Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision

Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision
by Thom Hartmann

Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision
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Book Summary Information

Author: Thom Hartmann
Foreword: Jim Hightower
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-01
ISBN: 1576756270
Number of pages: 223
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Product features:
  • ISBN13: 9781576756270
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Book Reviews of Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision

Book Review: One for the writer's toolbox
Summary: 5 Stars

Tom Hartmann has developed a writing voice that is instructive and readable, fully reflective of his on-air capabilities. In this small volume he leads the reader step-by-step through the mechanics of persuasion with the immediate goal of improving rhetorical skill and the loftier goal of restoring American democracy.

Conservatives have hijacked our ship of state using the very tools that Hartmann describes here. They have reframed issues: pasting the old-guard press as "liberal" when it is, in fact, corporatist and substantively conservative; labeling their agenda of dictatorial control over women's bodies "pro-life"; playing the fear card over and over again to drive support for their militarism ... on and on. Astonishly, conservatives have succeeded in coupling "liberal" with big spending while running up the largest deficits in history under George W. Bush.

We need look no further to understand how well advertising works.

Hartmann carefully and neatly explains the difference in world-view between liberals and conservatives: the former believe in the basic goodness of humans and the community obligation of mutual support to permit individuals to achieve their highest potential (guided by prudence), while the latter believe in the basic evil of humans and the necessity of protecting everyone from foreign enemies and interior urges (guided by fear). The divergence rings remarkably true as I write, just five days before the 2008 presidential election. If there is one overwhelming difference between the two campaigns it is that John McCain is emphasizing fear while Barack Obama is stressing hope.

I highly commend this book to anyone who hopes to influence our political future, and note, as does Hartmann, that politics and democracy are not just for elections--they are the tools by which we fashion our common future.

Summary of Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision

Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, global corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a national radio host, he breaks down the structure for effective communication, sharing exercises and examples for practical application.

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