Kamala Harris: Rock Bottom Expectations Yield Pleasant Surprise

Debate performance consistent with general demoralization campaign.

We’ve all had the experience of attending a holiday party with a feeling of dread because we know we are going to bump into someone we don’t want to see because he is obnoxious, especially after sinking a few drinks. However, occasionally we are confronted with a pleasant surprise, and the next morning, people say things like,

You know something, I actually enjoyed seeing George! He was very pleasant and instead of talking about himself the whole time, he asked me how I’m doing and he even inquired about my kids. It’s a miracle!

Having entered the party with rock bottom expectations about someone, the experience of him behaving pleasantly jolts us with positive emotion. We may even find ourselves feeling downright fond of the old boy and thinking that maybe we were too judgmental in the past.

The fine art of defying rock bottom expectations is a key feature of any demoralization campaign. Demoralization works by inflicting an extremely bleak situation on the citizenry that leaves everyone feeling deeply unsettled and even full of dread. Those who are being abused think to themselves: “Oh my, how can this be happening? What are these people thinking? Is this really the direction we’re headed? Gosh, how depressing?”

But then … a miracle happens! The person or the situation turns out to be not that bad. Amazing! Maybe there’s hope after all!

Ratcheting expectations down to rock bottom, then providing pleasant surprises to the upside, softens the successive blows and facilitates the normalization of a state of affairs that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years earlier.

Kamala’s debate last night will not win over people who were inclined to vote for Trump, but it will go far in assuaging the anxieties of people who are inclined to vote Democrat but had misgivings about her. They will now think, “I was a bit worried about Kamala, but I was very happy to see that she did alright against Trump. I think I can really get behind her now.”

To be sure, the same can be said for Trump, though for different reasons. While Kamala has a history of saying incredibly daft and bizarre things, Trump has a history of being obnoxiously egoistic and boastful. Thus, it seems to me that Trump should also recognize the huge value of the pleasant upside surprise he could achieve by occasionally being more genteel and restrained.

POSTSCRIPT (in response to negative comments): Expressions of adulation for Donald Trump are not going to help him win. He and his people need to understand precisely how much of the public is being manipulated in order to anticipate it and counter it. I suspected the Dems would figure out a way to train Kamala the Cackling Dingbat to seem far more coherent during this debate. Trump and his people need to understand that they are dealing with masters of manipulation and up their own game accordingly. The most astonishing negative comments are those pointing out to me that the moderators were grossly biased and provided all manner of unfair assistance to Kamala. This is the equivalent of me saying that gravity works or that a man can’t breathe underwater. Did any sane person actually believe the moderators would be unbiased?