Scott Adams's Blog, page 248

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. I’m blogging to tell you it doesn’t matter. The result is the same.

Here’s why.

If humans were rational creatures, the time and place of Clinton’s “overheating” wouldn’t matter at all. But when it comes to American psychology, there is no more powerful symbol of terrorism and fear than 9-11 . When a would-be Commander-in-Chief withers – literally – in front of our most emotional reminder of an attack on the homeland, we feel unsafe. And safety is our first priority. 

Hillary Clinton just became unelectable.

The mainstream media might not interpret today’s events as a big deal. After all, it was only a little episode of overheating. And they will continue covering the play-by-play action until election day. But unless Trump actually does shoot someone on 5th Avenue, he’s running unopposed.

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No book ad today. Remember 9-11 instead.

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 makes things decline further. Psychology rules. Almost everything else is just scenery. 

Remember, capitalism is a failure engine. Most businesses eventually fail, but employees get paid while it is happening. You can do a lot of things wrong with your economy and still find a way to fail forward. But the one thing you can’t get wrong is the psychology. That’s a killer.

If you remember your recent history, a global recession started in 2007 and ended in 2009, at least in the United States. See my blog post that accurately predicted the end of the recession in the U.S. in January of 2009, based on psychology alone. 

That’s the same sort of filter I’m using to predict Trump’s progress in the presidential election. The filter assumes psychology is the best variable for predicting the election outcome. The best persuader will win. No one cares about facts and policies. We just pretend we do.

If I’m right that psychology is the dominant variable in the economy, it follows that the candidate most trusted to manage the economy would automatically become the best at it, all other things being equal. If you expect your president to make the economy better, you invest. And the more optimistic you are, the more you invest.

At the moment, Trump polls substantially higher than Clinton in terms of how voters expect he would manage the economy. And that optimism gap might be the only variable that really matters to the economy. Psychology drives action.

Similarly, the fight against ISIS will require a weaponized form of psychology to neuter their ideology. Trump is more trusted to fight terrorism, according to polls. And that make sense because we see Trump as better at persuasion and branding. 

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Regarding the basket of deplorables comment by Clinton, I don’t see it making a huge difference in the race. The people she insulted with the comment weren’t voting for her anyway, and everyone else agrees that deplorable people are deplorable.

Also, “basket of deplorables” is such a cute nickname that the targets of that insult have humorously adopted it as their own label, or so I observe on Twitter. Instead of demonizing the “deplorables,” it made them sound kinda cute. Let’s call them adorable deplorables. I think Clinton’s funny label added humor to the situation and accidentally neutered the “dark” branding she was trying to spray-paint on that same set of Americans for the past month. But in the end, it won’t be the thing that matters most. It might move the polls 1%.

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Everyone is talking about my book. I hope we don’t run out of Kindle versions before you get yours.

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 Trump blogging and my public endorsement of Clinton for my personal safety. People feel comfortable telling me privately, and also anonymously online, that they hide their Trump support from their spouse and coworkers. So we know they exist. We just don’t know how many.

We know that sometimes robocall surveys and online surveys show more Trump support than human-to-human polling. So that might be an indicator, but we don’t know what other variables are in play.

In a recent Reuters poll, 7% of respondents “refused” to vote for either Trump or Clinton. I’m guessing some Shy Trump Supporters “park” their votes with Gary Johnson (polling at 9.3%) or Jill Stein (polling at 3.3%).

But I wonder if the Shy Trump supporters are mostly parked with Johnson because of gender (consciously or unconsciously), whereas Stein is more of a real protest vote against Clinton. Anecdotally, Shy Trump Supporters tell me they do park their pre-vote preferences with Johnson. So far, none have told me they are parking their vote with Stein. (This is anecdotal, and a small sample of perhaps a dozen.)

Then you also have the question of turnout. Trump is clearly generating the most enthusiasm in public appearances. I would think that translates into more new voters.

Most of my predictions so far this election cycle have been based on what I call the Master Persuader Hypothesis. I’ll depart from that model for this prediction because this one is based on a gut feel – which I understand in my rational mind to feel identical to confirmation bias. Therefore, you should place zero confidence in my prediction.

I predict that 3% of voters are Shy Trump Supporters. As polls continue to tighten, especially in battleground states, that will be enough for an electoral landslide for Trump.

