Perspectives Through Team Identity
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With the evidence presented in the news on the Donald Trump impeachment hearings, Republicans who voted for him seem to exhibit a kind of “team identity,” a level of loyalty which they are committed to. No matter what, whether right or wrong, human beings tend to hold onto what they have invested emotionally and mentally. Listen to this episode as hosts Bill Stierle and Tom discuss the psychology of the “team identity” relating to the current Trump scandal.
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Last time, we talked a little bit toward the end of our episode about team identity and the purchasing of truth. I’m going to set this up that we’re recording this the day after the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives. You and I each paid attention to what happened and are aware of it. There was a very interesting piece done by CNN where they had six undecided voters in Wisconsin watch the hearings together in a room. After it was over, CNN correspondent asked them some questions and their answers reveal this team identity influencing them. I don’t think they completely approached one of the hearings with a completely objective mindset as a result. I wonder if you can help us understand some of that.
I’m glad that we’re talking about this, especially after watching other fellow Americans watched the same thing that I watched. I’m watching the witness and the testimony, and then I’m listening to their view of the same thing I watched. Different people have different blinders that they put up. The team identity is tribal. In team sports, it’s the head coach who is a part of that team identity.
The Patriots love Bill Belichick. It’s the team identity. That coach is the leader of that team and that leader is going to get us there.
That team also has a team hat, a team mascot and the team players. These are our players. They’re the best players ever. It’s the smartest player ever. They’re the most skilled players. Even if they’re not, the fans supporting the team have got to support the junkie player on the team too because they’re wearing our colors. They’re a part of it and it’s fun to root for a team, then to watch the six Republicans that are undecided about what they’re going to vote on the next time. They watch this and they’re already saying no to what a person is saying. They are not listening to what the person is saying from an observational place. Their brain is already rejecting because that’s the bias that they’re looking through. It’s that filter. That’s a big part of the team identity that the person’s invested into that identity to look that certain way because they voted for it and they have the hat.
They’re already invested in a vote. It seems that it’s harder for them to truly open their minds to see things objectively because they’re hoping.
It’s very hard for them to see it objectively. Tom, do you have anything in your garage that you don’t use anymore?
Of course.
Why do you keep it there?
Because I hope I’m going to use it in the future. I might use it and need it in the future.
If you look at the things in the garage, there are probably about half a dozen things that if you thought about it, you’re probably not going to use it anymore but you spent money on it, correct?
Definitely, yes.
Would you be willing to consider that you’re keeping it because you spent money on it and you’re holding the value of it?
That’s fair to say. Yes.
I have stuff in my garage too. This is the belief that something that we paid for, something that we invested in, something that we voted for still has value. I don’t want to get rid of it because it still has value. There’s got to be value in that thing. This person stated that they were going to bring value to my vote. My fellow Americans, I have compassion and empathy for how you still have value in the vote that you cast for this person. This person has done something that is against the primary values that we stand for. He broke the law in regard to the ethical rule that a head of state is to follow. You are not to take and invite influence from another country into our country. I’m quoting the constitution right now. That’s a value that needs to be put in proportion to the value that you voted for and thought you paid for.
This is interesting because one of the six people in that CNN video piece, these undecided voters, she listens to it the whole day. She was asked a question about did the Democrats do a good job presenting evidence that the President did this thing and that he was more interested in his own political future than executing American foreign policy? I’m paraphrasing but that’s essentially the question. She says, “I think I have to have a lot more evidence before I’d be convinced that he did something wrong.” That answer indicates that she’s struggling with abandoning that choice that she already made once before.
It’s hard for her to abandon the choice. A lot more evidence means, “I invested this thing and even though the pile up here is this big and even though the person said they specifically broke the rule, it still doesn’t matter because I already invested in this. I am going to keep that broken printer in my garage because I spent $300, $500 or $1 on it. I am going to keep the little knickknack on top of the shelf along with the 90 other knickknacks because I feel good when I see those things there. That’s an example of something I’m seeing. The challenge is, does that thing have the value? You spent $10 on this knickknack, but it only costs $0.25 to make. Am I going to judge that? In my voice, it sounds like I’m judging that, but it brings them a joy to believe that this President is a good and enthusiastic person that can fight and fire people because they know what they’re doing, even though they’re breaking the rules by what they’re doing.
The front part of the brain will create a rational sentence to justify what the emotional brain is doing.
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They’re not doing things that are in alignment with value. They can’t see the long-term cost because it’s over there in the garage. I don’t have to face it every day. I’d made my vote. I’m sticking with that guy. I might even vote for him again because I made my vote the first time in that direction. A little bit of how bias skews the person’s thing, they need a lot of empathy and compassion around it because there are some important things that get met by sticking with a bias, whether it’s true or not true. Our brain loves certainty. It likes stability. It enjoys familiarity. If I could create a story that it’s familiar, I will stick with the story even though 50 people tell me it doesn’t equate. Does that make sense?
