Episode 281 Scott Adams: Kanye, Jon Stewart, Trump’s Latest Ad and the Coming Insanity
Date: 2018-11-01 | Duration: 41:46
Topics
Kanye pulling back from politics and Republicans CNN reports opinions as factual news Don Lemon came out as a racist who has a problem with white men Jon Stewart…oh oh…their only smart guy just came back Fun Prediction: If midterms go like everything else… It’ll be a photo finish with an ambiguous ending The President, is doing rally after rally with huge happy crowds High energy crowd Happy crowd Positive messages and having fun Confident Prediction: IF the Democrats take the house THEN President Trump will become even stronger President Trump gets the visuals right Has Q gone away?
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## Transcript
## [Opening and Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=5s)
Hey everybody, come on in here. You know what time it is. Yes, I was flying yesterday and I did not get to do my Periscope. I missed it. I hope you missed me a little bit.
Is it time for the simultaneous sip? I believe it is. Do you have your cup, your mug, your vessel, your glass, your stein, your container? Does it have the liquid of your choice? I like coffee. Join me for the simultaneous sip.
Yes, my voice is all better. Those of you who heard me losing my voice the other day, it's because—it's weird—but most of the talking I do in any 24-hour day is right here on Periscope. You're used to seeing me talking, but 90% of my day is just sitting in front of my computer thinking, hanging out with Kristina. We don't do a lot of talking.
## [Win Bigly and Dilbert Calendars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=69s)
As you know, I've been on my book tour for my book, *Win Bigly*, now out in paperback. If you don't like to read it in English, you could read it in Korean, German, or whatever this is. Yes, you have many choices. I think that was either Chinese or Japanese, I'm not sure, but *Win Bigly* is doing great in paperback now. For those of you who have been waiting for the lower price, it's here.
And you know what time of year it is: it's time for your 2019 calendar. If you don't have your Dilbert calendar, it's time to get it. Enough about that. Let's talk about the important news of the day, the really big stuff.
## [Kanye West and Political Pivoting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=130s)
Kanye West—I missed a day, so I’m a little behind on the news—but most of you know that Kanye is pulling back from politics because he says he did not design the Blexit t-shirt, hat, and logo. There was a suggestion that he was the designer and he wanted to pull back because he felt used.
My take on this is that it would be very unlikely if Candace or anybody else intentionally said, "Hey, let's just claim that Kanye designed this and it's his." I don't think anybody did that; it just sounds like a miscommunication. The actual event is less important than the bigger picture. Were any of you surprised that Kanye pivoted away from Republicans?
Think about what he said: he wants to run for president in 2024. If Kanye really wanted to run for president in 2024, how long should he keep being more friendly with Republicans than Democrats? Well, not too long. He’d be better to pivot over to the Democrats because that's the only party he could get elected in. As popular as Kanye is with Republicans, he's popular because of his style and the fact that he's willing to embrace President Trump. He's popular for reasons that don't have anything to do with policy. On a policy level, it feels to me he's going to be more likely leaning Democrat. There's no way he would run as a Republican.
## [The Strongest Presidential Positioning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=254s)
What is the very strongest package you could create going into a presidential election? Well, you saw President Trump do it: he used to be a Democrat. Now he's a Republican. You saw Mike Bloomberg do it: he used to be a Republican, and then he became a Democrat. To my mind, the strongest positioning, the strongest setting of the table for becoming president, is that you used to be on the other side—or at the very least, you used to be really friendly with the other side.
The thing that people care about most when they're voting for president is: "Are you on my side? Can you understand my side? Have you ever had an appreciation for my side?" It's one thing that you don't agree with me; it's routine that somebody doesn't agree with you. Reagan also switched. Reagan was a Democrat and he also switched. What that does is it allows the other team to say, "Well, I don't love everything about your policies, but I still like you. And if I still like you more than I like the one running from my own party, maybe this time I'm going to go over and vote for the other side."
In a sense, Kanye was pacing the Republicans because he was agreeing with them in their support for President Trump as a person and not damning him as a crazy racist. I want to make sure that I'm not putting any opinions into Kanye; his opinions are for him to express. We don't know what he's thinking; we can only observe what's happening.
What's happening is he's doing exactly what you would do if you were really smart and planning to run for president in 2024. What you've seen this week was consistent with being brilliant if you plan to run for president. It would also be consistent with not wanting to run for president, because in either case, he wants to demonstrate his independence of thought. He can be pro-President Trump as a person and want him to look good as a leader because he represents the country—that's essentially what Kanye said—but he's also a free thinker. He doesn't have to stay in any camp longer than he wants to.
