Scott Adams's Blog, page 251

Drug Testing Presidential Candidates

Would 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 influence decision-making, either directly or indirectly. You know from your own experience that you can make different decisions when you are hungry or tired. Prescription drugs often have side-effects on the body that can influence decisions. Do you want the nuclear codes in the hands of Big Pharma, in effect? That sounds scary to me.

The Moist Robot Hypothesis – which is the main theme of my book – tells you how you can manipulate your body to get your mind where you want it. Almost any important change to your body results in some sort of mental change. For example, a boob job might increase confidence, and going for a run might reduce your anxiety. In fact, the simple act of forcing yourself to smile when you are unhappy can sometimes trigger your brain to activate the happy circuitry.

In less enlightened times, we thought the brain was magic, and driven by something like a soul and free will. Science can’t find your soul or your free will, but it does know that nearly any substantial change to your body – including diet and exercise – will change your decision-making. 

Have you heard of the “victory pose.” It’s a way to change your body chemistry almost instantly by putting your hands above your head like you won something. That’s a striking example of how easy it is to manipulate your mood and thoughts by changing your body’s condition. Prescription meds change your body too, often in substantial ways. When your body changes, your mind follows. The prescription meds says that very thing right on the warning label. Many of them even warn against suicidal thoughts.

So if you think prescription meds don’t CAUSE thoughts, you are not current with modern science. A person on prescription meds is essentially a chemical cyborg – part human, part science experiment.

This brings us to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton looks unhealthy to me, and to many observers. And she has had some unexplained episodes that look like leftover brain damage from her concussion, or from a stroke, or something. See Mike Cernovich explain this one. I’m not a doctor, so my medical opinion has zero credibility. But there is certainly a legitimate question here. If voters are not confident in the brain-health of their candidates, that’s as big a problem as you can have.

Don’t act like it doesn’t matter. If you do, you’re a science-denier.

I also think Trump needs to get tested at the same time. He does have a lot of energy, if you know what I mean. At age 70, nearly all adults are on some sort of meds. Let’s sort it out. Their meds might not be the type that influence decisions.

But I doubt it. I doubt it hard.

The Bait-and-Switch Confusopoly Economy

I recently blogged about the impossibility of buying a Chevy truck with the features you want. The quick summary is that there are so many truck features and options that it would be almost mathematically impossible for a dealer to have the truck you want on the lot. Likewise, there are generally no nearby trucks at other dealerships that your local dealer can ship in for you.

So how does the dealership handle the fact they have no trucks you want?

They first tell you they do have the truck you want, right on the lot. Then you find out they were “mistaken” or the truck “just got sold.” But they can sell you a truck with the wrong features today!

When you say no to buying the wrong truck, they offer to find your exact truck at another dealer. Then they fail at that, all the while trying to convince you to buy a different truck they can find. Eventually they wear you down because – mathematically speaking – the truck you want doesn’t exist, and you really want a truck. So you give in and live with the bait-and-switch.

After I blogged about my truck-not-buying experience, many readers emailed to tell me how they beat the system and got a great deal. I almost cried reading those messages because every one of them got screwed with obvious dealership scams, yet they feel they won. The most obvious scam is going through the fleet sales person at the dealership. People think that’s the backdoor to a clever bargain. It isn’t. The dealership makes sure that suckers who go in that backdoor pay an average price higher than a consumer who negotiates hard. Likewise, there is sometimes an “Internet sales” person at the dealership who purports to give good prices to people who shop online. Same scam.

The best way to know the dealer screwed you is to ask yourself if you think you got a great deal. If you did, they not only took your money, but they also made you love them for it. 

My Chevy experience prompted an executive from Ford to contact me and offer to fix my truck-buying experience and get me into a Ford. It would have been good PR for Ford, and it would solve my problem too. That felt like cheating, since the offer involved avoiding Ford’s own dealership system. But I wanted a truck, and Ford has some great products. In fact, their 360-degree camera for parking sold me on a Ford. That feature isn’t on the Chevys.

