Episode 140 - Trump’s UK visit, Russian Hackers and the Republican Brand
Date: 2018-07-14 | Duration: 43:12
Topics
Indictment of Russians for hacking Where’s the evidence? In today’s world, no evidence = no credibility We now know, Guccifer wasn’t real…maybe Whiteboard - Hawk Newsome’s anti-racism suggestion The power and importance of brand, both personal and group Brand management, “Liar pattern” and your external face Conservative resentment of being told to begin doing SJW virtue signaling
Transcript
[0:06] Hey everybody, it’s the weekend. And not only is it the weekend, but it’s time for Coffee with Scott Adams. Today is a very special Coffee with Scott Adams. I didn’t mention it on my title, but there will be a whiteboard talk. Oh yes, there will be. I changed your life; you’re welcome. I’m glad I can help. Grab your coffee, grab your beverage, and get ready for the simultaneous sip.
I’d like to summarize the president’s trip to the UK and it goes like this: who cares?
[1:11] Once again, the world got all worked up about nothing except a good show. I would say that nothing really happened in Great Britain of any importance. We talked about how he may have said some things that Theresa May didn’t like, but then he complimented her in public. They seemed like they were getting along. The special relationship stays intact.
Let’s talk about Russia. We saw the details finally of Mueller’s indictment of the X number of Russians. If you didn’t read the actual indictment—is that what it’s called?—the document that describes all of their alleged bad deeds, it’s actually good reading. I thought it would be all legalese, but it’s not. It’s written in pretty plain English and it was fascinating to get a look at them.
[2:12] There are a few issues with that. Number one issue is that I don’t see any evidence. There’s an indictment that says Russian guy number one did XYZ, but we—the public—can’t see the evidence. Presumably, there are some secret means that they have of deducing who exactly was behind what. Now, it could be that it’s not direct evidence so much as, “Well, we know the people who were behind their cyber operations, and we saw some stuff that looked definitely Russian, so it must have been those guys.” And so they connect the dots. But we’re in a world where you really can’t take that stuff as credible.
Now, I think Mueller and whoever wrote the report are probably serious professionals who know what they’re doing, but we’re just not in a world where anything like that is believable anymore.
[3:15] So it’s not really a comment on the people who put together that document and the allegations against the Russians. I’ve got nothing to say about those specific people, but we’re just in the world where you can’t frickin’ believe anything. You just can’t believe a picture, you can’t believe a document, you can’t believe a professional. You just can’t believe anything.
That said, it was still very persuasive because of the details and the official-looking nature of it. It looked very professional. Now, if you can think back, you may remember me saying some things about the alleged hacker back, I don’t know how many months ago, when it was Guccifer—I think that’s how you pronounce it—Guccifer 2.0. And the news was that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian agent.
[4:15] He had been discovered as the hacker and I said, “Well, that doesn’t sound right.” There was just something about that story that sounded wrong. It’s like, “Really? Guccifer? He’s such a good hacker and he’s part of these Russians who are so good at hacking, and he leaves an actual trail right to himself, and then he’s hanging around the house when he gets arrested?” I thought, “Ah, this doesn’t quite add up. There must be something I don’t know.”
In the indictment, it says that Guccifer was a fake, but he was Russia’s fake. So apparently, according to the allegations, when our intelligence people figured out that Russia was behind the hacking, allegedly, Russia framed this Guccifer character to make it look like it was a lone actor working out of Romania.
[5:16] So I’ll give myself partial credit. Partial credit that Guccifer wasn’t real. I sniffed that out on day one. Guccifer? That doesn’t sound real. But he was probably not real for a different reason than I imagined. He wasn’t real, but he might have been a Russian invention and not so much a U.S. invention, if you will.
But again, at this point, you can’t rule out anything. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but if the allegations about the Russian hacking are correct, doesn’t that mean that Seth Rich was not involved?
[6:18] I get so confused with which Russians and which hacking and which server, but that’s the case, right? The Seth Rich story is completely debunked, correct me if I’m wrong, if it’s true that these allegations are accurate. Is that right? I could be totally wrong about that because I get so twisted up with all of it. Somebody’s wrong, possibly.