Just for fun, ask ten of your closest friends – the ones who you can trust to tell you their secrets – if any are Shy Trump Supporters. I’ll bet you find one in that group. And that would extrapolate to three-times more hidden support than Trump needs for a landslide. 

Anything can change between now and election day. If one of the candidates does something awesome or terrible, all bets are off. But the way the zeitgeist feels to me, the ending of this movie has already been written.

Again, I urge you to put no credibility in this non-scientific blog post. I do this for entertainment. 

But keep in mind that I got rich by consistently reading the zeitgeist right. That isn’t nothing.

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You might enjoy reading my book because things.

The Time I Took Sides with Black Lives Matter. And Colin Kaepernick.

Every few years you see a news story about a monk setting himself on fire in a public square to protest some sort of injustice. I always have two reactions to that sort of thing. On one hand, I think that monk was an idiot. Surely there are better ways to communicate a message.

But on the other hand, when someone sets himself on fire to make a point, I have to say I take it more seriously than I would if I saw the same message in a Tweet. In other words, the monk succeeded in being heard.

This is the same internal conflict I had when quarterback Colin Kaepernick first refused to stand for the national anthem because he was protesting the way African-Americans are treated in this country. This was nothing less than self-immolation of a reputation and a career. Kaepernick won’t be recovering from those burns anytime soon. And he had to know what would happen. That makes him an idiot, because surely there was a better way to communicate his message. Like most Americans, I found his actions deeply offensive.

But if Kaepernick had tweeted a similar message, I would have ignored it. And so, much like the monk, Kaepernick sacrificed himself for the sake of the message, in service to those less fortunate.

Say what you will about Kaepernick and his choice of offensive socks and t-shirts. But he’s still your teammate if you’re American. And personally, when one of my teammates feels so strongly about a perceived injustice that he is willing to set his reputation and career on fire, I’m willing to listen.

And so I did. But I didn’t hear anything that sounded like a suggestion.

So I looked around on the Internet until I found a list of suggested changes allegedly compiled by someone involved with Black Lives Matter. I won’t link to it here because I have some questions about whether BLM is on the same page with those suggestions. I don’t see the suggestions on the blacklivesmatter.com website, for example.

So here’s my offer to Colin Kaepernick. I know from recent experiences that nearly all of the major news media read this blog. If you can put together your top five recommendations for change (as opposed to protest) I will publish them here to give them some attention.

Moreover, I will act as your unpaid attorney and make the case – as persuasively as I can – in favor of your suggested changes. Just to make it challenging, be sure to include slavery reparations in the top five. (I already have an argument in favor of that, and it will surprise you.)

If possible, suggest changes that can be tested in a specific school or city, for example. I can defend any suggestion that is testable on a limited scale.

I know from observing the reactions to Kaepernick’s protests that most citizens don’t recognize the severity of the situation he is pointing out. To many people, the problem seems like perception, not reality. But I would argue here that perception is reality for all practical purposes. That’s why people take meds for various mental conditions, such as depression and anxiety. The pills don’t change the outside world, but they do change how you perceive it, and how you interact with it. Science has guided us out of the time when we thought brains were magic. We no longer believe that with the proper “thinking” all people can cure their own depression and anxiety. 

Likewise, it doesn’t matter that African-Americans might see a problem as bigger than others see it. For all practical purposes, that’s their reality. You wouldn’t want to live in a world in which you perceive that the police are likely to shoot you for no good reason. Why would anyone want that?

I’m unlikely to change anything in the real world by this exercise, except to show some respect to a guy who set himself on fire in the hope of creating positive changes for others. But listening to a teammate is a positive step in itself. That too is part of changing perceptions.

I’m persuasive, I’m listening, and I’m willing to improve on Kaepernick’s suggestions and promote them to the world right here. The rest of you can be spectators. But if you see anything worth pursuing – and you think you can help – remember that you’re on the team too.

What do you say, Colin? I’m open. Pass me the ball. 

—

Many, many people read books like mine because of something called social proof.

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.

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 masses, I perceive Trump to be safer than the average candidate for president. You might wonder what-the-hell I’m seeing that you are not seeing. That’s worth detailing because it is always fascinating when people look at the same situation and have wildly different interpretations. With that setup, here are my reasons why Donald Trump does not scare me.

I’m Not Afraid of the Dark

If you ask a hundred strangers to finish the following sentence, what types of answers would you get?