What happened next tells you we are in a bait-and-switch confusopoly economy. Keep in mind that Ford was highly motivated to help me, and they hooked me up with the best contacts in the company to make it happen, both at my local dealer (an expert truck guy) and within management. They all coordinated to satisfy me. I’m betting no customer ever had so much help buying a truck. The folks I was dealing with were smart, friendly, helpful, and motivated. They offered to get me any truck model I wanted to test drive for a week. They would deliver it right to my door, no obligation.

Problem solved, right?

So I described the truck I wanted. This is how it went.

The first truck I wanted (Raptor) isn’t made this model year, but I could wait months and get the 2017. I didn’t want to wait that long.

So I specified a different truck model they do make for 2016, but none could be found anywhere in California.

Ford offered to build me a truck with my features, and rather than wait months, they would put me at the front of the line and I could get it in a few weeks. But that offer came just as the 2016 manufacturing cycle was ending, and I couldn’t order one of those trucks in the time I had available to do it.

Plus, once I knew the 2016 trucks were already discontinued, I didn’t want one. Now I was mentally sold on the 2017s because those have some improvements that sounded interesting.

So Ford agreed to push me to the front of the 2017 line – which would get me the truck I wanted in September. They successfully baited-and-switched me (I didn’t want to wait) and I agreed. 

But after specifying my truck, I heard back that the engine I wanted isn’t going to be available until end of year. But I could get a truck I don’t want sooner. 

So I surrendered and agreed to go to my local Ford dealer and speak to their truck-selling expert. I planned to get all of the detailed advice about options tradeoffs that I needed and order my truck. Then I would wait for months to get it. Ford even allowed that I didn’t have to purchase it once it arrived if I didn’t like it. (I’m not sure regular customers get that deal.)

So I set aside my Saturday morning and went to my dealer. My contact was sick that day. But the dealership helpfully offered to let me talk to someone who didn’t know much about trucks, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I went home.

To be perfectly clear, every person I dealt with at Ford was great. I have no complaints about the people. And their product looks great too. The problem is that Ford and Chevy both have a business model (too many features, not enough trucks) that makes that nearly impossible, even if the customer and the salesperson are 100% motivated to make it happen. There are simply too many options available, and there are few people – even at the dealership – who can explain the tradeoffs for each of them. So customers either accept the bait-and-switch or they don’t buy a truck, like me.

Speaking of bait-and-switch, I’m in Maui at The Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas. This is my first real vacation in three years. 

Here’s what they call “ocean view.” The image is somewhat distorted, so you can’t tell I’m overlooking an active construction site.

I learned after arriving that I should have asked for “Beachfront” not “ocean view.” But the beachfront homes are not available because they are owned privately. So upgrading wasn’t an option. 

I also learned that “room service” only operates until 8:30 PM, which is exactly the time I am not in my room. And there was no menu in the room. 

I also learned that this is what The Westin calls a two-bedroom “suite.” It’s two regular rooms with some sitting space connected by a door. Here’s one of them.

Obviously I’m not suffering. I’m just saying the resort bait-and-switched me. I pointed that out to them in direct language, and they later offered a $150 credit. I accepted. The other hotels were booked.

My larger point is not about Chevy, Ford, or The Westin. My point is that in an age of potentially perfect information (via the Internet) the only way big companies can sell products at a profit is through confusion and baiting-and-switching. Economics majors will already understand that to do otherwise would allow direct competition and drive down prices to non-profitability.

So you live in a world with lots of promises (baiting) followed by lots of switching. Luckily for you, you can still buy products and feel great about it. Just ask the folks who bought trucks through the fleet sales channel. Those people are delighted. They just didn’t get the truck they wanted at the best price. That was never an option.

And when it comes to Clinton versus Trump, you know you’re getting baited-and-switched no matter who you pick. But half of the country will think they got a good deal from the fleet sales guy no matter who gets elected. Psychology always beats reason.

