Why Rahul Gandhi's Pidi Tweet may prove self destructive


If one were to decode Donald Trump’s victorious journey to the White House, one of the primary reasons was the issues he raised that struck a chord with regular Americans. However, another unique aspect of his campaign was the devastating effective manner in which Trump branded his opponents that resulted in their destruction.

During the GOP Primaries, Jeb Bush (brother of George W. Bush) was the front-runner by a considerable margin. Most saw Jeb as a capable, calm and levelheaded leader, the type of individual they could count on especially during a crisis. Upon entering the race, Trump went straight after Jeb, tauntingly describing him ‘low energy’. While ‘low energy' is not an obvious insult, it is most certainly an undesirable epithet. The ‘low energy’ perception prevailed, when the non-confrontational Jeb looked helpless when confronted by Trump about being a puppet in the hands of big political donors and lobbyists during the Primary Debates. Whenever Jeb went against his nature and tried to confront Trump, Trump would deridingly remark ‘More energy tonight, good’ and Jeb would shrink like a frightened turtle. Quite soon, Jeb’s poll numbers began to fall. Clearly, those who saw Jeb as a calm leader began to focus on his Jeb’s droopy shoulders, his blank stare and his monotonous speeches. Trump had also managed to establish the fact that Jeb was an establishment man and under him, nothing would change. Soon Jeb dropped out, despite being the presumed winner of the nomination.

Many thought of this as petty name-calling, the likes that schoolboys do. But noted cartoonist and author Scott Adams had a different take. He termed this branding of opponents as a linguistic kill shots. Where the attacker highlights the weakness of the target by branding him with terse and unique combination of catchy words that are also funny. It is also important that the words are constantly repeated to create a lasting impression across the board. The goal is to alter perception of the target irrevocably. Trump went on to clinch the GOP nomination vanquishing all his opponents, once again the linguistic kill shots were probably one of the major reasons for his success.

For the main contest, Trump termed Hillary as Crooked Hillary Clinton. Each time the voter heard ‘Crooked Hillary’ they were reminded of Hillary’s mendacity and her myriad of scandals. Each time Trump referred to Hillary’s Email scandal or Clinton foundation, Trump would consistently call her Crooked Hillary and it worked rather effectively in confirming what people had already suspected but probably never thought of with that clarity. These linguistic kill shots are not the only reason Trump won but one of the main reasons that Trump managed to alter perceptions of voters permanently and in politics, it is all about perception.

Of lately, Rahul Gandhi has been attempting to pull off a Donald Trump by using humor to mock his opponents on social media and in his campaign appearances. There clearly is an attempt to look for a linguistic kill shot, with GST being termed Gabbar Singh Tax. A week back Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter handle posted a screenshot of President Trump's praising Pak officials with a comment 'Modi ji quick, looks like President Trump needs another hug'. The Tweet hit headlines with 31 thousand tweets and 23 thousand favorite marks so far. However, a closer inspection proved that some of the accounts that retweeted Rahul Gandhi’s tweets originated from Russia and, Kazakhstan etc. These accounts seemed totally disconnected from Indian Politics or Rahul Gandhi, they had a low follower count and almost no original tweets on their timeline. A mini-fiasco for Rahul Gandhi, and rivals made mince meat of him with allegations that he probably had purchased followers on Twitter. Why would somebody looking to win support on the ground try and boost his follower count and get noticed on frivolous social media, it is almost like kicking off a campaign in the United States to win seats in India.

So how does Rahul Gandhi (his team really) try to undo the damage caused by this rather daft scandal? He posts a short video on Twitter. The video begins with Rahul Gandhi ordering his diminutive dog Pidi to fold his fore paws to do a Namaste. After that Gandhi places a piece of biscuit on the dog’s nose and commands Pidi to ‘stay’, the utterly subservient and well trained Pidi resists temptation to devour the biscuit as he looks at his master awaiting his next command. Finally a quick snap of the fingers causes Pidi to gobble down the biscuit to earn a ‘Good Boy’ commendation from his master.
How does this work from the perspective of persuasion? Let’s examine the current situation of the Indian National Congress. Under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the party has seen its influence wane considerably, especially after suffering successive defeats in state elections. In the minds of many, the only reason he is still at the helm of the INC is that he happens to be born in the right family, this is also the reason that many senior, able and capable people in the INC show the utmost subservience to the man despite his incapability. Ironically subservience happens to be the underlying theme in the Pidi video. It did not help that Congress personnel on Twitter began imitating Pidi as they lauded their master's 'brilliant' Tweet.

Scott Adams had also coined a term ‘linguistic suicide kill shot’ i.e. words that may be designed to destroy the opponent but ends up annihilating the attacker. A perfect example was Hillary Clinton terming Trump supporters as belonging to a ‘basket of deplorables’, despite being in a pit she dug deeper as she claimed some of Trump supporters are ‘irredeemable’. Thus driving away potential voters. Mani Shankar Aiyer condescending ‘tea seller insult was as effective as Hillary’s disastrous remark in helping the opponent.

While Rahul Gandhi’s Tweet does not seem as bad on the surface. It did incur the displeasure of Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who fired back at Rahul reminding him that he was busy feeding biscuits to his dog while Sarma wanted to discuss urgent matters relating to Assam. This prompted Congress personnel such as Priyanka Chaturvedi and Pawan Khera to invoke loyalty and suggesting that a dog teaches loyalty and branding Sarma as treacherous. Important to note that they did not counter Sarma’s allegation that he wanted to talk about important state matters with Rahul.

Perhaps this is mass suicide kill shot, which unknowingly exposes internal working of the party where loyalty is more important than attending to state matters and governance. In the end if you want to be a people’s leader the last thing you want to do is appear like a monarch condescending ordering his emaciated pet, unless you are auditioning for the part of Marie Antoinette. This also serves as another reminder that Rahul and his advisors permanently parked in a cocoon such that they are completely oblivious to perception created in the outside world.

Napolean once said "Never interrupt your enemy when they are self destructing.“ All that the BJP has to do is wait for Rahul and his minions to commit similar follies on the campaign trail, going by their record, they most certainly will occur and very soon.

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The author can be reached at rajanlaad@gmail.com

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