Persuading the Persuadables

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• Persuading the Persuadables
• in 2008
• What Kind of Big Story
• Do We Need to Tell?

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• What do we mean by a big story?
• And why does telling the right big story matter?

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• The right story isnt necessarily the top-of-mind
  story
• USITW is about helping you communicate your
  ideas, values, and policy proposals in a way that
  evokes and reinforces a big, broadly shared story
  a big idea or set of ideas that leads
  audiences toward your conclusions, not away from
  them

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• Where is our audience coming from? What familiar
  concepts do they draw on when they think about
  how the U.S. should be in the world?

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• Theres a set of big, durable ideas about
  responsible, effective global engagement that
  resonate with ordinary Americans and that are
  consistent with views of a wide range of foreign
  policy experts.

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• That baseline story is being affirmed in 2008
• But the story Americans tell themselves about US
  global engagement is also being reshaped by the
  dynamics of the electoral seasonin ways we all
  need to take into account

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1. AMBIVALENCE ABOUT GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT With
their lens on global engagement narrowed to Iraq
and the WOT, the public is expressing a new
ambivalence about the idea of global engagement
itself.
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• Please tell me whether you agree or disagree
  with the following statement The United States
  should mind its own business internationally and
  let other countries get along as best they can on
  their own.
• Trendline question (Pew, Gallup, Newsweek)
• The number of Americans willing to agree with
  this statement has increased, with some polls
  showing a slim majority agreeing. Up to
  two-thirds of Democrats say they agree

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• Challenge for communicators
• To prevent dissatisfaction with the current
  state of US global engagement from turning into a
  preference for disengagement, rather than
  pressure for a different kind of engagement.

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2. ANGER ABOUT THE ECONOMY The public is
fiercely angry about the downturn in the US
economy. Arguments about taking care of our
own are gaining traction.
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• Democracy Corps focus groups, January 2008
• Make the American public realize that they
  havent been forgotten in all of this, that there
  are big issues in our own country that need to be
  taken care of and not just big issues in other
  countries. (Columbus, OH, non-college educated
  woman)
• Can the US and our tax dollars remove every
  dictator and turn the entire world into a
  democracy? Is that really our role in the entire
  world? (Orlando, FL, college educated man)

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• Challenge for communicators
• How to demonstrate concern for what Americans
  are going through without reinforcing the here
  vs there, home vs abroad frame.

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3. LOSS OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE Americans come to
the 2008 electoral debate with diminished
confidence in all policy solutions and increased
skepticism about government competence.
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• The public not only doubts that U.S. foreign
  policy is working, but theyre increasingly
  skeptical about whether anything can turn the
  situation around. The public shows an increasing
  loss of faith in many policy options, while
  public approval in almost every policy area has
  declined.
• Public Agenda, October 2007

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• Challenge for communicators
• To overcome public cynicism and disempowerment

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4. EVOLVING NOTIONS OF LEADERSHIP Public
thinking on US global leadership is evolving
toward notions of shared leadership. But the
process is incomplete, and shared power holds
less appeal.
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• According to Gallup, a majority of Americans has
  consistently said the US should play a major role
  in world affairs (58 in 2007). What has changed
  in recent years is the percentage wanting the US
  to play the leading role. Currently, only 15 of
  Americans want the United States to play a
  preeminent role in world affairs, down from a
  high of 26 as recently as 2003 (Gallup
  trend, February 2007)

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• Challenge for communicators
• Reinforcing and entrenching the publics
  preference for shared leadership, and encouraging
  people to focus on how we want to use American
  power.

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5. UNCERTAINTY ABOUT IMPLEMENTATION Support for
using all the tools in the foreign policy
toolbox is higher than ever but theres still
limited public awareness and understanding of the
nonmilitary dimensions of US foreign policy.
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• 68 believe Democracy may make life better
  within a country, but it does not make the world
  a safer place. (KN/PIPA 2005)
• Only 30 believe attempting to reduce poverty in
  the Middle East is a very important way to
  reduce terrorism in the future. (PSRA/Pew
  2006).
• For most people, global engagement now means
  boots on the ground, a military presence in
  other countries
• (UN Foundation, 11/07)

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• Challenge for communicators
• To help people understand how nonmilitary
  strategies work and how they help us achieve
  our foreign policy goals.

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6. DIFFICULTY SEEING THE BIG PICTURE Restoring
U.S. moral authority has become a foreign
policy priority. But the electoral debate has
not yet produced a broadly conceived or
well-developed framework for public thinking.
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• Today, more Americans are dissatisfied with the
  position of the US in the world than they have
  been since Gallup started recording
  dissatisfaction in 1966 (61 dissatisfied in
  February 2007, up 7 percentage points since 2006)
  
• In the past, Americas leadership inspired
  the trust and confidence of a generation of
  governments and nations around the worldbecause
  we pursued common actions that reflected common
  interests with our alliesbecause we remained
  committed to global engagementand because we
  exercised our power with restraint.
• Sen. Chuck Hagel, July 28, 2006,
  Brookings Institution)

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• Challenge for communicators
• Helping Americans connect the dots and bridge
  the gap between principles and practice.

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7. THE FEAR FACTOR Those opposed to any serious
reorientation of US foreign policy can be counted
on to play the fear card relentlessly.
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• We votersall of usmake emotional, intuitive
  decisions about who we prefer, and then come up
  with post-hoc rationalizations to explain the
  choices that were already made beneath conscious
  awareness. People often act without knowing why
  they do what they do, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel
  Prize winner, noted in an e-mail message to me
  this week.
• David Brooks, NYT, 1/18/08

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• In 2004, researchers found that asking subjects
  to think about their own death or just giving
  them subliminal reminders of the 9/11attacks
  led to significant increases in support for
  President Bush and his policies, regardless of
  political affiliation.
• (Solomon/Greenberg/Pyszczinski,
  summarized in
  Westen, The Political Brain)

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• Challenge for communicators
• Countering and replacing the fear frame.

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• SUMMARY OF NEW BIG STORY DYNAMICS
• Increased public ambivalence about global
  engagement
• Anger about the economy fix problems at home
• Loss of confidence in policy solutions
• Evolving ideas about global leadership
• Growing interest in nonmilitary strategies
  combined with limited awareness
• Restoring moral authority is critical but how?
• The fear factor

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