How should civil society leadership respond to the Trump victory?

Let’s face it, Trump’s win is symptomatic of a much larger shift in social attitudes.

As the world gets more unstable and the economy gets worse, people are moving away from rights, truth and democracy and towards authoritarianism and conspiracy thinking.

And nothing that civil society has done so far has worked to turn that trend around.

Now it’s time for real strategy.

I've seen lots of posts saying we need to fight harder, shout louder.

That's not strategy. That's doing the same thing we always did. Expecting different results is the definition of madness.

What these posters don't seem to understand is how profoundly digital media tech has transformed the way media shapes society.

It's a big part of why the Trumps of the world are winning.

Algorithmic distribution means that the louder you shout now, the fewer people hear you outside your own echo chamber.

That means that while our influence on society is shrinking due to algorithmic niching, the Trumps of the world are growing their influence with smart media strategy.

The Trump campaign worked out who it was possible to bring over to their way of thinking and they developed strategy to connect with them - they talked about what their targets were concerned about, they offered them concrete solutions. (And they A/B tested their messages relentlessly to find out what worked.)

It's sophisticated data science and social psychology. It's digital marketing, in other words.

There's still a reluctance among civil society to use the same techniques. People think it's disingenuous not to say it straight.

But it’s not about changing the central ideas – it’s about making those ideas connect with the people whose minds we need to change.

If we continue to refuse to use the latest techniques, we’ll be continuing to play checkers while they're playing chess. And we'll continue to lose.