It does completely make sense to me. It points to why it is so hard to unseat a sitting president running for re-election. When you look at it historically, a president who was elected, who then four years later runs again for president. It’s hard to get America to vote for somebody new and it’s got to be the same thing of most people that elected him the first time. They voted for him. They made their choice. That’s team identity, that’s a need for certainty, for stability, for being right and not having to admit, “I made a bad choice.” Forget the whole impeachment thing, but that makes it much harder for a challenger to get elected like Mitt Romney in 2012 or John Kerry in 2004 running against George W. Bush. That’s such a big hill or mountain to overcome because you’ve got to get enough Americans who voted for that guy and made that choice before to abandon their choice.
You’ve got to get that 20% to move over to the other side and say, “That choice I made before is not such a good choice.” It’s like going out into the garage and get rid of that thing. Someday you think you’re going to use that thing. How long has the fondue set been sitting in there?
When I think of all the things that I’ve carried around from house to house, talk about the environmental impact too, that I’ve boxed-up, packaged, moved and spent fuel transporting things. Every time you move, it’s an opportunity to purge and get rid of some of those things. I’ve tried to do that, but I’m still a pack rat at heart.
That’s a good thing to claim and it does meet the need for certainty that you have stuff and it is. You can be compassionate about yourself if you say this, “I am packing this up because I want to carry the perceived value of this thing to my next location.” As soon as you say that, it’s a perceived value. How about if somebody else could get some value out of it, and then it’s easy to put on the curve? “I’m putting this on the curve so somebody else can get value out of this.”
Most people would tend not to think that way. They would tend to think, “If I had to buy a new one, it would cost so much more. I don’t want to have to buy a new one, so I’ll keep it just in case for that time when I need it.” It’s cheaper to keep it than to get rid of it, and then need a new one in the future maybe.
We convince ourselves. The front part of the brain will create a rational sentence to justify what the emotional brain is doing. It’s what those voters were talking about. They were making their rational minds work to justify the emotional part of their brain. That’s what they were doing.
There must be that and there has to be some overwhelming evidence in their mind too that crosses a line with them. They don’t want to be associated with that vote they made and they want to correct it by making a new vote maybe.
The tape of Nixon talking about the things specifically coming out of his mouth, that’s a piece of evidence because that was in the person, “We’re going to play this thing if he doesn’t resign.” These Republicans on their side were letting the speaker know, “I cannot stand by this.” This thing that happened is the new off-ramp for the Republicans. The Republican senators now have a great off-ramp.
What is the off-ramp?
When this new person says, “I heard President Donald Trump,” that’s their off-ramp.
There was a news that came out that Ambassador Taylor has a staffer who the day after original Ukraine calls. I think that was July 25th, 2019, so July 26th, his staffer is present at a lunch table where Ambassador Gordon Sondland either calls President Donald Trump or receives a call from President Donald Trump. I don’t recall which way that went, but President Donald Trump is so loud on the phone. The staffer hears what President Donald Trump says and then Gordon Sondland shares after the call what the President said that all he cares about are the investigations. I’m paraphrasing, I don’t know the exact quote, but that all he cares about is the investigation and Joe Biden. That’s not quite what we can hear from the tape of the President saying it but a firsthand witnessed the account.
As soon as he said that, the Republicans had got a gasp because they’re in big trouble. He sits on the stage. He says, “I am under oath.” He’s got the confidence, the conviction, the presence that he’s got to bring to that thing. If he says, “Not only did I hear it,” then Gordon Sondland said it was him. Are you going to doubt Gordon Sondland saying it was him and also me hearing it was him? The Republicans are going to try to cross-exam him with the following sentence, “Is that exactly what he said?” They’re going to try to insert the feelings of doubt or skepticism and that witness needs to say, “Sir, I am under oath here.” This is what he said. That kind of conviction is, “I heard that.” You might want to cause doubt and skepticism, but that’s not what happened. “I heard that,” then Gordon Sondland reinforced it.
That’s part of what’s puzzling to me about some of the comments in that CNN video of the first day of the hearing with these undecided voters. The correspondent asked all of them, “Do you feel that the witnesses were being truthful? Were they credible?” They all said yes and that none of them had doubt that the witnesses were not being truthful. Yet they still needed more even when they were very credible. That’s puzzling to me. One thing that is striking to me is that these impeachment hearings are very much the rule of law. It is not exactly a trial. It’s more like maybe a grand jury proceeding or a deposition that’s out open to the public, but these things are done with black and white thinking. You mentioned you need to approach some of this with compassion and empathy. Lawyers and prosecutors generally don’t approach things with too much compassion and empathy.
