Episode 288 Scott Adams: Elections, Alien Probes, Racist Ads
Date: 2018-11-06 | Duration: 26:02
Topics
CNN reports cigar-shaped interstellar object, possible alien probe President Trump says he’s going to tone it down…be nicer Have interstellar aliens taken over our President? “Even” Fox News won’t show the GOP ad accused of racism The standards of 2018 Both parties have tried to brand other side by the worst few The possibility of a split congress Hawk Newsome and voting rights for ex-cons
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## Transcript
## [Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=4s)
Boom boom boom boom boom ba ba ba ba ba. Hey everybody, come on in here. Eddie, good to see you this morning. Eddie, cool. Who else we got coming in here? Everybody's coming in now. Hey Nancy, hey fuzzy, hey Ronald, Dan. It's almost time for this special election day midterm version of Coffee with Scott Adams. It's going to be a fun day. Let's start it by enjoying our favorite beverage. Grab your stein, your mug, your glass, your cup, your container. Fill it full of your favorite liquid—I like coffee—and join me for the simultaneous sip.
## [Harvard Paper on Interstellar Alien Probes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=68s)
You may have missed some of the big news of the day. CNN is reporting that a Harvard paper claims there's a cigar-shaped interstellar object that may have been an alien probe that went through our solar system. That's right, a gigantic cigar-shaped interstellar object may have been an alien probe. The Harvard paper says it, and they show a picture of it. It turns out that the alien probe looks exactly like a big rock.
If I were an alien and I were going to design an alien probe, I would make it look like just a regular rock. That's how I would do it. So, while this alien probe, which coincidentally looks like a rock, has been visiting our universe, I think it's a sign that anything can happen.
## [Has Trump Been Replaced by Aliens?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=129s)
At the same time we get a report about an interstellar object that might be an alien probe, we hear in an interview that President Trump has agreed that perhaps he should tone it down and be nicer. What? In the same week that we have an alien probe, President Trump says he's going to tone it down and be nicer? Connect the dots, people. Connect the dots. Aliens have already taken over our president.
I think that's obvious now. Our president does not tone it down; he does not agree to be nicer. It has to be aliens. I think we've solved that mystery.
## [The GOP Campaign Ad Controversy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=190s)
It turns out that campaign ad for the Trump campaign that showed the cop-killer was very well-distributed and got a lot of attention. It turns out that even Fox News won't run it anymore because it's too racist. Everybody is saying, "Even Fox News won't run it. That's pretty racist."
You have to work on your brand when people are saying even you think it is racist. You know you've done something wrong with your brand when people say it that way. NBC also decided not to run it. When they report NBC decides not to run it, they say NBC thought it was too racist. But when they report that Fox News didn't run it, they say "even Fox News." Maybe Fox News needs to shore up that brand a little bit.
## [The Standards of 2018](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=251s)
My take on it was that if you're going to talk about crime from south of the border, you're going to want to make it visual because just talking about crime as a concept doesn't work. If you're going to make it visual, it's going to be a person, and it's going to be a person who came from south of the border. It would have been hard to tell the crime story without creating a commercial that looked racist based on the standards of the day.
The standards of 2018 are that if you show one person and that one person happens to not be white—or a white male—the assumption is that you're talking about all of the people. You could question whether that assumption is a reasonable one, or a true one, or crazy, but that's the standard. The standard is if you're only going to show one person as a bad example, the only kind you could show would be an adult white male, and then people wouldn't make assumptions. If you show any other ethnicity or a woman, then people make assumptions.
My take on it was that it does come across as racist, which is different from saying that the people who made it are racist. There's a big difference between saying the ad comes across to people who watch it as racist and saying the people who made it are racist and they wanted you to know it. Those are different concepts.
## [Branding Opponents by the "Worst Few"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=373s)
We've just watched an election cycle similar to others in which both sides try to brand the opponent by the worst few people in their group. The Democrats are trying to brand all Republicans by whatever small percentage are actual racists. Even though it's just some small percentage, the idea is: let's call them all racist because they're not doing enough about the racism.