Now, I’m saying if, hypothetically, the allegations about the Russians are completely accurate, that would take Seth Rich out of the story. Now, if somebody else is saying Seth Rich was definitely involved, I don’t believe there’s any evidence of that. Assange disagrees? Well, let’s see what Assange says. Is Assange cut off from the world at this point?
[7:20] Now, it’s entirely possible that WikiLeaks might have just wanted to hide the source of their information, so he may have created a false path there.
I was looking at my Twitter followers the other day, and I noticed that Kim Dotcom follows me on Twitter. I tell you, the world got really small for me. I’d never looked at my Twitter feed to see which verified users are following me, and just two days ago I did it for the first time. I’m looking through the list of like, Roseanne follows me—oh my god—and Kim Dotcom follows me, and the weirdest one was Alicia Keys follows me on Twitter.
[8:23] At first I thought it was 30,000 users and I thought, “Oh, that’s not the actual Alicia Keys, the hugely talented singer superstar,” because a superstar is going to have more than 30,000 followers. I think I mentioned it to Christina and she goes, “That’s 30M—30 million followers.” So Alicia Keys has 30 million followers, and one of the people she follows, apparently, is me.
But I still think it must have been a mistake. I can’t imagine anybody in the music business following me. “Don’t get a big head.” I’m not, because it feels like a mistake. But that’s all I wanted to talk about on those two topics. Now, let me talk about the fun topic that I saved for the end.
[9:23] Kanye does not follow me. Let’s talk about Hawk Newsome—leader of Black Lives Matter Greater New York—who tweeted at me and at the world the other day and said, essentially—I’m paraphrasing—that some things need to be said. That’s the important thing: some things need to be said.
It’s not good enough just to think; some things need to be said. For example, if you are in a relationship, you might love your partner, but it’s important to say it. Saying it is a very important part. It’s not enough that it’s just in your head: “Yeah, I totally love my partner. Why do I need to say it? She knows, right? Don’t need to say it.”
[10:25] So Hawk starts out with the premise: “Some things need to be said.” I’m on board so far. And then he said, essentially, if Trump supporters or Republicans are not racist, they should say so. They should actually, in an affirmative way, say “We’re not racists.”
And I thought, “Okay, I’m in.” So I retweeted and said in unambiguous terms that I oppose racism in all its forms. And although I acknowledge in the tweet that we might disagree on how to get there—the policies might be a disagreement—I buy into the theory. I reject racism in all its forms, and that would include racism against every group, not just specific groups.
[11:30] In my tweet, I asked people to retweet it if they agree. Now, it seemed to me—and this was my blind spot—that the Republicans would see that and say, “For the tiny, tiny cost of hitting a couple of keys to retweet it, you could actually help reshape the brand of Republicans.”
What do you think happened? You’re already seeing some of the pushback that I’m going to talk about. So it turns out that the blind spot I had goes to a very distinct character personality preference that seems to live mostly on the right: the people who are Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters. I’m lumping them all together for now.
[12:31] There’s a very specific character trait that I probably should have seen coming, but I had a blind spot for it, and it goes like this—fact-check me on this, see if I’m wrong. If something is in the Constitution, Republicans say, “Okay, it’s in the Constitution.” If it’s in the Bible, “Okay.” If it’s a law, “Okay, it’s a law.” If it fits my religion, the Constitution, or the law, I’m in; I’ll do all those things. But if it’s not—whatever the topic is—stay out of my business. Don’t ask me to say something. Don’t ask me to do anything. You don’t rule what I do.
[13:32] You’ve got three shots: it’s in my religion, my Constitution, or my law. If it’s not one of those three things, get out of my business.
So, when I quite interestingly and innocently said, “Hey, just retweet this and you can help your brand,” quite a few people pushed back hard. They said, essentially, “Look, if I have to defend why I’m not a racist, I’ve already accepted the frame that maybe I am, and I reject that. I reject your premise that I need to explain it. I reject your premise that there is any question about it. I reject your premise that you even asked this question. So get out of here with your retweets.”
