Scott Adams' Blog

When Wives Attack - Trump Persuasion Series

Posted September 18th, 2015 @ 8:36am in #Trump

If you watched the second debate, you saw Carly Fiorina’s great retort about Trump’s insulting “look at that face” comment. Fiorina said, “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

It was brilliantly open-ended (wizard-style!). The viewer filled in the blanks with whatever is the worst interpretation possible. That would have been a kill shot for any normal candidate, but Trump’s persona provides some armor.

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Carly Fiorina and the Wizard Filter

Posted September 17th, 2015 @ 11:49am in #Trump

The media is reporting that Carly Fiorina won the debate last night. I agree with that assessment, assuming we are viewing a two-dimensional chess board.

But according to the Master Wizard Hypothesis, all that really matters to voters in the end is images, words, and emotion. Reason doesn’t enter into it. Let’s see how Fiorina did on the emotional dimension. And remember, this is just for fun, to test the wizard filter and see how well it makes predictions.

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Wizard Attacks Wizard - The Trump Persuasion Series

Posted September 17th, 2015 @ 8:59am in #Trump

If I told you that throughout American history some candidates for president “looked up” and another group “looked down,” would you be able to make a list of people in each group without a definition of those terms?

Obviously President Kennedy looked up, literally to the moon, and all it represented. Reagan looked up to a shining city on a hill. Bush Senior looked up to a million points of light.

Other candidates were arguably “looking up” in the sense that their messages were about something good ahead. Clinton wanted to build a “bridge to the future.” Obama was all about hope and change. And now Trump is about making America “great again.” All of that feels more up than down.

Now make a list of candidates that looked “down.” And by that I mean they were more about the details, and looking down to the actual work that needed to be done on the ground. Carter comes to mind, as does Bernie Sanders. If Gore had been elected president, I think he would have been looking down at the wiring, not up at the sky.

This up or down sense we share about the candidates is important because the up candidates generally win. And when a Carter or Nixon slips through the cracks, we wish we had picked more of an upper.

My point is that the “up” candidate has a huge advantage. And in the past our “outsider” candidates were more about complaining down than looking up.

John Anderson = down (budget talk)

Ross Perot = down (budget talk)

Jesse Jackson = down (race relations)

Trump is the first up-looking outsider I can think of.

That’s why an article about President Obama criticizing Trump’s slogan caught my eye. This was direct wizard-on-wizard fighting that one rarely sees, and I’m not sure everyone caught it.

Keep in mind that Obama has said he is staying out of the conversation during primary season, as sitting presidents do. But he still wants Trump to lose. You know that.

And today he signaled (according to the Master Wizard Filter) that Joe Biden is waiting on the sidelines and Obama plans to back him. But he did all of that in the context of talking about his administration’s success with the economy and healthcare, a halo that extends to Biden.

But what caught my eye was Obama picking up on Trump’s use of “again” in his “Make America Great, Again” slogan. Obama cleverly turned “again” into a a statement of "gloom and doom,” pointing out that America is great already. That was a strong wizard move, to use Trump’s own words against him to turn optimism into pessimism.

Notice that the wizards change who you ARE, as opposed to criticizing what you DO. Obama turned Trump from an optimist into a pessimist with a sentence or two. Brilliant.

But by debate time last night, Trump had already adjusted, and emphasized that he would make America greater. I think what we saw, according to the Master Wizard filter, was a tap on the shoulder from Obama to tell Trump the big wizard is only sitting on the sidelines as long as he needs to.

Update: This is a bigger deal than you think. All the Republican candidates, and much of the press, have been chipping away at Trump and trying to get him to backpedal, change, adjust, or apologize for anything. Trump never blinked. But with a few well-engineered sentences, uttered once, President Obama – one of the all-time great wizards of persuasion – made Trump reword his campaign slogan.

Yeah, that happened. Did you even notice?