Timmy was afraid of …

I’ll bet the answer you would hear most often is “the dark.” Children are typically afraid of the dark because – as you know – ghosts and other monsters hide in the dark. Humans eventually grow up, but we never completely lose our childhood fears. Those fears are deeply ingrained. 

“Dark” is a word that takes our brains immediately and automatically to a place of irrational fear. You might even say the word dark is a form of “pre-suasion,” which is coincidentally the title of an important, new book by the Godzilla of Influence, Robert Cialdini. Read it and learn how a word such as “dark” can rewire your mind to perceive your environment as more frightening than the evidence suggests.

Unlike most normal humans, I’m not especially afraid of the dark. I don’t believe in ghosts and I live in a safe neighborhood. That makes me less susceptible to the word dark as pre-suasion. If you happen to live in a dangerous neighborhood, and/or you believe in ghosts, the word dark is likely to influence you more deeply that it does me.

I also recognized soon after Trump’s GOP convention speech that Clinton’s campaign had evidently coached its surrogates to simultaneously use the word dark to pre-suade voters to see Trump as scary. What I saw was weapons-grade persuasion technique. Those of you who are untrained in the techniques of persuasion probably heard the word dark and it automatically started the fear subroutine in your brains, as Clinton’s team planned. Keep in mind that 42% of Americans believe in ghosts, according to a Harris Poll. Another survey found that 57% of Americans – and 72% of African-Americans in particular – literally believe in Satan. And Satan likes to hide in the dark. With the ghosts.

If you ask Clinton supporters what scares them about Trump, they will say things about his temperament. It will sound quite rational. But rational thought is almost entirely an illusion. What is actually happening is that Trump reminds you of something scary (in the dark) and confirmation bias fills in the “evidence” where there is none. 

As a trained hypnotist, and a student of persuasion, I see the world through a persuasion filter. My viewfinder shows me confirmation bias, whereas many people are seeing Trump as an irrational conflation of ghosts, devils, and bogeymen that hide in the dark. Team Clinton created that persuasion trap. I recognized the technique. Some of you did too. Most of the world did not.

I’m From New York

You know how Trump is always saying inappropriate and violent-sounding things? Most people see that type of language as offensive and even dangerous. The exception is people who grew up in New York. We see it as “talking.” 

After college, when I moved from upstate New York to California, I had to relearn how to talk. My New York style offended nearly everyone. Let me give you an example of how a Californian talks compared to a New Yorker.

Californian: It looks like it might rain today.

New Yorker: Oh, shit. Fucking rain. I need that like I need a goddamned bullet in my head.

See the difference?

When Trump talks about roughing-up protesters, or shooting someone on 5th Avenue, people from New York don’t raise an eyebrow. But Californians start wondering how to have that guy involuntarily committed to some sort of facility that can fix whatever is wrong with him.

I’m not defending Trump’s speaking style. I consider it a mistake to speak in New York style outside the state. I make that mistake several times a day. And nearly every first-draft of my blog posts is peppered with New York-style profanity and violent imagery. I take most of it out in the final pass. 

So don’t be afraid of Trump because of the way he speaks. That’s how people from New York talk. If you don’t believe me, ask someone from New York if they are offended by Trump’s language. Then ask a Midwesterner or a Californian the same question. Only the New Yorker will laugh at the question.

Making a Huge First Offer

Trump has been consistent for decades in his practice of making an aggressive first offer and negotiating down to something reasonable. He talks about it in his book, The Art of the Deal. So when Trump announced he would deport 11 million people, I saw that as an aggressive opening offer, consistent with his history, and nothing worthy of fear. Most of the world saw it as a final offer.

It wasn’t.

Recently we learned that my interpretation from last year was accurate. Trump is now focusing on the “criminal” aliens who committed additional offenses after entering the country illegally. He plans to “prioritize” that group and get around to the rest at some future date, when circumstances might be different. That’s how a Master Persuader talks.

The problem is that Trump can’t say today that he will be lenient with illegal immigrants tomorrow because that would encourage more people to enter the country. The best play – and the only one likely to work – is to scare people into thinking he will deport everyone, then soften after the bad ones have been expelled and the wall is working. Trump is approaching immigration like a persuader. If you trust him to be kind later, his approach looks both humane and practical. But if you are afraid of the dark, and afraid of New York-style talking, you might see something sinister.  I predicted last year that Trump would soften on deporting 11 million people, and he is doing just that, right on schedule. To me, Trump has never been scary on this topic. He was acting like a Master Persuader and using fear to slow incoming immigration as well as to get elected.

