Thursday, June 30, 2016

"The facts don’t matter. Facts never matter."

Persuasion Update: Clinton Vs. Trump | Scott Adams' Blog: "The persuasion kill shot against Trump is the accusation that Trump is a crazy racist. When you combine crazy and racist, you have a lethal persuasion cocktail. And that’s what the Clinton side has done. 

The folks on social media tested lots of accusations against Trump until they found traction with the “crazy racist” theme in all its forms. And Clinton’s campaign team wisely amplified it. Remember when social media was saying Trump wasn’t serious about running, or that he was a clown, or he was doing it for the money? 

Those accusations didn’t get traction, and Trump swept them away with his continued success.  But the accusations kept coming, one after another, until the combo of crazy and racist bubbled to the top, as measured by social media virality. The Clinton campaign recognized the crazy racist theme as the best approach and started hammering on it through a variety of “fear Trump” message. Fear works when facts do not. And “crazy racist” is totally scary. And totally working. You can test it for yourself by asking any anti-Trumper to list the top three reasons for disliking Trump. Some form of “crazy racist” will normally come out on top. Persuasion-wise, every other reason is just noise. 

If you’re new to what I call the Master Persuasion Filter, and you’re on the Clinton side, you probably don’t see any persuasion there at all. What you see appears to be facts that say – without a doubt – that Trump is a crazy racist. But all of that is confirmation bias and persuasion...  The facts don’t matter. Facts never matter. What matters is that the “crazy racist” label picked up enough confirmation bias to stick like tar."


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