Episode 212 Scott Adams: Nike, Dark and the WH Mole Hunt
Date: 2018-09-08 | Duration: 22:15
Topics
31% increase of Nike online sales after Kaepernick ad campaign Dale defends the White House mole who wrote the NYT op-ed Obama’s persuasive speaking skill How can Trump supporters increase turnout? Elon Musk smoking a blunt and Tesla stock value drop
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## Transcript
## [Intro and the Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=9s)
Hey everybody. I've got a different iPad and it gives me a different look; it's a little too bright for some reason. All right, good morning. Does everybody have their coffee, their beverage, their chalice, their mug? Because it's time for the simultaneous sip. Join me, will you?
It's going to be at least another week or so before I have my split-screen setup. When I get one more cable, I should be able to have a split-screen situation where I can show you what's on the computer or have people call in. Then it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun then. We're going to do some serious talking to people who are more fun than I am.
## [Nike's Kaepernick Campaign](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=69s)
All right, well we got a few things going on. How many of you saw that Nike sales went up reportedly 31% with this new Kaepernick commercial? Now, when you hear something like that, the first question you should say to yourself is: 31%—what are you measuring, and what's that compared to? Someone smart on Twitter said, "How does that compare to any other time you launched a major new advertising campaign?" to which I said, "Good question." Because the measurement is not how sales went with this advertisement; the question is how sales went with this advertisement compared to other times they've launched a major advertisement. We know it's an advertising company, and when they advertise, things get better.
Now, I heard some expert who sounded quite credible saying that Nike's target market would love the Kaepernick kind of message of racial equality, taking risks, and being young and that sort of thing. That might be right. I could easily see that the Kaepernick commercial could work for Nike in both the short run and the long run. But do we know that yet? No, we do not.
The main takeaway is there's good reason to believe that Nike just made a good business decision even if you hate it. If you're looking at Trump supporters, they're probably over a certain age on average, and they're not buying a lot of Nike stuff. The people who are buying a lot of Nike stuff tend to be younger and tend to be perhaps a little more likely to be Clinton supporters. We don't know yet, but I think Nike might come out of this okay, which would be impressive. Even if you don't like it, you'd have to be impressed if they pull this off.
## [The Search for the White House Mole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=193s)
As I'm watching the story develop of the search for the White House mole—the person who wrote the editorial—I'm struck by several things. One is I feel I have not done my job for the next generation. It feels like people who are very familiar with Dilbert cartoons don't make much of somebody complaining about their boss. When you complain about your boss, all you've shown is that it's a normal situation; people are complaining about their boss.
That's the first thing. I feel as if maybe young people, maybe people in New York where a lot of the media is, don't read Dilbert. They wouldn't be so surprised by somebody trashing their boss. Now, here are a few more thoughts about this. The person who is trashing the President is someone who did not become a billionaire—some would argue that was the easy part—but did not become President themselves. The President has succeeded far more than whoever is complaining about the President. So that's your first data point.
The second data point is whoever wrote this was dumb enough to think they could remain anonymous. Probably, right? Now, we can't read their mind, but doesn't it seem reasonable to assume that they thought they would remain anonymous and not get caught? Do you think that's what's going to happen? Because I don't think so. I think they're going to catch this person because that person didn't know, apparently, that their writing style would give them away. They didn't know that there was almost certainly some way to figure it out, and it does pose a national security risk. I think the President is entirely right to push hard against it.
## [Two Separate Conversations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=375s)
The President mentioned that Jeff Sessions needs to look into it. Let me ask you this: is this what you've been watching in terms of the coverage? Did it look sort of like this? A Trump person would say, "Well, it's terrible that this person is working on the White House staff and has written this critical thing. Why don't they just quit? They should be fired for this." Then the anti-Trumper says, "Oh, are you suddenly saying that freedom of speech is illegal?" And the Trump supporter says, "No, that wasn't even the topic. The topic was it's somebody who is against the administration on the administration staff, and that's a problem." "Oh, but suddenly freedom of speech is a problem? You can't write an article with your own opinion in which there are no state secrets—nothing illegal about that?"
