Scott Adams's Blog, page 245

How to Legally Vote More Than Once

If you find it annoying that you only have one legal vote, here’s how you can get a few more. It’s called persuasion.

You can multiply the power of your opinion by convincing people on the other side to stay home on election day. Every vote you suppress on the other side is like an extra vote for you. And there’s no limit to how many you can have!

Persuasion doesn’t work every time. But you might enjoy experimenting to see how many times it works for you. For this exercise, I will assume you are a Trump supporter trying to suppress the votes of Clinton supporters. Here’s how you can do it.

1. Set the stage by cleverly hiding the fact that you are a Trump supporter. Say some good things to your intended targets about Clinton’s plucky attitude, her place in history, and the breadth of her experience. Once people believe you are on the “right” side, they will find you more persuasive later.

2. Prior to election day, note how lopsided the polls are in favor of Clinton. Also point out that the pollsters are usually correct when you are this close to election day. Say you are thinking of not voting this year because lines are sometimes long and parking might be iffy. Put that thought in people’s minds a week ahead of election day.

3. On the day before the election, and again on election day, engage Clinton supporters in conversations that involve concepts such as laziness, exhaustion, overwork, and stress. You don’t need to mention the election. Just talk in general about things that are more trouble than they are worth. People will respond to your downer-talk by feeling a bit lazier themselves. They might even feel overworked and more stressed than usual. (This concept is inspired by the book Pre-Suasion, by Robert Cialdini.)

4. Complain about workplace problems in which one person can’t seem to make any difference in this world. Talk about anything that feels disempowering. No need to talk about the election. The feeling will bleed over.

5. Proclaim that you were planning to vote for Clinton but it seems like a lot of work and she is ahead in the polls, so why bother?

6. Jokingly say that because you don’t plan to vote this time, it won’t be your fault if Clinton is a huge mistake as president. You’ll have a clean conscience for four years.

7. Wonder aloud how anyone can vote for either Trump or Clinton without feeling stained by it all.

If you follow those steps, and reinforce them with repetition, you can potentially influence about 10% of your target group to skip voting. Let me know how it works for you.

—

I wrote a book because I am an author.

Twitter and Periscope Shadowban Update

I was just on Periscope, the streaming app owned by Twitter. The running count for number of live followers on my session dropped from over a thousand to zero for no obvious reason, even though plenty of people were still on and interacting with me. At a count of over a thousand viewers I would have been close to the #1 stream on the app at that moment.

I restarted the session in case it was a technical error. Once again, as soon as I started talking about how Trump could win the race, my viewer count artificially dropped to zero, while at the same time there were plenty of actual people on my session interacting with me.

A high viewer count is what makes a Periscope session look appealing to other viewers. The sessions with a lot of viewers get featured and attract even more viewers to see what is happening. Whatever suppressed my viewer count had the effect of reducing the number of new people coming to see me.

I don’t have confirmation that Twitter is shadowbanning me. All I know is that my followers say they don’t always see my posts unless they go to my feed directly. Hundreds of people might be wrong (it happens) but the odds are against it.

Likewise, my problem with Periscope might be a technical glitch. (It happens.) But again, that would be a large coincidence.

As I said before, if Twitter is suppressing my political speech, I consider it moral treason against the people of the United States even if it is allowed under their terms of service, and even though it is technically legal. I hope I’m wrong, and that my problems are simply technical in nature. Because if Twitter is doing what people say they are doing, and suppressing certain types of speech, the company needs to die for the good of the Republic. 

And I trust that it will.

By the way, Twitter did go down yesterday from a Distributed Denial of Service attack that affected other big services as well. It happened on the very day I said I would destroy Twitter if I didn’t hear back about my shadowbanning question. That was just a funny coincidence. (It happens.)

Update:

The part of the Periscope session that got shadowbanned (maybe) was where I said all Trump needs to do to win is display a detailed understanding of the PROCESS of handling the nuclear codes, but using only public sources. That would demonstrate that he is serious and understands the gravity of it. The public needs to know he takes it seriously.