If I was coaching the Congressmen, I would probably be utilizing the keywords that they’re not utilizing. It would be, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much certainty do you have about this being wrong?” “Sir, that’s a ten.” “When you think about the American value of integrity, on a scale of 1 to 10, where does this one rate for you?” “Sir, this is a ten for integrity because we committed to these people and they’re looking for our support to protect themselves. There are lives at stake here and I’m under oath because I’m fighting for their lives.” That’s a compassionate inquiry. The fact is not as powerful as compassionate because compassion is a very limbic part. It’s going like, “Certainty is not about my vote anymore. Certainty is about the life of another human being. This is an advocacy piece for the lives of human beings. This is not an advocacy piece for somebody stealing $50 off of somebody, which you can’t go to jail for.” It’s weird because you can’t go to jail for committing to protect somebody’s life and then saying, “Our policy changed, sorry we are not protecting your life anymore.” Can you not go to jail for that? It’s like, “No, you can’t because it’s not written quite that way.”
You can't go to jail for committing to protect somebody's life and saying, “Our policy changed. We are not protecting your life anymore.
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I like your approach to this. If the Congressmen and women had a little more skill at asking questions or had some awareness of how compassionate and empathy could help, they could even direct some of that compassion and empathy to the Republican colleagues on the committee and how they ask some questions. There was one moment in that video that I want to bring up that I’m sure you saw as well. While it was humorous, it did throw a little compassion and empathy towards one of the Republican Congressmen in part who was saying, “We need to have the person who started this whole thing here and interview them. We’re not being allowed to have the person here.” He’s referring to the whistleblower.
After his statement was finished, and I think Jim Jordan is his name, another Congressman said, “I agree with you. We should have the person that started this whole thing right here. President Donald Trump is welcome to come and sit in that chair, testify and be questioned.” Of course, everybody in the room erupted into laughter. It is a little scarier honestly because while the President is in the fight of his political life here and being defended by his team, he’s not directly participating in it. He won’t and there’s no way he would ever consider going and answering questions under oath. He probably shouldn’t because he’s incapable of giving truthful answers.
He wants to be in that chair more than anything because he has made an entire lifetime about spinning things in his positive way to get what he wants. He has made an entire lifetime. Since the age of six, he has done these tactics and techniques. This is a quid pro quo, twelve-year-old’s way to get things done. It’s an eighth-grade mindset. I labeled and diagnosed the thing. I’m doing exactly what I tell people not to do. You’ve got to watch how you label and diagnose people because it gives them a push back to say, “You don’t like my guy? This is the guy we voted for. You’ve got to live with it. We lived with your guy. You have to live with our guy.” The answer to that is that your guy has taken a value that America stands for regarding supporting others and human rights.
He has done something against the constitution of the values that both of us share. This is something you need to fight for too because if you’d get to be known as this, then people get to take advantage of you too. You don’t know that this is a larger cost than just voting for your guy. The empathy and compassion for the President would look like the President was looking for support. He came up with an idea to get support in order to have the messaging being in alignment to meet his need for respect by taking away the respect of another person, by creating a story around another person, Joe Biden, that isn’t true. It’s a story that still is having an impact because how can somebody fight an imaginary story?
If the person has voted for it, and notice I’ve got a religious word in here. I have faith in Donald Trump because I voted for him. If I have faith or I’m believing in something that I thought was going to make a difference. Is it not real? All of a sudden, at least in your brain, you can see how in an evangelical way a fundamentalist would get stuck here because when they push something across the line, they’re all in. They’ll lose their house and give the evangelist all their money. They’ll give money to Scientology. They’re all in because the limbic brain can’t move off of it.
It can’t get rid of the clutter in Tom’s garage right now, not to personalize it in your direction. We’re all human beings in the same way. All of a sudden, I have a lot of compassion for those people. Even though a part of me wants to head shake and say, “I’m not sure the front part of your brain is working the way you would like it to.” This is not in alignment with the way American values are written. It isn’t because this is a foreign country. You’re asking them to do something that’s not true so that you can influence the Americans back home.
He fears Joe Biden more than anybody for some reason. He wanted to sow seeds of doubt and skepticism and have Joe Biden drop in the polls because he thinks he can pick off the other guys and win more easily against them.
