Bonus EP – You’re Fired!: A Move For A Better Vision For America
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Democrat presidential candidates have all been agreeing on moving to impeach the current US President, Donald Trump, and offering a better vision for America as a nation. Listen to this episode as Bill Stierle and Tom expound upon the current issues we want to solve and why the current president does not appear to have a clear vision of how to solve the real problems the country has moving forward.
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Bill, I watched Meet the Press. Andrew Yang was being interviewed and he said something that caught my eye when he was asked if he supports the impeachment inquiry. I thought that it was a very interesting statement about setting the vision, which we’ve talked about. I want to play a clip and I’ll get your reaction to it. “There is a basic question that many voters are going to have. Do you think what the President did is an egregious act that he shouldn’t be on the ballot in 2020?” “I agree with the panel discussion that you had. I am for impeachment but the fact is, when we’re talking about Donald Trump, we are not presenting a new way forward in a positive vision for the country that Americans will get excited about. That’s the only way we’re going to win in 2020.
That’s the only way we’re going to start solving the problems that got him elected.” To me, that was interesting because he mentioned what we’ve talked about a few times, setting the vision. Do you feel that was a good answer to the question and helpful to him?
That took too long to set the vision. The problem with the communication style patterns that we’ve been brought up is we’ve been taught to explain the problem solved. What happens is it goes to the vision and set the narrative for the vision and dips back in and use explanations like the way we use salt and pepper. Don’t explain too long. Don’t problem solve too long. Set the vision. The number one reason why Barack Obama got elected with a name like, “Barack Hussein Obama,” was that he consistently sets the vision. He only dipped into a problem, a solution, and an explanation a bit. That’s one of the challenges that the candidates have like Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden hasn’t set any vision.
He’s constantly explaining it.
From the generation that had time to explain, you would explain. The newspaper would explain what you’ve explained and the news would take it out in small pieces. There is no time to explain what’s wrong. There is time to set the vision and then sprinkle in, “This is how to fix the thing that was wrong.” You can gently sprinkle it in there, but you’ve got to set the vision that sounds like, “Here’s what integrity looks like in the presidency for me.” Notice how I started with what I’m building on. “Here is what growth in the country looks like and this is the vision that I am setting for that.” You don’t need to overuse the word, vision, but it is something to see what that’s a fill in the blank.
This is what it looks like. This is how I can take it there. This is what leadership looks like, then you sprinkle in, “Regrettably, the President is doing that while he is having trouble with the truth, while he is having trouble with integrity. There are some struggling with honesty. I wish that the President would be straightforward with the Americans by disclosing the taxes as he promised. If you don’t do what you promised, it’s hard for people to trust you. I feel doubtful and skeptical that the President is going to do that again.”
What happened there is I set the base narrative for what I’m standing for being like, “The American public is feeling tired because they’re feeling doubtful and skeptical about the resistance to truth that the President’s allies are speaking from. Going forward, what we need is a truth and reconciliation process to get us back to what we’d like to stand for in America. Let’s not make it Donald Trump’s truth. Let’s make it America’s truth.” Even your vibrations go like, “Bill, can I invite vote for you?” You’ve got to be able to do it. You’ve got to have some ideas and skills to get there. Many of the democratic candidates have that and don’t have the level of wreckage that he has.
To me, it was very interesting because I thought that what Andrew Yang said in the clip was correct.
Andrew Yang is right on target about his answer and explanation, but it’s not in alignment with what is going to land or stick. You’ve got to get it to stick or otherwise it’s just words. You’ve got to put more words out.
It took him a very long time to talk about and teach what the Democratic candidates or the eventual nominee need to do is set a vision for the future, but he didn’t set a vision in his answer.
The problem with the communication style patterns is we’ve been taught to explain the problem to be solved.
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We have standards for those things. You’re getting hemmed in. I saw a piece on all the things that the President gets to do are all the things that the Republicans said that they’ve been complaining about. Open trials, chance to cross things, and get to present their case. They get to do all those things. In fact, there are six items that Donald Trump gets to do. Bill Clinton only got to do three of those things. Richard Nixon only got to do five of those things. He didn’t get to do one of them, but the challenge is that your guy made several mistakes. It’s like a bad boyfriend or a bad girlfriend that you can’t get away from. It’s like, “I’m going to give him a second chance,” not at this junction.