"Look, we're not talking about freedom of speech. That's a different topic. We're all on the same page on that. We agree anybody can write stuff as long as it doesn't have any secrets they're giving away. That's not the point. Also, why are you trying to get Jeff Sessions to arrest somebody for freedom of speech?" "I'm not trying to do that. That's not the point."
Are you watching this? Doesn't it seem to you that all of the news goes in that pattern? Two separate conversations where they both pretend they're in one conversation, but they're not. It's just two separate conversations. So that's fun to watch. Terrible acting. Somebody said, "Yes, it is terrible acting."
## [Obama’s Persuasion and the "Dark" Narrative](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=437s)
How many of you saw Obama's speech? It was sort of an anti-Trump speech. Obama's cranking it up. I'll tell you my reaction: whether you love Obama or hate him, he is really good at this speech stuff. He's really good. It's not an accident that he got elected President. When I watched him talk, I think, man, he is one of the best ever at captivating a crowd and giving a speech. But he's not in Trump's range. Trump still is by himself at a higher level, but as number two, he's a pretty good number two, I'll tell you.
I was watching Obama and I noticed that the criticisms about President Trump have started to fit into a theme. Now, some have pointed out that the word "dark" is coming back again, just in time for the midterms. Oh, surprise! Things are "dark." It's dark, it's dark. And you'll notice that you haven't heard a lot about Russia in the last couple of weeks. Have you noticed that? Not a lot about Russia because it looks like the Russia thing fell apart and it doesn't have any power for the midterms. No matter what happens with the Russia thing, it's pretty obvious it's not moving voters.
So they've changed tactics with not that much time to go before the midterms. Watch this pattern: see if the President gets criticized for things he's actually done that didn't work out for the country—in other words, actual policies or decisions—or if the criticism is things the President is secretly thinking, but "we know what he's thinking and you don't," or speculation about something he might do that he has not done before. You'll notice how it's not so much things he's done, because the things he's done seem to be working out. So that's sort of off the table.
The criticisms have come down to misinterpretations of things he's done. For example, Obama said, "How hard could it be to denounce Nazis?" which leaves the impression that the President has not denounced Nazis, which of course would be a lie. But look at the way Obama words it. He words it in a way that the fact-checkers would have a problem with it. If Obama had said, "The President has never denounced the racists," well, that would be false because the President has denounced them many, many times in public. Instead, Obama says, "How hard is it to denounce Nazis?" It's a question. And the answer is: it's not very hard at all. Trump did it, Obama did it, everybody did it. But it leaves you with the impression that the President won't do it or hasn't done it, which is just a lie. But it's a lie in the form of a question, which allows him to slide past the fact-checkers. When I tell you that Obama is good at this, he's really, really good at this. I mean, it's weaselly if it's just persuasion and not facts, but he's good at it.
## [The Trump-Obama Economy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=729s)
Then there's the hilarious question of when does the Trump economy start and when did the Obama economy end? I think we should just make a deal. People who don't like Trump, pick a day. Pick a day that you're willing to say, "Okay, now it's a little bit more of the Trump economy." I'll give you that it's been long enough. Is it two years? Is it three years? Is it the entire first term? Pick a day. I'll wait. Just pick whatever day you want, and then we can decide that that's when the Obama economy ended.
## [Individual Turnout Strategies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=749s)
Let's talk about getting out the vote. Doesn't it seem to you that the main thing will be getting out the vote? If you don't get out the vote—and maybe that includes registering new people—you're not going to win the midterms. I was trying to think, persuasion-wise, what would be the most effective way for Trump supporters to get out the vote? Most of the persuasion that I'm seeing is sort of mass persuasion, and it's done correctly: "If you don't vote this way, bad things will happen." Here's some fear; make sure that you're afraid so you go to vote. Make sure that you're worried so you go to vote. That stuff works. Mass persuasion does work.
