Does this sound very much like what I’ve been writing about for well over a decade here at Pirate’s Cove?
How the science of persuasion could change the politics of climate change
Jerry Taylor believes he can change the minds of conservative climate skeptics. After all, he helped plant the doubts for many in the first place.
Taylor spent years as a professional climate denier at the Cato Institute, arguing against climate science, regulations, and treaties in op-eds, speeches, and media appearances. But his perspective slowly began to change around the turn of the century, driven by the arguments of several economists and legal scholars laying out the long-tail risks of global warming.
Now he’s president of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian-leaning Washington, DC, think tank he founded in 2014. He and his colleagues there are trying to build support for the passage of an aggressive federal carbon tax, through discussions with Washington insiders, with a particular focus on Republican legislators and their staff.
I wasn’t aware of the notion that Conservatives and Libertarians were super interested in wanting massive government interference in people’s lives and the economy.
Hint: real ones aren’t. And Taylor surely isn’t either, at least not anymore. Especially when you read ahead
Lesson one: Pick the right targets
Political scientists consistently find that mass opinion doesn’t drive the policy debate, so much as the other way around. Partisan divides emerge first among “elites,†including influential advocacy groups, high-profile commentators, and politicians, says Megan Mullin, an associate professor of environmental politics at Duke University.
They, in turn, set the terms of debate in the public mind, spreading the parties’ views through tested and refined sound bites in media appearances, editorials, social media, and other forums.
Basically, this is a “you peons should listen to your political masters, and we need to influence the political masters to Force the plebes to act in a certain prescribed manner” schtick.
And, yes, if you read the rest, you rather do get inklings of Alinsky’s rules for radicals. But, the most important part is about playing to the elites, getting them to comply, and, hey, what politician doesn’t like power?