P.S.: It took so long to find a truck that my requirements changed. I don’t think I need one now. And thank you to Ford for trying to make it work. I appreciated the effort.

P.S.S: I counted approximately 20 times that Chevy (mostly) and later Ford offered me a truck that did not have the options I requested or was not available, for a variety of reasons. I’m stubborn. Most people would have settled for the bait-and-switch by now.

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If you don’t like confusopolies, you might like my book.

Clinton Takes the Persuasion Lead

As 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 said the same in this blog post, and also this one, which are totally worth another look.)

Is the amazing part of this story that Dr. Drew thinks Trump is probably sane?

No.

The amazing part is that Team Clinton’s persuasion is now so powerful that the question of Trump’s sanity seemed like a legitimate question for the press. 

Okay, okay, I know you don’t think the press is legitimate, and CNN is clearly favoring Clinton. But even under those conditions you still need events in the real world to support your pro-Clinton narrative. And apparently CNN thought it had that justification. They had cover from all the pro-Clinton pundits who are saying Trump is mentally unbalanced (with different language).

Keep in mind that Trump has run an empire for decades, raised several great kids, doesn’t drink or do drugs, and has no known history of mental issues. And as I have explained, the craziest stuff Trump does is mostly (but not always) compatible with good persuasion technique as we know it. 

The stuff Trump does that isn’t part of persuasion technique, and still looks crazy to you, is something unfamiliar in the political realm: honesty and politically-incorrect humor. For example, when Trump said about McCain’s war record that he preferred someone who didn’t get captured, it was an adaptation of a well-known joke form, and it made me laugh when I heard it, in large part because it was so politically incorrect. The wrongness, along with the clever twist, is what made it a joke. See my six dimensions of humor to understand why.

I support the troops, by the way. But I think most of them know the difference between a bullet and an offensive joke. Only one of them is harmful.

Anyway, my point is that Clinton’s campaign has such strong persuasion going right now that she is successfully equating her actual misdeeds of the past with Trump’s imaginary mental issues and imaginary future misdeeds.

Clinton’s side (which is my side too, for my personal safety) has made you fear the imaginary monster under the bed so you’ll ignore the thief going through your drawers. That’s weapons-grade persuasion. 

I still predict a landslide win for Trump because of the Shy Trump Supporter Effect. But he’s losing on persuasion in the past week or so. That could change on any given day. 

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In related news, Trump’s comment on Mrs. Khan’s silence at the Democratic convention made the country go nuts for a week. On the surface, it looked like a terrible week for Trump, as team Clinton successfully framed his comment about Islam and gender into something about their son, which it wasn’t. In the long run, you’ll forget Trump’s insult. But you will never forget the optics of Mrs. Khan deferring to her husband on stage. Short term, Trump got slaughtered on that issue. Long term, Trump has enough credibility with veterans that it won’t matter any more than the McCain joke did.

But you won’t forget the visual of the Khans on stage, and the husband looking in charge. That will stick with you. It was a gutsy persuasion play from Trump, but we will never know if it worked. My best guess is that the whole situation is just a bump in a long road.

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If you support the troops, you might like my book, because both of them have a sense of humor.

Sunday Persuasion Reading

Here are four articles I know you will enjoy if you have been following my writing on Trump’s persuasion skills, confirmation bias, and hypnosis.

Brendon Marotta looks into my hypothesis that watching the Democratic National Convention lowered testosterone levels in men.

Christina Hoff Sommers describes six feminist myths that science-denying supporters of Clinton believe.

Aedonis Bravo digs into the allegations that Trump is a racist. It’s a great case study in confirmation bias.

Erica Goode in the New York Times tells us how science confirms that hypnosis has powerful effects on the mind.

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You might enjoy my book because I am drinking a cup of coffee right now, and you love coffee.

