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0 Comments#Trump
Trump and Godwin’s Law
Posted August 28th, 2015 @ 10:37am in #Trump
The media is having a hard time wounding Trump. The attacks keep bouncing off. Looks like they stepped up their game today.
Here’s the SHOCKING story of how Trump once owned, or still owns, a book of Hitler’s speeches. It was a gift from a friend. Trump admits it and names the friend. The friend confirms he gave it to Trump.
I’m sure the friend meant well. Trump is a master persuader, and obviously Hitler was too. I’m thinking of picking up a copy for the same reason that I assume the friend thought Trump would be interested. Trump says he did not read it. I’ll bet that is true, but only because his skills are already at that level. There wouldn’t be much for Trump to learn. And it seems kind of a downer.
To put things in context, a book of speeches from Kennedy, Reagan, or Dr. King would have been good gifts as well. And for the same reason. But less of a downer. So what we have here is a case of a very shitty gift-buyer.
The media, or some of it, is looking for a Trump kill shot. When Hitler’s name enters the mix, you know all the other ammo is already gone.
Look for LOTS more Hitler comparisons. Until it all seems silly.
I think you have seen a bunch in my comment section already.
And the press continues its slide to irrelevance.
Scott
0 CommentsNate Silver Gives Trump 2% Chance of Getting Nominated
Posted August 28th, 2015 @ 9:57am in #Trump
On August 6th, Nate Silver predicted in his highly-respected FiveThiryEight blog that Donald Trump had only a 2% chance of getting the Republican nomination. Silver’s prediction is based on historical patterns, solid data, and sound reasoning. He’s great at what he does. Maybe the best.
A week later, on August 13th, I wrote my post about Trump’s “clown genius” and predicted – based on his tool set – that Trump would win the Republican nomination and the general election as well.
On August 24th, based on Trump’s continued use of masterful persuasion techniques, I doubled-down and modified my prediction to say he would win the general election by a large margin. I believe I am alone in that prediction, at least among the talking-head/pundit/writer set. I realize that a healthy chunk of voters think he can go all the way. But the smart professionals almost universally expect him to flame out.
0 CommentsTrump Persuasion Alert: The Bush-Slayer Comment
Posted August 27th, 2015 @ 9:58am in #Trump
This article explains how Trump has decided to call Jeb Bush a “low energy” candidate.
That’s a linguistic kill shot. If you live to be a hundred, you will never see a better linguistic move.
No candidate can recover from the low-energy label. Trump ended Bush with two words. Now, even if Trump stumbles, Bush won’t be the one that surges to the front. From now on, Bush’s campaign hat is an anvil.
0 CommentsTrump Persuasion Alert: Bible Dodge
Posted August 26th, 2015 @ 8:58pm in #Trump
If you have been following my analysis of Trump’s persuasive brilliance you will see another example on display in this new story.
On the surface, Trump seems to be just another politician dodging just another question. Routine stuff, right?
0 CommentsThe Third Way on Immigration (Sort of a Trump Post)
Posted August 26th, 2015 @ 11:08am in #Trump
Readers have objected to my prediction that Trump will win the nomination and then the general election because…
1. Trump needs about 40% of the Latino vote to win.
2. Only 13% of Latino voters support Trump, largely because of his immigration plan.
No politician can close that gap. Therefore, say the people that have been spectacularly wrong about all-things-Trump, he must be playing some sort of power game with no real intention of winning the whole thing.
Maybe.
I can see both the math and the reasoning behind that point of view. I’ll bet it would be hard to persuade you that Trump can close that kind of gap in such a short time.
Game on.
0 CommentsTrump Makes Univision do the Perp Walk
Posted August 25th, 2015 @ 9:28pm in #Trump
Could I love the man more? No. I could not.
I don’t know how Trump will perform as president, but he sure entertains.
If you are following my blog series on Donald Trump’s persuasive genius, you have to see this master stroke from today.
0 CommentsTrump VS Bush: Persuasion Wars
Posted August 24th, 2015 @ 9:31am in #trump
Introduction:
Someone accused me of having a man-crush on Trump because I keep writing about him. I plead guilty. I have no idea whether he would be a good President or not, and I don’t believe you know either. My man-crush is based on Trump’s persuasion skills. I have never seen better.
I hope that sharing some of Trump’s methods will make you more effective in your own life. And it is fun stuff.
0 CommentsAnchors Away
Posted August 20th, 2015 @ 9:26am in #Trump
I hear you in the comments that you are tired of my Trump posts.
But if he keeps delivering a master class in influence, you will hear a lot more about his methods. I’m not terribly interested in politics, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see influence as an art form from a master operator who doesn’t feel the need to cover his tracks.
For example, when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo asked Trump to react to the Pope’s criticism of capitalism, Trump correctly saw it as a trap. If he engaged with the question he would be quoted on this topic and smeared with the association of Trump-capitalism-corruption. Tomorrow the headlines would be some form of “Trump blah, blah, corruption.”
Trump couldn’t bluntly refuse to engage in the question because that would look weak. So how does Trump wiggle out of such a well-crafted media trap?
Trump responds that he would tell the Pope that ISIS is coming to get him, and that they have plans to take the Vatican, which I assume is true, or true enough.
Do you even remember the question anymore?
