Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Will that have a material impact on anyone's bottom line? Who knows, but I'd love to see the graphs for new account signups/account deletions.
[1] Taxis were not servicing JFK in support of those who were being detained there.
Both Lyft and Uber didn't suspend service to JFK last night because both are 24/7 platforms for anyone to drive and make money. Uber lowered/suspended surge pricing to make it affordable in/around the protests, while Lyft did not.
Worth noting is that active drivers on both platforms were likely protesting at airports all over the world.
"NYTWA STATEMENT ON MUSLIM BAN:
Professional drivers are over 20 times more likely to be murdered on the job than other workers. By sanctioning bigotry with his unconstitutional and inhumane executive order banning Muslim refugees from seven countries, the president is putting professional drivers in more danger than they have been in any time since 9/11 when hate crimes against immigrants skyrocketed.
Our 19,000-member-strong union stands firmly opposed to Donald Trump's Muslim ban. As an organization whose membership is largely Muslim, a workforce that's almost universally immigrant, and a working-class movement that is rooted in the defense of the oppressed, we say no to this inhumane and unconstitutional ban.
We know all too well that when government programs sanction outright Islamophobia, and the rhetoric of hate is spewed from the bully pulpit, hate crimes increase and drivers suffer gravely. Our Sikh and other non-Muslim brown and black members also suffer from anti-Muslim violence.
Today, drivers are joining the protest at JFK Airport in support of all those who are currently being detained at the airport because of Trump's unconstitutional executive order. Drivers stand in solidarity with refugees coming to America in search of peace and safety and with those who are simply trying to return to their homes here in America after traveling abroad. We stand in solidarity with all of our peace-loving neighbors against this inhumane, cruel, and unconstitutional act of pure bigotry."
[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/muslims/pf_15-04-02_proje...
[0]https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/02/18/dhs-announces-further-tr...
It neither effects all Muslims nor (since it includes a temporary complete ban on all refugees) only Muslims, but it's still overtly targeted first and foremost at Muslims.
The DHS list of countries on that waiver ban is indeed the same as those listed in the Executive Order. I haven't seen a reference that this list was indeed the basis for the countries listed in the Executive Order. If you know of one, please do share. I'm happy to be corrected.
Guiliani is widely reported in an interview on Fox News just yesterday to have confirmed that at least initially the goal was to create a Muslim ban:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...
I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.
"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"
Giuliani said he then put together a commission that included lawmakers and expert lawyers. "And what we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger," Giuliani said.
"The areas of the world that create danger for us, which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible."
Giuliani reiterated that the ban is "not based on religion."
Perhaps the claim that resulting Executive Order is indeed purely based on risk assessment is true. I think reasonable people can understandably question whether this is indeed the case. To deny that it at least initially was motivated by the desire to create a Muslim ban is disingenuous at best. Accusing people of relying on "fake news" if they bring this up is clearly unfair.
Obama has been bombing these countries killing innocent people and now people are upset that Trump doesn't let army age men to come from these countries while he is taking care of the terrorist Obamas action created? Where were the marches against Obamas warmongering policies?
The fact that people didn't protest more about Obama is a separate argument. The fact that Bush invaded Iraq is a separate argument. The fact that the US supported the mujahideen during the Soviet Afghan war is a separate argument. The fact that the US helped overthrow the Iranian government and install the Shah in 1953 is a separate argument. The fact that European powers divvied up the Middle East following World War I is a separate argument. Want to go back to the Crusades? Abraham?
Or you can tie them all together. They're all ultimately related. Which do you want? Where do you want to draw the line? What do you want to take responsibility for? Drawing in all manner of related topics doesn't help us move forward. I don't think any of that is useful.
What people are discussing now, today, is Trump's Executive Order, and what to do about it now.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/text-of-trump-executi...
Trump’s campaign in 2015 said it wanted “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump...