The Inexperienced Voter

In yesterday’s blog I made the provocative claim that a smart civilian can learn any political topic in an hour under the tutelage of world experts. The job of President of the United States was designed for inexperienced people. Being a governor or a senator isn’t much like being president. Governors don’t deal with international affairs and senators don’t manage big organizations. The best-case scenario is usually a president with half of the experience you might want, and even that experience isn’t terribly relevant. No job is similar to being president.

Personally, I have never been a governor or a president, but you can’t tell me those jobs have much in common that really matters. And the stuff that matters (giving speeches, judging talent, leadership, etc.) is what any good CEO can do.

As far as I can tell, all seventeen Republicans and three Democrats in the primaries had enough brains and experience to do the job of president. That’s because they all know how to leverage the experience of others, also known as leadership.

The thing that surprised me on social media – in response to my post about experience – is that so many people believe president-like experience is important for doing the job of president. That’s the sort of thinking that sounds totally reasonable at first. Experience is almost always a good thing – in almost any endeavor – so why wouldn’t experience be extra important for the high-stakes job of president? 

But here’s the problem. The people who think experience matters, also vote.

How can you vote for the best candidate for president if you have no experience voting for these particular candidates in the past? What experience do you have that makes you qualified to know that – for example – Hillary Clinton would negotiate the best international trade deals? You know nothing about trade deals, and even less about how Clinton might actually deal with them once on the job. Now multiply that times every complicated topic in domestic and world affairs. That’s a lot of topics in which you know little or nothing – because you have no experience as president. But you still think your vote is adding intelligence to the process.

If you were here with me in person, you might be arguing that you don’t need deep knowledge about the individual political topics because you are only judging the skill and political philosophy of the candidate. If you pick the right person for the job – in our Republic system – that person can go make the right decisions on your behalf.

As a voter, you’re doing exactly what you say an inexperienced candidate for president can’t do. If you vote, you believe you can get the right solutions on complicated political issues by electing the right candidate. Yet you don’t think a smart candidate for president – with no government experience – can pick the right advisors for a topic.

If experience is so important for being President of the United States, why isn’t it equally important for you as a voter? You have no experience voting for these two particular candidates. Sure, maybe you have done some hiring at your job site. But that is nothing like picking a president.

As a voter, you are totally inexperienced (in any detail) with the topics that a president must address, and you are also inexperienced at picking between a Trump and a Clinton. No one has ever made that specific choice before.

If you think government experience is necessary to do the job of President of the United States, you’re probably suffering from analogy dysfunction. A senator is not like a president. A governor is not like a president. 

No one is experienced at being President of the United States. That’s why the Cabinet and all the presidential advisors exist. 

Do you have expert advisors on every political topic advising you on how to vote? Or do you think experience is not important for the vital questions of your country’s survival?

Pick one. 

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If you are confident that you know who would do the best job as president, you might like my book. But you don’t need it because you already know everything.

Experience is Overrated

Yesterday I tweeted this provocative claim:

This caused a predictable crap-tornado on Twitter. One of the most popular retorts came from Bill Kristol who replied “Tweeting.”

As luck would have it, I’m an expert at writing humor under the constraint of brevity. So I responded thusly.

That was fun.

But the bigger question is whether an inexperienced politician – who is well-educated, and experienced in business – could make good decisions based on the advice of experts. Let’s dig into that.

I heard three objections to my claims that as President of the United States I could master any political topic in an hour under the tutelage of the right advisors.

Objections:

1. You can’t master constitutional law, international trade, or any other complicated field in an hour. No one can.

2. The real trick is finding the right advisors.

3. Trump wouldn’t listen to advice.

Taking these objections in order, I agree that no one can master an entire technical field in an hour. My point is about individual political decisions. (I should have been more clear on that.) Political decisions are relatively simple, and take this form:

Should we try to kill Bin Laden if we are only 60% sure we can do it, and Pakistan will be pissed-off either way?

