2017: A Survival Guide Learning from Brexit and Trump to help you - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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2017: A Survival Guide

A BritainThinks Breakfast Briefing

Thursday 19th January 2017

Learning from Brexit and Trump to help you succeed in a changed world

Here’s a recap of what happened

• n both sides of the pond…

The votes in both countries revealed a generation gap: the older you were, the more likely you were to vote Trump or for Brexit

A recap of what happened

45% 44% 50% 55% 53% 53% 42% 37% 65+ 45-64 30-44 18-29

Clinton Neither Trump

40% 43% 44% 52% 62% 73% 60% 57% 56% 48% 38% 27% 65+ 55-64 45-54 35-44 25-34 18-24

Remain Leave

But don’t forget that roughly 2 in 5 under-45s voted Trump in the US, and 25-34 year olds for Brexit in the UK

New York Times, Nov 2016 Lord Ashcroft Polls, June 2016

Rural and small communities tended to vote Brexit and Trump, with big cities tending to vote for Clinton and to Remain in the EU

A recap of what happened

59% 45% 34% 35% 50% 62%

City over 50,000 Suburbs Small city

• r rural

Clinton Neither Trump

New York Times, Nov 2016

Generally, those with fewer qualifications preferred Brexit in the UK, and Trump in the US

A recap of what happened

58% 49% 43% 45% 37% 45% 52% 51% Postgrad study College graduate Some college/associate degree High school or less

Clinton Neither Trump

68% 48% 50% 30% 32% 52% 50% 70% Degree Higher below degree A level GCSE or lower

Remain Leave

This difference was (even) more pronounced in the UK than in the US

New York Times, Nov 2016 YouGov, June 2016

White voters were more likely to support Brexit and Trump, with support for both much lower among BAMEs

A recap of what happened

56% 65% 65% 88% 37% 37% 29% 29% 8% 58% Other Asian Hispanic Black White

Clinton Neither Trump

New York Times, Nov 2016 Lord Ashcroft Polls, June 2016

And attitudinally, Trump and Brexit voters were united in feeling more pessimistic than optimistic about the future of their country

A recap of what happened

54% 31% 59% 39% 63% 38% About the same Worse than life today Better than life today

Clinton Neither Trump

Life for future Americans will be…

25% 90% 69% 8% Off track Right direction

Trajectory of the country… Net agreement that…

New York Times, Nov 2016 Lord Ashcroft Polls, June 2016

2.8 million non-voters swung it

But the two stories differ on turnout – and particularly on the mobilisation of disenchanted, apolitical non-voters

A recap of what happened

Democrat Republican

Number Cruncher Politics, July 2016

The two results – and the campaigns that preceded them – offer some big watch outs for navigating 2017…

• Some are new slants on old issues
• Some highlight things we already knew but had perhaps forgotten
• Some of them feel new and very different to what’s gone before

#1 Check your bias

We were applying and projecting our own values both before the votes, when we chose to hear what we wanted to hear…

#1 Check your bias

Economists projecting their own uncertainty onto their predictions: The analysis & interpretation of the opinion polls in the run-up to the Referendum:

“In the end, we couldn’t predict public confidence at all. Because the vast majority of economists thought that Brexit was a bad idea … they put their own views onto the population as a whole and thought the public would tighten their belts and spend less and that’s why you got the forecasts for an immediate downturn.” Chris Giles, Financial Times on More or Less

Phone polls Online polls

Remain leads Leave leads Ties

YouGov, June 2016

…and used the arguments that would convince ‘us’ not ‘them’

#1 Check your bias

REMAIN CAMPAIGN: “Trading is about stuff, but we don’t make goods any more, our industry is in decline.” “I don’t see how it helps me – I’m not a trader, I don’t have stocks and shares.” ‘NORMAL’ VOTER:

Starting from a place of limited understanding of not just trade, but also business and the economy

“The EU buys over 50 per cent of UK exports: 54% of goods and 40% of services”

…and used the arguments that would convince ‘us’ not ‘them’

#1 Check your bias

DEMOCRAT RESPONSE TO TRUMP’S COMMENTS ON WOMEN: TRUMP MOVING ON THE CONVERSATION: THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Family? Tradition? Gentlemanliness?

