Are any of you wondering what Dilbert creator and Dunning-Kruger poster boy Scott Adams has to say about last night’s debate? No? Too bad, because I already went and looked at his post on the subject, and it’s too loopy not to share.
Given that Adams, like Trump, is a narcissistic buffoon who’s wrong about nearly everything, it may not come as a shock to learn that Adams thinks Trump won the debate. It’s the reasons he gives for this, er, victory that are a little strange.
Let’s go through them.
First, the self-styled master persuader thinks that Trump scored big persuasion points by responding to the question about his “p***y grabbing” comments by … talking about ISIS.
As Adams sees it:
The persuasion move was that he quickly contrasted that “small” issue with images of ISIS beheadings, and cage-drownings. It was a high ground maneuver, a powerful visual anchor (like the Rosie O’Donnell move from his first primary debate), and a contrast play. In this framing, Trump cares about saving your life while Clinton cares about your choice of words. I realize the issue is Trump’s alleged deeds, not his words. But in terms of debate persuasion, Trump nailed it hard.
I’m not sure what exactly a “contrast play” is, but I feel comfortable in saying that most of those watching the debate saw Trump’s move as a “completely transparent attempt to change the subject.”
Adams then suggested that Trump’s much-discussed habit of following Clinton around the stage and lurking behind her like some kind of movie monster was actually a brilliant persuasion technique:
Clinton’s body language was defensive. Trump is physically larger and prowled the stage. He won the optics.
Adams also seems to blame Clinton for the actions of a random insect:
It only got worse when a fly landed on Clinton’s face mid-answer.
Apparently, flies never land on true ALPHA DOGS like Trump.
Adams also thinks that Trump’s not-really-joking threat to toss Hillary in jail — which many people see as proof that Trump doesn’t understand how democracy works — was actually a super-smart “visual persuasion” move.
His comment about putting Clinton in jail has that marvelous visual persuasion quality about it, and it was the laugh of the night, which means it will be repeated endlessly. He also looked like he meant it.
Adams doesn’t care much about actual policy, and assumes no one else does either, and so he’s somehow convinced himself that Trump deserves more points for occasionally sounding like he almost knows what he’s talking about than Clinton does for actually understanding the issues inside and out.
For Adams, it’s enough that “Trump threw in enough random details about Syria to persuade viewers that he knows more than they thought he knew” — which was nothing.
As for the rest of the issues, well, all Trump needed to do to beat Clinton was to pretend he vaguely knew about some of them.
We don’t know how to fix Obamacare or what to do with TPP. But by acting competent on these and other policy issues, Trump gains more than Clinton in persuasion.
TOTALLY NOT A DOUBLE STANDARD GUYS.
Adams has a few other arguments, but I’m not going to write about them. Instead, I want you to imagine Scott Adams picking his nose and then eating his boogers.
You’ve got to admit that image has a “marvelous visual persuasion quality about it,” huh?
DEBATE WON. I AM THE WINNER. I AM THE MASTER PERSUADER.
@mildlymagnificent
That reminds me of how groups’ composition is percieved as being equal only when there are more men than women and skewed to women when numbers are actually equal.
There is one fundamental flaw in Adams’s reasoning (along with the very, very many smaller other flaws):
If Trump is a Master Persuader, constantly besting Clinton with linguistic killshots and contrast plays and visual persuasion…
…then shouldn’t he be ahead in the polls? Or, at the very least, at SOME point in this very long campaign, have been even briefly ahead?
I mean, there have been moments when the margin has been uncomfortably thin, but there has never actually been a point at which Clinton has not been leading in the polls.
Shouldn’t a Master Persuader be more successful in, you know, persuading people?
By the way: Has anyone else noticed the caginess in Adams repeatedly giving Trump a 98% chance of being elected?
This is, strictly speaking, not an actual prediction of a Trump victory. Adams is still allowing for a (small) chance of a Clinton victory. Therefore, when she does win, he will able to say “Sure, that is exactly what I said would happen.” And then (the important part for him) he can feel superior to those who thought he got the election wrong, and he can write multiple posts explaining how those people do not understand basic math and logic.
The safest prediction one can make about this election, is that at its end Scott Adams will claim complete vindication.
