Dilbert creator Scott Adams thinks Hillary Clinton’s focus in this last week of the election on Trump’s views on women is a mistake, big time. From Adams on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
As I have taught you over the past year, the strongest form of persuasion involves fear. And the stronger the fear, the better the persuasion. For example, in the primaries, the biggest physical-fear story on the Republican side was terrorism and immigration risks, and that favored Trump’s bad-ass messaging. Result: Trump got the nomination.
For Democrats the biggest fear was that Trump might become president. That favored Clinton over Sanders in the primaries because it was believed she had the best chance against Trump in the general election.
Once the contest became Trump versus Clinton, Trump had the early fear advantage because Clinton was talking about her policies and experiences while Trump was talking about rapists, terrorists, and ISIS drowning people in cages. If that matchup had stayed the same, Trump would have coasted to victory. We saw him briefly pull ahead earlier in the summer.
Then Clinton went “full fear” in her messaging, cleverly framing Trump himself as the biggest risk to humanity. While Trump was scaring the public about crimes and atrocities that might affect some of us, Clinton was talking about Trump’s “temperament” leading to nuclear war, and his “dog whistles” leading to a new American racism. That would affect all of us. You can’t top that kind of fear message. And so we saw Clinton’s poll number zoom ahead of Trump’s later in the summer.
Then came the Wikileaks. And Project Veritas. And the FBI’s latest announcement about the emails on Weiner’s computer. We watched Clinton physically collapse in public. Individually, none of that news was big enough to make a difference. But collectively it framed Clinton as a drinker in dubious health, who hired bullies to start violence at Trump rallies, and runs a Mafia-like shadow-government called The Clinton Foundation, funded in part by companies that benefit from war. Add that to Clinton’s confrontational language about Russia, and suddenly Clinton looks as dangerous as Trump. The fear persuasion was approaching a tie.
Then the Access Hollywood tape dropped. Our brains forgot about fear for awhile and concentrated on the appalling things Trump said and – according to several women – actually did. Voters abandoned Trump and put his poll numbers in a big hole.
But here’s the catch. You might be disgusted by Trump’s interactions with women. You might think he is a terrible role model. You might think it is an insult to the women you know and love to even consider such a person for President of the United States. You might think a dozen different bad things about Trump. But – and here is the important part – you probably are not afraid he will try to kiss you personally, or grab your p*ssy. And given his busy schedule, there is not much chance he will get around to acting inappropriate with anyone you know. Fear-wise, Trump’s interactions with women don’t have much impact on you as an individual. Your brain took a vacation from “Trump has a bad temperament and might destroy the Earth” to “Trump is a p*ssy-grabber.” The new frame is the less scary version of Trump, albeit icky.
To continue reading: The Persuasion Scorecard Update – One Week Out