I’m seeing a lot of people agreeing with me, so I feel like I have characterized that point of view accurately.
[14:33] “Don’t make me do something that puts me in this defensive mode of saying I’m not a racist because it just makes you sound like you are one. And by the way, what business is it of yours to ask me to say anything? It’s not in the law, it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in your religion. Stay out of my business.”
If I characterized that correctly, I would like to go to my next point and then I’m going to take you to the whiteboard. The people who had that point of view—I believe I understand it because I’ve just fed it back to you—it is part of what I call a loser philosophy, or a loser strategy. Now, at the same time, I’m going to agree that that pushback is perfectly acceptable. The reasons for it are well-thought-out.
[15:34] They fit a way of life; they’re consistent with things. So I say, that’s pretty good. Well, let me give you a different look at it. There’s a lot of stuff on my board here, so I’ll get to all of it.
I ask people to think about the brand—think about the Republican brand. Let me spell it correctly: B-R-A-N-D. A brand is a powerful thing. Everybody who is a member of a group has a brand. The power of your brand can have a lot of impact on your life. A lot of conservatives say something like this: “As long as everybody’s playing by the same rules, I’m done.” Like, don’t we all have the same Constitution, the same laws, the same God?
[16:35] Their inner dialogue—the thing that’s inside their head—is perfect. It’s like, “Yeah, okay, I want everything to be even. I want a world where everybody has the same opportunity. I want everybody to be able to do well. I want good things to happen for the world.” But that’s just inside my head.
The outer dialogue—the thing that you present to other people—is some version of, “Don’t tell me what I need to say. Don’t tell me what I need to defend. Just stay out of my business. I’m not even going to address your tweet. You can’t make me do something. I’m not going to be signaling my awesomeness. I’m not going to act like a liberal where I have to signal how virtuous I am by saying things that somebody wants me to say.” I’m not going to be that guy.
[17:37] So your inner dialogue is perfect. It’s virtuous. It has utility. But the outer dialogue, which says, “Don’t tell me what to say,” has this flaw: it’s a liar pattern.
Do you know what a liar pattern is? It goes like this: if I say, “Bob, did you rob that convenience store?” and Bob says, “What evidence do you have?”—that’s a liar pattern. Because innocent people say, “What the hell are you talking about? I did not rob a store.” That’s what an honest person says. A liar pattern is: “Did you rob the store?” “I don’t need to talk to you.” “No, I’m asking you, did you rob the store?” “Look, if you have to ask me if I robbed the store, forget it.”
[18:38] “I’m not even going to talk to you. I’m insulted by the question.” You can be completely honest; you could be completely innocent; but you’re talking in a liar pattern. You’re talking the way liars talk.
Now, that’s not intentional. All you’re doing is telling your real feelings. Your real feelings are, “Leave me alone. I don’t need to signal my virtue. I don’t need to be part of this. Don’t tell me what to do.” As long as you do that, I would say that opinion is fine. I don’t have any problem with that opinion, but be aware that that’s your external face. And if your external face is a liar pattern, then you have pissed all over your brand. So if your brand is Republican, conservative, or Trump supporter…
[19:40] …and you’re not willing to just say, “Of course I’m opposed to racism”—if you’re not willing to do that small thing and act like an honest person. Again, I’m saying “act like.”
Conservatives tend to be very honest people in my experience. I’m saying that it’s not good enough in the real world just to be honest. It’s not good enough in the real world to just not be a racist, in the same way that it’s not good enough to be in love with your spouse and refuse to say it. “Why won’t you say you’re in love?” “I don’t have to say that every day.” If you say to your spouse, “Do you love me?” and your spouse says, “You know the answer,” does that sound like love? That sounds like someone who doesn’t want to say they love you because it’s a liar pattern. If somebody says, “Do you love me?” you say, “Yes, I love you with all my heart.”
[20:40] “More than ever.” That sounds honest, even if it isn’t. It might be dishonest, but it sounds honest. So if you’re going to manage your brand, you have to act in a way that’s good for the brand.
Let me extend this point. There is a pattern in life that Hawk understands, and a lot of leaders understand, that many of the people who are pushing back on this idea of retweeting your disavowal of racism maybe don’t understand. If you want to get to the greater good, there might be some persuasion involved, because people don’t just go to the greater good on their own. Somebody needs to be persuading in the right direction. In order to be persuasive, you have to have an open channel of communication.
[21:43] Have you noticed that Hawk and I have that? You see him tweeting to me, we’ve talked on the phone a number of times, we DM now and then. So Hawk and I have an open channel. So far, we both want a greater good, which would be fairly similar—I think you would disagree, but I think they’re actually pretty similar.
We’d both like to persuade toward it, and we’ve opened a channel. But you can’t get a channel open, and there’s no such thing as communication, unless there’s trust. The only way to build trust is through actions, because people don’t really develop much trust based on words. You have to actually do something. If you do some actions—let’s say a favor for somebody that has no direct benefit to you…
[22:44] If you do somebody a favor, they say, “Oh, this person actually has my interests in mind. I trust them.” At that point, anything you say to that person will sound more believable and more credible because you’ll say, “Oh, this is a person who does favors for me and asks nothing in return. I trust them. If they say something, I’m going to trust that too.” Now you’re trusted; you can persuade toward a greater good.
Who uses this technique? Let’s take Japan, for example. Japan, after World War II, surrendered and then said, “Okay, we’re going to play nice and we’re going to work with you, the United States.” When Japan surrendered, they totally surrendered. And Germany, too—they worked with the United States and the Allies.
[23:48] What is the result of Japan actually acting in a way that was good for them and good for us? The result was their actions caused us to trust them. They become tremendous allies, we communicate with them very well, and together we’ve reached a better place.
Like Martin Luther King—why is it that people trusted him, whether they were black or white? It wasn’t because of his good speeches; it was because of what he did. He was so committed to the nonviolent approach, and the nonviolent approach is action. It’s like, “Don’t fight back. Take a punch if you need to.” The only way we’re going to get to this better world is if we can do something that’s good for both sides. What was good for white America at the time? Non-violence.
[24:51] It allowed trust to be built. It opened a channel. He became very persuasive. Things are much better because he lived and because he had that message.
Who else did that? Jesus. Jesus didn’t just say, “You should be good.” He literally, according to the Bible stories, died for your sins. That’s an action. Action makes you trust.
Who else uses this technique? And no, I’m not saying that Trump is Jesus or Japan or Martin Luther King. I’m only talking about the technique. Trump does things for his base, like keeping his promises. He tries to keep his promises, and he’s working pretty hard at it for the people who elected him.
[25:52] The people who voted for him considered that an important thing, and then they trust him. Then there’s this open channel: he can say things that his base accepts because they trust him, and then he can persuade.
So here’s the thing, getting back to the tweet from Hawk. Hawk offered an opportunity for conservatives, who have at the moment a terrible brand. What’s the worst your brand could be? Ask Papa John’s. You would be called a racist. Papa John’s is having that problem because their founder, John Schnatter, actually said the N-word on a call, apparently. I have trouble wrapping my head around how that ever happened, but apparently, something like that happened. So if your brand is racist, that’s as bad as it gets. Republicans have that brand problem.
[26:55] Hawk offered up the simplest way to help—not in a “fix it” way, but at least moving in the right direction. He offered a way: just say in public on Twitter—it will take you as long as it takes to hit retweet—just say you disavow racism. Because just like talking to your spouse, when you say “I love you,” the saying makes a difference.
Now, you don’t have to do anything Hawk wants you to do. You don’t have to do anything that anybody wants you to do. It’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in the law, it’s not your religion. But if you want to keep a racist brand and be part of that, then just keep doing what you’re doing, because that’s how you get that. I’m just saying that if the outcome you want is to be seen as a racist, just keep doing what you’re doing, because that’s what got us here.