But Trump would also need to use what I call the “high ground maneuver” to frame his critics as people who think offensive words are as important as nuclear war. Sure, Trump sometimes says things that are politically incorrect, but our adversaries in the world know what they are getting with Trump. They have televisions. No one will be surprised by anything he does.

And Trump could point out that he has a lifetime of experience making important decisions under pressure. Say directly to the American people that they are safe with him in control of the military arsenal.

We also have some recent news that changes the frame from Trump supporters being dangerous to Clinton being dangerous. Project Veritas showed us that Clinton allies incited the violence at Trump rallies. We heard Vice President Biden say he wanted to take Trump behind the bleachers and beat him up. And we observe Clinton provoking Russia at every opportunity. That all sounds dangerous to me – at least enough to change the frame.

If you talk to Clinton supporters about why they are afraid of Trump, about half of the problem is their concern about his “temperament” and the nuclear codes. That comes from Clinton’s persuaders doing a good job of making the case that Trump’s choice of words indicates he would be dangerous with the nuclear codes. If Trump addresses that illusion directly, he removes the biggest fear that people have about him.

And he wins.

—

If you like freedom of speech, you might like my book because you also like coffee.

How to Insult Me on Twitter

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are struggling to come up with creative ways to insult me on Twitter. As a public service, I will organize the common approaches in this post so people can insult me by number.

1. Act like you think I draw Garfield. 

2. Proclaim that I am the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.  (Assume a million people haven’t already told me the same thing.) 

3. Label me irrelevant.

4. Note that Dilbert used to be funny but now it is just sad, like its creator.

5. Make a fake Dilbert comic and have the characters mock their misinterpretations of my opinions in a way that you mistake for satire. 

6. Tweet a quote from me that is out of context so it mischaracterizes my opinions. 

7. Ask what could anyone expect from a cartoonist that you believe to be a misogynist  because you didn’t understand something he wrote. 

8. State your professional medical opinion that I am a narcissist. 

9. Say you didn’t know I was such a (insert word for penis) until you read my blog and Twitter posts.

10. Display your lack of understanding of the word “fascist” by calling me one.

11. “Don’t quit your day job.”

12. Do a “Point by point” “take-down” of my blog post in which you misunderstand each point individually and argue against your misinterpretations while blaming me for all of it.

13. Take time out of your day to tell me I am not important.

14. Say you regret ever purchasing Dilbert products and have discarded the ones you have.

15. Accuse me of having a “meltdown” because I was bored and responded to some Tweets.

16. Imagine I’m doing something I’m not and then mock that imaginary thing with sarcasm as if it has anything to do with me.

17. Pretend you are too smart to be duped the way I have duped other people. Add sarcasm to make it sound smarter.

I will update the list as I see new ones.

—

If you like insulting me, you will love my book because it has lots of words in it.

The Crook Versus the Monster

Thanks to timely assists from Wikileaks, Trump has successfully framed Hillary clinton as a crooked politician. Meanwhile, Clinton has successfully framed Trump as a dangerous monster. If the mainstream polls are accurate, voters prefer the crook to the monster. That makes sense because a crook might steal your wallet but the monster could kill you. As of today, Clinton has the superior persuasion strategy. Crook beats monster.

Reality isn’t a factor in this election, as per usual. If the truth mattered, voters might care that the Democratic primaries were rigged against Sanders. They might care that the Clinton Foundation looks like a pay-to-play scheme. They might care that the FBI gave Clinton a free pass. They might care that we know Clinton cheated in at least one debate by getting a question in advance. They might care that Clinton’s dirty-tricks people incited the violence at Trump rallies. They might care that Clinton’s “speaking fees” were curiously high. They might care about all of that. But they don’t, because a crook is still a safer choice than a monster.