If his people can keep him from doing it, I agree, if the president were to read out the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian president on live TV or an interview, it would be disastrous. I’m sure half of the White House staff knows that because they’ve been arguing about whether that transcript should have been released in the first place. That was a big self-inflicted in itself. It doesn’t make any sense. The president is operating his foreign policy in his White House like he did in his businesses. That’s what got him into trouble on the phone call anyway. I’m sure he has strong-armed people all the time saying, “I’m not going to give you this unless you do that.” That’s common in business and perfectly acceptable in business.
It’s deal-making but it’s not value-driven. Congress is voting to support values, not to get a deal. The whole concept of electing a deal maker is the person is going to literally have decision-making skills on two levels. Donald Trump has decision making and deal-making skills at this level, but the presidency needs to have this level of skill-building in saying, “This is what integrity and respect look like.” I could turn on a dime to do that to live into those values. If he would have turned on a dime to do that, then what happened is that Russia would have been big trouble at the beginning because he would have been going like, “We’re fighting for the American values, of what freedom and human rights looks like and because of that, I can’t do the second level of deal-making.” Instead, he’s operating so much on this deal-making piece.
It’s funny and that’s the word that came to my mind. I’m trying not to let it slip out, but it’s literally bankrupt. He’s known for his bankruptcy, courts and legal proceedings. Donald Trump is doing it his whole life. This is what it was like before he came into the presidency or before the White House. This is where he was. He was always in court. He was always in bankruptcy. He was always in this space. America has got to dig itself out of bankruptcy. That’s out of debt.
He’s making us all live through his own very real reality TV show, playing out on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News. This to him is all a big reality show. He’s running his playbook of doing that very well and winning ratings, which is what he cares about.
There’s the Democratic tagline that everybody is looking for. As soon as they formalize vote for impeachment, that he gets to preach by the Congress because that’s happening next, “The candidate that puts on the hat that says, you’re fired.”
That is brilliant, Bill. You’re fired because you steal his line.
They’ve got to say, “You’re fired,” because integrity means something. You’re fired because Americans’ values mean something. Notice that I’m putting something underneath what, “You’re fired,” means. You’re fired because you’re not stable. You’re fired because you’re not in alignment with the constitution. You’re fired because you’re not in alignment with American values. That’s the speech that comes behind, “Mr. President, you’re fired.” Notice that that can happen before the Senate votes. If it happens before the Senate votes and they vote to keep him, nobody will vote to keep him and whoever is running against him next time, they didn’t have the courage to fire him. They didn’t have the ability to put America ahead of the party. We’re not doing that anymore. We’re not going to put party ahead of Americans. That’s the challenge. The level of language encouraged needs to take place. You’ve got to get ahead of what’s next in your narrative so that you’re able to set the vision. Setting the vision is something that he did so well in, “Make America Great Again,” but all he did was point out what was wrong.
You mentioned that Barack Obama did a great job of setting the vision. We need to acknowledge that Donald Trump did a great job setting the vision, marketing his candidacy, providing the sizzle that everybody was looking for. There’s no steak at the end of the day there. He did it. He set the vision and enough Americans bought into it. They didn’t buy into, regrettably the explanation by Hillary Clinton trying to counter that vision. You’ve got to set a vision. Bill, I love, “You’re fired,” in the context of The House impeachment vote. I do agree. It would be brilliant if that comes out prior to the Senate doing their trial. It’s a brilliant way to out-Trump Donald Trump.
The vision for America is to move back to what America stands for, not to advocate for what Trump is standing for.
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You’ve got to take advantage of the sound bite. One thing that he did during his campaign is he took advantage. He was ready every time he takes advantage of a sound bite. He’s in a town hall in Iowa, and this poor father that losses a son to heroin. He says, “What are you going to do about this? My son got lost in this. He died because of it.” Donald Trump turned to him and goes like, “Your son would be proud of you. Your son would be good. We are going to do something about that because it was tough what you went through.” He looked compassionate. Donald Trump always has taken advantage of sound bites. The only problem is that he has the lower-level decision making. The bribery, speed of money, negotiation, cut the deal and get to the bottom-line narrative. He doesn’t have the ethical narrative. He doesn’t have the human rights narrative. He doesn’t have an American narrative. He has a strong man narrative, which is down here, but not an American narrative, which is up here.
Would you say that it’s more of an authoritarian narrative, not a narrative of cooperation, common purpose, that higher-level vision?
