Episode 275 Scott Adams: The Bomber Suspect. How Was My Prediction?
Date: 2018-10-26 | Duration: 14:38
Topics
President Trump announces capture of bomber… thus protecting his biggest critics (the media) from the bomber… during meeting with Young Black Leadership Summit at White House
I fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com
## Transcript
## [The Bomber Suspect Prediction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=6s)
Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh! Hey everybody, come on in here. Hey Unix Rabbit, come on in. We’ve got to talk about this bomber suspect, this alleged bomber—let’s call him alleged. Hello Savannah, hello Mike, hello Flea Biscuit.
The reason I make predictions in public is because my book, *Win Bigly*, is about persuasion. I made the claim back in 2015 that if you understand persuasion, it helps you predict the future better and that your filter on life should be one that makes you happy and does a good job of predicting. Therefore, I make predictions in public so that you can see how I'm doing. My prediction on the bomber was that he was an older, crazy Republican.
## [Suspect Details and Debunking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=69s)
He’s 56. He registered for the first time in 2016 as a Republican, according to CNN. Unless he planned this since 2016, it's very likely he's just a crazy older Republican—exactly what I told you it would be.
Now, there are still some people who are going to be arguing the "false flag," but here's the other thing arguing against a false flag. The other thing I predicted is that within the hour, you would see fake social media pages. Sure enough, within the hour, there was a fake social media page that tried to pretend he was a Democrat. CNN has debunked that, assuming they got that right. Of course, we're still in the fog of war, so you can never say anything certain even at this point, but it looks like I called this down to the threads.
## [Persuasion Optics and the Midterms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=129s)
Let's talk about the other interesting element because the midterms are coming and because it's the age of Trump, everything is political. Let's look at this through the political lens, about the midterms and about Trump. I just tweeted this a few minutes ago, and I'll just read it to you because it's worded so perfectly:
"If you are tracking the persuasion optics, President Trump employed all available resources to keep top Democrats, his biggest critics, and the press safe."
## [The White House Announcement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=193s)
He announced his strong law-and-order success in front of a cheering young black audience. That just happened. Did you see the actual announcement? There's some kind of young black leadership group that's very pro-Trump who was in the White House. He was going to be talking to them anyway, and then this news comes in.
Man, does this guy know how to take advantage of a crisis? It turned almost instantly from "Trump supporter who gets incited by Trump and looks to bomb Democrats" into "There's a crazy white guy." He is exactly the people that the anti-Trumpers fear—a crazy white guy who threatened top Democrats as well as Trump's critics and the press.
## [Visuals and Media Reporting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=254s)
Trump employed strong, maximum law-order resources with no hesitation, very efficiently and impressively, to solve this. We think it looks solved—it's still in alleged territory, so you have to be careful here—but it looks like they solved that in a couple of days.
Is somebody saying he's a Native American? Well, that may be, but we're talking about the optics. If you see a picture of him, he looks like a white guy. I'm just talking about the picture; I haven't checked his DNA, so I can't talk about anything else. If you're the president, you just had one of the best moments of your presidency, which will not be reported that way. The reporting will still line up along the political divide, but that's just the chatter. Remember, the visuals win. The visual story is that there was a strong law-enforcement success and that the president turned against his own supporter.
## [The Pre-suasion Effect of Law and Order](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=316s)
It looks like the president just protected his biggest critics by using a lot of law enforcement. That could not be better persuasion. This is a pretty persuasion-heavy thing to actually go against a member of his own party who looked like a supporter, and then he announces it in front of a bunch of cheering young African-American future leaders. It doesn't get better than that.
But there's an even deeper persuasion effect that even I wouldn't have been aware of except for the book *Pre-suasion*. This is speculative, but I think it might matter. You are aware that people who are exposed to pictures of the American flag are more likely to vote Republican? That's been tested. People who were primed just by images of the flag tend to vote Republican in a measurably higher degree.