So, Scott, you’re saying this was another “high ground move”…. Well, the Donald DOES frequent some very low places, so for HIM this probably is high ground
The election will prove the existence of and domination by the Gynocracy, demonstrate the existence of White Genocide, and show the world how completely “cucked” America has become. The Trumpfets cannot lose! Much like religious fundamentalists, they believe that every action AND every equal but opposite reaction BOTH prove their point.
In related news, a recent tweet the Orange Terror says “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.”
Well, THAT’S going to end well.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan-tweets/
Yup, I’m sure Adams is drafting both of his victory posts right about now, as well as the responses to those of us who live in reality who might disagree with his flawless logic.
In other news: Trevor Noah has ripped Trump a new one over the leaked tape:
Happy Ada Lovelace Day, everyone
http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/origin_001.jpg
http://cdn1.pri.org/sites/default/files/story/images/origin_002.jpg
http://66.media.tumblr.com/2f668a67bef45167c8ec9bd8fc7ca1f6/tumblr_inline_ngabgtAp2J1t6rf5g.jpg
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK.
No clowns, no clowns here ever, please!
(hides behind sofa.)
Aw great, now Trump is tweeting about backstabbing GOP. Dammit, now he has a fallback target to blame for his loss. Not to mention the fact that the voter base would rather tear the GOP apart than admit their loss.
I thought this entire blog was about clowns?
@Scildfreja;
… wait, no… the first Programmer was… a… wo… a wom… one of THEM?!?!?!?
@Paradoxical
How do you embed the yoo-toob video??
That’s right! Programming was invented by the womz!
(Fun fact: the term ‘computer’ used to be a job, not an object! Further, it was a woman’s job! Women would work doing repetitive calculation tables and statistics. Actual mathematics was of course too intense for a woman’s frail mental constitution, but she could be trained, like a puppy, to perform simple algorithms. It was only in the 40’s and 50’s that the term “computer” began to mean the calculating-machine we’re familiar with now. The term “programmer” follows a similar arc I believe – punch card programming was a woman’s job which was “masculinized” (and of course made far more prestigious) when the jaquard loom cards were replaced with software engineering. It was the same damn task, of course, but one’s heroic and ingenuity-requiring engineering, whereas punching holes in cards for looms is downright womanly)
Eddie, if you just paste the youtube link in it will work. Note, that it should be a http://www.youtube.com/… or http://youtube.com/… link, and not a http://youtu.be/… or other link-shortener URL.
>>”Trump is trying to make America a bit more like Switzerland. ”
Oh Dog is Scott Adams such a ignorant twit.
Happy Ada Lovelace day everyone.
Oh cool, I totally didn’t know that. That’s true of “typewriter,” too! The typewriter was, at one time, the woman operating the machine.
I think I’m starting to enjoy Dilbert more imagining Scott Adams has secretly been the boss character this whole time
http://imgur.com/a/qctwS
@Scildfreja
Annie Jump Cannon is my favorite scientist for just that reason! Also, her name is to die for 🙂
Wait, what? Glenn Beck is supporting Hillary? Glenn Beck is who I think he is, right? Is this an elaborate hoax?
@Viscaria
The unit of compute power used to be the ‘girl’, apparently.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/computing-power-used-to-be-measured-in-kilo-girls/280633/
@Weatherwax, Glenn had quite the breakdown not long ago. He’s coming to some realizations. I’m really, really hoping he is able to back away from his terrible positions of the past.
I suspect that none of these people ever took Speech and Debate in high school, which is why we keep getting these weird ideas of why Trump won. “He yelled louder!” “His hair is shorter than hers!” “He said ‘rutabaga’ more times!”
I think there is something to be said that this election was too much for Glenn Beck.
@Scildfreja n all the other geeks:
so, earlier this year I’m driving my grand baby back to her mom, n she’s showing me yootoob vids she watches, e.g. songs about the quadratic formula, then we listen to her fave science podcast and then talk about astronomy. She’s 8th grade, taking H.S. physics and advanced math.
and I’m thinking “GO, girl!” 🙂
and thinking about how dangerous it is for her to go there. 🙁
Mea:
Is that a threat of an October surprise?
Also, one of the quoted tweets says: Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support! Really, how can you respond to that level of delusion?