25 January 2017

Scott Adams' Take on Post-inauguration Trump

9/6/2018 Update: You can see below that I stopped adding to the list in March 2018. After this date, two things happened: Scott went to a speaking format and his cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias got the better of him. He talks about liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome, but I'm afraid he has Trump worship syndrome. His posts became ramblings justifying Trump's behavior. I still wish that Scott were right in his opinions, but Trump's behaviors and decisions have gone way beyond any credible hope that he is, or can be, a president that takes the country in a good direction.
As you may be aware, Scott Adams of Dilbert predicted a Trump victory in August 2015, well before he won the Republican primary. His basis was that Trump is the best persuader he has ever seen. He did many blog posts about his thought process and Trump's progress and strategies. I tracked all his posts at this link.

He stuck to his guns all the way through, even in the last two weeks before the vote when all the serious polls were predicting a Clinton victory.

He admonished the readers of his blog to adopt a different mindset, a different way of thinking about persuasion and election campaign tactics and strategy.

Perhaps he was just lucky, but I don't think that's the case. I believe that Scott saw something that was opaque to almost everyone else.

The other post got too long and was dealing with how Trump got elected. I am going to continue tracking Scott's posts post-inauguration in this post. This time they will be in reverse chronological order - newest first.

March 2018
Things I Have Learned About Gun Control , 3/4/2018
How to Criticize a Political Opponent Using List Persuasion, 3/3/2018, Talking about list journalism, "...while each item is unimportant, false, overblown, or an obvious misinterpretation of intent, the sheer quantity of items makes it persuasive nonetheless."

February 2018
What if the News Reported Only Facts, 2/21/2018
The Charlottesville Fake News Was the Best Persuasion Play of the Past Year, 2/14/2018

January 2018
Persuasion Reading List – Updated 1/18, Jan 24 (Posted)
How to Make Your Opponents Try (and fail) to Prove a Negative, Jan 20
Are the Fake News Awards Persuasive?, Jan 18
How North Korea Can Become Switzerland of the East, Jan 17
President Trump Earns the Highest Presidential Approval Level of All Time, Jan 9
Is President Trump’s Nuclear Button Tweet a Sign of Insanity?, Jan 3
How President Trump Changed Your Imagination, Jan 2

December 2017
The Demolition President, Dec 28
How to Determine If You Should Talk About Politics in Public, Dec 22
Why Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Republicans are Natural Allies (or should be), Dec 11

November 2017
President Trump’s 2017 Report Card (first draft), Nov 13
Win Bigly Bonus Chapter, Nov 6, Chapter on Hypnotism from Scott's new book
Persuading Terrorist Cowards, Nov 1

October 2017
How to Know President Trump is in Your Head, Oct 19
How to Make a Little Rocket Man Costume for Halloween, Oct 19
The North Korea Reframe, Oct 17
Low Public Approval of President Trump Yet Unusually High Consumer Confidence. Hmmm…, Oct 16
Affirmations, Positive Thinking, Trump, and Norman Vincent Peale, Oct 13
The Worst Gun Control Arguments, Oct 6

September 2017
The Universe is Winking at You, Sep 22
I Explain the Persuasion Techniques President Trump is using on The Wall and DACA, Sep 14
Win Bigly - Available for pre-order, Sep 11, Scott's new book about persuasion
When to Trust the Experts (Climate and Otherwise), Sep 11
Why North Korea and the United States are Near War, Sep 5

August 2017
Leadership is Breaking Out All Over, Aug 31 Just a link to a periscope video.
The Magical Thinking Opposition, Aug 22
Checking My Six Month Prediction - Did it Age Well?, Aug 20
Do We Really Need “Moral Leadership” from the White House?, Aug 19
How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble, Aug 17
The People’s Plan to Fix Health Care, Aug 7

July 2017
People Keep Telling Me to Stop Blogging about North Korea, Jul 31
Another Way to Make Mexico Pay for the Wall?, Jul 30
Can a Nation Attack a Company?, Jul 30
The Turn to “Effective, but we don’t like it.”, Jul 30
Health Care is a System, Not a Goal, Jul 28, "McCain did what heroes do. He took a bullet to prevent Congress from ignoring the wishes of half the country." "[Trump's] strongest play as a negotiator involved waiting until Congress utterly and completely failed. That almost didn’t happen last night. It took a war hero to finish the job. "
I Tell You Why President Trump is on the Verge of Total Victory, Jul 25
How “Confident” are Intelligence Agencies that Russia Interfered with the Election?, Jul 23
I’m Not Your Pope (But Thanks for Asking), Jul 21
Listen to My Conversation with Sam Harris – About President Trump, Jul 19
I Tell You How Citizens Can Fix Health Care (Now that Congress Failed), Jul 18
I Teach You How to Take a Meeting with a Russian Lawyer. Also Some Kid Rock Laughs., Jul 16
My Chat About Russia With Tucker Carlson, Jul 12
People Who Can’t Recognize Humor (literally), Jul 9
North Korea is an Information Problem Disguised as a Military Problem, Jul 9
International Relations in a Time of Nukes and Plenty, Jul 8
Solving the North Korea Situation, Jul 5
My Exciting Periscope Playlist, Jul 3

June 2017

How President Trump’s Tweet about Morning Joe Will Destroy Civilization, Jun 30
Did Syria use Chemical Weapons in Khan Shaykhun?, Jun 30
The Only Way to Fix Healthcare Insurance in the U.S., Jun 27
President Trump’s Idea to Put Solar Panels on the Wall, Jun 22
Why the New Healthcare Bill Will Be a Loser, Jun 22
Russia Hacked our Election! (So what?), Jun 13
The Comey Fog, Jun 8
Solar Panels on the Wall?, Jun 7
Most Problems are Information Problems, Jun 5
Helping the Terrorists Recruit, Jun 4, Change the frame. ISIS is a bunch of losers.
An Example of Cognitive Dissonance, Jun 3, The climate denial cartoon was a cognitive dissonance trap. Did you fall for it?
Betting on Climate Change, Jun 2, If it was so bad, literally planet destroying with support from a broad spectrum of business leaders, why did the market respond positively?