Now assume you have advice from your Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the CIA, and your Secretary of State. That decision wasn’t rocket science. It was closer to guessing. President Obama guessed right. Ex-President Carter guessed wrong when he tried to rescue Iranian captives. They both had world-class advice.

Most educated people could make informed decisions about most political questions if they had the benefit of world-class advisors. That’s my claim.

But how about international trade agreements, tax policy, and healthcare? Those are complicated, right? Yes. Indeed, no president understands those topics in sufficient detail to be trusted with a solo decision. So in those cases, you need advisors. That brings us to the question of how you can find the right advisors.

Easy.

If it’s a military question, you ask the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get you the right advisors for the topic. 

If you have a law-and-order question, ask someone like Rudy Giuliani to come up with some suggested advisors. Giuliani could give you ten names from both parties.

If you need experts in economics, ask your Chief of Staff to round up a few top economists (Nobel winners, for example) from both parties and see if they all say the same thing. They won’t. So in that field, there is no such thing as useful expert advice.

And so on. The point is that it is easy for a President of the United States to assign people to find the best advisors. The President isn’t making phone calls and interviewing experts all day. The President sees the experts who have already been vetted by several other experts.

Some of my critics on Twitter correctly observe that the hard part is knowing which advisors are correct. That’s something every CEO deals with every day. Experienced business people know how to solicit competing opinions and size up experts in minutes. It isn’t a rare skill, but obviously some people do it better than others.

Keep in mind that the value of an advisor is subjective. If I told you President Obama took advice from Secretary of State Clinton, half of you would say that was smart, and half would say it was the dumbest thing he ever did. There is no such thing as “good advice” in most complicated situations. There is only advice that turns out well, often by chance. If Bin Laden had not been in that compound in Pakistan, the advice to go after him would look bad in retrospect.

Lastly, would Donald Trump be willing and able to take advice from experts, or would he ignore them and make his own crazy-Hitler decisions? I think we already have the answer to that in Paul Manafort. We can see with our own eyes that Trump has been following Manafort’s advice. Trump has been using the teleprompter more, and also moderating his extreme policy ideas to the middle. We don’t have to wonder if Trump takes expert advice. He’s doing it right in front of us, and in the most conspicuous way.

Do you remember the time Trump said something under-informed about legal penalties for abortion? Advisors (including his family) probably advised him to change his position on that immediately, and he did. We see Trump taking advice every day. I don’t know how you could miss it.

So while I agree with the critics that I can’t master a technical field in less than an hour, I do think any smart, educated, and experienced business person can understand a political issue in under an hour with the right advisors.

Keep in mind that Nixon was highly experienced. That didn’t help him. Obama was relatively inexperienced. Kennedy was relatively inexperienced. And Reagan wasn’t experienced with Washington DC politics and international affairs before office.

Experience is overrated. I say that in part because I live near Silicon Valley and watch inexperienced people changing the world every day. Smart matters. It matters a lot. Experience is often helpful, but it is also deeply overrated.

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If you disagree with anything I said in this post, you should read my book.

Selling Past the Close

I’ve been watching the Democratic National Convention and wondering if this will be the first time in history that we see a candidate’s poll numbers plunge after a convention.

On the surface, the convention is going great. Michelle Obama made a speech for the ages. Bill Clinton was his masterful self. Bernie gave a full-throated endorsement of Clinton. The whole affair has been a festival of inclusiveness. The media is eating it like cake. All good, right?

That’s how it looks on the surface. And if you’re already a Clinton supporter, it probably looks great all the way down.

But if you’re an undecided voter, and male, you’re seeing something different. You’re seeing a celebration that your role in society is permanently diminished. And it’s happening in an impressive venue that was, in all likelihood, designed and built mostly by men. Men get to watch it all at home, in homes designed and built mostly by men, thanks to the technology that was designed and built mostly by men. I mention that as context, not opinion.

