Many Americans learned a new word last week - Sedition

 

According to Merriam-Webster searches for the word "sedition" were up 1500% on January 6th, the day thousands of domestic terrorists egged on by Trump and his fellow Republicans stormed the Congress to disrupt the certification of the legitimate election results.

 

Merriam-Webster defines sedition as “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”

 

Now let's recap what Trump and his fellow insurrectionists said/did to stoke the riots...

 

Ron Johnson said: 50 to 70 million Americans "have real legitimate suspicions that this election was stolen" 

 

Paul Gosar of Arizona called Biden an "illegitimate usurper." 

 

Ted Cruz of Texas cited: "unprecedented allegations of voter fraud." And said, "Are they going to try to steal?  Yes" 

 

Mo Brooks of Missouri said: "start taking down names and kicking ass"

 

Before the insurrection Trump himself said: You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."

 

During the insurrection Lauren Boebert of Colorado live tweeted Nancy Pelosi's location.

 

But this photo of Josh Hawley giving a fist pump to the crowd as they stormed the Capitol will probably resonate the most.  Photos have a way of doing that.

 

Today Trump will become the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice.  And the first one impeached for Incitement of Insurrection.

 

But what about his co-conspirators in the Sedition Caucus?

 

The 14th amendment, section 3 says:

 

Section 3

No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

 

Words matter.

Sedition matters.

Take another look at that photo.

 

Trending 'sedition'  merriam-webster.com.  Retrieved January 12, 2021, from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/sedition-20210106

 

Friends ask friends to wear masks.

 

Public shaming is very popular these days.  Here's what my students had to say about it last month...

 

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2020/11/should-we-be-shaming-people-into-doing.html

 

I get it.  It's very tempting to call someone out about their bad behavior.  The problem is - who gets to decide what's bad?

 

President-elect Biden has been shaming Trump publicly over the past few weeks in an effort to get him to do his job.  Trump's reaction?  He's playing golf.

 

We really shouldn't be surprised.  Shaming is not on the list of most effective persuasion techniques.

 

What is on the list is liking.  Research shows that taking a few minutes to establish commonalities - which leads to liking, prior to negotiations, results in successful outcomes 90% of the time versus 55%  if this step is skipped. (Cialdini, 2020)

 

Every time we can get another person to wear a mask we all win. 

 

So focus your efforts on people who like you.  Explain that you wear your mask to protect them.  Ask them to do the same for you. 

 

You never know, it might just work.

 

 

Cialdini, R. (2020) Science of Persuasion.  Influence at Work.  retrieved December 30, 2020, from

https://www.influenceatwork.com/principles-of-persuasion/

If you tell a lie three times people will believe it's true.

Humans aren't properly wired to deal with lies.  From an evolutionary standpoint it wasn't necessary.  Truth was based on our own experiences and actions.  We knew what we heard, saw and did, because we experienced it ourselves.

But now that our experiences have become mostly virtual we are reliant on what others tell us about events. And that's a problem because our brains mistake familiarity for truth.  The more often we hear something the more likely we are to believe it's true.

Research shows that after the third time we hear a lie we believe it's true, even if it contradicts a previously held belief.  And even if it is labeled as false. (Fazio, Brashier, Payne & Marsh, 2015)

It's no wonder then that once the polls showed Trump losing he doubled down on his criticism of mail-in voting despite the fact that he himself votes by mail.  And, as his numbers have continued to sink he has upped the ante to claim that if he doesn't win the election it will be because of fraud. 

You can expect him to keep repeating that lie over and over again until November 3rd.  Because he knows that if he does, some people will be fooled.

Will you be one of them?

Fazio, L., Brashier, N., Payne, B. & Marsh, E.  (2015, August 24)  Knowledge Does Not Protect Against Illusory Truth.  Journal of Experimental Psychology.  Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf