Those questions make for a...

PERFECT POLITICAL CONVERSATION!

4) I'll never forget how powerfully I was struck by their raw, beautiful simplicity back in 2016 when I discovered Dornsife. Reading this very page, back then, I immediately knew that this was the source of polling data I required for my campaign analysis.

5) In these following four years, I've waxed and waned on the topic of political conversation. But those three questions have never left my mind. Let me simplify them further:

1) Will you vote?
2) For whom?
3) Who will win?

6) I like the nuanced term they use, "percentage chance that you will," and I know why the use it. With their magical math skills they're going to give you their own amalgamated percentage chance predictions. This is very similar to how betting desks handicap sporting events.

7) Personally, I prefer what is called a closed end question. Closed questions elicit yes or no answers. Thus my blunt, will you vote?, seeks a yes or a no, and discourages a maybe. But, I'm a negotiator and a salesman and have built my blunt methods thereby.

8) Please mind, most sales training teaches open ended questions over closed. I've found that both are needed, and I'm fascinated by the fact that Dornsife not only chose the open ended route, but built their entire predictive model around it. Fascinating.

9) Their percentage chance method allows for tremendous nuance. Another way to ask their so-well-nuanced question, is:

On a scale of 1 - 100, what chance will you vote?

Percentages ARE a 1 - 100 scale.

10) If you decide to start speaking their language - and be clear, the Dornsife people HAVE created a language - you can use any scale you like. In numbers, 1 - 10, or 1 - 5 function beautifully, like so:

On a scale of 1 - 5, with 5 being you absolutely will vote, where are you?

11) It doesn't have to be numbers, however.

It can be colors like so:

Are you Greenlit to vote, or
Redlit to not vote, or are you
Bluelit somewhere in the middle not certain?

12) A last example, temperature:

Hot = will vote
Cool = will not vote
Lukewarm = equals not sure

And we can nuance temperatures into a 5 point scale by adding in the Lukewarm category hotter or cooler.

Do you see, these are all just scales.

13) Here's why I offer all these various ways to ask the same question. I want you to start making friends with honest, patriotic Democrats and honest, patriotic Independents. Obviously, I'm the hottest of 100% MAGA men. But I've realized we must not stay behind our wall.

14) With the Dornsife people asking the percentage chance of voting question, they've cut straight to the very heart of our democracy. Without the vote, we cannot be free. Yes of course, we also need law and law enforcement for our freedom. But none that matters without the vote.

15) Where law and law enforcement face inward, we obviously need the military to face outward and we live our free lives in between those bulwarks. It is there where the vote matters, and it is there where, if we're going be a unified nation, we must learn to speak to each other.

16) Will you vote? I like it that way, as I said. In my closed questions, I solicit but often do not get a yes or no answer, and the reason is simple. Life is complex! What I've learned, though, is that the binary question, yes or no, offers the extreme ends of the nuanced scale.

17) In conversation, the nuanced center between those extreme ends will assert itself naturally, all on its own. When I'm selling and ask a question like: are you ready to decide? I often hear back, almost, but...

I love that answer. It takes us deeper into their process.

18) Now let me ask you, for real, are you following?

The Dornsife people used a simplified email medium for their conversation. But, it absolutely WAS a conversation. In fact you should consider it a roughly 13-episode conversation, once per week during the election season.

19) And what I am PASSIONATELY urging you to consider, is embracing their model of conversation in your own very real world. Let's look at this with you not yet comfortable seeking out Democrats and Independents. Okay, focus exclusively on your own agreeing friends for now.

20) These three questions still count, and are critically important:

1) How certain are you that you WILL vote?
2) Do you still support Trump, completely, or has your support become softer than it was in 2016?
3) How certain are you that Trump will win?

21) In all my analytical work, I always have to incorporate a worst-case scenario exploration. Question 3, above, asked to a fellow MAGA member, leads us right there. What if Biden wins? It is a binary choice. It is Trump or Biden. If a MAGA voter turns soft, we get Biden.