## [Priming Voters for Republicans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=377s)
Speculating, what do you think would be the effect on voters to have lots and lots of images of law enforcement succeeding? Succeeding is something that we all agree on. There's nobody of any color, persuasion, religion, or gender who didn't want this person caught. It is 100% agreement. Law enforcement is the image you're going to see—successful law enforcement person after successful law enforcement person doing awesome things. My speculation is that that primes people to vote Republican simply because of the way we associate law and order with Trump and with Republicans at a higher level than we associate it with the other side. For purely irrational reasons, this should play very well into President Trump's and the Republicans' hands.
## [The Media Pivot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=438s)
The downside, and of course there's always a downside, is that the anti-Trump press will spend a little time talking about the news, but fairly quickly they're going to pivot into, "Well, we told you it's a Trump supporter and he got all wound up by the president's rhetoric." That's coming.
But once it is demonstrated that this person is clearly not like normal people and that the president acted against him, it's kind of hard to say that this is because of the rhetoric versus a crazy guy. All bets are off if it's a crazy guy. If it's a crazy guy, then it helps the president's case and the Republicans.
## [Addressing False Flag Theories](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=500s)
News is still coming in. There are still people who think he's a crazy liberal who registered to vote for the first time as a Republican in 2016 presumably so he could vote for Trump.
Now, here's the other evidence if you're still stuck on the false flag idea. If you are a false flag perpetrator, one of the very important things that you want to do is not get caught. That's way at the top of a successful false flag operation—that the person doing it doesn't get caught. Getting caught is the end of the game because they can always find out what the real story is after they catch you.
## [The "Don't Get Caught" Rule](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=560s)
If your primary objective was the false flag, which means your sub-primary objective is "don't get caught" (otherwise it's not really a false flag), the "don't get caught" part is not really consistent with putting Trump stickers all over your van.
Now, I know what you're going to say: "Oh, it's a redirection! It's a trick!" Because if you were trying to make it look like he's a Trump supporter, how else would you do it? You'd put Trump supporter stickers all over your van. But would you put so many on there that it attracted attention? Would you put so many on there that you looked crazy, which would work against your concept? Would you draw attention to yourself in a specific way that was guaranteed to get your van vandalized and your ass kicked?
## [The Van as a "Fight-Starter"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=625s)
If you wanted to avoid the attention of law enforcement for a while because you're the guy who did the false flag, you would want to stay off all the radar. Would you drive around in a van that anybody would know is a fight-starter? That was no normal van; that was a fight-starting van. You could park that just about anywhere and by the time you got back from the store, people would be dismantling it and keying it because it has Trump stuff all over it.
What does that lead to? Usually some kind of legal thing. If you're telling me that this is how this clever lefty pretended to be a Republican, I say to you: it's time to let go. It's just time to let go. But again, I'll say it again, anything's possible.
## [Fog of War and Media Skepticism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-686s)
"Scott is putting too much trust in CNN." Now, I acknowledge the point that we're still in the fog of war and that would include all of the networks. You should expect to see some of this information modified. One of the things I expect to see modified is what we understand about how the packages got delivered. That was probably wrong and we'll learn how they really were delivered later. It probably is just this guy doing it himself, but maybe not. Anything's possible.
So no, I'm not putting too much faith in any part of the media yet. In the first 24 hours, you've got to add a lot of skepticism. But what it is looking like is a crazy, older Republican, which is what I predicted.
## [Joke vs. Prediction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=749s)
Because my life is a living hell on Twitter, I had also made a joke before I made my clear prediction. In my prediction, I said it in these words: "Prediction: it's a crazy older Republican." I wanted to make sure that was as clear as possible.
But before that, I made a joke which people are going to interpret as me being wrong. The joke was that my first impression was that it was probably a Republican until I saw that the bombs didn't work. People who don't understand jokes will think I was really predicting it was a Republican—wait, anyway—people will look at the joke and they'll imagine that that was the prediction. That's why I clearly and multiple other times, including on Periscope and on Twitter, said as clearly as possible, probably five times, that it was a crazy older Republican.
## [Final Thoughts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHpVVB2_hg&t=812s)
We'll see. I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like. I'll talk to y'all later.