You find a list of countries banned on the visa waiver program made by the previous administration, and it covers many Muslim nations that are in the international spotlight right now. They're hot topics and it fits your criteria well. (Also they conveniently don't intersect with your business interests, so that's another plus.) You ignore Indonesia and India because they aren't in the news for terrorism, so it doesn't fit your narrative. Now you can get away with banning these "previously chosen" countries, by saying it's for national security, while you wink to your more explicitly racist supporters. You achieved their racist goal, de-facto, while having a non-racist "legitimate" excuse.
This is how institutional racism works. You have a racist goal in mind, and you implement it through actions that are under the guise of something more reasonable. It has the same effect as if you just made some overtly racist policy, but you can do it legally and with plausible deniability.
Also, if it helps, Rudy Giuliani said on national TV that Trump told him to do literally exactly this.
By your logic, the ban will not be temporary. Correct?
Edit: Maybe Uber mis-stepped by honoring requests for rides FROM the airport, but given the above I don't think they're doing this to grab money. It's actually a little sad to see the knee-jerk response by people lashing out at a company that is trying to help, in this instance.
If Uber was trying to help, they should have said so.
This was my original post for posterity:
"They did say so. This was their tweet:
'Our CEO's reaction to immigration order: "We'll compensate drivers impacted by the ban pro bono for next 3 months." http://ubr.to/standingup'"
Though I don't think the regular taxi companies or Lyft did that either.
>"NO PICKUPS @ JFK Airport 6 PM to 7 PM today," the union wrote in a subsequent tweet that was retweeted over 10,000 times. "Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting inhumane & unconstitutional #MuslimBan."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-scene-at-jfk-as-taxi-d...
The objection is not that Uber didn't join the strike but that Uber reduced their prices to undermine the strike and get new customers.
No it's not. The union encouraging != the taxi companies somehow forcing it.
The union and the taxi companies are not the same thing.
> Uber reduced their prices to undermine the strike
Uber reducing prices to normal levels means fewer drivers anyway! Fewer rides! This makes no sense! Why would Uber even bother with some Machiavellian scheme to get a hundred or two extra rides? Makes no sense!
Getting that first install is critical, because once someone installs the Uber app they are unlikely to go back to taxi cabs. 200 extra riders might not be a big group, but they tell their friends and family and it spreads. This is especially true if the rides are discounted since everyone loves to talk about how much money they saved by taking an Uber instead of a taxi. Think of the ride sharing market in NYC, more than half the cars on the roads are taxis.
tl;dr Uber has employed viral marketing like this for years and it works.
The point is you hold a strike to STOP work, not work for less money. That's called scabbing and is the opposite of solidarity.
This is about showing their support to the government, their allies.
Please don't throw out generalizations like this, particularly as you're a member of the HN community yourself. If you feel strongly about this particular issue, write up a blog post making your case, and submit it to HN, or have someone submit it for you.
Breaking the strike is breaking the strike. They did not hold with refugees and immigrants, even after the taxi drivers explicitly asked them to do so. Everything else is just trying to mitigate damage to the point where people forget/engage in apologetics to obfuscate the choice they made.
Now that's being a hypocrite on a grand grand scale.
Creating abusive policy targeted at people from certain countries seems xenophobic, isolationist, draconian, cruel, stupid.
Racism is a far more evil concept than any of those.
Abusing and rationalizing the abuse of people because you have made a generalization based on their geography, ideology or culture is certainly wrong.
Abusing and rationalizing the abuse of people because you believe they are genetically inferior is on a different level of depravity.
When we use "racism" as a catchall term for all bigotry and bias, we do it at the peril of diluting its power when that particular flavor of shitheaded thinking needs to be classified.
Or does it even matter? I don't see how you can try to create a ranking of "minor evil" or "far more evil."
What kind of generalization is it though?
Arguing against this being called "racism" is completely missing the point.
What Trump is doing is unamerican and unconstitutional. Arguably an impeachable offense.
And please, un-American? Our self-preservation is now un-American?
