Scott Adams: In his own words
Many Americans – mostly supporters of Trump – want to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. They usually cite one or more of the following reasons. Illegal immigrants… 1. Broke the law. 2. Are using up our resources. 3. Are taking jobs. 4. Are lowering our…
Read MoreAs regular readers of this blog know, both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion tool. Trump wants you to fear terrorists and criminals because he thinks he can make a persuasive case that he’s the solution to those fears. Clinton asks us to fear Trump himself, offering…
Read MoreI have a hypothesis that many voters have already voted against Trump – in their minds – months before the first absentee votes are cast. The way that works is that a pollster calls someone who is considering voting for Trump – perhaps the week after the Khan controversy –…
Read MoreHere in the USA, we’ve narrowed our search for a new leader to two lying, 70-year old racists. (You should see how bad the other 320 million of us are.) I’m exaggerating, obviously. There are big differences in the candidates. For example, Clinton has allegedly killed lots of people in…
Read MoreCorrect me if I’m wrong, but six months ago Donald Trump was nothing but a talking suit full of money and insults. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was an experienced politician full of policy substance. Then they switched places. The media tells us that today we will hear Clinton…
Read MoreHeads are exploding at CNN as pundits try to define Trump’s repeated offers to help African-Americans as typical Hitler behavior. As my regular readers know, what we have here is a perfect trap for cognitive dissonance. The anti-Trumpers have created an identify for themselves – and in the media – as…
Read MoreTo many people – if not most – Donald Trump looks like the type of candidate who would become a “strongman” president, ignoring the advice of experts and the opinion of the people. That’s the persuasion framework that Clinton has created in your mind, probably with the help of the…
Read MoreBy now, most of you know that Trump expressed “regret” at saying things in the past that might have hurt people. Most viewers interpreted this as an apology, of sorts. Trump? Apologize? I have some thoughts on this, in no particular order. 3rd Act This is the so-called 3rd act that I have…
Read MoreAs the media has reported, the media caused Trump to have a few terrible weeks following the Democratic National Convention. To be fair, Trump made it easy. They turned his casual comment about Islam’s gender issues (based on Mrs. Khan’s silence) into an imaginary insult to a fallen soldier. And…
Read MoreLet’s talk about Trump’s foreign policy speech from a persuasion standpoint. Trump read from the teleprompter and acted more “presidential,” whatever that means. And he softened his position on Muslim immigration to “extreme vetting.” That was a good strategy for rebranding himself as less scary, but I doubt many people will watch that…
Read MoreIn my book – that you might enjoy because it is full of words – I talk about developing your own personal bullsh*t detector. I won’t rewrite that chapter here, but I’ll tell you how my own B.S. detector sees the accuracy of the presidential polls. One of the things I look…
Read MoreAs you know, Donald Trump has been sinking in the polls, thanks to the Clinton campaign adopting Trump-like persuasion tactics and framing the GOP nominee as an unstable, racist maniac. That approach is working, and time is running out for Trump to change things. Should I update my prediction of…
Read MoreIf you have been following this blog since last year, you know I have been saying Trump was playing 3D chess against 2D opponents. And by that I meant Trump was using powerful persuasion techniques while the rest of the field was flailing away with facts, reason, policy details, and…
Read MoreWould you feel safe voting for a presidential candidate without knowing which prescription drugs he or she is taking? I asked the question on Twitter and got this result so far. If you said it is safe, perhaps you have never been around people taking powerful prescription drugs. Many meds…
Read MoreAs amazing as this sounds, I watched a video clip of Dr. Drew explaining to CNN’s Don Lemon that Trump does NOT show signs of insanity or dangerous narcissism. Indeed, as Dr. Drew explained, some healthy narcissism is probably helpful for leaders because they want to be seen as successful. (I have…
Read More