How To Fool Most Of The People Most Of The Time This morning I listened to all the political pundits and network commentators explaining why the Democrats lost the Senate and a number of State Gubernatorial contests as well. In the opinion of the experts, the primary reason was an overwhelming dissatisfaction with President Obama’s policies and decision-making which carried over to the incumbent Democrats in both houses of Congress. This is a man elected not once, but twice by the alleged registered voting populace of this country. After six years in office, the voters have now discovered he is probably incompetent, if not a complete fraud. If that is true, my question is: “How did he get elected in the first place?” This question has been repeatedly asked by many of us who did not vote for him. There were no impressive credentials of prior experience or accomplishments in his political and private sector resume’. First of all, he had no private sector experience - period. He was an inner city community organizer in Chicago and was a state senator before being elected to the U.S. Senate. He never made public his academic records from Columbia University or Harvard Law School. In fact, he was the least vetted presidential candidate in the history of our nation. No television interviews were ever conducted with former fellow students at either university. Most of his classmates didn’t even remember him. So what got him elected President? The answer is simply perception and image over substance and reality. And this is how you fool most of the people most of the time. Obviously, you need a lot of help from enablers such as public relations image-makers, campaign experts and especially, an adoring media to nurture the image and perception of the man that appeals to most of the people. But this is done not only for presidential and other political candidates; it is done in the academic environment at prestigious colleges and universities, in the private sector corporate world that includes the creation of television network personalities. The power of perception over substance or reality is an effective technique used to influence not just uninformed or naďve people but even the most intelligent and educated as well. Whether you are interviewing a job candidate, choosing a political candidate over another, selecting a physician or dentist, accountant, financial advisor, or even a prospective marital partner, you are first and foremost influenced by the perception you have of them. Their reputation, experience credentials and accomplishments are certainly considered, but if the person fails the perception test, he or she is usually not a winner. There are thousands of examples every day in which perception is used to influence the thinking process and decision making of ordinary people. Each year billions are spent in advertising by companies to market their products. Market surveys identify the most likely groups by age, income, gender, etc. for their specific products and they hire advertising firms to create the most favorable perception of their products to appeal to people in these targeted markets. Perception is often enhanced or influenced by personal biases. We all have some bias about something no matter how much we attempt to deny this fact. It is human nature and at times, can and does influence our perception of someone, even without our conscious awareness. Incompetence exists among those in the private sector, academia, and most noticeably in politics because the media attention is focused more on politics than any other arena. Personal incompetence is a direct result of people hiring employees or electing and/or appointing people to positions for which they are not qualified – period. Incompetence is often camouflaged for extensive periods primarily because those responsible for selecting the wrong people avoid admission of the mistakes for fear of personal criticism or worse. Why do we continue to foster so much incompetence at all levels in the private, public, and academic sectors? Once again, the answer is: “We hire, promote, elect and appoint people based upon our perception and image of them, which is also influenced by our personal biases.” Here is a random list of perception traps and biases that are applied everyday: 1. A tall, human resources interviewer has several candidates to choose from to fill a management position within his company. The most qualified candidate is only 5ft. 7” but he is eliminated from consideration in favor of a 6ft. 1” man with lesser qualifications. 2. A small business owner hires an attractive young woman for a receptionist/ bookkeeper position. Three other older, less attractive women with excellent references and experience were by-passed. The young woman’s references were not checked and she is frequently absent, tardy, and displays little bookkeeping knowledge. 3. A corporate accounting executive interviews the son of an old college roommate as a favor to his friend. The young man makes a good first impression and is immediately hired. Months later, the young man proves to be lazy and way over his head for the position for which he was hired. The executive does not want to fire the young man but his performance may leave him no choice. 4. A tall, young, independent candidate with a beautiful wife and daughter is elected to the House of Representatives. After two years in office, his voting record on bills and other issues fails to represent the views of his constituency who elected him. 5. Political Correctness – The need to establish diversity in the public and private sectors has become an obsession with liberals and is one of the major tenets of political correctness. Recruiting people to achieve diversity at all levels in the public and private sectors often leads to incompetence because quality of education and experience become secondary factors in the employment, appointment, and election process. Most people believe that political correctness has gone too far and is just another means of controlling our speech and behavior. However, the media is totally committed to political correctness and a slip of the tongue by a political candidate or even a corporate executive can prove fatal to their careers. Now let’s get back to our primary subject of perception and image over substance and reality – Barack Obama. 1. He was marketed as an articulate, brilliant, rhetorical genius with a clean-cut appearance. 2. As the first black presidential candidate, the race card was cleverly exploited by his promoters, demanding that moderate and liberal white voters prove that racism no longer exists. Only by electing a black president, could this predominately white nation demonstrate to the rest of the world that the racist label associated with years of racism and oppression towards blacks no longer existed. This concept was emphasized over and over to young college voters by their liberal professors. It was obviously very successful. 3. His youthful appearance and demeanor made him the likes of a rock star to the white youth of America. 4. His message of “hope and change” resounded not only to his black constituency but to all of us who became pawns in Obama’s class warfare revival – The rich vs. the poor; the halves vs. the have nots. An example of how perception and image can cloud the minds of even the most respected intellectuals among us occurred in 2008 when Obama’s candidacy for president was first announced. A respected senior writer for the New York Times interviewed Obama and later wrote a column in which he stated that as Barack Obama was answering one of his questions, the writer looked down and noted the impeccable, razor sharp, crease in his trousers. He said, “ At that moment, I was sure he was going to be our next president.” In conclusion, let me say that all of these examples in the marketing of Barack Obama, presidential candidate, have nothing to do with any portion of the vetting process. The vetting process as it applies to political candidates running for national office, is usually a pretty thorough investigation of the candidate’s history including his complete education resume’, his experience and previous accomplishments as a legislator or other positions for which he held office. It also includes his personal family history, prior income tax returns, and usually an estimate of his financial net worth. As I wrote in the third paragraph above, he is the least vetted of all presidential candidates before him. Perhaps there was not much to vet. The fact that he was an articulate, attractive, youthful black man, described by many as brilliant and a rhetorical genius; that he was briefly a United States Senator and a community organizer, that he had a law degree from Harvard and preached a message of hope and change to the youth of America; that he authored a couple of books about his life and his father, demonstrating extremist ideology and little appreciation for our Constitution. All of these facts are true but THERE IS NOTHING IN HIS PERSONAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY TO SUGGEST THAT HE POSSESSED SUFFICIENT, SUBSTANTIVE QUALIFICATIONS TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Now the people who voted for him are looking for solutions to all of our problems. Maybe they should ask his caddy.
Copyright © 2014 Richard Koss |