I'm definitely coming around to the idea that Uber is simply playing both sides of this, and that it gives them too much credit to assume good intentions of them removing surge pricing.
That means less people could travel to airport for protests. Suspending surge pricing reduces availability of cabs. You understand that right ?
Wouldn't that be a show of solidarity with the temporarily striking taxi drivers union?
I guess my question is, how does suspending surge pricing to JFK suggest Uber supports the executive order?
If anything, disabling surge pricing lessens the impact of a taxi strike as going to/from the airport is more affordable and convenient then having zero or pricier options.
I don't think disabling surge pricing is a show of solidarity. With Taxis striking, surge pricing would have skyrocketed. This feels more like Uber just wants to preempt an inevitable news story about how surge pricing hit 10x or something during the taxi strike, which would be bad PR.
The article did say that Uber is working with its affected drivers to provide legal assistance. So, again, they're just protecting themselves. The company has practically no moral compass.
If Uber's drivers declined to participate in the strike, that's on the drivers, not Uber.
I heard about the SFO protests yesterday, and I largely support the cause, and I could have made it there in time to join. I didn't. Do you question my moral compass? Did I do something wrong? I know people who largely support the issues of the women's march, yet did not attend, or attended only part of the rally or march. Should they be vilified?
I think this is a scary idea. Not everyone can or has to actively join every protest to "prove" that they support the platform or "have a moral compass."
Yes, This may well be the most important reason they did that. That PR would have far more disastrous for Uber.
No-one outside their club needs to comply.
He miscalculated and discounted all the far-right baggage that comes with the Trump admin and therefore he has no one to blame for this misstep except himself.
Then comes Uber, the vulture that swoops in all in the name of disrupting the market. They're allowed to do it, sure. Whether it's morally right is another thing.
Be better, please.
And it's remarkable if your claim is that without Trump's Muslim Ban there would still be protests at JFK this weekend. Are you really arguing that?
I don't know exactly how different protests would have played out if Trump took different actions in office, but it is overwhelmingly obvious that the protests are the result of emotion, not facts.
Also, you seem to be confused about the phrase "get over yourself" means. It targets self importance such as "be better please", it makes no sense whatsoever as a response to my comment.
Your dubious claim about the motivations of large groups of individuals is not at all "overwhelmingly obvious."
Get over yourself.
But it's worth noting the difference between that protest and the one at JFK, which I think it's pretty clear was a direct reaction to a specific policy created by President Trump. Using the Women's March as some sort of catch-all "haters gonna hate" dismissal of the valid concerns that many Americans have about the sitting president's actions is, to put it simply, a remarkable argument.
By undermining the strike, Uber is saying that their profits are more important than the injustice being protested. They are saying that they are perfectly happy to help society function while it is committing such a grave act of injustice against a vulnerable minority. It is organizations and people like Uber who are perfectly willing to make money and let life go on as authoritarians destroy the lives of their fellow citizens that allow evil to persist and thrive. It is people who get on with their lives while those of their neighbors are being disrupted and destroyed that most threaten freedom.
Is that "giving them hate"? Should MLK have made fastidiously sure to go to cordoned off areas where no one would have been inconvenienced in the slightest?
In this case, the mechanism of political action is constricting the labor supply instead of giving cash to politicians.
It seems crazy for a company to force workers to join a protest, until you think about how they force workers to turn a profit and then donate to politicians that would happily oppress those same workers.
Companies also collectively fire people to bolster their profits, maybe we should demand they do some mass firings for a good cause. Trump supporters, maybe?
(On a related note, there are some regulations around mass layoffs: https://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm
American companies will run a series of layoffs JUST below the limit to avoid the reporting mandates! Kind of like structuring deposits of $9,999 to avoid the reporting requirement at $10k. Interesting.)
Inconveniencing those sort of people is exactly the purpose of protesting. It's supposed to make regular everyday people who aren't directly affected by Trump's actions feel their impact. If you disagree with the protesters that's one thing, but complaining about it affecting "normal people" is really missing the point.
