Episode 286 Scott Adams: Framing the Political Divide
Date: 2018-11-04 | Duration: 23:06
Topics
If the caravan is successful, it will rewrite our immigration laws In effect, strangers will be determining our immigration laws Shooting the rock throwers is the correct persuasion framing …but they probably won’t
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 Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=6s)
Hey everybody, get in here! Hey GG, hey Andrew. You're up early this morning. Come on in here because you know what time it is. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams. It's sort of a slow news day, so we'll be going to the whiteboard to sum it all up.
Now, with 1,000 viewers, that's your signal to grab your mug, your cup, your stein, your beverage, your flask—bring it to your mouth and enjoy that sweet, sweet beverage. I like coffee. Now join me for the simultaneous sip.
Somebody just said they got their first sale ever based on my tip. Well, congratulations! I don't know what it was you sold, but I'm going to say it was good.
## [Political Framings: Left vs. Right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=68s)
I've been thinking a lot about the way things are getting framed in this midterm, and I want to share a few of my observations on my whiteboard. Since it’s a slow news day, we're going to do something exciting on our own.
The first observation I had is that if you were to look at the people on the left and the people on the right, if you go further left or further right, you end up with Nazis. In other words, if you go to the people on the right of the political divide and you keep going right, you end up with literal neo-Nazis. On the left—and again, this is the impression of people looking at it—if you go left and left, you end up with George Soros, whom many conservatives call a Nazi, but I'm pretty sure that's based on fake news. I'm not saying that; I'm just saying that's the way people are saying it.
What's interesting about this is that everything above the line is unprofitable for the news industry. There's no such thing as news about an ordinary person doing an ordinary thing. All of the normal people are not really part of the news. All of the news is down in "Nazi Land," where both sides are accusing each other of being crazy. That's one framing I thought was interesting: the news drives us both below the line where everybody's a Nazi.
Here are some other framings I've seen. Take immigration or healthcare, for example. The typical framing on the left is kindness. We have to be nice to immigrants, and we have to be kind to people who need healthcare and help. The Republicans are more about the incentives. If you give people something for nothing, that might be good today, but tomorrow everything will break down because if you're giving stuff away for free, nobody will work or do the things they need to do.
There's also the "goals versus systems" framing. The left has what I would call goals: make it a fairer world, reach income equality, get healthcare, get education. They are goals—very specific things you want. People on the right are more likely to look at the system. They will say, "If you've got a good court system, and you've got capitalism, and you've got a Constitution, that's as far as we can go, and then all the good stuff flows from that." The right is mostly about following a system that makes sense, whereas the left is more about the end state.
The left is more about fairness—let's get our income equality, let's let everybody into the country who has a good reason. The right is more about abundance—if you make enough stuff, there will be enough for everybody. The left would call that "trickle-down," but the idea is that capitalism creates more stuff so there's more for everyone.
Then, of course, there’s the surface level where there's a lean towards socialism on the left in various amounts. Some would just like a little bit of socialism like Europe; some want a lot. There’s more emphasis on capitalism on the right.
## [The Caravan and Decision Sovereignty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=316s)
I have another frame that I want to run by you: who gets to make your decisions? I feel like that's important. Who gets to make your decisions?
Specifically, let's take a look at immigration. If we allow the immigrants who are in the big caravans to come into the country, we would first of all give them incentive to bring more caravans. The first thing we should all agree on is that when we're talking about the caravan that's coming, nobody cares about the caravan itself. Nobody on the left cares, and nobody on the right cares about the caravan. Everybody cares about what would happen if you treated them kindly versus treating them more harshly. Everybody cares about what happens after the caravan.
But everybody is an idiot, and we all talk like we care about this caravan. Nobody on the right cares about a few hundred people. Nobody on the left cares about a few hundred people. We only care about the precedent it causes, what the incentives are, and what happens after that.
Somebody is saying they care. Yes, you care about a few hundred people, but you care this much. There are 300 million people in the country; letting in a few hundred, you don't care about. You're not even going to notice. But if it caused more people to join caravans, you certainly care about what that caused.