People keep asking what kind of kill shot would take out Trump. My guess is that only Obama has the linguistic firepower to do it, and he is handcuffed at the moment because of primary season. Things will get interesting when Obama starts influencing from the sidelines. Then it’s a fair fight.

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I predicted that Trump would soften his immigration plan over time. At the second debate, he talked about letting the non-criminal resident illegals back into the country according to some vague process. That is the start of the softening. Soon the “good ones” won’t have to physically leave, but might have to register and prove their value to the country in some fashion. That will be the next level of softening. Trump just can’t call it amnesty.

And I heard every candidate agree with the wall idea, including one call to use drones as part of the solution.

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Funniest comment I saw from a civilian after the debates was that half of the male candidates on stage appeared to have low testosterone. That was my exact observation while watching. Without judging, my objective observation is that several candidates have an effeminate speaking style. I doubt that is a winning formula for a Republican.

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Why Trump Insults People - Part of my Trump Persuasion Series

Posted September 16th, 2015 @ 9:20am in #Trump

Today I will explain why Trump insults people. As usual, I will use the Master Wizard filter. That doesn’t mean this explanation is right. But compare it to the alternatives and see if the hypothesis fits the facts better. I remind you this is for fun, not insight.

If you don’t apply the Master Wizard hypothesis, you are probably confused why a grown man keeps insulting people in public. That seems like exactly the opposite of what Trump should be doing to appear presidential. What’s going on here? I mean, Trump seems reasonably smart, but according to 99.99% of the public, he is doing the same dumb thing over and over: insulting people.

Why?

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2-D Chess Players Take on a 3-D Chess Master (Part of my Trump Persuasion Series)

Posted September 15th, 2015 @ 9:59am in #Trump #bill maher

Republicans have narrowed down their strategy options for destroying Trump. They started by creating a list of all the possible strategies that anyone could imagine. Then they eliminated all of options that were certain to work. In the next phase they eliminated all of the options that might work. What was left is four options that absolutely will not work. And that’s what they are going with. The people who compiled this list of strategies are the folks who want to run the country.

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The Daily Beast Reports on My Trump Posts

Posted September 14th, 2015 @ 4:47pm in #Trump

The Daily Beast called me this morning to talk about my Trump Master Wizard Hypothesis. This article is the result.

Was it a good idea for me to mention Jesus? Give me some PR advice.

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The Problem with Social Product Reviews

Posted September 14th, 2015 @ 11:49am in #Trump

When you are an author, and you dare to write on topics outside your main field, folks who disagree with you swarm to Amazon.com to give your latest book a bad review that sounds real.

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The Trump Versus Sanders Match-up: Part of the Trump Persuasion Series

Posted September 14th, 2015 @ 9:16am in #Trump #bernie sanders

Smart people tell me that Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party’s best hope for beating Donald Trump. Some say Sanders has sensible ideas based on models that have worked elsewhere. He reminds us of the angry yet lovable uncle we now realize has been right all along. We wish we had paid attention to Bernie instead of allowing ourselves to be distracted by Kardashians and Trumps.

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This Graph Does Not Apply to the Reader

Posted September 13th, 2015 @ 10:32am in #smartphones

This graph only applies to other people. I barely know you, and yet I know you are a special snowflake. Not like these people.

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Odds of a Kanye West Presidency: 90%

Posted September 12th, 2015 @ 12:55pm in #Trump #kim and kanye

This morning I was catching up on some drawing while watching a rebroadcast of the VMAs (Video Music Awards). I was vaguely aware that Kanye West had given some sort of overlong, rambling speech and this was a chance to score it for you on the Master Wizard linguistic scale.

I have very bad news for all of you Kanye haters.

He’s the real deal.

If you are following my Trump Persuasion Series in this blog, you know I like to make predictions through what I call the Master Wizard Filter. This hypothesis says that at any point in time there are a small number of linguistic geniuses that shape human history, and they are generally hiding in plain sight.

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