Implying that this protest was started "just because they are unhappy" is disingenuous and refuses to engage with the issues in good faith.
The word entitlement is so charged and vague, what do you mean by it? No one is legally entitled to disrupt peoples' lives, but the reason why people choose to protest and disrupt society until their demands are met is because they believe that society does not deserve to go on undisrupted while it allows some injustice to continue.
Let's be real. If no one protested this ban on muslims, very few peoples' lives would be disrupted. It would be a slight hiccup to just discard these people from society and replace whatever function they played. We are all disposable. That is why people protest, because otherwise injustice would go unpunished.
The abstract reasoning is this: If society is structured in such a way that an injustice can occur and persist with no disruption to society, then people are morally obligated to disrupt society when that injustice occurs in order to remedy it and prevent it in the future.
The justification is empirical: Evidence demonstrates that when most people can go about their day without hindrance while atrocities are being committed, they will gladly get used to and accept those atrocities as a fact of life.
With respect to the word entitlement: I mean ethically. When someone is angry (like the people in this thread promising to delete Uber) that something didn't happen, then it seems like they felt entitled to have it happen.
It lasted one hour. Get over it. Social change doesn't happen without inconvenience.
Will taxi companies join Uber and help financially support the taxi drivers who are stuck out of the country because of Trump's ban? Are they immoral if they don't follow Uber's lead?
On the other hand, I've yet to talk to an Uber driver that doesn't also accept fares via Lyft, and if we can convince drivers to abandon Uber by shifting our consumer dollars to Lyft, then the Uber brand and platform will lose value.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/uber-losses-expected-to-hi...
For lyft to stay consistent with their views, they'd have to cease partnership with Grab. With the claimed $1MM donation they paint a positive picture for us(fellow HN users reactions show they are more likely to use lyft, lyft will thus earn off us), but it would simply be loss of potential revenue in the case of Malaysia.
PR and upmanship against Uber.
I'm going to guess that your anecdata set size is relatively small.
Finally, who's more likely to use Lyft? Trump's support base is shockingly hard to truly pin down, but certainly a lot of his base resides in rural areas, not cities -- areas where Lyft (and Uber) may not even operate or, if they do, the volume of rides is far, far lower. My impression, in fact, is that there's almost an inverse correlation between number of heavy Uber/Lyft users and Trump support in the area -- it'd be interesting to see someone actually try to verify/debunk that impression with real data.
30.79% in 2008 [0]
28.05% in 2012 [1]
[0] 0.582 x 0.529 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
[1] 0.511 x 0.549 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
In 2012, turnout was 57.5%, of which Obama won 51.06%. That makes 29.36% of all eligible voters.
The problem is that it's really, really hard to get numbers on the question "how many people did not register themselves for voting rights, even if they could legally have done so?".
Trump wasn't popular; he was just popular enough, and it's for a variety of reasons, not just one.
1: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/text-of-trump-executi...
Lyft should be sued by their investors for misappropriation of funds.
It doesn't matter how principled your opposition here is...boards have obligations, and this isn't one of them.
I agree I don't know what's in the memorandum of association. It likely doesn't specifically mention immigration issues, either. It may include language concerning ethics and human rights, which Lyft could choose to interpret as including this action. I think reasonable people can disagree on this.
I recognize that now includes two hypotheticals, so I'll stop there as ignorant speculation degenerates quickly.
There's every chance that this haphazard donation could blow back in their face, in which case someone will be in a spot of bother.
(FWIW I think Uber deserves that reputation and I consider the strike a legitimate protest against an immoral action. But my statement above is dispassionate and should stand even if you have the completely opposite opinion on these issues)
No horse in this race, just seen it reported both ways, trying to figure it out.
Hearing employees at Uber crying, drivers getting scammed into leases, terrible customer support. I'm glad I didn't accept the offer.
I think it'd make most sense to avoid both services if you are concerned about the recent immigration ban.