But we’re still doing it now, with an ongoing assumption that voters will ‘see sense’ eventually

#1 Check your bias

How many in the Westminster ‘bubble’ are describing Brexit: How voters – including many Remainers – are describing Brexit: "When I heard we had ‘gone Brexit’ I felt like England had won the World Cup!"

68%

• f the British public think

that we should go ahead with Brexit

YouGov, Nov 2016

#2

Get yourself a “change [back]” message

Both successful campaigns of 2016 were headed by a big, capacious message

#2 Get yourself a ‘change [back]’ message

“We’ve got to stop this madness, cut all that red tape and regulation and take the reigns!” “Mass immigration is still hopelessly out of control and set to get worse if we remain inside the EU”

Which were about ‘them’, not ‘you’

#2 Get yourself a ‘change [back]’ message

Which were about ‘them’, not ‘you’

#2 Get yourself a ‘change [back]’ message

“‘Go Global’ [was] a firm favourite for many years among a subset of MPs and Farage’s inner circle (Leave.EU adopted this as its first slogan) and a total loser with the public.”

Dominic Cummings’s Blog

And which speak to a desire to change – while not pitching everyone into an uncertain future

#2 Get yourself a ‘change [back]’ message

Both speak to a sense of nostalgia for the past… …but also a sense of direction and where they want to go, alluding to specific values and policies

Donald (Draper)

Mad Men, Season 1, Episode 13

#2 Get yourself a ‘change [back]’ message

“Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent […] in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound’. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone”

#3

Start talking values (not just value)

Both Trump and Brexit cut across many traditional socio economic divides

#3 Start talking values (not just value)

Some leavers are ‘left behind’

• Nothing to lose
• Economically

and culturally challenged by immigration

But a great deal aren’t ‘left behind’

• Driven by desire

for greater sovereignty

• Driven by practical

‘cutting red tape’ argument

• Culturally

challenged by immigration

Resolution Foundation, July 2016

But it does seem that there are some really big values which unite some previously divergent groups

#3 Start talking values (not just value)

Lord Ashcroft Polls, June 2016

And for the first time, the Trump and EU votes have given these heterogeneous groups clear tribes to belong to

#3 Start talking values (not just value)

“The Trump rally was the most fun I have had in years. Trump would say. ‘What am I going to build?’ and we would say ‘A wall!’… It was fun to lighten up, to cheer along with everyone else, just like back in high school, when we would cheer that our teams were definitely going to win, even when they were bad” And an opportunity to define themselves against what they aren’t…

Whether against the liberal, metropolitan elites of New York or Washington, London or Leeds or the ‘left behind’ of Sunderland or Scranton

The more we talk about these divides as if they’re monolithic, the more likely they are to become totemic and embedded

#3 Start talking values (not just value)

But it also presents a risk…

“We will defend the Britain we love…

(and of course we’ll oppose the expansion of Heathrow too)”

This may present some ‘quick win’

• pportunities

That by continually describing these divides we are only serving to reinforce them and make them ‘real’ - and overlook the real complexities

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

Online Selection

A lot of people are talking about the ‘echo chamber’

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

Confirmation Bias Super Selectivism

+ =

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.”

Francis Bacon, 1620

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

Eli Pariser, TED, March 2011

The “filter bubble” works in (at least) two ways

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

Hard-Wired Selection

• Personalised search &

recommendation algorithms

• Targeted advertising &

messaging

• Timeline editing

Social Selection

• Social networking as

news source

• Recommendations from

friends

• Network building based
• n preference-proximity

3x

Less likely to see liberal content

10%

Less exposure to conservative news sources

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

The filter bubble isn’t all bad

It makes it easier than ever to speak to – and energise – people who are already with you

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

BUT don’t mistake the violent nodding of this group for a wider public endorsement

If you want to reach new audiences, you need to think about new messages, channels and messengers

#4 Embrace Super Selectivism

Start from where people are, not where you wish they were

New York Times, December 2016

Check your bias

#1

The two results – and the campaigns that preceded them –

• ffer some big watch outs for navigating 2017…

Get yourself a “change [back]” message

#2

Start talking values (not just value)

#3

Embrace Super Selectivism

#4

britainthinks.com

Thank you

For more information: Ben Shimshon & Cordelia Hay +44 (0)207 845 5880 bshimshon@britainthinks.com / chay@britainthinks.com BritainThinks Somerset House Strand London WC2R 1LA