Scott Adams' BlogMy Opinion of Trump’s Convention Speech
Trump gave his nomination acceptance speech last night. I grade it an A-. It wasn’t a speech for the ages, but it was presidential enough. As convention speeches go, it was solid.
#Clinton
The Trump Kids Effect
Posted July 21st, 2016 @ 11:11am in #Trump #GOP Convention #Clinton
I finally watched a replay of Donald Trump Jr.’s speech at the GOP Convention. It was a home run for content and delivery. I especially liked his approach of labeling Clinton as the “risky” candidate. That’s good persuasion. No one wants risk in their lives, and you can make a good case that Clinton brings some. It directly counters the impression that Trump is the dangerous choice.
0 CommentsHow Persuaders See the World
Posted July 18th, 2016 @ 10:03am in #Trump #Clinton
When you are trained in the ways of persuasion, you start seeing three types of people in the world. I’ll call them Rational People, Word-Thinkers, and Persuaders. Their qualities look like this:
0 CommentsGingrich, Pence, and Monitoring Mosques
Posted July 16th, 2016 @ 9:32am in #trump #Gingrich #mike pence #clinton
Monitoring Mosques
People are outraged because Newt Gingrich suggested that the U.S. government should start monitoring mosques to thwart terrorism. Outrage is a perfectly reasonable response to Gingrich’s proposal if you’re dumb enough to think the government isn’t already monitoring mosques in the U.S.
How do I know the government already monitors any mosques in which they suspect there might be problems?
0 CommentsCop Killers Versus Racists
Posted July 14th, 2016 @ 9:17am in #trump #clinton
Trump’s biggest problem in this election so far is that most racists appear to be on his side. At least it looks that way to the public. That awkward perception allowed Team Clinton to brand the Trump campaign as the racist team. Clinton’s strategy of racial politics has been effective. I recently blogged that “crooked” beats “racist” every time, meaning that unless something changes, Clinton has the persuasion advantage.
But today we see in the polls that the candidates are effectively tied. What changed?
0 CommentsThe FBI, Credibility, and Government
Posted July 7th, 2016 @ 9:19am in #Trump #Clinton
The primary goal of government is its own credibility.
That notion needs some explaining.
Governments do many things, including building roads, providing social services, defending the homeland, and more. But no matter what the government is trying to accomplish, its macro-responsibility is to maintain its own credibility. Governments without credibility devolve into chaos. Credibility has to be job one.
0 CommentsBeing Memorable
Posted May 20th, 2016 @ 8:49am in #Trump #Clinton
See this article in FastCompany about how to be memorable, and note how many of the tips apply to Donald Trump. You can’t be a persuader until you are memorable. Most of the persuading happens after the persuasion trigger event, when people replay the memory in their minds.
0 CommentsA Few Observations on Clinton-Trump Persuasion
Posted May 6th, 2016 @ 9:56am in #Trump #clinton
In no particular order…
The Paul Ryan Exchange
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said yesterday, “I’m just not ready to back Donald Trump.” That was an example of good negotiating. “Not ready” means he hopes to be able to back Trump someday, but only if Trump changes in some unspecified ways that Ryan wants. It gives Ryan leverage. It was a strong move.
0 CommentsHow Not to Make a Campaign Ad
Posted May 5th, 2016 @ 11:48am in #Trump #clinton
The Clinton campaign came out with a new attack ad against Trump that features a number of Republicans trash-talking him. Let’s evaluate it for persuasiveness.
0 CommentsWhy Would a Man Vote for Hillary Clinton?
Posted January 9th, 2016 @ 9:51am in #Trump #clinton
If you have been following the Master Persuader series in this blog, you know that the influence stack goes like this:
Identity beats analogy
Analogy beats reason
Reason beats nothing
Most of the candidates are trying to make an appeal to reason, and failing, because reason beats nothing. Rand Paul has lots of reasons. Some might be darned good. No one cares.
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