May 2017
The Kathy Griffin Controversy, May 31, "You and I get to live in the movies in our heads until your script and mine come into conflict. That’s what happened with the Griffin photo." and "The takeaway here should not be so much about Griffin. The takeaway is that a room full of people involved in the photoshoot did not see this as a huge problem from the start. They were living a different movie."
Covfefe, May 31, The nation needed a laugh break.
Going After the Families of Terrorists, May 25, It is possible to go after them without going after them. But maybe we should...
The Time I Nudged Climate Scientists into Debunking their Own Models, May 23, Climate scientists try to debunk Scott's criticisms, but show their cognitive dissonance.
Goodbye ISIS, Hello Losers, May 23, Branding Isis as Losers will cripple them
Time to End Presidential Press Briefings?, Are press briefings really worth the time and effort? Perhaps there's a better way.
The Short Attention Span President, May 20, Is it short attention span or focusing on the important? How can you tell the difference?
The Slow-Motion Assassination of President Trump, May 17
A Quick Look at President Trump and the Big Picture, May 16
How to Know You Won a Political Debate on the Internet, May 16, Not about Trump, but interesting read for the readers of E4E. Look for the cognitive dissonance tells.
The Comey Firing, May 9
Where’s My Immigration Prediction Model?, May 8
The Healthcare Confusopoly, May 4, "...refuse to re-elect any politician who votes for a health care bill that YOU don’t understand. If you don’t understand a healthcare bill, that means it is designed to screw you."
The Resistance changes its attack from “Russian Puppet” to “Trump is Crazy” - Which Works Best?, May 4
Pre-Bribing a President, May 3
Using Persuasion to Create Assets Out of Nothing, May 2
The North Korean Weapons Test Pattern, May 1


April 2017
President Trump’s First 100 Days, Apr 25
How a Systems-Thinking President Can Settle the Climate Science Debate, Apr 21
Big Red Flag for Cognitive Dissonance, Apr 21, Not Trump, but good intro for the next post. Climate scientists probably believe they have convinced about half of the public to their side using their graphs and logic and facts. That’s not the case. They convinced half the public by using fear persuasion disguised as facts and logic. And it probably worked best with the people who have the least knowledge of how often complicated prediction models have failed in the past.
The Air Comes Out of the Anti-Trump Balloon, Apr 18
How to Structure a Deal With North Korea, Apr 17
U.S. and Russian Relationship at a Low?, Apr 13
The North Korea Reframe, Apr 12
Trusting Your Government in a Time of War, Apr 10
The Syrian Air Base Attack, Apr 7
The Syrian Gas Attack Persuasion, Apr 6
How a Hypnotist Sees a Verbal Slip, Apr 5

March 2017
The Systems President, Mar 29, You can look at the house healthcare efforts as a failure or as a step towards an ultimately successful health care effort.
Trump and Healthcare, Mar 25, Not really about healthcare, but rather Trump gets promoted from perception of Hitler to merely incompetent
My Take on Wiretapping, Trump, and Comey, Mar 20
How to Leak Like a Master Persuader, Mar 16
Tracking My Persuasion, Mar 14, Another Not Trump article, more an ad for his book.
Two More Movies on One Screen, Mar 13 Not about Trump, but definitely about persuasion.
Could Cognitive Scientists Eliminate ISIS?, Mar 9
Income Inequality, Mar 9
Wiretapping Word-Thinking, Mar 7
Am I Predicting or Influencing?, Mar 5
Dopamine Puppets, Mar 2
I Talk about President Trump’s Speech on YouTube, Mar 1
President Trump’s Speech Last Night, Mar 1, Scott things Trump killed the SOTU


February 2017
Persuasion Advice for African-Americans, Feb 21
De-hypnotizing a Climate Science Zombie, Feb 20
Trump and Sweden, Feb 20, Link to this youtube. Is Trump the crazy one, or are his critics?
Imaginary News, Feb 17
How to Evaluate a President, Feb 17
How to Persuade the Other Party, Feb 15
Good Example of Our Two-Movie Reality, Feb 12
About the 97% of Climate Scientists, Feb 10
Sam Harris Induces Cognitive Dissonance in Ben Affleck, Feb 5
A Thought Experiment About Republicans, Feb 5
The Social Media Hive Mind, Feb 4
The Persuasion Advantage and Climate Science, Feb 4
Berkeley and Hitler, Feb 3
President Trump and the Other Countries, Feb 2, You can't tell the difference between rudeness and good negotiation based on limited information
Introducing the Chaos Drinking Game, Feb 1
Hypnotists Flips Pro-Choicers to Pro-Life in Seconds (I explain how), Feb 1
The Odds of Being Killed by an Immigrant, Feb 1

January 2017
Is President Trump Doing Management Wrong?, Jan 31
The Persuasion Filter Looks at Torture. Does it Work?, Jan 30
The Canadian Option, Jan 29
Be Careful What You Wish For (especially if it is Hitler), Jan 29
The Persuasion Filter and Immigration, Jan 27, Muslim ban is a negotiating tactic
Outrage Dilution, Jan 26 "And when Trump has created a hundred reasons to complain, do you know what impression will be left with the public? He sure got a lot done." Like it or not.
Battle of the Hats, Jan 24 (Comparing MAGA hats to Pussy hats from a persuasion perspective)