Now compare the wattage coming from these two thoughts:
1. A boring discussion about corruption in capitalism. (Cuomo’s question)
2. A mental picture of ISIS taking over the Vatican.
No comparison. Corruption and capitalism are mere concepts that have no visual appeal. The ideas are important yet inert. But an ISIS overthrow of the Vatican is so visual you wonder why it isn’t already a movie. And that visual is all anyone will remember of that interview in a week.
Do you still think Trump’s clown act is random?
[Here I remind you that I am not smart enough to know who would be the best choice for president. I am only interested in the persuasion technique Trump uses.]
Scott
In Top Tech Blog, the Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters is starting to play out as expected for climate change. The law observes that when humans have lots of advance warning of pending disasters they always invent themselves out of it. Now we might be close to harvesting Co2 and turning it into fiber. If it works, that seems important.
0 CommentsPolitical Reporters Cover a Business Candidate
Posted August 19th, 2015 @ 9:46am in #trump #immigration #mexico
The presidential campaign is being covered by political reporters, for the most part. That makes perfect sense because the subjects of the reporting are mostly politicians.
But Donald Trump is a business person. If you apply a political filter to a business person, you get nonsense. Likewise, if you have a goal-oriented view of the world, as politicians typically do, a business person with a “systems” approach would appear crazy.
That brings me to Trump’s newly-published immigration policy. For our purposes here, you don’t need to know the details. All you need to know is that it sounds totally impractical and draconian.
If you apply a political filter to his proposal, it is pure nonsense mixed with evil and flavored with crazy. That’s how the media is reporting it all over the Internet. Just like Trump planned.
If Trump were a goal-oriented thinker, or even a real politician, the reporters would be interpreting this situation correctly. They would report that Trump’s plan is ridiculously impractical and even inhumane. And they would be right.
But reset your filter for a minute. Remember that Trump is a business person who promises to bring a deal-maker to the job of President. Now look at his crazy plan again but use your business filter this time.
Trump sees immigration as a negotiation. His opening offer is an anchor. This is how world-class negotiators work. The first offer has no purpose except to create contrast to whatever you eventually agree.
For example, Trump’s plan has two ridiculous ideas that will never happen. One involves a change of the constitution to remove the right of citizenship for people born in this country. The other involves rounding up 11 million aliens and shipping them home.
Not going to happen.
If Trump were a goal-oriented thinker, or a politician, he would be setting himself up for failure. His plan has zero chance of success as it stands.
But Trump is a systems thinker. He plays the long game. Every move is a negotiation.
Trump wants a wall on the border, and he wants Mexico to pay for it. That is such a big ask that few people think it possible. I can only imagine one way a wizard with Trump’s skills could convince TWO countries to do this thing that is amazingly hard to get done.
You start with an opening offer that anchors people’s minds to the most outrageous parts of the plan and then you trade those things away until you get the only thing you wanted: the fence. Negotiators (Congress in this case) will feel that a negotiation happened and all parties met in the middle.
But only Trump decided where the middle is. The debate is already over and Trump won. We’re getting a wall. But my guess is that America will create some sort of a path to citizenship for current illegals after the wall gets built. That will make both sides feel like they won something.
Trump can’t say he will give illegal immigrants a free pass while at the same time trying to get a wall built. That would trigger a wave of immigrants trying to beat the wall construction.
There was exactly one path available for Trump to get his wall. He had to set an anchor in the negotiations that inspires his core anti-immigration crowd to vote for him while setting the stage to negotiate away the crazy parts of the plan and keep the fence.
Another way to look at Trump’s immigration plan is that he’s working on America’s branding. That’s Trump’s area of expertise. If you want your brand to have value, the first thing you do is make sure no one can get if for free. You need a sense of exclusivity. Tightening immigration does that.
Keep in mind that trump is open to legal immigration for people who bring technical skill to the country. He wants more of that and less of the criminal element. That’s hard to argue against in principle. And if he succeeds in branding America as the only place you want to work if you have tech skills, imagine what that does to the economy over time.
Bonus Thought 1: When Trump stuck an anchor in the immigration problem by calling the Mexican immigrants rapists, he also established himself as the only Republican who is talking about violence to women. Name the other Republican candidate who is out front on a gender issue. You can’t.
Bonus Thought 2: On the question of abortion, if Trump says he doesn’t understand why men even get a vote on the question of abortion he would take that issue off the table while keeping his personal views intact.
Bonus Thought 3: Much has been reported about Trump’s bankruptcies. If you view Trump as a goal-oriented thinker, those are examples of failures. If you view him as a systems-oriented thinker, he built a diversified portfolio of holdings and kept the bad ones from infecting the others by creating separate entities that could fail by themselves.
Bonus Thought 4: In all likelihood, Donald Trump will pick our next president. If he runs as a Republican, he will be picking himself, and winning, assuming he keeps going this way. If he runs as an independent he will be picking Clinton as president. There’s your republic: One guy gets to vote for President this year.
Here I’ll remind new readers that I have no idea if Trump would be a good president. In my view, all the candidates are within the realm of competence. How they might perform as president depends on what future they are paired with. For example, the best president for winning a war might be the worst one for fixing a recession. You can’t know who will be good on the job if you don’t know what the job will entail.
Scott
In Top Tech Blog, do you remember my dumb idea I posted here about generating power by building pyramids with internal chimneys? Canada might start building some towers that do just that, plus they launch space planes from the top.
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