The biggest illusion this election is that we think the people on the other side can’t see the warts on their own candidate. But I think they do. Clinton supporters know she is crooked, but I think they assume it is a normal degree of crookedness for an American politician. Americans assume that even the “good” politicians are trading favors and breaking every rule that is inconvenient to them. I’ve never heard a Clinton supporter defend Clinton as being pure and honest. Her supporters like her despite her crookedness. 

Likewise, Trump supporters know what they are getting. They know he’s offensive. They know he’s under-informed on policies. They know he pays as little in taxes as possible. They know he uses bankruptcy laws when needed. They know he ignores facts that are inconvenient to his message. They just don’t care. They want to push the monster into Washington D.C., close the door, and let him break everything that needs to be broken. Demolition is usually the first step of building something new. And Trump also knows how to build things when he isn’t in monster mode.

Clinton’s team of persuaders have successfully crafted Trump’s offensive language and hyperbole into an illusion that he’s a sexist/racist in some special way that is different from the average citizen. The reality is that everyone is a little bit sexist and a little bit racist. We’re all wired that way. There’s no escape if you are human. Our brains are pattern-recognition machines, but not good ones. That’s what gets us in trouble. We see patterns where none exist. None of us are exempt from that. But we can use our limited sense of reason to see past it. 

Clinton’s persuaders have taken advantage of the public’s faulty pattern recognition to build an illusion about Trump that he is a horrible monster who hates people because of their genitalia, their skin pigmentation, and their sexual preferences. I don’t believe Trump holds any of those views in 2016. But there is plenty of confirmation bias to make us think he does, thanks to Team Clinton’s persuasion efforts. For example…

There was the time Trump said we need good border control with Mexico, and Clinton turned that into something racist because of the way he worded it.

There was the time Trump said we need to try harder to keep out terrorists who want to kill us, and Clinton turned that into something racist because of the way he worded it. 

There was the time that Trump said a judge with Mexican heritage might be biased against him because 90% of American citizens with Mexican heritage are biased against him. Clinton turned that into something racist because of the way Trump worded it.

There was the time that Trump didn’t need much sleep one night and decided to fire off a few thoughts on Twitter about one of his accusers. But because it was late at night, Clinton framed that as some sort of “meltdown” to prove Trump is unstable. 

I realize I can’t change anyone’s mind if they see Trump as a monster who hates people with different genitalia and with skin pigmentation that is far superior to his own pasty-orange covering. To me, those illusions about Trump are ridiculous on face value. I can’t change anyone’s mind if they see Trump as a monster. So instead I will make you a promise.

My promise: If Trump gets elected, and he does anything that looks even slightly Hitler-ish in office, I will join the resistance movement and help kill him. That’s an easy promise to make, and I hope my fellow citizens would use their Second Amendment rights to rise up and help me kill any Hitler-type person who rose to the top job in this country, no matter who it is.

As I often say, Democrats generally use guns to commit crimes. Republican use guns for sport and for self-defense. If you are a Republican gun-owner, and you value the principles of the Constitution, I’m confident you would join me in the resistance movement and help kill any leader that exhibited genuine animosity toward people because of their genitalia, sexual preference, or skin pigmentation.

In other words, I’m willing to bet my life that the “monster” view of Trump is an illusion. 

That said, I also don’t know which candidate has the best policies. I wouldn’t risk my life for any of their tax plans or ISIS-fighting strategies. I’m only interested in helping the public see past their hallucinations about the monster under the bed. You’re on your own to decide who has the best policies.

—

If you like books, you might like my book because it is a book. Bigly.

I Score the Third Debate

I watched the third and most boring presidential debate last night. Here are my thoughts.

Clinton’s goal was to stay vertical for ninety minutes and sound more well-informed than Trump while framing him as an unstable monster. She accomplished all of that and won the debate, in my opinion.

But it wasn’t a big win. 

Trump only needed to act semi-presidential, and he did. We don’t expect him to have the same mastery of the facts. The bar is lower for the outsider. He needed a knockout punch but there was none. 

Persuasion-wise, the most emotionally powerful moments involved Clinton describing Trump as a sexist/racist monster who can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. “Scary” was the only message she needed to drive home, and she did.

