My doctorate is in the study of group behavior, tribal and ethnic, racial and corporate, amongst others. I wrote protocol for following how groups come apart and come back together again. It’s time-tested these many years later. I witnessed it again when I covered the Libertarian National Convention last week.
There, ‘the coming together after heavy battle’ began to meld like six creeks flowing into one river. This occurred after the only one still standing after it was all over was former Congressman Bob Barr.
But right after he was elected to run for POTUS with a barely squeaked-by majority vote, almost half the 1000+ national delegates still were climbing down from their high hopes regarding at least 6 other candidates besides Barr. The blowback appears to be harder and deeper on candidates and supporters when the race is very close and only one prevails.
It took some time for the adjustment, but most were making it; albeit with certain reservations, or wait and see attitudes. Even those who disliked the candidate, unified ‘as a party’ despite personal ‘druthers.
Bottom line factors for many supporters of defeated candidates so they can and will unify with others:
–Weigh the strength of their root desire to enable some serious change via their party’s platform
–against their wanting to, at the same time, prevent something else from happening that they deem seriously deleterious
The weight of those two, often allows supporters of defeated candidates to now stand behind the one candidate-elect who may have been, a priori, their second choice, or tenth… or not even considered earlier, or only with antipathy
The process of coming together goes something like this
Explosion Out of the Gate Phase
1. Ambition (by supporters to be a part of something significant, momentous, something that will make life better, different, more meaningful to them, to the people at large…)
2. Competition (supporters find the candidate who matches their admiration quotient and/or their common sense quotient, their hopes and dreams or ideas. Once found, they throw themselves behind that candidate; showing up, planning, proselytizing, banking, beginning the push against all other candidates; each supporter in their own way)
3. Opposition (supporters withstand prevailing and opposing winds that deliver blows to their candidate; supporting that the candidate dodge or feint or punch to stay in the race… Thus, in such protective/ nurturing roles, supporters often feel deepening loyalty to the candidate, regardless of any wins/ losses/ setbacks/ progress. This loyalty is not altruistic only; for some it is deeply personal. Supporters often feel a sense of psychic and spiritual duty, as though they are ‘family of soldiers’ composed of their candidate and other supporters. This is deepened when their candidate has been battered about; supporters feel they have ‘been through a lot together…’ and the toiling and turmoil bonds the group)
Neck and Neck Phase
4. Detritions, (supporters note the weakening of many candidates’ running strength, often caused by friction from those candidates’ ideas not being resonant enough with a majority of voters. If it’s their candidate who is weakened, many supporters will try to re-strengthen their efforts, revive their candidate. If it is some other candidate, many supporters will think too bad, or good deal, and go on working for their candidate regardless)
5. Statistician: (supporters see that one candidate pulls out front numerically or in some ultra-favorable or incontestable way that is not easily beatable. If it is their candidate who pulls out front, they are overjoyed; if it is not, many will continue to hope and work even harder. Loyalty is highly prized by most supporters who come from the grass roots; they are part of not just their own psychologies in mid-race, but part of a larger group psychology whose only imperative is to press forward)
6. Attrition, (as losing candidates read the handwriting on the wall, now knowing they are not going to win, there is a slight wavering or slowdown of energy expended by those candidates. They begin to coast to a stop, in part as a face-saving measure to avoid seeming to have been stopped by others. Some supporters will take longer than their candidate to come to terms with the now certain cessation of their candidate’s campaign. Some supporters prepare to leave the campaign out of disheartenment, anger or simple because the gig is up
The Finish Line Phase
7. Cognition: (one candidate has won; the evidence is now unassailable. For those whose candidate has not won, sometimes there is a brief quietude as the news sinks in. It’s not just that their candidate didn’t win. For many, it is the loss of a specific hope and dream of ‘how things could have been.’ In that sense, it the candidate’s loss is often felt as a personal loss to the supporter, not just a political loss.
8. Fissioning: (the after-period of sorting out where one stands in fealty and what one will do after one’s candidate has not won, is sometimes accompanied by a few who make desperate last tries to gain advantage for their candidate, but with usually feeble progress or result. Often during this time, one will hear many aiming to make statements of principle.
The Photo Finish Proofs Phase(may or may not be enough for some supporters)
9. Re-Recognition, the second or third “thud” occurs, as supporters integrate the reality and come even more to terms that it’s really over; though some may still make motions for even more challenges, demanding further proofs of who won this time. These demands may be presented time and again, until supporters of the non-winning candidate(s) finally concede in one way or another, or resign.
