The Outrage Factor:

In the lead up to his October 11, 2018 testimony on the “Exploring the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Ecosystem,” Senate hearing, Nouriel Roubini, an economist most well known for his “prediction” of the 2008 housing crisis stoked Crypto Twitter with a tangential string of inflammatory tweets, directed to stir the pot before he ever spoke a word. In his defense, he did predict a collapse of the housing market in the year(s) prior. His prediction was based on the moderation in housing consumption vice the perceived market demand. He missed the WHY there was so much money pouring into the markets in the first place, the manipulation of interest rates by the central banks and THEN doubled down on his Keynesian lunacy calling for a bailout 3x what the Obama Administration requested. If you see what I just did, attacked his record, focused on him and not on anything he said you will understand this piece a bit better.

I admittedly was as surprised to see the rise and victory of the Trump moment (of which we are still apart of) in 2015/2016. Early on I felt him a fool, a bombastic egotist following in the footsteps of Mike Huckabee who runs every year so he can continue to sell retreads of the folksy political wisdom books he puts out during every campaign and secure another contract with FOX News. I felt Trump was going to try to create his own brand of populist conservatism that would become a new business for him, one outside the Republican political establishment and secure his legacy as being more than just a real estate mogul. That was all I thought he was attempting to do. When his nomination seemed secure, I was sure he would lose to Hillary. Surely this was a lock, no one could lose to this guy. Hillary was as loveable as half-starved rabid possum that got stuck in your pantry, but all she seemingly had to do was be alive on November 6th. I was wrong.

Looking back in reflection of the HOW he got the ball rolling and continued to keep the momentum going is one of first-class Public Relations and media manipulation. With all the talk from the left and the majority of the mainstream media that it was “election meddling” by the Russian government that led to Trump’s rise and coronation if anyone is to blame it is the fault of that very same media apparatus. In fact, they are continuing to be easily led and handled by the very same man they call an idiot. They have been running his 2020 campaign since 2016 and doing a wonderful job.

This is not meant to be an all encompassing look at how someone like Trump and Roubini craft and control the narrative, but a narrow glimpse of parts of that operation.

Trump’s main weakness is knowledge. He hasn’t spent any amount of time doing any research of any meaningful depth on any subject related to the presidency. Foreign Relations, 8+ wars, Domestic Policy, Abortion, Guns, etc. Any time he speaks off the cuff, or isn’t on script its readily apparent he probably can’t tell the difference between a Shia and a Sunni Muslim nonetheless the centuries-old competing interest of multiple religious and ethnic groups inside Syria.

How does one rectify a weakness such as this while campaigning against someone who has spent the last 4 decades crafting her own image as the most “experienced” candidate? You control the narrative. You don’t let the narrative control you. You understand how people are and how the media is. The media pretends to be about objective truth but they are a dying animal, they know they need to stay relevant. They do that with quick soundbites and a total buy-in with the outrage culture. This spans across all media both left and right, and if you can understand how outrage culture performs for the right vs left and vice versa you can have a reasonable understanding of the outcome of certain actions.

The media’s focus on Trump for all of 2015/2016 and most of 2017/2018 has been one outrage after another of he said this or that and why you should be as outraged as they about it. I don’t want to go deeper in the complete disconnect of corporate media and the average blue collar American in almost every region of the country, but THAT DISCONNECT is a major reason they lost control of the narrative.

Trump said this, and you should be offended and not vote for him is what the media put out, not understanding that the people Trump was speaking to just wanted to be recognized as existing. They wanted to be told the fairy tale of the jobs their parents raised kids on were coming back. They were just happy someone was talking about them and not Universal Healthcare and who can pee in what bathroom. Trump knew who he was speaking to and he knew they either thought it was great he was pushing back against PC culture or didn’t care enough to not vote for him because of it.

I don’t contend he crafted every word and every “Gaffe”, these sorts of things just free flow from him mostly, but he knew that for every 1.5 hours he speaks there are 1–2 things the media will pick up on and respond with vitriol. He crafted the narrative of “You should be outraged by this man” and kept that narrative as the headline for months and now years. The whole time the media and his political opposition never catching on (and still haven’t best I can see) that while they are focusing on his mean word during minute 13 of his speech, the other 31.5 minutes are speaking directly to a base that was forgotten and untapped by either party for years. One that is still loyal and happy to be recognized and appreciated.

A better example of the Trump control of the narrative is what happened over the week October 8th. From the beginning of his presidency and the stock market pump that has followed he has hitched his wagon to higher and higher stock prices as evidence of his policies at work. This was always a dangerous game, since the market inevitably after a run up always crashes a bit and is in real danger of another prolonged recession/depression after the artificial stimulation by the FED for the past decades. The stock market DID decline, significantly, losing over 1000 points in a day. What was the media talking about? what were the most shared stories on Twitter and Facebook in reference to the presidency? Was it “Trump’s stock market crumbles” or was it “Kanye’s bizarre rant in the Oval office”?

This is neither an approval of what he says nor a condemnation, its an objective (as well as anyone can be) look at HOW he controls the narrative, apparently invisibly to his opposition.

Nouriel Roubini did the same with Crypto Twitter for the past 48+ hours. I have to admit I jumped in and made retorts/snide remarks/shitpost’s because…well…I enjoy it and I’m not immune to this sort of thing either. After a little while I recognized the pattern and the control, its not an easy thing to do and there’s an art to it. Nouriel is an economist and while I feel he is missing many of the major key insights into the economy that the Austrian School gives us, he is not an uneducated or a stupid man. Not by far. He is misguided based on reliance on false presumptions, but not stupid. He isn’t an engineer or a coder, he doesn’t understand the technology. So how do you keep that weakness from becoming THE TOPIC? You attack with ad hominem’s, make wild unfounded accusations while also attempting to maintain an “above the fray” reputation.

He wasn’t jumping INTO well thought out retorts or tweets mentioning him, he would make ridiculous statements filled with shitpost/clickbait assertions that he knew Crypto Twitter would jump headfirst into to “prove him wrong”. His seeming obsession all of Sunday with Brock Pierce and why the Crypto community won’t “block” him was another masterstroke. There’s very few people who are huge fans of Brock Pierce and aside from EOS fanboys no one that really defends his past or his current weird messiah obsession with Puerto Rico. But that’s the point. He knows there’s no way to “block” him whatever that means and that there’s PLENTY of major crypto heavyweights who have hated on Brock for years now. But that kept the narrative spinning in the direction Nouriel wants. That of a vitriolic fanboy crypto community that can engage in honest debate, populated by wannabe intellectuals and scammers. It worked well for the most part. I highly doubt his “acceptance” of a debate with Vitalik will ever come to fruition and its also a masterstroke on his part to pick Vitalik as a possible debate sparring partner. While I have issues with Ethereum, I do regard him as extremely intelligent. I, however, don’t regard him as being someone who is an especially great speaker, especially in terms of the persuasive debate.

In Conclusion, I think it’s important for us to be aware of the narrative manipulations. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, its an artist painting his canvas. In our case, our attention is that canvas.

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