I like that. My opinion of Kanye went up a little bit because it is the time to pivot. He needs to live in a community that is primarily anti-Trump. For practical, professional, personal, and even political reasons, it was important for him to show some independence, which he just demonstrated in a graphic way. The actual source of the dispute—a miscommunication about the logo—is probably not the important part of the story.
## [CNN and Reporting Opinion as News](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=435s)
Let's talk about the campaign ad President Trump is running that CNN has labeled on the top left of their page. As I've taught you, the top left of a news page is the news that the organization has judged is the most important. CNN's most important news, just a few days before the midterms, is "Trump campaign releases racist ad."
Here's the thing: that's an opinion. It's purely an opinion that it's a racist ad, and they're actually reporting it like it's news. Then they don't show the ad. The most important news is that the ad is racist, yet they don't show it.
## [Don Lemon and the Ad Controversy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=561s)
Right below that, the second most important thing on CNN is: "Don Lemon says this is Trump's ad and here are the facts." Don Lemon just came out on TV publicly as a racist who's got a problem with white men. That really happened. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but please Google "Don Lemon white man." You'll see the video in which he says that the real problem in this country—you should really hear it in his own words because I don't want to accidentally mischaracterize it—but his essence is he has a problem with white men as the problem in this country.
I'm not going to fact-check that; I'm just saying that he said that. By the standards of this country, that would be racist as I understand what the word means: someone who's biased against a particular race or gender—in this case both, because he made it male.
He's talking against Trump's ad that CNN has labeled as racist. If you haven't seen the ad, I'm not going to play it, but it shows a cop-killer who must have come from south of the border. He’s in court, having just been convicted for killing two cops, and he's laughing and saying that he wished he'd killed more. It's translated from Spanish, so you can tell he wasn't born in this country. It's just one guy, and then it shows other criminal types in the caravan.
Is it racist to show one guy who accurately did come across the border and then killed two cops? Can facts ever be racist? I guess they could be, depending on how you organize them. If you organize them so you left out other facts and it created a misleading narrative, sure. But I didn't see anywhere in the ad that suggested everyone in the caravan was a cop-killer. Any reasonable adult looking at that ad would say, "Oh, there are some bad people in this group and we don't know how many." I don't know how you could come to any other conclusion except that some number of people coming across the border are committing bad crimes.
It’s interesting that CNN reports their opinion as news. Who reports something that's clearly an opinion as news, even if the opinion is right? It doesn't even matter whether the opinion is true or false; how do you report that as news?
## [Jon Stewart’s Return](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=810s)
Did you all see the Jon Stewart interview? Jon Stewart essentially said that Trump is triggering the media and that members of the media are taking it personally. Because they're taking it personally, they're falling into his trap, overreacting, and putting all the attention on what he wants.
I read this article and my reaction was: Uh oh, their only smart guy came back. It feels like he's the only person who understands what's going on who's also a Democrat. Have you heard anyone on the entire anti-Trump Democrat side say what Jon Stewart just said? It is so obviously true and frames it correctly in a way that could possibly help them recover from their Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Jon Stewart is not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. He's looking at it from the outside. He's on the inside of the political bubble, and yet he gave you a view of what it looks like from the outside. How many people on the left have the intellectual capability to do what Jon Stewart did?
I'll give you Michael Moore as another person who seems to understand what's going on from both the inside and the outside. Michael Moore understands Trump better than almost anybody on the left, which is to his credit because Michael Moore understands a certain segment of the population that Trump also understands. Bill Maher, however, is in the Trump Derangement Syndrome category on this topic. He seems to be taking it personally.
Jon Stewart completely accurately framed the problem on the left. The media is falling into Trump's trap because they take it personally. I think it was brilliant.
## [Birthright Citizenship and Media Sabotage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=1113s)
Did you see the clip when Trump announced he wanted to end birthright citizenship with an executive order? Experts are saying you can't do that, but CNN realized it was a distraction from other issues—and it was a positive distraction. If Trump was successful in making them think about birthright citizenship, it was a real good "last thought" going into the midterm election.
CNN knew they were being had and they couldn't stop talking about it. There’s a clip of the CNN hosts saying, "He's just tricking us to make us talk about this," and then another host would say, "But we're talking about it. It's working. We can't not talk about it. But he's tricking us... and it's working." It was frickin' hilarious because they were so unhappy talking about the news. The news is what the president says because he's the president. Watching them essentially sabotaging themselves on live TV was one of the funniest things you will ever see.
## [Midterm Predictions: A Photo Finish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=1175s)
I'm going to make a fun prediction for the midterms. People are saying the Senate is probably going Republican, so I'll go with the experts on that. But in the House, which we imagine is supposed to go to the Democrats—if the House race goes the way everything else has gone in the Trump era, what will be the outcome?