Of course, the Republicans brand the Democrats as being exactly the same as the worst Democrats. A few of them want to be communists and have open borders and crazy stuff, and Soros is the devil. Both sides are branding the other side by the worst few people in the group. Normal politics. The same was done with the criminals coming across the border. It's the same technique both parties are using against each other: pick the worst people in the group and then say that somehow represents the group.
When the campaign commercial did the same thing, unfortunately, it came off as looking pretty darn racist, so the big networks are not running it. Does that matter today? Not today, because the election is already here. The ad probably did whatever damage it was going to do.
## [Checking the WhenHub App for Poll Reports](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=434s)
I've asked people if they want to give a report from a polling station to use my company's app interface by WhenHub and to put in either "election" or "poll." I see there is one person in Newtown, Connecticut, who is a poll watcher. I tried to call her a minute ago and she didn't answer. Let's see if she answers this time.
This is somebody at one of the polling places in Connecticut, but I don't know if she's really there or just left her profile on. If she answers, we'll see what she says. If there are others of you who see something interesting at a polling place today, just use the free interface by the WhenHub app, sign up as an expert, and put in your keywords "poll" or "election" and I'll give you a call. It looks like maybe she's not online anymore.
## [Election Day Optimism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=558s)
No matter what happens today, it is a victory for the United States. It is a victory for democracy. Election Day—I hate to be the one who's always looking at the good side of things—but if I may, here's the good side of today. As rancorous as things have been, an entire nation is watching while the people who are willing to actually vote show up by the tens of millions.
Odds are there will be no violence. Think about that. There might be a skirmish here or there, but the odds are in this entire gigantic country, there will be no violence for the most part. Chances are that whatever the result is, the country will accept it. That's amazing. Chances are that when we're done, we will still have a government that functions better than most governments, and we will move forward.
## [The Possibility of a Split Congress](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=620s)
If it turns out that we have a split Congress—Senate goes one way, House goes the other—I am not convinced that will be worse for the country. We will do different things than if it were not split, but my guess is that healthcare, immigration, infrastructure, and maybe prison reform or drug laws... there are a whole bunch of things that almost require both sides to buy into them.
If you don't have a split Congress, I don't know if you can get any of that done. If it's just one side, the other side will go nuts trying to stop them. You need both sides to have a little bit of power to have a creative tension. We may be on the cusp, even if it ends up being a split Congress, of being stronger than we've ever been because that will give us the power to do the things that need to be done. We do have a president who can deal with both sides if he needs to; he's sort of unique that way.
Let's celebrate the day. Tens of millions of Americans who are deeply committed to the preservation of the system and the betterment of the United States are going to these polls or have already voted, watching with great interest in the best interest of the country. As the United States goes, so goes much of the world. You're seeing one of the coolest things this civilization can ever serve up: a successful Election Day in the United States. It's one of the greatest things that could ever happen in the whole history of the world, and you get to watch it live today.
## [A Preview of the Results](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=743s)
Here's my preview of what I'm going to say no matter what the outcome is: Good job. Whatever the outcome is, both sides fought hard. Both sides brought their best. I saw tremendous energy. If the Democrats grabbed the House, I for one am going to say, "Good job. You put in the time, you put in the work, you did the legwork. If you win, good job. Let's get something done."
If you don't win, I'm not going to rub it in. That's my personal decision. I hope that you join me. We may be on the verge of something very good, and it almost doesn't matter who wins. I think we're on the verge of being an even better country than we were. That's my optimism for today. I hope some of this rubs off. It feels like there's something about Election Day in which all of the anger and all of the division for just one day collapses because everybody's doing the same thing: voting or watching the vote with great interest. At least for today, until the results are announced, we're all very much Americans.
## [Live Turnout Reports](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=865s)
Has anybody voted, and can you report on the size of the lines compared to other midterms? It's only 6:00 a.m. where we are. Longer than 2016? Big lines. Longer than earlier? I voted early; longest I've ever seen. I'm looking at your comments. Massive turnout. Rainy, pouring down in Pennsylvania. Big lines in Texas.
