Good people to have around
I have to ask you about Donald Trump before we go because you wrote an article about him
and you said some fascinating things about television
One of them, you said, is that "people watch TV, they don't listen to it"
which really reminded me of myself
and you said, "people don't love who Donald Trump is, they love who he's not."
Simon: "Correct."
And Hillary Clinton should be worried
[Simon chuckles]
Would you briefly tell me your thoughts on the Trump phenomenon
Right, I'll break down both of those things
So, the Republicans did a remarkable job for the past decade or so
marketing Anti-Obama.
I mean, Mitch McConnell himself stood at a press conference and said
"the single purpose of the Republican party is to deny President Obama" and he wins.
So he basically said we've aligned an entire political party against someone versus for the people.
That's really screwed up, right?
They made this whole concept of "being an insider" a dirty word
and "an outsider" the most brilliant thing in the world
that all outsiders are saviors
and they used fear as a tool for short term gains.
Well, congratulations. All the marketing worked.
You now have a consummate outsider who is the consummate Anti-Obama-ist
who is using fear to advance his personal selfish gains and you let the genie out of the bag.
Like, congratulations all your 10 years of marketing worked.
They lay the foundation for this. That's number 1.
Number 2, we can't neglect the power of the screen.
Political historians often talk about the Nixon/JFK debates
which are the first televised presidential debates
and what's so interesting about them is anyone who listened to the debates on the radio
thought that Nixon won
But everyone who watched them on television gave the win to Kennedy.
And the famous bead of sweat that rolled down Nixon's face
versus Kennedy who was dry and confident
We don't listen to presidential debates now
Politics is not played out on the radio.
Politics is played out on the television.
Morning political shows and press conferences and sound bites and YouTube
and, you know, and etc, etc, etc.
We largely watch politics, we don't really listen to it.
We don't read it as much as we watch it.
Nobody reads the transcript of debates.
You missed them or you watched them. Right?
And the people who are advancing are the ones who are the most tele-friendly.
They're good-looking, they're tall.
Governor Kasich is a moderate
He's a fantastic governor, has remarkable success as a governor.
He's got an incredible reputation as a consensus builder of cross party lines.
And yet, he's absolutely abysmal on television
And guess what's happening? He's way behind.
And at the end of the day, Americans are completely sick of all politicians.
We've had ineptitude for more than a decade.
The approval ratings are in the toilet for 15 years.
We've seen nothing getting done. We see selfishness over selflessness.
We see their own political priorities over doing good things for the country and for us.
We're just sick of all politicians.
And so Donald Trump, as you said, He's not popular for who he is.
He's popular for who he isn't.
He's not a politician.
And that's it.
It's not a vote for Donald Trump.
It's a vote against everyone else.
And they should all be ashamed of themselves.
All of them. Republicans and Democrats.
Now there's the other side of it.
Which is, the question that must be raised.
Which is, Are our politicians a reflection of us?
Are our politicians a mirror raised to us?
And should we be the first to throw stones?
Or should we accept that maybe we get the politicians we deserve?
And if we want them to change, maybe we should change ourselves.
Maybe we're the ones who are divisive.
Maybe we're the ones who are narcissistic.
Maybe we're the ones who are putting our interests ahead of the interests of everybody else.
And if you look at the way that we're raising our kids and running our companies,
I don't know if we can say that we're better.
And so maybe instead of demanding that they change,
maybe we should demand that we change and take some accountability for our own actions.
And maybe then we'll get the politicians we deserve.
And that is very well said.
And this comes up a lot in the show.
We talked about sometimes drug policy. I've had Dr. Carl Hart in here.
He has a great TED Talks. It's called a "Let's stop abusing drug users."
And it always come back to policy you can say it's wrong but it is a reflection on us
and I believe somehow our own self-hatred, our own desires and wants
and it's very complicated
how that happens. Simon: You know
You know, a narcissistic population gets narcissistic politicians.
Yeah, I know. And why do we respond to that fear in Trump
It says so much about us.
Because we use it ourselves to get work out of people.
I mean it is the predominant, it is the predominant business philosophy of the day.
Hit the goal, get the bonus. Hit the goal get the bonus. Hit the goal get the bonus
Under performed, out.
That is a fear-based, dopamine-based system.
To watch the rest of this fascinating interview,
click on the link below
and go to LondonRealAcademy.com
There you can sign in with your social media, log in and watch the rest of the episode for free.
Along with all of our episodes on London Real.
My Webinars and all of our premium content, all located over at LondonRealAcademy.com
So click on the link below.
You'll be directed there and you can watch the rest of this fascinating interview
and I'll see you there.