[27:56] Hawk said, “Look, it’s easy. Just retweet this, say you’re not one, and that will be one step toward a better brand.” In essence, you saying that would be action. Action would build trust, it would open up the communication channel, and then there’s a chance to persuade toward a common good.
For those of you who said, “I would rather keep true to my internal dialogue. I don’t want to be told what to do. I don’t want to even be part of the conversation where somebody would say I would maybe be a racist,” that’s great. You have great internal integrity. But your internal integrity will get you what you already have, which is to be labeled a racist. If you want to live in a world where half the world thinks you’re a racist, that would be the way to do it.
[29:00] In summary, I will not tell anybody or suggest that they should—I will not suggest that anybody should do what I suggest. I’m just telling you what happens if you do A and what happens if you do B. Then you can choose A or B.
You can choose to act in a way that others will see as racist, even if they’re wrong. You may have some internal integrity for that, you might feel more freedom for that, you might feel you’re not part of the social justice warriors and the virtue signalers, and that may be so important to you that you want to be true to that. But if you want a very easy way to improve your brand, Hawk was nice enough to offer it, but most people did not take it. Look at the number of people who are just saying, “This is so wrong.”
[30:02] Put in one sentence—because most objections can be put in one sentence—say in one sentence why you would disagree about anything I just said.
Somebody is saying, “So far all I see is people agree with me.” Yeah. So all of you who believe you’re disagreeing, all I see is agreement. The analogies are used to explain a concept. In this case, the concept was that there are some situations where saying it is important. I’m not saying that racism is like being married; I’m saying that there are some situations—and racism is one of them and being married is another—where it’s important to say it.
[31:03] Asking if this applies to non-white Republicans? Yes, because in this context, racism is against anybody, so it would help your brand to say it, too.
“Defensive”—yeah, a lot of folks are saying that it’s too defensive. So let me bring this back to another topic. Do you remember when I talked about ego? If you believe that ego is who you are, you’re in a loser strategy. If you believe that ego is a tool that can be manipulated up or down—you can raise your ego to, let’s say, play a competition because it’s good to be confident, and you can lower your ego in any situation where it might get you into trouble.
[32:04] If you’re using it that way, you’re using it as a tool. So if you say to yourself, “I will not be manipulated, I will not be thought of this way,” that is coming from ego. You’re sort of defining yourself as a certain person, thinking, “I’m not going to give up that freedom and I’m not going to admit what somebody else wants me to say even though it’s true.”
So if you’re acting out of ego, you’ll end up being branded a racist. But your ego might feel great. If you see your ego as a tool, you can say to yourself—and this is essentially what I said—“I don’t work for Hawk; he’s not my boss. I don’t need to say anything that’s virtue signaling. I have no need for that.” But it’s a perfectly functional thing to do to improve the brand.
[33:04] If you put your ego aside, you can just say, “Well, do I want to have a better brand or a worse brand? Okay, I’ll just retweet this. Boop.” It has nothing to do with me. None of this has to do with me; I’m just helping the brand.
So, for those of you who disagree—somebody’s saying, “Now I’m a racist because I didn’t retweet?” No. How many times have you seen somebody have to make up a whole opinion that I don’t have just to disagree with it? You’re seeing it now. When I trigger somebody into cognitive dissonance, the first thing they’ll do is imagine I said something completely different and then argue against it. You saw that happen right here in real-time.
[34:05] No, I didn’t say that. In fact, I said pretty much the opposite of that. I said you’re probably not a racist, but you might look like one if you do this, and you will not look like one if you do this. It’s your choice. You could do either: the one that makes you look like a racist or the one that makes you not look like a racist.
So if you said, “My gosh, I’m a racist because I don’t tweet that,” no, nobody said anything like that. We’re only talking about how you’re presenting yourself to the world. I would say that not retweeting doesn’t really say anything about you. But if, let’s say, a million people had retweeted this—suppose a million people retweeted my tweet disavowing racism. Just a little mental experiment here.