I agree with Michelle Obama’s gratitude about Clinton’s success so far, and how the country now “takes it for granted that a woman can be president.” That’s a big, big deal, and an accomplishment that you can never take away from Clinton, no matter how it all ends. I would argue – as did Michelle Obama – that Clinton already removed the glass ceiling. Now it’s just a question of who the voters prefer.

And that brings us to a concept called “Selling past the close.” That’s a persuasion mistake. Clinton has already sold the country on the idea that a woman can be president. Sales experts will tell you that once the sale is made, you need to stop selling, because you have no chance of making things better, but you might give the buyer a reason to change her mind.

Obama understood how to avoid selling past the close. At some point during Obama’s first presidential election campaign the country mentally agreed that an African-American could be their next president. So Obama accepted the sale and talked about other stuff. If he had dwelled on race, and his place in history, he would have risked making things worse. So he stayed quiet on race (mostly) and won. Twice.

Clinton is taking a different approach. As Michelle Obama said, we now take for granted that a woman can be president. That sale is made. But Clinton keeps selling. And that’s an enormous persuasion mistake.

I watched singer Alicia Keys perform her song Superwoman at the convention and experienced a sinking feeling. I’m fairly certain my testosterone levels dropped as I watched, and that’s not even a little bit of an exaggeration. Science says men’s testosterone levels rise when they experience victory, and drop when they experience the opposite. I watched Keys tell the world that women are the answer to our problems. True or not, men were probably not feeling successful and victorious during her act.

Let me say this again, so you know I’m not kidding. Based on what I know about the human body, and the way our thoughts regulate our hormones, the Democratic National Convention is probably lowering testosterone levels all over the country. Literally, not figuratively. And since testosterone is a feel-good chemical for men, I think the Democratic convention is making men feel less happy. They might not know why they feel less happy, but they will start to associate the low feeling with whatever they are looking at when it happens, i.e. Clinton.

On the 2D playing field – where policies and facts matter – the Democratic National Convention is doing great. And when it comes to exciting women, it might be the best ever. But on an emotional level – where hormones rule – men have left the building…that they built.

For the record, I endorse Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California where it is dangerous for people to think you are a Trump supporter. My political views don’t align with either candidate and I don’t vote, in order to protect my objectivity.

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If you read books, you might want to read this one, because the last part of this sentence doesn’t contain a reason.

The Dark and Rotten Election

Yesterday I told you why Clinton’s label of “dark” for Trump’s convention speech was such a well-designed linguistic kill shot. It is so good, in fact, that I speculated it was designed by the Godzilla of persuasion – who I did not name. 

Dark is a fresh, unusual word (for politics). And it lets you fill in the details with whatever scares you the most about Trump while conveying a general tone of evil and negativity. Dark is no common insult. It originated from a master persuader. 

Don’t believe me?

Doubt me if you will.

Then read this.

Meanwhile, Trump was trying out his new linguistic kill shot by calling his opponent Hillary Rotten Clinton. Her actual name is Hillary Rodham Clinton, so it works as a play on words, and that helps memory retention, which is a persuasion trick. But it’s more than a clever play on words.

Rotten – like dark – is a fresh, unusual word (for politics). And it is general enough that people can fill in their own details with whatever they find to be rotten about Clinton. If you think Clinton looks unhealthy, perhaps she is rotting from the inside. And if you think the primaries were rigged for Clinton, that sounds like a rotten situation. Likewise, Clinton’s email problems sound rotten. 

Rotten cleverly incorporates all of Trump’s best labels for Clinton, including “crooked” and “no stamina.” And it put Trump back in the news cycle during the Democratic National Convention.

Both rotten and dark are labels that work as accumulative confirmation bias traps. Watch how many times Trump does something that you could interpret as dark, and how many times Clinton does something you could interpret as rotten. The labels will pick up strength over time.

If you’re new to persuasion, Trump and Clinton probably appear to be two adults hurling random insults at each other. But once you see under the hood, you realize these insults are anything but random. They are the work of Master Persuaders, operating at the highest level. 

Godzilla, meet King Kong. 

