Every politician, or anyone trying to persuade anyone else of anything, faces two make-or-break moments: the moment before they say a word, and the moment they do.

We turn to that second moment here.

And to “Don’t Mess With Texas.” You probably know the slogan, but you may not know that it represents one of the most successful persuasion projects in history. There are many reasons for that, but among the most important is the power of one word.

Full transcript and links at Substack and DastardlyCleverness.com.

The fiendish thing about the iron cage of alienation is that the harder you try to escape, the harder that gets. The more you try to think your way out, the more surely you lock yourself in.

A case in point: The Democratic Party recently paid $20 million to study how to talk to men.

If Democrats are alienated from men, it might just be because they see them as objects of study, as opposed to human beings they actually know.

And it’s not just men who are becoming strangers to the Democratic Party. It’s black, Latino, Asian, and female voters too. Many are members of the party’s former, blue collar base.

But how can Democrats get unalienated? How do you escape your own mind?

Not by thinking the same old way, harder. You do it by learning to think in a different way.

Find the full transcript and links for this episode at DastardlyCleverness.com.

Between 1933 and 1981, there were 24 sessions of Congress. For 22 of those 24, Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. During the same time there were 12 presidential terms. Eight were served by Democrats.

Now Democrats can lose, twice, to a party led by Donald Trump, whose campaigns have been natural experiments in just how bad a candidate can be and still beat the Democrats.

What happened?

They got caught in what Max Weber called the Iron Cage: stuck in their rationalistic heads, Democrats have become alienated from much of America.

Find the full transcript at dastardlycleverness.com.