22) Interestingly, in @GenFlynn work, question 3, who will win, is the most important element of what we fight for when on the field of fight.

The Flynn Doctrine

Who the people believe will win, will win.

23) So for those of you who cannot find or speak with Democrats or Independents, the Dornsife question lead you into a totally different conversation with your closest friends, or maybe even more importantly, your peripheral friends. Let me speak about that.

24) In the closest friendships, we often really do know where our friend stands. Asking such questions can still be revealing, especially the deeper you go. But, in close friendships our assumptions, the things we know but don't say have much truth and much warmth.

25) There are always wrong assumptions in every relationship. So, that's why asking these questions of close friends is a good thing, but again, you likely already know. With your peripheral friends, not so much! The power of these questions there is vast.

26) In a peripheral friendship, you may not even have many assumptions (probably wise not to) or, worse, your assumptions have nowhere nearly so great a chance of accuracy as with a close friend. Asking these 3 questions can begin to change that!

27) As in all things, time is the key, more than anything else. Peripheral friends are often that solely due to the lack of time we share. Using the Dornsife questions in a conversation will take time. You must be sure to budget that time if you're going to start.

28) Now let's go back into the danger zone, Democrats and Independents. There are two great keys to civil discourse with those who do not agree with us. The first is: friends have the right to disagree. Friendship based solely on agreement is a shallow, brittle, fragile thing.

29) The motto I've embraced, the goal I've committed to is:

Friends who agree to disagree so very agreeably.

Once you embrace this value, it offers red flag warning signals when the conversation is getting too heated. You know to back off and cool down.

30) When you start, yourself, or notice that your friend is starting to get heated up, instantly back off. It's easy to do. You can just say, you know, man, I'm getting a bit heated up. Let's stop now, I'll think about this, and when I'm a bit cooler, let's try again.

31) And that brings me to the second key. Never play at this, and never fight at all out war, either. What I mean is this. If you have no room to change your mind, then never debate with someone who disagrees with you. There is an absolute rule, never to be broken here.

32) The rule is:

Only debate over things you're willing to change your mind about, and only do so with others willing to change theirs.

Whoa. Is that even possible, and if so, would it be good? Yes and yes, absolutely.

33) The purpose of a debate is draw closer to truth, and we can only do that with open minds. When you know the truth, and are not willing to change your mind, then you shouldn't debate. And, there is no point to debating with someone else in the same place but on the other side.

34) The Dornsife questions give you the answer as to whether or not something can be debated. You have to know where the other person stands, and of course where you stand. If there is nuanced space between you, then debate. If not, just ask questions and listen.

35) Say you believe in voting as much as I do (I add, now, I didn't believe in voting in the past). You find someone who, like me in the past, does not believe in voting and you detect passionate heat behind that. Just ask for that person's story. Why? Why so against voting?

36) Do not try to persuade or change the other person's mind, just truly listen for their anti-voting story. There is one. Ask for it, and as well trained salesmen know, when you ask a question, shut up and really listen. Don't plan your counter attack. Just listen.

37) As you can tell, I have a new dream rising. I have a dream where Republicans and Democrats can debate with open minds, where possible, yet where we can each listen to each other and come to understand each other where debate is either merely futile or actually destructive.

38) There's another way for me to express my dream. It is that of YOU becoming a political poll taker, yourself, and FOR yourself, your friends, your neighborhoods and communities. I want to transform poll taking from a professional to an amateur endeavor.

39) I want you to care about what every citizen in your sphere, your own life zone, really thinks. I want you to master the art of conversation with those who disagree with you. I want you to get good at it, really good at it. Maybe Martin Luther's vision can guide us.

40) Maybe we can anoint ourselves the Political Polling Priesthood of All Citizens. The Dornsife question, mastered conversationally, can be the first step toward making that dream a reality.

So tell me, what do you think?

Thread ends at #40.