Ask Clinton voters why they prefer her over Trump and few people will mention the economy or any specific policies. Almost everyone will mention Trump’s “temperament” or alleged racism/sexism. Those were the only variables that mattered. Clinton reinforced those messages and Trump did little or nothing to counter them. The rest of the debate and all of the policy questions were largely irrelevant to persuasion.

Trump mentioned Clinton’s various scandals involving email, Wikileaks, and pay-for-play. But the public assumes all career politicians trade favors and say things in private that they wouldn’t say in public. The public also expects some dirty tricks out of campaigns. The Wikileaks attacks are toothless so far. So toothless that Clinton’s “Russia did it” defense is good enough (for a debate) even though it is ridiculous.

The biggest buzz from the debate seems to be Trump’s refusal to say in advance that he would accept the election results if they went against him. The pro-Clinton pundits are framing that as another example of Trump’s terribleness. But of course it is nothing but Trump keeping all of his options open as he does in every other situation when he can. He wants to maintain the right to complain later if the result looks rigged to him. That seems reasonable to me, and no real danger to the Republic. But the Clinton-friendly parts of the media will make it a thing this week.

If you want a reason to be worried, ask yourself why the mainstream media is so keen on framing the election as “not rigged.” The message I’m getting from them, collectively, is that they think it will be. (Because it will be.) We just don’t know how much the rigging will matter.

Why do I say it will be rigged?

Because whenever humans have motive, opportunity, a high upside gain, and low odds of detection, shenanigans happen 100% of the time. Our vote-counting systems have plenty of weak spots. Rigging (to some degree) is a near guarantee.

And keep in mind that Team Clinton has framed Trump as the next Hitler. That gives every citizen moral cover to do outrageous things to stop him. The stakes are sky-high. In this environment, it would truly be a miracle to have an unrigged election. But again, we don’t know how much rigging there will be. It might not be enough to matter.

There will almost certainly be election rigging for the same reason there has been debate rigging. If you don’t believe me about debate rigging, ask a woman who did some of that debate rigging herself. Allegedly. Unless it was Russia’s fault.

—

You might like my book because I blame Russia for rigging it.

I Wake You Up for the Presidential Debate

Here’s a little thought experiment for you:

If a friend said he could see a pink elephant in the room, standing right in front of you, but you don’t see it, which one of you is hallucinating?

Answer: The one who sees the pink elephant is hallucinating.

Let’s try another one.

If a friend tells you that you were both abducted by aliens last night but for some reason only he remembers it, which one of you hallucinated?

Answer: The one who saw the aliens is hallucinating.

Now let’s add some participants and try another one.

If a crowd of people are pointing to a stain on the wall, and telling you it is talking to them, with a message from God, and you don’t see anything but a stain, who is hallucinating? Is it the majority who see the stain talking or the one person who does not?

Answer: The people who see the stain talking are experiencing a group hallucination, which is more common than you think.

In nearly every scenario you can imagine, the person experiencing an unlikely addition to their reality is the one hallucinating. If all observers see the same addition to their reality, it might be real. But if even one participant can’t see the phenomenon – no matter how many can – it is almost certainly not real. 

Here I pause to remind new readers of this blog that I’m a trained hypnotist and a student of persuasion in all its forms. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to learn the tricks for discerning illusion from reality. And I’m here to tell you that if you are afraid that Donald Trump is a racist/sexist clown with a dangerous temperament, you have been brainwashed by the best group of brainwashers in the business right now: Team Clinton. They have cognitive psychologists such as Godzilla advising them. Allegedly.

I remind you that intelligence is not a defense against persuasion. No matter how smart you are, good persuaders can still make you see a pink elephant in a room where there is none (figuratively speaking). And Clinton’s team of persuaders has caused half of the country to see Trump as a racist/sexist Hitler with a dangerous temperament. That’s a pink elephant.