1: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38787241
2: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cambridge-a...
3: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-cruncher...
You are giving a tool to the unscrupulous to bury conversations by labeling their opponents "conspiracy theorists."
Would you say Edward Snowden is in the same bucket at Bannon?
The former term is how his detractors, including me, would describe him. The latter is a term he famously used for himself.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-banno...
Though Bannon may be more accurate than he realizes about being a "Leninist" since he wants his faction to be the vanguard party with power derived from the white working class and voters who identify with such.
But since when is he a neo-nazi? Breitbart.com is about as pro-Israel as you can get, and Breitbart himself was a Jew. Trump's daughter Ivanka is also a Jew, as is her husband, who is now another special advisor.
His antisemitism has been well documented. How he gets along with Kushner and Ivanka, I have no idea. I suspect they don't get along at all. There will plenty of books on Trump's Team of Rivals, though probably much less glowing than for Lincoln's similar team.
One reference for Bannon's antisemitism: http://www.timesofisrael.com/stephen-bannon-5-things-jews-ne...
Speaking of which: I also wouldn't be surprised if Bannon is behind Trump's recent Holocaust statement in which Jews aren't mentioned at all.
> How he gets along with Kushner and Ivanka, I have no idea.
The obvious answer is that he's not anti-Semitic.
You can try to make up stuff, or pull one off references from divorce proceedings, but he was head of a strongly Pro-Israel website, created by a Jew. If he's anti-Semitic, he's a failure. He's working for a president that obviously supports and loves Jews, since his daughter converted to Judaism without any issue from him, and his Jewish son-in-law is his top adviser.
If you think he's some Othellian figure that can endure working for so many Jews and espousing Jewish values, all for the chance to whisper one-or-two white nationalist policies into Trumps brain, you're absolutely crazy. Okkam's razor, dude. The simplest answer is that you're wrong and he's not anti-semitic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11...
As for who wrote the executive orders:
" Inside the West Wing, it is almost impossible for some aides to know what is in the executive orders, staffers say. They have been written by Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior White House adviser for policy, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, according to people familiar with the matter. Ideas for some of the Trump executive orders came from transition officials and so-called “landing teams,” " --http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trumps-flashy-executiv...
How can someone be pro-Israel and antisemitic?
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/steve-bannon-made-breitb...
http://forward.com/news/israel/354402/how-steve-bannon-and-b...
And of course he would put up working with Jews if it meant he had a seat at the table and a chance to enact his wildest dreams. In a choice between power and principles, most people chose power. Your proposed Occam's Razor doesn't work because you're ignoring the most obvious thing: the desire of people for power. If being Trump's right hand man means putting up with Kushner, then so be it. I'm sure Kushner, as the other key figure standing beside the throne, feels the same way. He can put up with an antisemite in order to be in the White House.
Think about it. Occam's Razor is for the simplest choice. Assuming Bannon's racism, Bannon's choice here is: work with Jews and have a lot of power, or avoid Jews and go back to the mundane life as a publisher with no seat at the table. There's really no question of what he would choose.
Nothing you suggest makes sense. The only answer that makes logical sense is that he's not an anti-semite. None of your conspiracist theories make any sense.
But then again, if you think Bush was behind the 9-11 bombings, then there's nothing really to discuss either.
1: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/28/terror-ti...
(And Snowden is more accurately called a 'whistleblower' or maybe, if you want to get creative, a 'conspiracy practitioner'
> being powered by
Donald Trump needs a supernatural explanation, presumably because you think he's incompetent. At the least, you're saying he can't do what he's doing by himself.
> conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon
The term "conspiracy theory" is supposed to discredit him. But, if he has trouble telling truth from reality, why is he enabling Donald Trump? People who make mistakes interpreting data lose elections.
> board member of Cambridge Analytica, an analytics firm that used psychological profiling to cynically exploit the American electorate.