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If you think policies are more important than persuasion, or vice-versa, you might love my book.

Clinton Uses “Dark” Magic

If you are following the media coverage after the GOP convention, you know that Democrats and their surrogates are describing Trump’s speech as “dark.” The first ten times I heard the word, I thought it might be a situation in which someone clever used the term once and others copied it.

That is not the case.

“Dark” is a linguistic kill shot from the left. I assume all the TV pundits on Clinton’s team got the message to use the word “dark” right out of the gate. I confess that at first I didn’t recognize how good it is. It’s designed, Trump-style, and it didn’t come from an amateur. The Clinton team is playing some serious 3D chess now. 

Do you remember all of those policy details Clinton talked about this week? Me neither. She’s done with that uselessness now. She went full-Voldemort on Trump this week and unleashed a “dark” spell. It’s a good one.

Let me tell you why “dark” is so good.

1. It’s unique. That’s a Trump trick. You haven’t heard “dark” used before in a political context. That makes it memorable and sticky. And it brings no baggage with it to this domain because no other politician has been so labelled.

2. Dark makes you think of black, and black makes you think of racism (in the political season anyway), and that makes you reflexively pair Trump with racism even though it makes no sense.

3. Dark can describe anything scary. It invites the listener to fill in the nightmare with whatever scares them the most about Trump. That’s a hypnosis trick. Leave out the details and let people fill in the story that persuades them the most.

4. Repetition. Dark is the kind of word that pundits can work into almost any answer when talking about Trump. That means you’ll hear it a lot.

I don’t think this one word will change the election by much. But it’s a sign that Clinton has at least one world-class persuader/advisor on the team. I have a feeling I know who. This linguistic kill shot has a partial fingerprint. If I’m right, Godzilla just got into the game.

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But if I’m wrong, you might also like my book.

Martial Law Coming?

Let’s say Donald Trump wins the election. And let’s say Democrats believe everything they say about him – that he’s the next Hitler. Wouldn’t President Obama be obligated to declare martial law and remain in power?

I realize this question sounds silly when you first hear it. But keep in mind that Democrats have successfully sold the “racist strongman” narrative about Trump to their own ranks. If they’re right about Trump, we need to start getting serious about planning for martial law, for the good of the country and the world. No one wants another Hitler. And if they’re wrong, we still need to plan for martial law because Democrats think they are right. That’s all it takes.

Imagine, for example, that violence against police escalates because of the rhetoric on the left. That seems likely. Then add in some more videos of police shooting unarmed African-American men and you have all the ingredients for riots, followed by martial law.

Years ago, during Obama’s first term, a Republican friend bet me that Obama would declare martial law and stay in office after losing his reelection bid. I laughed and agreed to the bet. My friend paid the bet when Obama won reelection. My friend is a nut, right?

Or was he just premature?

My best guess is that 30% of the country believes (incorrectly) that we are heading toward some sort of pre-Nazi situation in the United States, where President Trump calls on his legion of racist supporters to do some ethnic cleansing. That’s all completely ridiculous, but it doesn’t stop perhaps 30% of the country from believing it. 

Unlike most campaign rhetoric of the past, the attacks against Trump are designed to generate action, not words. Normal campaigns ask for little more than your vote. But this time, Clinton’s side – mostly surrogates and supporters – have defined their opponent as a Nazi-like dictator who will destroy the country, if not the entire world. In that situation, action is morally justified. And that action could include riots and violence against authority.

How much violence against authority would it take for President Obama to declare martial law and stay in power?

Less than you think. Television coverage will make every act of violence seem a hundred times worse than it is.

I don’t predict that we will see martial law in this country. But all of the ingredients are in place. Keep that in mind when you do your mental calculation about which political party is the reckless one.

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I endorse Hillary Clinton – for my personal safety – so please don’t kill me when the riots break out. But for the record, my political preferences don’t align with any of the candidates.

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If you think I spelled martial law correctly, you might enjoy my book. No one knows why.