Pattern Recognition

The human brain is designed to recognize patterns, but we aren’t terribly good at it. We see patterns where none exist. And once we think we see a pattern, confirmation bias kicks in and supplies our minds with lots of imaginary “evidence.”

For example, if you think Trump is a racist, you were probably offended that he referred to Judge Curiel as “Mexican.” But if you do not think Trump is racist, you might notice that Americans with Italian heritage refer to themselves as Italian. And Americans with Irish backgrounds often call themselves Irish. Even Americans with Mexican heritage call themselves Mexicans. It’s just a shorthand way of talking. Every single one of us talks the way Trump does.

My perception of the Judge Curiel situation is that Trump was making a common-sense legal point about the nature of bias. All humans are influenced by their experiences, and a judge with Mexican heritage – and beloved Mexican family members – has a good chance of being biased against an alleged anti-Mexican defendant. That’s just a statement about how normal humans are wired. It says nothing about Curiel’s talent as a judge.

As a student of persuasion, my mental filters are set to spot confirmation bias the way bird-watchers are trained to spot birds. Most voters have never even heard of confirmation bias. They don’t know it is a thing.

Once you know what confirmation bias is, you can better recognize it in others. My perception is that what people see as Trump’s racism is actually their own confirmation bias. That doesn’t mean I’m right. But keep in mind that I am trained to spot confirmation bias in others, and this is the cleanest case I have ever seen.

The other possibility is that my writing about Trump has put me into cognitive dissonance and I’m the crazy one here. I can’t rule that out. But to the point of today’s blog, it explains why Trump looks safe to me and dangerous to those who don’t know what confirmation bias is.

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People like my book because people like books. Plus, it has reviews. Also, models read it.

Watch Me: Rubin Report (part 2), InfoWars, CNN

Here is the second part of my appearance on the Rubin Report, in which I talk about Trump and persuasion.

Here is my interview with Alex Jones on Infowars.

Watch me live today (Friday) on CNN, sometime around 3:10 PM EST. (But times might change before then.)

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Bonus 1: As a companion to what I said on the Rubin Report, here is more scientific evidence that we are not rational beings. We are beings who rationalize after the fact.

Bonus 2: A USA Today poll says fear is the greatest motivator this election. As I have been saying.

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You might like my book because it is not video.

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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HYPNOTIC WORDS

Switching topics, someone made a list of “hypnotic” words that are pre-loaded with persuasion power. I can confirm from my own training as a hypnotist that this list is extraordinary. Master the list and you will have a genuine superpower compared to the unpersuasive masses.

I’m not exaggerating even a little.

Trump’s Immigration Speech - Persuasion Score

Trump gave his much-awaited Immigration speech last night. I’ll let the fact-checkers tell you how much of it was based on reality. That’s not my department. I will focus on how persuasive it was, not the politics.

Trump needed to undo the persuasion that Clinton’s side has been laying on the public for months. Specifically, Trump needed to demonstrate that he is…

1. Not crazy.

2. Not uninformed.

3. Not the wrong temperament to lead.

4. Not scary.

5. Not racist.

By my scorecard, Trump achieved all five objectives in the eyes and of his core supporters, and 3-out-of-5 with his opponents. I’ll break it down.

Not Crazy

Trump’s speech did a solid job of connecting the faces of victims to his plan to control the borders. He also made a good argument for protecting jobs. And his call for a wall – which people now understand might include some digital solutions – is sounding expensive but doable. The fact-checkers will, I assume, go crazy on the details of the speech, but from a persuasion perspective, it all made sense. There was no sign of any literal craziness in the speech. That’s a big deal. People needed to see Trump acting not-crazy, and he succeeded. You can hate every part of his immigration plan, but as of today, none of it is irrational or impossible. Trump sold the public on “not crazy.”

Not Uninformed

Trump gave more details on the various components of immigration than I expected to hear. His ten-point plan seemed designed to show his mastery of the details and the specifics of his policies. Generally-speaking, one never wants to have ten points in any presentation. That’s far too much for the audience to digest. The exception is when you are trying to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge. Trump demonstrated presidential-level depth on the topic. He isn’t an expert, but he knows where all the moving parts are. On this key topic, Trump convinced the viewing public that he is informed. 