[35:08] Suppose a million people retweeted that, and there were Republicans saying, “I’m not a racist.” And then Black Lives Matter looks at that and sees a million retweets—a million! What would they think? It wouldn’t completely change their minds, but it would be one point against their preconceived notion that Republicans are racist. It would be hard to see a million retweets and say, “Oh, well, it seems that there are an awful lot of Republicans who are willing to say in public, ‘I’m not a racist.’ I didn’t see that coming.”
What happened instead? I have a quarter of a million followers, and four hundred people retweeted it. Now, people had their own reasons; they don’t all see every tweet. But if you were Hawk and you were looking at this…
[36:09] …what would be your interpretation? If you look at how many people retweeted—400 or so out of a quarter million, mostly Republicans following my Twitter feed—what would be your impression of that? Your impression would be, “Well, it looks like my assumption was correct.”
Now, a lot of you—probably the ones who are still angry—are still getting caught up on the issue of whether you need to do what other people tell you to do. You don’t need to do anything. I am 100% on your side if you just want to say, “Screw that, I’m not virtue signaling.” I am on your side. It’s just that what you get will be “A.” But a liar could easily retweet. Yeah.
[37:10] There’s an interesting study by Cialdini. He did this study where they asked people to write a paragraph supporting the opposite of their actual opinion—let’s say a political opinion. Then they’d check back with them in a year, and a shocking number of the people who had written the opposite of their actual opinion had actually changed to the opposite of their opinion.
Stating things in public makes you become that thing. Not everybody, not every time, but it’s a very pronounced effect. So the fact is, if a million Republicans had said in public, “No, I’m not a racist,” it would actually make them operate differently, even if they were lying. Even if they were lying, the very fact that they proclaimed not being racist in public would make them less racist.
[38:12] There’s a huge, functional, useful element to this that may not be obvious on the surface.
Somebody said, “Slippery slope theory; they’ll just keep asking for more.” Same thing in a relationship. Do you know that if you tell your spouse you love them, they might ask again? Because, as Hawk said, some things need to be said. If you put your verbal affirmations of where you stand in a slippery slope category, you’re completely missing the value of saying things.
[39:15] How many times have you heard people say, “Let’s be nice,” or “Let’s do the right thing”? You can’t say that stuff too many times. There is no such thing as saying “I’m not a racist” too many times. You can’t say “I love you” too many times. You can’t say “I’d like to be fair” too many times. You can’t say “I want what’s right” too many times. You can’t say “I like capitalism” too many times. You can’t say “Democracy is better than dictatorships” too many times. You can’t say “Pure socialism doesn’t work” too many times.
There are a lot of things you can’t say too many times. So when you say, “I’m worried about the slippery slope,” that would be like saying to your spouse, “Sure, I’ll say I love you, but don’t ask me to dig a hole to China because it’s a slippery slope.” It doesn’t really work that way.
[40:16] There are some things that need to be said, and they need to be said often, and that’s how you get to a better place.
Nobody likes my analogy of the marriage to racism, but let me tell you, analogies are not meant to be persuasive because they don’t have that quality. I’m simply making the point that some things are better said, and said often. Let me just ask you this question: do you agree with the general point that there are some things which must be said to make them real? In other words, would you agree that saying it, in some cases—no matter what the cases are…
[41:19] …do you agree that saying it matters? “Politics isn’t marriage, right?” But that’s why I isolated the point. The point is there are some things that are better if said. I’ve given you many examples; marriage was just one of them. But is it better to positively affirm that you’re not a racist?
Somebody says, “I think your love for Hawk blinds you.” Well, I would say that there is a level of affection there that is both useful and something of value.
[42:25] What’s the word that’s the opposite of “racist”? Unfortunately, there’s no good word that’s the opposite. If there were, I would be suggesting that you use that, of course. But when there is no word—it’s like there’s no word that’s the opposite of “collusion”—sometimes you get into the trap where the word itself is problematic.
Actions matter, and actions in this case mean tweeting or saying it out loud. That’s enough for now. I’m not trying to change anybody’s mind; I’m just telling you what you get if you take the path you’re on. That’s all. Then you can choose. I’ll talk to you all later.