As a public service (and I mean that literally) I have been trying to unhypnotize the country on this matter for the past year. I don’t do this because I prefer Trump’s policies or because I know who would do the best job as president. I do it because our system doesn’t work if you think there is a pink elephant in the room and there is not. That isn’t real choice. That is an illusion of choice.

Trump represents what is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring real change to a government that is bloated and self-serving.  Reasonable people can disagree on policies and priorities. But Trump is the bigger agent for change, if that’s what you think the country needs. I want voters to see that choice for what it is.

And it isn’t a pink elephant. 

If you are wondering why a socially liberal and well-educated cartoonist such as myself is not afraid of Trump, it’s because I don’t see the pink elephant. To me, all anti-Trumpers are experiencing a shared illusion. 

Pause here. 

Before you scoff at mass, shared illusions as being unlikely, keep in mind that everyone with a different religion than yours is experiencing exactly that. Mass shared illusions are our most common experience. 

Back to my point. As a trained persuader, I can see the “Trump is Hitler” illusion for what it is. Where you might see a mountain of credible evidence to support your illusion, I see nothing but confirmation bias on your part. I have detailed that confirmation bias in other posts.

Remember my rule from above. If you see something unlikely – such as a new Hitler rising in the midst of America – and I see nothing remotely like that – I’m almost certainly right and you’re almost certainly having the illusion. I say that because the person who sees the unlikely addition to reality is the one experiencing the illusion nearly every time. Trump as Hitler-in-America is an addition to reality that only some can see. It is a pink elephant. It is a classic hallucination.

I’m not trying to say I’m smarter than anyone else. I just don’t see the pink elephant. Nor do perhaps 40% of the country who prefer Trump as president. And when that many people don’t see a pink elephant in a room, you can be sure it isn’t there, no matter how many do see it.

If you are a Clinton supporter, you might think Trump supporters see the same pink elephant that you do, and you rationalize that by saying Trump supporters prefer the pink elephant because they want it to stomp all over minorities.

Some Trump supporters are racists. That’s a fact. Racists are in every group. Perhaps they see the pink elephant too. If so, they probably do want that elephant to stomp all over minorities. But in this case, the racists are sharing the same illusion as Clinton supporters, seeing the same pink elephant. The majority of Trump supporters – as far as I can tell – simply don’t see any pink elephant at all. They just want change.

I don’t believe in Santa Claus.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

I don’t believe in a traditional god.

I don’t believe in luck.

And I don’t see Donald Trump as dangerous. 

In my elephant-free view of the world, Trump is a guy who uses provocative language (as New Yorkers do) while succeeding across several different fields. And he knows risk-management. You can see that in everything he does.

If you are an anti-Trumper, you might reject my point of view as manipulative or naive. I can’t change your mind with a blog post. But you can change your own mind. Just ask others if they see the addition to reality that you see. If others don’t see the pink elephant in the room, and you do, the elephant isn’t there.

Look for that pattern. Once you see it, you’re awake.

Then vote for whoever has the policies you like. 

—

You might enjoy my book because you are almost awake now.

Is Twitter Shadowbanning me?

According to many of my Twitter followers, Twitter is “shadowbanning” me. If true, that means someone at Twitter has decided to suppress my free speech on the site, presumably because I have said good things about Trump’s talents for persuasion. My tweets do not align with Twitter’s political preferences as I understand them.

I don’t have confirmation from Twitter that this is happening, so I tweeted Jack Dorsey today to ask. I’m sure he’s busy, but I’m hard to ignore. If no response in two days, I’ll assume my Twitter followers are correct that my tweets are not always showing up in their feeds. Shadowbanning isn’t a complete suppression of tweets. It only suppresses some percentage of them to reduce the influence of the sender. Allegedly.

I won’t jump the gun and assume something nefarious is happening. But I will say that IF it is happening, I would regard it as treason. If one political party can use the machinery of social networks to reduce free speech, that is an attack on American values at the deepest level. As a patriot, I would feel obligated to help kill Twitter. (And you wouldn’t want to bet against me.)