Not the Wrong Temperament to Lead

Trump’s tone for the speech was strident and powerful. But he never frothed at the mouth, and he never spoke from anger. His emotional center for this speech was concern for legal Americans – especially African-Americans – and concern for the immigrants who are victimized trying to get here. Trump’s empathy was largely neutralized by his tone, and by his hard-core policy details, but he did not look like a “hot head” with the wrong temperament. It seemed controlled. I score this a success, but barely. 

Not Scary

Trump was scary enough for his core voters, which they interpret as strength and resolve. But as usual, Trump’s tone and his policy details are too scary for many voters on the left. Trump did not make the sale on this dimension, but I’ll tell you later in this post why that was intentional. (It will be obvious after I tell you.)

Not Racist

Trump did a solid job of making the case that his policies are about border control and security, not racism. But facts and logic are not persuasive. Judged by itself, the speech was not persuasive on this dimension. The tone and content provide enough fodder for opponents to form confirmation bias, as they have been all along.

But as luck would have it, Trump met with the president of Mexico that same day, and the two of them got along fine. It seemed clear that the president of Mexico was not treating Trump as a racist. In fact, the President of Mexico even agreed that border control is necessary to reduce victimization of the illegals themselves. If you combine the optics of Trump’s successful trip to Mexico with his strident and scary-sounding speech, it was probably a breakeven situation on the racism dimension. Trump didn’t seem racist yesterday, but it wasn’t enough to move the needle on its own. I score his effort on this dimension a solid attempt, but not terribly persuasive to his haters. However, if Trump stays on message as well as he did during the speech and the Mexico trip, he has a good chance of making progress on this dimension.

Now let’s talk about Trump’s plan itself.

Persuasion is Part of the Plan

Trump’s approach to immigration is to make border control a priority over deportation. And a big part of that plan involves persuasion. In order to convince would-be illegal immigrants to stay in their own country, you have to make it look like a bad deal to come to America illegally, which is not the case right now. In other words, Trump is focusing on persuasion – the area he knows best.

Realistically, you can’t control the borders with any kind of barrier if the rewards for entering the country illegally are high enough. But if you keep the rewards low, your wall has a good chance of working. Trump knows construction and he knows persuasion. He intelligently combined those talents to create his wall plan.

The problem for Trump – and for the country – is that being hardasses to illegal immigrants violates our national character. These folks are our friends, neighbors, and coworkers. We don’t wish them harm on an individual level. So how can Trump create an immigration policy that addresses the legitimate need for border control with our human need to be kind? It can’t be done.

Unless you are a Master Persuader. Then it’s easy.

Trump needed to soften his immigration stance to sell it to undecided voters while at the same time hardening it for his core supporters. To succeed, he needed to move in two opposite directions at once. Impossible.

So what he did was create a speech that was hardcore and scary in tone and delivery, while leaving an escape hatch in language. In other words, he gave you two opposite and competing messages at the same time. He sent a message of hardening with his tone while sending a message of softening with his words. Pick the one you like.

Trump’s policy softening came to us in the word “priorities.” Trump made it clear that his top priorities for deportation were the “criminal aliens” and the ones who are taking advantage of our social services without adding much to the country. 

Trump didn’t mention anything about increasing the budget for deportation. Combine the word “priorities” with an unchanged budget and you get a situation much like today, where the illegal immigrants who are minding their own business and contributing to the country probably get to stay.

The biggest difference between Trump’s plan and Clinton/Obama’s plan is that Trump added persuasion. The “good” illegal immigrants get to stay under either plan – probably – but under Trump’s plan they have to stay here scared and unrewarded. They get no (direct) path to citizenship and no guarantee of staying in the country. In order to discourage new illegal immigration, Trump proposes to keep the good people who are already here in a state of unrewarded worry.

In practical terms, Trump is using persuasion to help seal the border. And given human nature, that feels necessary. People try what they think will work, not what they think will fail.

To put it another way, Trump is shifting the burden of border control from legal American citizens to illegal immigrants, including the “good” ones we might want as our neighbors and friends. You might not like that arrangement, but it isn’t crazy. And it applies an emotional “penalty” to people living here illegally.

The big question for voters is whether Trump’s notion of “priorities,” combined with the reality of budget limits, and the sheer number of illegal immigrants in this country, gets you to a place where the “good” illegal immigrants are likely to be left alone. Trump signalled that this would be the case – maybe – because those decisions would be deferred until the border is secure. That will take years.