But what could you do that would be more powerful than that? The more powerful thing you could do is to encourage all Trump supporters to see if they can get one extra Trump supporter to vote, either by registering somebody or giving somebody a ride if they don't have a ride. Just one. Alternately, getting one Trump hater to stay home, I guess. Ideally, as long as it is legal, I guess it works out the same.
I would say that for Trump supporters, the very strongest thing they could do is just to say, "Can I give you a ride? Do you want to go together?" Find somebody who's on the fence, or wasn't going to vote, or could register between now and then, and say, "Can I get one person, just one person, to vote who's going to vote Trump or vote Republican?" So that would be my recommendation. If you're individually worried about it, try to find one person you can drive, or one person who wants to go out after with you, or one person whose kids you can watch while they vote, or one person who you can invite over to have a drink afterwards or a barbecue. Try to get one person. That would be my advice.
We vote by mail? Yeah, how does that work? Can everybody vote by mail? Since I'm not a voter, that's a dumb question. Can everybody vote by mail or is there a limit on that? Old people vote a lot.
## [Elon Musk and the Joe Rogan Appearance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=929s)
Let's talk about Elon Musk. So Elon Musk went on the Joe Rogan show and smoked a joint. When I say smoked a joint, I believe he took one puff—let's call it a toke—and may have had some whiskey. Both those things are legal in California. Apparently, Tesla stock went down 6%. Now, some of you might know that I also went on the Joe Rogan show and smoked a joint, and my stock did not go down because I am not the CEO of a major company and nobody was worrying about my sanity at the moment.
My guess is that it had more to do with the other stories about him; it was a visual. For the first time, it was a visual confirmation of stories that people had heard. Even though taking one hit on a joint was of no importance whatsoever—this is how unimportant it was—the context was that he doesn't smoke marijuana. That was the whole context. The context was that Elon Musk doesn't like it because it makes you lazy and unproductive in his opinion. Now, he works—apparently he works until he falls asleep on the factory floor, famously. So he's got an image he's projecting of insanely hard work because it helps his employees become insanely hard workers as well.
I don't think his stock went down because of what he did on Joe Rogan per se. His stock probably went down because what he did on Joe Rogan gave people a visual image that got passed around a lot that reminded them of the other stories about him—the other alleged erratic behaviors. It's the weird situation where he didn't really get in that much trouble for the stories that sound important, but the one that was completely unimportant had a visual element. You can see that the visual element again overwhelms every other element. So keep looking for that.
The stock's been dropping all week, so yeah, it could be that the drop is just part of a larger decline. But a 6% drop in one day? It would be unusual if that was just going to happen anyway. Pay attention to the Tesla executives; they quit. Yeah, that's an important data point, but we don't know what the reason was.
## [Tesla Leadership and Midterm Predictions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=1115s)
Somebody says Mike Cernovich might be running for Congress pretty soon, which would be the most interesting thing that ever happened. Mike Cernovich running for Congress would be one of the most interesting things you've ever seen in your life, that much I can tell you.
"Too much light on your face." Yeah, I've got most of the lights out. I'm actually in a darkened room. My other iPad doesn't light me this way, so I think I'm going to have to experiment a little bit with that. You wouldn't want to be doing work in a room that is this dark. I have to figure that out.
Predictions for the midterms? Well, my prediction for the midterms remains the one that I made in January, which was that the Republicans would do better than whatever people thought they would do in January. It's going to be tighter than we thought a year ago, but that doesn't mean that Republicans will prevail. The only way I can see that happening is if Republicans are unusually good on turnout.
## [Candace Owens and Sign-off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ens4Wo7dA&t=1255s)
Somebody is asking me about the Candace Owens documentary. Candace Owens just keeps getting better and better, doesn't she? Her on-camera experience—you can see it just compiling and compiling. She just gets better and better on camera.
"Click my face on the screen." No, that doesn't work on this application. "I radiate light." Yeah, I'm tapping my face right now, you can't tell. Turn on the room light? Oh, that makes sense. I should have more light, not less. All right, I'll experiment with that. All right, enough of the technical work here. I'm going to go do something else and I will talk to you later.