I understand Twitter is looking for a buyer. If management is shadowbanning me, that would be breach of fiduciary responsibility, screwing both the shareholders and the employees who hope the company can be purchased. In my view, shadowbanning would make Twitter too toxic to own. That toxicity – treason in my view – would transfer to the buyer.

But again, I don’t assume Twitter is doing anything wrong. That’s why I’m asking the question. There could be other reasons people are not seeing my tweets. Let’s keep open minds.

For two days.

—

You might like my book because it is getting fake bad reviews from Clinton’s team of presumably-paid trolls.

Lie Detection and Scandals

When Clinton’s surrogates respond to questions about Wikileaks by saying the Russians are behind it, that’s an acknowledgment of guilt. Guilty people almost always question the source of the information first. Innocent people start with a clear denial, or sometimes confusion as to why the question is being asked.

Some guilty people will give you a straight denial if they know the question is coming and they prepared for it. For example, Bill Clinton famously said of Monica Lewinsky, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” A firm denial from a prepared witness doesn’t mean anything. But a lack of denial, combined with questioning the source, is almost always a lie. Here’s the summary.

Example: 

Did you commit the crime?

Liar: “Who told you that?” 

Honest Person: “Hell no. I was at work. You can check.”

Prepared/coached Liar: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Notice that you can’t always tell the difference between an honest answer and a well-coached liar. But the liar without good coaching is as obvious as a lighthouse. When Clinton surrogates redirect any question about Wikileaks to “Russia did it” they are confirming that they believe the content is real and damaging. They just don’t realize they are confirming it.

Now let’s talk about Trump. When Trump “categorically denies” the accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, that form of an answer is common to both honest people and well-prepared liars. You can’t tell anything from Trump’s answer.

But Trump’s supporters and surrogates clearly believe Trump is guilty. You can tell by the precision of their answers. An honest opinion from a surrogate that Trump is totally innocent of all charges would look like this:

“None of it happened. It is all lies.”

Instead, you hear deceptive talk that fits these two forms:

1. “It can’t be a coincidence that everyone came forward at the same time.” 

2. “Trump categorically denies the allegations and we take him at his word.”

The first response questions the source of the information, which I already taught you is a sign of deception. 

The second response allows the surrogate to avoid giving an opinion on the facts and instead focus on their belief in the candidate. “Take him at his word” is code for “He’s on his own to defend the allegations. Keep me out of it.”

As regular readers know, I now endorse Gary Johnson because he only touches himself. But let me put some context on both the Wikileaks info and Trump’s alleged groping/kissing.

Wikileaks

The Wikileaks emails are not having a huge impact because movies and books have taught us that even our most-respected politicians do favor-trading to get things done. And the emails that DO NOT come from Clinton are little more than underlings chattering. So far, Wikileaks is a big nothing.

Groping/Kissing Allegations

I think nearly everyone believes “something happened” with Trump and at least some of the women who have made allegations. I wasn’t a witness to any of it, and I have no opinion on the truth of any specific allegation. But I can help you put the allegations in context.

I’ll start with a true story that a good female friend once told me about going on a blind date with a famous billionaire (not Trump) years ago. A mutual friend set them up. On the night of the date, she drove to his mansion and a servant let her in. The billionaire came downstairs a few minutes later, introduced himself, and asked if she wanted to have sex before or after dinner. 

Those were his first words. There was no chit-chat.

She chose before. So they did. She enjoyed it.

Why was my friend so accommodating that night? She said it was because he was a billionaire. She liked that.

Does that story sound anything like your life? I doubt it. So when you evaluate what a billionaire did or did not do behind closed doors, don’t make the mistake of putting your own filter on it. Trump’s experience with women is not like yours.

My own fame is about 1% of Trump’s fame. And I can confirm that when women hear what I do for a living, they tend to act sexually available. In other words, they flirt. But it isn’t always the “real” kind of flirting. They might have husbands or boyfriends and no intention of cheating. But their body language tends to be inviting in ways that non-famous people never see. The signals can be confusing because sexual attraction and celebrity-awe look the same to the observer. 