He did it with the entire Republican field. Whoever was leading is the one that he attacked and went after. Whoever is leading, until he created enough doubt and skepticism about their ability to lead and he pounded them until they dropped into the polls and he was the last man standing because he picked them off one at a time. He has the thought that he has enough psychological painting because he’s painting on people’s psychology. That’s what he’s doing. He’s painting on a brand imprint, “I’m a leader. You’re not.” That’s all that he’s painting on people, “I’m an authoritarian. I get things done. Look at all I’ve done. I’m the most successful person.” It’s like saying better ingredients, better pizza. That’s subjective because the taste is up to the person that’s purchasing it. We’ll see what the marketplace says is better. Watch how pieces are being sold. It’s not better ingredients, better pizzas anymore.
The marketplace, hopefully, will deal with this because the person is still buying the inferior narrative. The narrative that has been pushed up that this person is the best person to do this is hijacking the brains of many Americans. They’ll sit here and argue with me. I’d go like, “There was a tax cut.” That was one thing that was done. There were these executive orders that were rollbacks of something that people fought for to get done. I’m not sure if it’s better that the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act has been repealed and replaced with something that will make the environment worse. We have to live in the land that we’re on. Do people need to legislate that? No, pick up your trash. It’s not, “This is your land. You get to pollute it the way you want to.”
You get to pollute it for profit at the expense of the people’s health.
This bias or fallacy of this vote has value is challenging because the person is rationalizing as somebody does at a New Year’s party. They’re rationalizing the good reason why they’re going to start their diet tomorrow while they’re eating a cookie tonight. It’s like this moment is the same as the next moment over there. You may want to start with this moment because you’ve got to manage it a moment from the moment anyways. It’s a moment by moment thing. Are we going to stand for and are we going to start and adjust the constitution to say it’s okay to get support for the elections? It’s tough because first world rules are different from second world rules, which are different from third world rules. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a little bit of them each in the first-world.
Maybe the lines are being blurred right now.
It’s collapsing down. It’s like we’re a first world country, but we’re doing some second world values, some of the authoritarian values we’re doing. It’s because the values and the integrity of people that are holding those values are putting a hat on called Republican or Democrat and fighting for that. Instead of what’s best for America, they’re going like, “What’s best for my boat? How can I hijack this person’s brain? This is how I’m going to do that.” That’s unsettling. We’re going to get a chance to see from this person that heard the phone call. That’s what we’re going to do next.
What we’re going to look at next time is what does it take to overcome the belief bias? Regrettably, Lady Justice is holding the scales. It seems like one piece of bias is equated to twenty parts of the truth. You know the scales of Lady Justice. You have one piece of bias, “I voted for him and he was a disruptor.” That disruptor has been getting things done because he’s holding things up that have been signed, which is tragic. He’s doing things and I wanted somebody to do things to mess things up. You have to drain the swamp. That’s not what’s happened. What’s happened is we have a swamp leader.
I like that metaphor. It definitely shows you the disproportionality of a piece of bias to an awful lot of truth. I like how we talked about how despite the truth, it may not be enough. You’ve got to bring out compassion and empathy still.
If there is a smart person that gets to the end of this episode, the words that I would request that Adam Schiff and the rest of the Democrats are using, are words like certainty, stability, consistency, validation, reassurance, trust, truth. That vocabulary has some compassion built into it so that the person that has voted for Trump can have an off-ramp. They need a psychological off-ramp to get from here to there because right now, it’s hard for them to get to the off-ramp. I’ll never forget this. During the Richard Nixon impeachment, I was a young man and I was working for my boss. He was a wonderful guy and a Republican guy. We were sitting at a party and he said, “I couldn’t believe it when I heard the tapes. The language that he was using was disrespectful.” He was the Republican guy. It’s not until he heard the voice of President Nixon saying and doing the things, there’s the shooter, there’s the gun, there are the bullets and he pulled the trigger. It’s almost like the bias needs that thing to tip the scale off and go like, “He is a crook.”
Explanation and arguing the facts don’t always help you. You’ve got to see the evidence.
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People need to see the evidence, which I think is true but we often say, explanation and arguing the facts don’t always help you. I think the hearings are bearing out a bit of that. I would like to see the Democrats asking questions, approach it with a little more compassion and empathy in a way to not just get the witness to answer the question, which is obviously the direct thing they’re trying to do, but indirectly be speaking to that undecided voter, showing them some compassion and helping them feel better about not just sticking with that team. Stick with America.
You’ve got to stick with America at the end of this. It’s like, “We gave him the shot.” He passed on the shot about him doing that. Donald Trump will propagate or promote propaganda. His propaganda is, “I’ve been transparent.” Wait until you see the second phone call. It’s like how many times has the con man got to go back and say, “There’s more but I’m not showing you all the things that are behind this curtain. I’m going to show you this first phone call. It was so much better than that second phone call.”
We’re through the looking glass it seems in some ways. Thanks, Bill. I’m looking forward to the next time to see how impactful this next witness is and to talk about that bias versus truth.
Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it.