It’s going to be a photo finish with an ambiguous ending. If it's like everything else, we won't know who won on Election Day. If one side wins by a majority of just one, two, or three representatives, people are going to say "recount." They’ll say something fishy happened in that district. "Why were there more votes than people? Why was that polling place closed early? Did Russia have anything to do with the election in this area?"
I categorize this as a "fun prediction," meaning I don't have a ton of confidence in it. But if it's like everything else, there will be some gray area or dispute. It won't feel like it's done. Trump wins the primary, but then there’s talk they'll take it away at the convention. He wins the presidency, but then there's the Russia stuff. He goes for the Supreme Court nomination for Kavanaugh and it’s like, "He's in, but maybe we'll claw him back somehow." It's just one thing after another that you think is done, but isn't.
## [The Lying Pollster Factor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=1482s)
Does any adult have an expectation of privacy in the digital domain? Does any adult believe that no one can ever find out what they're doing on email or text? Some people—maybe 5%—will say to themselves, "There's no such thing as privacy, and my life is not better if people find out I'm a Trump supporter."
There's a very high likelihood that something like 5% of the people answering polls are just flat-out lying. They're lying just in case they really don't have any privacy and just in case they got on a list somewhere. I'm not saying those risks are real; I'm saying that if you have a hundred people, some of them might think that way.
## [Modeling Energy and Turnout](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=1542s)
I've predicted what I call a jaw-dropping Republican turnout. Most midterms are not just about the president, but this president is special. Everything is about Trump. You've got a president with 90% support on his own side, and what matters most is how many of them are actually activated.
The president, by going rally to rally, is demonstrating his own level of energy. He needs voters to model him. He needs them to pace him. He needs the voter to ramp up to his level of energy because that's what gets you off the couch. He's bringing these record-breaking political crowds into an arena and showing you how much fun they're having together.
I don't see video of Democrats in big crowds having fun together. The Democrats are either small groups, unhappy groups, or angry groups. Whether it's street protests or talking to their leaders, they're either angry or there are not many of them. Trump is showing one image after another of enormous Republican crowds that are happy and high-energy. They love the collective feel of it.
President Trump, the most influential person in a hundred years, has directly asked the people who like him best to actually go vote. You've never seen it done like this before. You've never seen a leader model it, move your energy up, and make you part of a group. He’s created this whole feeling of what it's like to vote for him, and it's all positive. It would be especially entertaining if the Republicans came from behind again because it would be another surprise win. Trump's persuasion on turnout will be the best you've ever seen.
The Democrats are highly incentivized, but they're incentivized by anger and fear. Does negativity get you to go somewhere? And who on the Democrat side is asking them to vote? The "ask" matters. You have to directly close the sale. The Republicans have a central figure with 90% approval asking them. The Democrats don't really have a spokesperson with that kind of persuasive quality, though they are still very motivated.
## [What Happens if the House Flips?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=1969s)
If the Democrats do take the House, President Trump will get stronger, not weaker. The reason is that he's uniquely qualified and capable of working with both sides. If he has a narrow majority of Republicans, he might not try as hard to work with the other side. But if the Democrats had the House, they would have to play a little bit productively. If you have no power, you don't have to be productive. If you do have power, you kind of have to be productive, and that means working with the president.
Immigration reform and healthcare are two areas where the only way something gets done is if both sides are a little bit unhappy. The only way you get there is with a deal where both sides have some responsibility and power. Trump has two ways to win.
## [Visual Persuasion: Caravan vs. Healthcare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=2158s)
Trump gets the visuals right all the time. He's talking about immigration while there’s the powerful visual of the caravan. The wall is visual. A picture of a cop-killer on a commercial is visual.
What do the Democrats have? Healthcare. Imagine a picture of healthcare. You can't do it. A doctor? There’s nothing. People don't get activated by concepts. Climate change? You can show weather, but I'm not sure people are connecting the dots. Climate change doesn't have a good visual, partly because the Democrats are trapped in their own scientific bias. They want to stick to the facts and settled science, but you don't prove science by showing an anecdotal hurricane. They have a visual they could use, but they can't really use it because their brand is about sticking to the facts.
## [QAnon and Jack Posobiec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=2284s)
Has anybody heard from Q lately? Did Q just go away after Jack Posobiec essentially laid bare their entire history? It feels to me it's over now. I'm going to claim victory on correctly identifying Q as not a "deep state" actor. People are saying Jack killed it; he had the goods on him.
Q might need to stay quiet to keep off the radar for a little while before the election. That would not be the wrong thing to do.
## [Wrapping Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEapoo_A0Wo&t=2412s)
*Win Bigly* came out in paperback yesterday, so you can get that now. There is a new chapter in the softcover that is an update on my predictions, so you can see what I got right.
I've said enough. I've got nothing left. I'm going to go look at that video of Trump visiting the synagogue and I'll talk to you all later.