And once the border is physically secure, you can back off on the persuasion angle a little. That means the path will someday be clear – maybe in ten years – to revisit the status of illegals who have been good Americans in spirit.

And that’s how a Master Persuader runs in two directions at the same time. It was masterfully done. I give Trump’s speech an A+ for persuasion. Trump won the week. His poll numbers should move up again next week.

Also, Trump stuck the landing by engineering what I call the reverse-Khan. He surrounded himself with the families of victims of illegal immigrants so that any criticism of his policies will feel uncomfortably close to insulting those grieving families. 

And apparently the reverse-Khan worked…

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You might like my book because speeches should never have ten points.

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 national IQ (the racist view)

5. Commit new crimes while here.

Here’s the interesting part. When I was getting my MBA at Berkeley, years ago, a professor taught us that so long as two parties do not want the same limited resource, you can usually reach a deal. That is an extraordinarily important concept, and one that has made a difference in my own life. Whenever you think there is no deal to be had, you’re usually wrong, unless both parties want the same limited resource.

That’s why Israel and Hamas will never agree to peace. They both want the same limited resource. They both want the same land. No deal can be had.

But with the issue of deportation, there is no such limited resource. When you add people to an economy – and you do it right – everyone is better off. So in theory, there is a “deal” that could make everyone happy.

If your reason for favoring deportation involves a principle that law-breakers must be punished, would you be happy with a deal that makes illegal immigrants pay all of their own taxes and some of yours as well? That benefits you directly while punishing a law-breaker. Problem solved. Everyone wins.

If your problem with immigration is mostly about preventing incoming criminals, wouldn’t most of your problems be solved by building a wall and keeping new ones out? The criminals already here are currently subject to deportation if caught. So in the long run, a wall and better border control takes care of the crime problem from immigration.

If your problem with immigration is that new immigrants are taking jobs, here again the solution is the wall. The economy makes new jobs every day. We can easily “absorb” the illegal immigrants already here. What matters is stopping the flow of new ones. (Pro-immigration people will argue that “net” immigration is already negative.)

By analogy, it doesn’t matter how much fiscal debt the United States has now, so long as the trend is not out of control. As the economy grows, a stable debt will become smaller over time as a percentage of the GDP. Likewise, a growing economy will quickly absorb everyone who is already here. The only long term problem involves the rate of new people coming in. The wall solves for that. The rest works itself out over time.

If your argument against illegal immigrants is that they use more public resources than they create, would you be happy with a deal that reverses that? Suppose an illegal immigrant agrees to join the military, or pay a multi-year penalty in taxes to create more benefit for the country than cost. Would you be okay letting that person stay?

Or suppose we create a system in which a legal resident can buy a performance bond to “sponsor” an illegal immigrant to stay. That works like insurance. If the sponsored immigrant doesn’t pay taxes, or commits a crime, the sponsor loses the value of the bond. That way we move the risk from citizens who don’t want extra risk to sponsors who have personal relationships with illegal immigrants and trust them. Would that deal work for you?

If you’re a racist, and your main issue is that you want to avoid the lowering of the national IQ – according to you – there’s no changing your mind. But I would argue that IQ is less predictive of success than intelligent risk-taking. And immigrants are people who have taken intelligent risks. That smells like entrepreneurship to me. Where I live, in Northern California, there is a large percentage of folks with Mexican heritage. The schools in my town are all rated 10 out of 10. Crime is low. Startups are humming. Things are great. 

And racists need to explain why the United States with its diverse population is doing so well compared to just about everywhere else. To the racists, I see your math, and I know how to calculate averages. But the experience of the real world seems to reject your math. The United States is doing well as an immigrant nation.

My point is that there is probably a “deal” to be made that satisfies the pro-deportation folks who are not racists. If you want legal justice, and you don’t want outsiders taking your resources, we can probably fix most of that with an intelligent deal.

If Trump asks Americans for suggestions on how to handle deportation humanely, he wins. A big part of the problem is that citizens don’t believe politicians are hearing them on this issue. Trump is listening. If he solicits suggestions, you have half of what you wanted – attention and priority. 

But ask not what your country can do for you. Come up with a plan yourself. Social media will judge it and forward it to the mainstream media and the candidates themselves. Ask yourself what you want and create a deal structure that gets it for you.

Who is stopping you?

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You might like my book because you’re a human being.