Men: Confess Your Support for Hillary Clinton

I had a strange realization this morning: I have never had a private conversation with an American man who said he would vote for Hillary Clinton for president. And most of my friends and business acquaintances are liberal. In personal conversations, men often tell me they support Trump or Sanders…

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The Oddest Thing About Trump

Whether you love Trump or hate him, you probably wonder why he never apologizes and never changes his story, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that he should. Trump seems otherwise intelligent – he graduated from an Ivy League school and built a business empire. So what the hell…

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Why Would a Man Vote for Hillary 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…

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The Laugh Tell (Trump Master Persuader Series)

Have you ever been listening to Donald Trump speaking, or reading one of his quotes, and found yourself laughing out loud? Maybe you think he has a good sense of humor and he says funny stuff. Maybe you think he is so shocking that you laugh out of social horror….

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Politico Tries to Trump Me on “The Turn”

Here’s a headline on Politico today, followed by a snippet from my post a day earlier. Check the dates and tell me where you “saw it first.” The Master Persuader scorecard keeps improving. Is it 12-for-12? If you want to read about the future, this blog is the only place to do it. But if…

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Working on the White Guy Brand

By an accident of birth, I fall into the White Guy category. To keep this on a positive note, let’s call it my brand. And that means that if other people with my outward characteristics do dumb-ass things, it reflects on my brand.  One of the dumb-ass things my people…

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Trump and Climate Science (Master Persuader Series)

Warning: What follows should be viewed as entertainment, not truth. I’m going to spin a few brains today. History suggests that 20% of you will not like it one bit. So if you don’t want your worldview challenged, better stop here. This is written with commercial-level persuasion, just for entertainment, to see…

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The Thought Police Did Not Like it When I Said Something Like This

Today I step aside to let a better communicator do her thing. See this provocative opinion by Janet L. Factor. It is too early to call The Turn on our collective thinking about the motivation of radical Islamic terrorists, but it might happen soon. Keep in mind that Trump’s suggestion is to halt muslim…

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The Canadian Gambit (Trump Persuasion Series)

I have to start by saying I love Canadians. If I have one complaint about our good friends to the north, it is their annoying tendency to politely offer me stuff with no strings attached. I find that off-putting. And it’s a slippery slope to free healthcare. In my experience, most Canadians…

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Making Mexico Pay for the Wall

I can think of several ways a future President Trump could get Mexico to pay for (some) of the wall. In a prior post, I talked about turning the border into a tourist opportunity that creates enough money to pay for the wall, but that’s the hard way. The easy way goes…

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Master Persuader Scorecard (Update Jan 4)

On December 4th, 2015 I predicted that Michael Moore’s “We are all Muslim” movement would not spread far beyond the faint gravitational field around his own body. I haven’t heard much about it lately. How do you score that one, readers? (I know, that was an easy one.) On December 7th I…

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Trump’s First Ad (Master Persuader Filter)

All the buzz today is about Trump’s new ad [no longer available]. Some people on Twitter asked for the Master Persuader filter on it. Note: For new readers of this blog, I don’t endorse Trump, or anyone else. I’m not smart enough to know who would be the best president. My interests…

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Trump Prediction about the Wall (Master Persuader series)

Prediction: Watch for someone in Mexican politics to publicly agree with Trump that Mexico might pay for some part of increased border security. Then watch that turn into a pundit battle about what that actually means. Does it mean pay for the entire wall? Does it mean Mexico already pays a lot for border control, and this…

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Master Persuader Scorecard Update: 10-out-of-10 Coming?

I predicted toward the bottom of this post that Trump was setting up the country for a “mom versus dad” showdown with Clinton – at least in our irrational minds. When election day comes, if the country needs a hug, mom wins. But if there’s a noise downstairs, you probably want dad to…

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