You can't really tell because of all the early voting, but you should be able to tell something by the physical voting today because the early voting was bigger than ever. If the lines are also bigger than ever, that tells you that combined they're bigger than ever. Des Moines was quiet; that's probably not a big surprise. Miami lines were empty—that's interesting. It depends on the location. There may be some cities where people just get up later.
It's pouring in Delaware and Georgia. Raining in Alabama; big turnout. Early voting seems more than 2016. Huge lines in Texas. Rainy in North Carolina. In Pennsylvania, it took five minutes. Raleigh: long lines. Fort Pierce, Florida: small. Miami: heavy. West Michigan: big. Houston's packed.
## [Amazing Grace at the Trump Rally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=1047s)
If you watched, you probably saw the results of the Trump rally in which a woman had some kind of a medical problem. She passed out or she fell down, and as the medical folks were working on her, the President paused his speech, and spontaneously the audience started singing "Amazing Grace."
It was kind of a cool moment. It's a sort of moment that the pro-Trump people like a lot. The anti-Trump people don't care or won't see it, so it won't change any votes, but it was this great shared moment that did not make the Trump supporters look dangerous. You saw the most well-behaved, well-meaning group of people that you'll ever see in your life.
I've often said that the safest place on earth would be a Trump rally. Think about it. Where's the safest place you could possibly be? I think even the woman who had the medical problem would confirm they had medical people there. The moment one person out of tens of thousands had a medical problem, the entire stadium and the President of the United States stood back all at once. There are some times when everybody is on the same side, and it's when somebody gets hurt.
## [Voting Rights for Ex-Cons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=1172s)
Hawk Newsome texted me yesterday and asked me if I would help amplify his message. I think it's for Proposition 4. In Florida, there's a ballot proposition to let ex-cons who have paid their price vote, to which I do agree. I think ex-cons should vote.
If you're very political, you say to yourself, "No, we don't want them to vote because they might not vote Republican," and you're Republicans and you hate it. To which I say, who cares? You're in America. If you've paid your debt, you should get to vote. Now, it turns out that you could always petition to get your vote back in Florida, so it's not that you couldn't vote before; you just had to do some paperwork. I believe that new law does nothing but change it so that the paperwork is unnecessary.
If you're telling me that getting rid of paperwork and letting people vote is not Republican enough, I say you don't know what a Republican is. If you're not in favor of getting rid of some unnecessary paperwork and letting every American who has paid their debt vote, you're just not being very Republican in my opinion.
Of course, I know that will change the vote balance and it would be bad for Republicans, but how many ex-cons are really going to vote? It's hard to get anybody to vote, and I've got to think that the class of people who are ex-cons may just have other things to do. They may not be thinking about politics so much. So, I was happy to amplify that message from Hawk because we agree there. Where we disagree, we can agree to disagree, but we'll work on it productively.
## [Cannibalizing Your Own Product](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=1295s)
In the business world, there's a phrase for that. If you're in business and you make a product and it's hugely popular, the first thing you should think of doing is cannibalizing it. That means replace it with another product that takes the sales from the one that's good. Why does that make sense? It makes sense because if you don't do it, somebody else is going to cannibalize your product.
In a very indirect way, if you're Republican and you were in favor of giving ex-convicts who have paid their debt the vote, I think that's just a higher level of operating. You should hope that some of that goodwill comes back to you, but preventing it just doesn't feel American to me.
Someone says it's a "slippery slope." Well, if you don't let a convict vote, you're also not letting them become part of the system. If they're not part of the system and they're already inclined to be criminals, that's just not a good look. Your best-case scenario is to give ex-convicts the vote because it makes them feel part of the system and allows them to buy into something bigger than themselves. The reason you should do it is selfish: you should want them to buy into the system because that helps them get on the right path. The last thing you want is for them to commit another crime because they feel like the system is here and they're there, and it's just two different entities.
## [Signing Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWv6OeNCrk&t=1482s)
Oh, my computer just spontaneously turned weird. I'm just sitting here and suddenly my computer screen just went haywire. That's not a good look. I'm going to sign off now and I'll check back with you later today as we get more information about the election. To answer your question: yes, I am "left of Bernie" on a lot of social topics. I guess I'm rebooting. I'll talk to you later.