The people that voted for him are voting for that strength. They see that as a strength, “Here’s a strong man.” The only challenge is that the person is voting for is not in touch with the higher American narrative because we used to instruct an educated. We used to have civics classes in school. All of them have been removed. There’s no time spent in, “This is the American narrative that we agreed to.” If you take civics classes out of the school, when a teacher goes through this, what you’re teaching a child is not to bully people. That’s in the civics lessons. They’ll go like, “I don’t understand. We need classes on stopping and keeping people from bullying people.” Put the Civics class back in. This is what human rights look like. This is what it means to have a human experience. This is what we stand for. This is what the rule of law stands for. This is what we fight for as a nation. It’s all in civics.
Unfortunately, they took it out. The example of modern civics has been perverted to not include those things. Modern civics, according to the occupant in the White House is bullying people to label and diagnose them and marginalize them to get what you want.
Go beat him up and hit him, if you could do that. Every single time somebody screamed at Barack Obama’s thing, they’re saying, “You have something to talk about.” One of the things that I would like to train the candidates to do if I were to train the candidates is to pull a heckler up and put them on stage to have a hot seat. “You want to open your mouth? Come on up here.” You want to open your mouth and say, “I want to make sure that our discourses are helpful for both of us. I want to make sure you’re being heard fully. The way we’re going to work on this is that you’re going to get a sentence, then I’m going to get a sentence. We’re going to have a dialogue because of you being here, that tells me that you’re interested in a healthy American dialogue. I’m interested in doing that too.”
Nobody has ever done that. It would take such skill though. They would have to be very well prepared. Wouldn’t that be a moment? Everybody has hecklers. I remember Barack Obama have hecklers as he was campaigning. Hillary Clinton have hecklers. Donald Trump have hecklers. He asked his audience to beat him up and often, they do it in the arena. Imagine, “Secret service, bring that heckler up on stage. Let’s have a discussion.”
None of them have the skill or courage to do it. John McCain brought up a woman one time that they thought was safe. They figured this whole woman is going to ask questions. John McCain is going to look good. Instead, what happened is he was accurate with the answer he gave her, but it was not said in a way that helped him.
Are you talking about the woman who said she’s a Muslim talking about Barack Obama?
That’s right.
They had to have known she was going to ask that question. That doesn’t happen randomly.
I don’t know. They didn’t vet his running mate, Sarah Palin. The stupidity runs a little bit throughout, “I thought you vetted them.” “No, I thought you vetted them.” Neither of them vetted her.
Maybe they weren’t prepared.
Look at where the party is and clearly, they’re not doing very much introspection. They don’t have much bandwidth about it. Even their talking points are dangling out there. “We’re going to be the 300 and going down there. Here’s the difference between the 300.” The Congressman said that before they broke into the meeting. It’s disheartening because of the lack of awareness and consciousness about what’s going to stick. You throw spaghetti at the wall. Some spaghetti is going to stick, but you’ve got to be mindful of what you’re speaking and saying.
I love the idea of bringing a heckler on stage. As a candidate, you have to be very good at how you’re going to address that. I think that most candidates would see that as a third rail in their campaign. They would avoid it like the plague. I do think somebody like Pete Buttigieg has already enough skills that if he got a little more coaching and training, he could be completely prepared to handle that. I’m still blown away by your fired hat. Can you imagine how unhinged Donald Trump would become when that enters his consciousness?
It’s a three-week news cycle with the hat. He’ll never get away from it.
Whoever candidate challenger brings it out, has to own it and wear that like a badge of honor the rest of the way through the entire campaign. I don’t think this is a temporary thing. You have to be prepared. You are there to fire the president. Forget it, game over. You’d be the candidate. You would then start taking over the primary polls, but you will also get Trump so unhinge. Have you seen what he’s been doing trying to go after the whistleblower? He’s trying to out the whistleblower. “We should find out who it is.” He forgets the fact that the law protects the whistleblower. It’s supposed to anyway.
The whistleblower is saying that he’s willing to answer questions of the Republicans or of Congress in writing through his lawyer. He said this and Donald Trump has come out and said, “No, the whistleblower can’t submit questions to writing. He should have to testify, come out and speak.” Do you remember what is in the Mueller Report? Donald Trump did not answer questions. He’s had to submit them in writing. Watching him get twisted into a pretzel trying to argue both sides of this whole thing. I think the president would get mired down in minutia in explanation because he wouldn’t know what else to do, but to attack every little thing you can.
It’s going to make the case even more than, “You’re fired.” They play right into their hands.
It’s disheartening to see that.
Getting Americans jobs is just treading water. Americans need to feel like they're a part of the success of American capitalism.