I’m willing to bet that when Trump is alone with a woman, she often – but not always – sends signals of availability, whether she intends it or not. Her rational mind – and her words – might be giving a clear message of no while her eyes, body language, and other signals are responding to power the way humans have evolved to respond. 

To further complicate things, Trump probably has a good track record of turning a firm no into a yes. He tells the story of Melania rejecting his initial advances until he eventually persuaded her.

When normal men get rebuffed by women, they know the odds of turning things around are low but not impossible. Most men have had the experience of turning an initial rejection into an eventual girlfriend. Let’s say we succeed at that about 20% of the time at best. But Trump’s turnaround average is probably closer to 80% because he’s a billionaire. And because he’s a Master Persuader.

I don’t excuse or condone anything Trump has allegedly done. That’s his problem. I’m just providing you with some context. In Trump’s billionaire world, women send mixed signals far more often than you probably imagine. There is a near guarantee that a normal human male in Trump’s situation will press too hard or assume too much about consent. Again, I am not condoning or excusing anyone’s behavior. I’m just saying that rich men are more likely to get mixed signals about consent. I doubt Trump ever leaned in to kiss anyone unless he interpreted their actions as willingness. But I’m sure he’s been wrong more than once. Vote accordingly if that matters to you.

—

You might enjoy reading my book because other people did.

Assume Half of What You Hear About the Candidates is True

This is a fun election. Trump and Clinton have provided us with one juicy rumor/scandal after another. But how do you know which rumors are true? I have taught you in this blog that even smart people are routinely fooled by confirmation bias. You think you can use your “common sense” to sort out what is true and what is an illusion, but it doesn’t work that way. Humans don’t have that sort of self-awareness. 

So what do you do?

I’ll help you sort out truth from fiction using the Persuasion Filter plus some pattern recognition.

I have a different window into the election scandals because I’ve been semi-famous for a few decades. In my experience, about half of what you read about me is true, and half is complete nonsense. The interesting thing is that you can’t tell which half is which. The only person who knows the truth with certainty is me, and I’m not credible because I’m the subject of the rumors. 

Extrapolating from my own experience, I think it is fair to assume that about half of what you hear about Trump and Clinton is true. The other half is nonsense. But here again, you can’t tell which half is the real part. I’m here to help.

Here are two current examples of false rumors, one for each candidate.

1. Rumor: A Wikileaks email says Clinton allegedly “hates everyday Americans.” The words on the page do say that, but the context is that she hates the label “everyday Americans.” This rumor is false.

2. Rumor: In the leaked Access Hollywood tapes, Trump allegedly admits to kissing and touching women against their will. But on the same recording Trump clearly says, “When you’re a celebrity, they let you do anything.” The word “let” implies permission, verbal or otherwise. Therefore it is not true that Trump confessed on the tape to sexual abuse. (It is a separate question whether Trump did inappropriate things. Here I’m only talking about the rumor that he admitted inappropriate actions on the leaked tape.)

You can see my judgements on which rumors about the candidates are likely to be true on this recent blog post.

As I said, for any individual rumor, assume a 50% likelihood of it being true. But when you have several rumors around a theme, you only need a few rumors to be true to prove the theme. For example, about half of the rumors/leaks about Clinton being crooked are likely to be true. You don’t know which half are the true ones, but clearly there are enough examples to prove the theme even if half are false. Likewise, half of the Trump rumors about kissing and groping are likely to be untrue or exaggerated. But that still leaves enough rumors as true – although we don’t know which ones – to make me endorse Gary Johnson. (Johnson only touches himself. That’s a good quality in a president.)

To recap, assume any individual rumor has a 50% chance of being true. But where there are multiple rumors around a theme, you probably have enough true ones in the mix to prove the theme. You don’t need to know specifically which ones are true. 