After the Race: The All-Over-But-the-Shouting-Part
10. Sedition/ alienation ( some call for an overthrow of the voting system, the elected candidate; others who are disgusted and feel disenfranchised, who feel silenced or shut out, threaten to leave the party, and some do. Some of this group will say they will now vote for a candidate fronted by a party different than their own. Some say they will not vote at all.
11. Suspicion (some decide to stay in the party and to rally behind whomever the party elected, but say they are skeptical of the chosen one. Some say they will contribute more time and money, some will not.
12. Partition (some say they’ll place fences around their future work for the party: Ok, well, I’ll support the party, but not this particular candidate, rather, some other issue, some white paper group, some other local or regional election for this party instead.
13. Admonitions (some supporters heatedly proclaim everyone corrupt or lacking in brain power, warning everyone’s going to hell in hand basket, and/or strega-like, calling down a curse on the crops. These supporters may be captured by or seek the media; thus often receive far more than their share of media and air time. Some may form demonstration groups or the equivalent of ‘act-up’ groups. Very occasionally, a person will speak or act in ways that are meant to be scornful of and /or punitive to the winning candidate.
14. Erudition – (inevitably, someone … the candidate and many of the lead supporters, will make speeches appealing to supporters’ better natures and personal interests, and desires for gains if they will only ‘come together.’ Leaders will publicly speak of the strengths of their opponents who ran against then, and many will contact fence-sitting supporters personally to assure them their support is appreciated and still needed. Sometimes the personal touch is all that’s needed to help people ‘come together.’ The candidate-elect’s public words toward helping losing candidates save face, whether sincerity is present or not, that helps unity. And for certain, it is the tone and timbre and graciousness of the defeated candidate’s words, formalistically, or sincerly, or both– that will cement that unity.
15. Fruition (finally after much arbitration of one kind or another, much remembering or reminding that ‘we’re in this together,’ that ‘no one is perfect’ that ‘we’re all here to win the best of what can be won,’ that ‘we have the greatest machine and we’re going all out to win,’ et al,… a majority of people, eventually, and especially if drawn back for personal and altruistic reasons, will back whomever is the ‘last one standing.’
In the end, most supporters will often come to terms with defeat and reorientation in the ways they’ve reacted to many other triumphs and major disapppointments in their own lives in the past. If they have worked toward tempering their reactions to disappointment in the past, they will likely do that now too. We all tend to react in patterned and predictible ways… at first reactively toward what has been lost, but then more thoughtfully, turning to takie up the broken threads again, to weave the wrents together, to help create the future they care so deeply about.
Some previous supporters of a failed candidate, feel grief. For some their candidate’s loss will have been the dashing of a lifetime of hope, no small thing. They may stay in, with a certain kind of wisdom hard won in life. Some may quietly pull back. Some may exit and not return. Some may do some of each for a time.
Some supporters will say, it was just a game. Just a race. Win, lose or fold. They’ll rest for a while perhaps, but they’ll be back.
Eventually, once the current cycle of political races are won or lost, many supporters might go back to sleep politically, as there is no bright fiery organized ‘family’ force to awaken them out of their slumber any longer.
But, some will remain awake, even when there’s not a heated campaign going on. They’ll want to learn more, know more, involve themselves, again and still… in something meaningful to them. They wont wait for another election cycle to do that.
And there are some who are all of the above, moving in their own cycles.
There’s actually a 16th factor to ‘coming together’, one that an observer can, in a way, learn most from. The 16th factor is made up of ‘supporters’ who are like cowbirds who lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. The cowbirds offspring grow so large so fast, they push the original baby birds out of the nest… Thus, the 16th factor is Positioning: Those who have “special interests,” those who have something to gain and who are used to gaining it, will always be jockeying to be near ‘the power,’ attempting to elbow to and stay at the top, pushing others aside.
The 16th factor, more than most any others, is the most interesting to watch if one ever wanted to study the shadowy depths of human nature.
In some ways, considering the ‘what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine’ pushing and pulling for power by those from the 16th factor, it is noteworthy that many loyal supporters of the party manage to come together, nevertheless. Often, many of the party who are savvy will come together and stay together… partly in order to keep an eye on the ‘it’s all about me’ cowbirds.
So, that’s it, The 15 Psychological Principles for Coming Together. On the other hand, we could probably also as well learn the odd and eccentric factors of people coming together by studying the Beatles’ lyric…
He roller-coaster, he got early warning
He got muddy water, he one mojo filter
He say “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-looking cos he’s so hard to see
Come together
right now
over meYeah come together
Lennon/ McCartney