It's called "marketing", and everyone here does it. Nothing wrong with it. Again, how's a "conspiracy theorist" going to exploit psychological profiling? They're supposed to see patterns where none exist, which means whatever analytics they're doing would be ineffective.
> This is an existential threat to the American public and to the world
You haven't actually described anything that could be an "existential threat". Examples include: Nuclear war, a large asteroid, an incurable highly contagious disease, etc. You can only call him an "existential threat" if you believe America and the world will literally stop existing in 4-8 years.
You did say it right after a comment about being appointed to a "national security" position. I imagine many people on HN get triggered by the phrase "national security", getting flashbacks to George Bush and the Patriot Act. If you think politicians have been abusing the term "national security" to push their bad policies, you should welcome the position being effectively removed from the President's advisory.
Nothing you've presented is really bad, so I'm not really sure how to respond to the facts. People might be interested in Stefan Molyneux's "The Untruth about Steve Bannon" video[1], though. He's not as bad as people are making him out to be.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clari...
Cohen is no liberal; he cofounded PNAC and served as a deputy under Rice in the Bush administration. And his take on Trump's last week is even more urgent than the parent comment's.
It is in fact not normal at all for the President's "chief strategist" --- an informal, non-confirmable role, created to house someone who stood a decent chance of washing out of Senate confirmation --- to replace the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of National Intelligence on the NSC PC.
Someone watching this unfold dispassionately might be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that Bannon is there because he doesn't trust Trump alone in a room by himself with a bunch of actual adults; Trump is, as has been reported for over a decade, famously impressionable.
"Partisan" doesn't mean "wrong".
This is a good argument. Many of these White House roles need to be confirmed; even if they are mostly advisory, because the law assumes that the President's advisors influence his decisions. If people want to say "Steve Bannon needs to be confirmed by the Senate", that's something I could probably be convinced of.
To be clear, there are probably some good arguments against the executive order. In particular:
* It affects green card holders, who are legally allowed to travel to the US.
* There are rumors of people being asked to voluntarily renounce their green cards, which if not illegal is at least immoral.
* The order probably shouldn't include Iran. I think the list of countries was based on one that's already in law?
* Maybe they should've given people a week or a couple days to get back into the US, rather than immediately banning them.
It's only saving grace is that it only lasts for 90 days, so it was intended to be temporary while they write up some actual reform. And I know of at least one other case where the court has allowed something unconstitutional because it was temporary to solve a specific problem(Affirmative Action).
It'd be nice if there was a "Stefan Molyneux of the left". As it is, it's hard to read through all the fear to find the arguments.
The rest of the order is partially fulfilling his campaign promises, and the broad idea is what's expected of him.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182
> Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President"
> Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.
I don't think anyone here explicitly said it was illegal, but I've seen a lot written that seemed to indicate that it was, which was the basis for me singling out the green cards in my other comments.
This is understating the case. Green card holders aren't just "allowed to travel to the US" - that's true of any visa holder. Green card holders live in the US and aren't allowed to come home.
A politician using an analytics firm that uses psychological profiling...welcome to the 20th century.
OP is presenting it as if it's an unusual affront to democracy. It's extremely disingenuous or extremely ignorant, I'm not sure which.
And regardless, he was elected in a fair vote. The end. If you run another election now he'll win again.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:ODNI_Stateme...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-us...
All this is, is a refinement of what politicians always did. Micro-targeting based on personality traits is just the natural evolution of the tradition of pandering to voters. Quantitative change, not qualitative.
In addition, Obama, Clinton and Trump all employed or used persuasion experts to help their campaigns (Cialdini for the former two, and Trump for himself). This is absolutely unavoidable, and again no qualitative difference between persuasion experts and the traditional PR consultants or speech writers.
I find this terrifying, that an untested extremist is the one in charge of our entire foreign policy approach, and that his goal is greater militarization and igniting populism. Not going to invoke Godwin's Law, but I think the parallels are obvious.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-steve-bannon-national-s...
1. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-travel-b...