If the caravan is successful, it will effectively rewrite our immigration laws. We don't have a law right now that says you can come in if you come in a big caravan. If they get away with it, whether they're bending some rules or whatever they're doing, they will have effectively rewritten our laws just by the de facto truth on the ground.
The question is: who gets to decide your laws? Do you get to decide them, or do people who are not part of your country—people you've never met, strangers—get to decide? To me, that seems like the strongest frame here. I don't think people on the right are talking about kindness or not being kind. Nobody's really on the kindness bandwagon; they're more about what works. Does it work to have a situation where other people decide how you spend your money? We have that in taxation, and the people on the right don't love it.
## [The Age Factor in Politics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=502s)
Here is another way to look at this left versus right divide. Everything here seems age-related. Have you noticed that the stuff on the left is the stuff you like when you're young? And you know what I say about young voters: they're the dumb ones. Young voters are the ones who are more idealistic. We were all young; we were probably all more idealistic when we were younger.
I want to say this again: I'm not insulting the young, because I was once young and I knew a lot less. I didn't know nearly as much as I know now. If you look at this framing of kindness versus incentives, kindness is sort of a child's frame. Incentives tell you what's going to happen in the long run. You can get more kindness if you make sure you've got your incentives right, but young people don't really think that way. They think in terms of what they are going to get right away.
Goals versus systems is the difference between youth and experience. Experience will design a system that works for everybody as best you can in the long run. Someone young will just say, "I want candy now! Why can't I have candy right now?"
Fairness versus abundance: everybody would like a fairer world, but people who are more experienced know that the only way you're going to get there is to make a lot of stuff. You're going to have to have enough stuff to share, or it's not going to happen. Socialism versus capitalism encapsulates this.
Finally, who makes your decisions: strangers or you? Is there anybody on either the left or the right who would say, "I prefer strangers to make my decisions"? Do a fact-check on me on that. Is there anybody who would prefer people they don't even know—literally strangers from another country—to make their decisions about how their money is spent? I don't think so.
I think people on both the left and the right would agree that having complete strangers, who don't even share your interests and are from another country, make your decisions would be a bad idea. I've never seen anybody frame it like this, and I just wanted to trot that out and see what it looks like.
Some people do want others to decide. Yes, socialism assumes the government is going to make decisions for everybody, but there's a big difference between having your government make your decision—a government you elected—versus strangers. You have control over your government by voting, but you don't have any control over people who live in other countries making your decisions for you.
The most powerful way to look at immigration is not whether it's kind or not kind, not the economics or the crime, but: who gets to make decisions about your money? Should it be you and the government you've elected, or people who don't even live in the country?
## [Midterm Election Factors: Weather and Flags](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=748s)
Now let's look at the election. The news is getting crazy, sides are being drawn, and I'm wondering if the weather will be the deciding factor. I haven't seen a weather forecast, but I'm not aware of any big storms. It doesn't look like there's a big rainstorm or snowstorm coming. November is actually probably a pretty good month for having elections for that reason.
The East Coast is going to get rain? I'm not sure rain will be as big a difference, but it should make some. I would love to know if there is a turnout difference based on the weather. It might be a difference between old people and young people. Will old people go out and vote if it's raining? Will young people go out and vote if it's raining?
Let me put it this way: how many young people don't have an umbrella? I'm making myself laugh because I just realized that one of the differences between young people and old people might be whether or not they have an umbrella. So the weather might make a difference.
People are fired up, but the difference between the vote outcomes is going to be one and two percent. A little bit of weather or a few stories going into the midterms are going to make a big difference. "We wear hoodies and jackets"—well, if it works for you.
You're seeing a lot of American flags on Twitter, and the more American flags you see, the more likely people will vote Republican. You could count the number of American flags and that should tell you a one or two percent flip as well. "Umbrellas and the old people"—somebody says I'm right, that's why the umbrella factor might be decisive because there is a difference in how people treat the weather.
