Drip…drip…drip…
Nate Silver’s current opinion of Donald Trump’s odds, from Business Insider today:
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The way I characterize the situation is that Trump brought a flamethrower to a stick fight. What’s the track record for sticks beating flamethrowers? Hard to say, but a stick won all the other stick fights. We know that much.
0 CommentsIn a prior post, and as part of my Master Persuader Series (about Trump), I predicted that Trump’s success would trigger cognitive dissonance the likes of which you have rarely seen. That is a tell for mass persuasion.
I give you two examples from today.
0 CommentsIn no particular order.
Trump the Incumbent
When Trump hosted Saturday Night Live, his opening skit involved a future fantasy with Trump as president doing great things. As regular readers of this blog noted that night, he made you think past the sale. I assume Trump was involved in approving or suggesting that theme. Brilliant persuasion technique. Probably his best move so far.
In the minds of many, Trump is already running as an incumbent president. He simply seems as if he already has the job. Trump has made you think of him as both the sitting president … and an outsider… at the same time. Hypnotists use this method so the subject will embrace the interpretation with the greatest personal appeal. Do you like Trump for being an outsider, or do you like him as the incumbent president of your imagination? Pick one.
0 CommentsI recently blogged that a Trump presidency would probably boost confidence in the economy and pay a big dividend in GDP over time. Economies move with psychology, and Trump is the best at business-related psychology in all its forms.
But what about Ben Carson, you ask? Does he bring an economic upside too?
Yes – a monstrous one. In fact, Carson brings with him the Godzilla of economic possibilities. And I apologize for not putting together the pieces until now. Carson is a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity for the United States. He could bring an asset to the White House that you might never see again. That asset is the fixer of climate change. It is the healthcare improvement of all time. It is an enormous boost to worker productivity, if not the largest ever. What could be such a big deal, you ask?
0 CommentsAs regular readers know, I believe humans are moist robots with little awareness of why we do what we do. For example, someone (I’m not sure who) pointed out that the American public usually votes for the presidential team that would win a cage fight. Let’s see if you agree. I will consider only the presidents from my lifetime, which roughly corresponds to the age of television.
Keep in mind that Republicans have lost every time they had a disabled vet (McCain and Dole) or a woman (Ferraro) on the ticket. Jimmy Carter, at 5′9″ lost reelection to Reagan. Those are the obvious ones. Let’s look at some more matchup.
0 CommentsI promised myself that I wasn’t going to write about Donald Trump today. Then I saw this video clip in which a bearded fellow claims to know Trump’s morning routine. According to the bearded guy, an assistant brings a stack of Trump-related newspaper clips to Trump every morning. Trump glances at them, but rarely reads them, somewhere at around 6 AM. The headline for the video clip touts that it “tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump.”
0 CommentsOne of the biggest complaints I hear about Donald Trump is that he wants to become president for personal reasons. Apparently it has something to do with a combination of his narcissism, his ego, and his desire to make money.
0 CommentsWhen I was studying economics in college, the most surprising thing I learned is that economics is what happens when you combine psychology with resources. I had assumed economics was more of a math/formula sort of discipline. There is plenty of that too, but the core of economics is human psychology.
Let’s talk about that.
0 CommentsI just watched a video of Matt Lauer interviewing Donald Trump in front of a live audience in New Hampshire. The audience had some questions too. If you have been enjoying my Master Persuader series about Trump, you … have … to … see … this.
I remind you that I don’t know who would do the best job as president. I am not that smart. I am only interested in Trump’s persuasion techniques. I hope you can learn something from this.
Let me call out some of points of interest for readers of this blog.
0 CommentsYou can’t bomb an idea to death. So how do you ever defeat the idea that is ISIS?
To kill an idea, you need a hypnotist, or someone skilled in the art of persuasion. I’ll describe one way to do it. I do not expect any of the candidates to favor this approach. So what follows is not a policy suggestion so much as an example of how a trained hypnotist would kill an idea.
[As always, don’t take cartoonists too seriously. In this blog we kick around new ideas for entertainment. New readers of this blog need to know I am a trained hypnotist.]
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