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Think about what a winning argument that would be. I’m still mind blown by this, not only to take the house impeachment vote to impeach him to say, “We’re going to have a trial in the Senate.” Who cares how the result of that goes because the candidate can say, “The Senate doesn’t have the courage to fire the president, but you do the American people. You put the power in the hands of the people to fire the president.” What an amazing narrative that would be.
It would be a red, white and blue hat. It would be an American flag hat. It would be one that’s an integrated hat collaboration, “You’re fired.” We’re not doing authoritarianism. We’re not doing strong men. We’re not doing your way as the highway. We’re doing this other thing. We’re going to do were to follow the rule of law. That’s what this hat is for. It is the rule of law hat.
This is an amazing discussion and lesson for all of us as Americans. For the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she ends up being, this is what it’s going to take to get it done. Don’t get bogged down in explanation about how you’re going to give healthcare to more Americans better. Set that vision. Move on. Let’s face it. This election is about, “Is Donald Trump go to remain? Are we going to accept that?” Is our vision of American going forward or is it not? You laid out a brilliant strategy for how to take what is a very tricky situation that can easily become something America gets tired of. The whole impeachment saga and the Senate of, “We already know what’s going to happen. The Senate is not going to convict him,” maybe. Let’s turn this into a vision.
It’s not as inspiring as the Barack Obama posters that has that hopey-changey thing going. It worked just fine, thank you very much. There were a lot of things that got done, even with the level of the obstruction that they brought. The level of obstruction was not only to the president but as an American as you possibly could get for a party to be resistant of another party’s agenda without working with Barack Obama’s presidency departed from the collaborative cooperative nature that is the higher vibration of America. The lower vibration of America is us versus them. That internal strife is exactly the mild level of fear that keeps the Russians in alignment.
All they’ve got to do is stick a murder that is not resolved by a political or a press spokesman. It keeps the entire nation in alignment because, “I better not speak up. There’s nothing to protect me. I’m not going to be a martyr for this nation because I’d rather go along and live my life with the authoritarian strong man.” It is very challenging. There are a lot of struggling things happening. This is a good one because if we’re setting the vision or repurchasing truth back on the side of it. The vision can carry probably the next pivot off of, “You’re fired,” would be one of those values like hope that one of the candidates could claim as a value or a vision that they could restore for America. That would be helpful and healthy for us as a nation. You’ve got to hit a new vision to get yourself out of the miring.
I think you’re right about the viral level of vibration. That’s what that is. That’s what people need. Donald Trump succeeded at using that low-level vibration, the discontent, we got thrown out the system because it’s not working, get somebody different in here. That worked in 2016, but it remains to be seen. I don’t think it has longevity. It’s so self-destructive over time that with the right alternate vision can be defeated. It should be able to be defeated without such a huge struggle.
Freedom of speech is important. Whoever the next president is, if it’s Donald Trump again, we’re going to see more leveraging towards propaganda-style narrative in unraveling of law. If a Democrat gets in, there’s got to be a stronger movement towards the protection of truth and validated truth. Having full access to promote things that are not true or damaging is something that we were going to need to grapple with. I want people to say what they want. If they want to believe the world is flat, they can believe the world is flat. We’re going to give them enough outreach so that they get to have money enough to put that on every newspaper and make it science because it’s not. That’s where we are in place, where money can buy exposure and clicks. The internet, for all the good things that have, here’s the shadow side of it.
I completely agree with that, Bill. Let’s try to end here on a positive note. I am a huge supporter of my core on the freedom of speech, being one of our core values. Clearly, the freedom of speech has been used here to purchase truth. What you have demonstrated in this episode, in particular, and now in a small way, we’ve shined a very big light on the way to repurchase truth is through the use of speech. We’re going to use freedom of speech to purchase back the truth. You need to be skilled at using language in how you communicate to purchase truth back.
That’s the skill. Maybe next time, Tom, what we do is we take out this whole internet and purchasing truth and the restoration of language. If somebody does a label in diagnosis or profanity to rile up a person’s emotions by using that, it’s a short-term burn of cortisol inside the person’s body. It hijacks them their loyalty. A small L for loyalty. We’ll talk about large L and small l next time, as well as respect versus Respect. Loyalty bought on an impulse is one that’s bought out familiarity and habit. It’s not a pot out of what’s best. If you buy a Loyalty, then you’re going to do loyalty the flag or loyalty America in the concepts of the higher values of America, not low loyalty of, “Don’t worry about them. I’ll pay your legal fees if you do.” That’s low loyalty. It’s not high Loyalty. It’s not in alignment with American values.
Bill, thank you. I look forward to that.
Thanks, Tom. Talk to you soon.
