When Reality Turned Inside Out

Do you remember way—-way—-way—back in July, when the public thought Trump was the candidate they couldn’t trust with the nuclear arsenal? That was before we realized he could moderate his personality on command, as he is doing now. We’re about to enter our fifth consecutive week of Trump doing more outreach…

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Deplorable Pneumonia

When Hillary Clinton called half of Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” I said it would not move the polls more than 1%. My thinking is that we have three types of voters: 1. The Deplorables – who already made up their minds for Trump. 2. Clinton supporters – who already made up their minds…

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The Race for President is (Probably) Over

If you are following breaking news, Hillary Clinton abruptly left the 9-11 memorial today because she was reportedly “overheated.” Her campaign says she is fine now. You probably wonder if the “overheated” explanation is true – and a non-issue as reported – or an indication of a larger medical condition….

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Checking My Predictions About Clinton’s Health

In a blog post I wrote on December 27th, 2015, I said this… Bonus Thought 1: One of the skills a hypnotist has to master is reading people’s inner thoughts based on their body language. That’s a common skill for people in the business world too, but hypnotists go deeper than looking at crossed…

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Check Out my Sulley Prediction from 2009

One of the the most important things I learned while getting my degree in economics is that economies are driven by psychology. If people expect tomorrow to be better than today, they make investments. If they think things are in decline, they wait it out, and that lack of investment…

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Measuring the Shy Trump Supporters

It’s hard to count people who are intentionally hiding. But just for fun, let’s see if we can deduce how many so-called Shy Trump Supporters are out there. For starters, we can say with certainty that they exist. I have a better ear for that than most of you because of my…

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Godzilla!!!

Read this short article then read this new book by Robert Cialdini (the Godzilla of persuasion). Seriously. Change your plans. Read this book. Thank me later.

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Why Trump Doesn’t Scare Me

Donald Trump scares a lot of people. They worry that he is a crazy racist who can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. They worry that he will needlessly insult foreign leaders. They worry that he isn’t sufficiently knowledgeable to do the job. And so on. But unlike the frightened…

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See Me on The Rubin Report

Many of my readers asked me to appear on the Rubin Report. And so I have. You can see Part 1 (my journey to Dilbert) here. Part 2 (the Trump bits) will follow soon.

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Deportation and Deals

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…

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The Face of Persuasion

As 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…

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The Mental Vote

I 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 –…

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Finding the Political Bottom

Here 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…

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Clinton and Trump Switch Brands

Correct 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…

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Con Man or Hitler?

Heads 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…

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