My advice for those of you who vote is to assume that all of the major scandal/rumor themes about the past are true for both candidates. But don’t conflate that with your predictions of what will happen in the future. As any investment professional will tell you, past performance does not predict future results. That applies to stocks as much as it does to humans.

We would hope and expect that people as old as Clinton and Trump have “improved” since they were younger, becoming wiser and more enlightened. I would also expect that an imperfect candidate would try hard to be a good role model once in office because that’s the smartest strategy in the long run. If you assume both candidates are in it for themselves first, you also have to assume they need to do a good job for the country to serve their own interests. Their past misdeeds are unlikely to tell you how they will do in office.

I don’t think American voters want to associate their personal reputations with either Clinton or Trump. But one of those two imperfect creatures is likely to be President. My advice is to assume the worst about their past behaviors but don’t assume their pasts necessarily predict their futures. 

Before you start sobbing at the fact that Clinton and Trump are the best this country has to offer, I predict that all future presidential elections will be this nasty. Thanks to whistleblowers, hackers, and hot mics, we now have the means to see/read/hear the actual inner thoughts of candidates in ways that were never before possible. And if you learn enough about a human being, you’ll almost certainly hate that person. Expect future candidates to rival Clinton and Trump for unpopularity. That’s the new world we live in. We have the means to know too much about people. 

To prepare for this new world of too-much-disclosure, I suggest we abandon the idea that presidents should be role models for our kids. Let’s treat the election like we are hiring for any other type of job. A candidate either has the right skills and motivation or doesn’t. Their rotten inner souls aren’t necessarily an indication of future job performance.

Clinton and Trump are in the so-called basket of deplorables along with 100% of American voters. We’re all flawed. I suggest voters pick the job applicant they think can best do the work of President and leave the role-modeling to mom and dad. 

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You might love my book because mom and dad.

The Era of Women

If the latest groping/kissing allegations against Trump hold up – and I assume they will, based on quantity if not credibility – it won’t matter what Wikileaks says about Clinton. She will win easily.

If Clinton wins, you’ll wonder if this invalidates the Master Persuader Hypothesis. The short answer is no, because the concept doesn’t account for unknowns of this magnitude. If a meteor had struck Trump a day before election day, it wouldn’t say much about his skill as a persuader. The Master Persuasion Hypothesis worked splendidly until the double-whammy of the Access Hollywood tape and the “octopus” meteor. 

Trump could still win, but only if some new and unexpected meteor strikes Clinton. Here’s how I see it through the persuasion filter:

1. Facts and policies stopped mattering months ago. No one cares.

2. Wikileaks has no meteors to offer. The Wikileaks misdeeds involve people who are not Clinton, and they involve issues that are boring and a bit complicated. The public will not be much influenced by them.

3. The “octopus” line about Trump is engineered persuasion of the highest order. It makes the story deeply visual and extra-creepy. Godzilla, or someone similarly skilled, is probably behind that word. It’s too engineered for a civilian to concoct during an interview. That’s professional work. And it’s probably a golden stake through Trump’s political heart. (Well played.)

This is a good time to remind you that I endorse Gary Johnson because he only touches himself. 

Anyway, getting to the point of this post, if Clinton wins, it will be because women voted for her in landslide proportions while men (on average) preferred Trump. And that means two things of historic importance.

1. We will elect the first woman to be President of the United States. That’s good for everyone.

and…

2. Everything that goes wrong with the country from this point forward is women’s fault.

I feel some relief about that. The next four years are likely to be some of the worst in our country’s history. The Republican establishment will make sure of that because a failed America is in their best interest in the short run. Four years from now they want to offer their chosen savior (Paul Ryan). Trump would have a good chance of bullying the Republican establishment as he has done so far. Clinton, not so much. She’ll be buried in scandals, both real and imagined.

Men had a good run. We invented almost everything, and that’s cool. But we also started all of the wars and committed most of the crimes. It’s a mixed record to be sure. Now it’s time for something different, apparently.

Hillary Clinton is all yours, ladies. She and her alleged rapist husband are your brand now. Wear them well.

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You might like my book because whatever.