## [Viewer Q&A: RFK and Flag Symbolism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=873s)
Have I ever talked to RFK about spasmodic dysphonia? No, not directly, but I'm sure he knows the options, so there's nothing to talk about.
Yes, somebody's saying this caravan is not the problem, it's what happens after it. That is correct, that's what I said. Should you make the flag a cover photo? Well, do whatever you feel like doing, but the more people see flags, the better. I wouldn't want to associate the flag with "you"—in other words, make sure the flag is not representing you; make sure the flag is representing the country.
I'm just looking at your comments. Today is sort of a low news day. There's plenty of news, but it's all the boring kind. It's all the stuff that says this candidate and that candidate are still within the margin of error on some unreliable poll. I don't care.
Why do I say hundreds, not thousands? Because the number of people who would actually get into the country from the ever-shrinking caravan might decrease from thousands to hundreds by the time all the filters have been exhausted.
Have I decided on the book title? I have. It's going to be *Loserthink*.
## [Shooting the Rock Throwers: Framing Force](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=997s)
What about shooting the rock throwers? Trump said that if the caravan people throw rocks at our military, they are authorized to use force and treat the rocks like a gun. If you get hit in the face with a rock, it's not that different from being shot. It's different than being shot in the face, but getting hit in the face with a rock is probably not that different from getting shot in the arm.
Here's my take on that: the whole point of having an overwhelming force is to convince the other side that you're going to use that force. It does make sense for the President to say publicly that they will use force. If force is used against them, that is the correct way to frame it because it reduces the chance of force. It tells people that the military is not there to play.
Now, what are the directions that the actual military people are getting? They are probably different from whatever the President is saying in public. I assume that the Rules of Engagement for the military are super, super restricted, meaning that if somebody didn't have a gun, they probably wouldn't fire. I think they would return gunfire, but I don't think anything short of that will be treated like a military action. I don't know that, but it would be the smart way to play it. The smart way would be for the President to be as hardline as possible so people understand the military is not there to play games, while the military has its own instructions privately to stand down except when they absolutely have to.
He did say to treat it as if they had been shot, not necessarily to shoot back. That's a good clarification. He did not say to shoot back; he said to treat it as if deadly force had been coming in their direction. I think that's a good direction. I'm glad you helped me clarify that. That goes to my point that the military is going to have pretty restrictive instructions.
## [Post-Midterm Firings and Racially Charged Language](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjaKVtGZCgo&t=1179s)
Who gets fired by Trump after the midterms? I think there may be a few. I saw a story on CNN that the Agriculture cabinet secretary used the phrase "cotton-pickin'" when he was talking about the race in Florida, which has an African-American man, Gillum, running for governor. Apparently, this older cabinet member said something like, "It's so cotton-pickin' important."
Of course, a lot of folks say you can't say "cotton-pickin'" when you're talking about anything that's racially charged. That's one of those situations very much like "monkeying around" or "articulate." There are a whole bunch of phrases that I'm pretty sure a large segment of the world doesn't register as having a racial charge.
When I was a kid, the phrase "cotton-pickin'" was just the most common phrase, and I don't remember ever thinking it had anything to do with race. If you grew up in a certain time, it was just a common saying that I don't think anybody associated with race—at least in the white community. I would not be surprised if that's where it came from, but you have to use the 48-hour rule. If somebody says, "Hey, that phrase was racially offensive," then the person who said it should have 48 hours to say, "I've been hearing that all my life; I didn't even know it was racially offensive. I take it back."
Personally, I would not use that phrase "cotton-pickin'," but only because I've recently been informed that it has a racial secondary meaning. I didn't know that; in fact, I think I learned that this year. It's just because I grew up in the North, and when I thought of picking cotton, I don't think I automatically associated that with any race. I just thought it was something that had to be picked.
Foghorn Leghorn said "cotton-pickin'" all the time, which doesn't mean it wasn't racial; it's just that those were the days when everything was more racial.
All right, I'm going to sign off because I don't have much more to say. I will talk to you later.