# What's with these oddball political comments by Dilbert artist Scott Adams? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 16, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104 "2016-09-16T18:39:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/21 "2016-09-17T15:50:45Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Keep in mind that Clinton’s campaign, like Obama’s, uses the services of Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and author of _Infuence_ and \*Pre-suasion \*, texts on how to make people susceptible to persuasion. But, of course, everyone here is absolutely immune to all that marketing influence. Only stupid people fall for that scam. No one here has ever bought a [del]product[/del] candidate because of their ad campaigns. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/22 "2016-09-17T15:58:55Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > But, of course, everyone here is absolutely immune to all that marketing influence. Only stupid people fall for that scam. No one here has ever bought a [del]product[/del] candidate because of their ad campaigns. > > :rolleyes: Well that’s a very apt comment because I think that that is pretty much Adams’s point expressed as a joke. We do feel that we are personally immune to these scams and all our decisions are based just on logic while the truth is that all our decisions are based on feelings and suppositions and then justified afterwards by “logic.” ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/23 "2016-09-17T16:06:13Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Well that’s a very apt comment because I think that that is pretty much Adams’s point expressed as a joke. We do feel that we are personally immune to these scams and all our decisions are based just on logic while the truth is that all our decisions are based on feelings and suppositions and then justified afterwards by “logic.” Oh, I wouldn’t argue at all, but in years of discussing the influence of marketing on our world and societies, I’ve been told by most posters here that they’re completely immune and have never been influenced by marketing or advertising. I’m just another CT/TFH/troll. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/24 "2016-09-17T20:09:06Z")
I’m sorry, but I don’t see Adams restating “There’s a sucker born every minute” or “Never underestimate the stupidity of the masses” (yeah, I know, paraphrased) as genius. So what? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/25 "2016-09-17T20:14:08Z")
Especially since he’s a paranoiac MRA, the ultimate in irrational emotionality. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/26 "2016-09-17T23:36:27Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Oh, I wouldn’t argue at all, but in years of discussing the influence of marketing on our world and societies, I’ve been told by most posters here that they’re completely immune and have never been influenced by marketing or advertising. I’m just another CT/TFH/troll. 🙂 You say these things as if they are mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/27 "2016-09-18T00:55:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Trump is great at manipulating people. Except it’s ridiculous to think that everything Trump does is intentional and planned. Trump is clearly operating as a moist robot himself half the time. He constantly does things that don’t help himself but rather feed his ego. I guess if Trump’s real conscious goal isn’t to win the presidency but to run for president in such a way that his ego gets constant affirmation maybe it makes sense. But that would require some self-awareness on Trump’s part. > > Yeah, Trump is a master manipulator. But he isn’t following a grand strategy, he’s winging it. And he constantly says things that don’t help him. He’s lazy and self-centered. To really be a master manipulator you have to have some understanding of other human beings, and Trump is a person who has zero empathy for other people. I don’t see it that way. I agree with Adams that Trump pushed the birther nonsense as part of a long term plan to raise his political profile with exactly the same people who would later vote for him in the primaries. Trump was going off of instinct, of course, but he knew where he wanted to go, and how he would get there. He may not have known he would get this far, but as Adams says, none of this was accidental. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/28 "2016-09-18T03:00:20Z")
Adams is a pointy eared boss who thinks he’s a Dilbert. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/29 "2016-09-18T03:08:41Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > I don’t see it that way. > > I agree with Adams that Trump pushed the birther nonsense as part of a long term plan to raise his political profile with exactly the same people who would later vote for him in the primaries. > > Trump was going off of instinct, of course, but he knew where he wanted to go, and how he would get there. He may not have known he would get this far, but as Adams says, none of this was accidental. I don’t. He has documented attention problems. He can’t be planning that far in advance. It’s just that he’s the type of person who naturally attracts those people. And he naturally stumbled on certain persuasion skills, a lot of them because he was able to ignore the.rules or society, and was too dumb to understand the risks. Most people would fail before learning through brute trial and error, but he didn’t (and starting out rich helped). He’s a narcissist who didn’t hit the usual failing points. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/30 "2016-09-18T04:05:02Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > For example, Adams has pointed out that Trumps outreach to black voters was never intended to woo black voters. It was intended to convince white voters that Trump wasn’t a nasty racist. All the public statements, photo ops, church visits, were aimed at white folks. This was obvious to me, but I keep reading commentary about how Trump’s efforts didn’t connect with black folks, that he was doing the wrong things, and so on. Trumps efforts were brilliant at getting him what he wanted - to appear less racist to white voters. Black folks were just props in a bigger play. Can’t help noticing this from Adams’ blog[a month ago](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/149412367306/con-man-or-hitler): [QUOTE=Scott Adams] Some pundits are pushing the interpretation that Trump doesn’t care about the African-American community, and that he’s just trying to be a safer choice for white people who don’t want to support a racist. That’s what a cognitive dissonance argument sounds like. It makes sense, sort of, but not in a persuasive way. It has a delicious pretzel quality to it. That’s the tell. [/quote] Adams is putting a lot of opinions out there, and not all of them are consistent. This considerably increases his probability of a lucky shot. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/31 "2016-09-18T17:01:19Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > You say these things as if they are mutually exclusive. As the old punchline puts it, “Hey, I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.” /hijack ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/32 "2016-10-19T01:01:10Z")
He now thinks Twitter is [shadowbanning](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151981022076/is-twitter-shadowbanning-me) him. If Twitter doesn’t answer him in 2 days, “As a patriot, I would feel obligated to help kill Twitter. (And you wouldn’t want to bet against me.)”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/33 "2016-10-19T06:49:48Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > He now thinks Twitter is [shadowbanning](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151981022076/is-twitter-shadowbanning-me) him. > > If Twitter doesn’t answer him in 2 days, “As a patriot, I would feel obligated to help kill Twitter. (And you wouldn’t want to bet against me.)”. :rolleyes: Is it ironic that comments are disabled for that blog entry? I’m not familiar with this blog, so maybe comments are disabled routinely. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/34 "2016-10-19T07:20:49Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Adams is a pointy eared boss who thinks he’s a Dilbert. You mean pointy _haired_ boss. Adams does not appear to be logical, like a vulcan, or magical, like an elf. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/35 "2016-10-19T14:33:03Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > I’m sorry, but I don’t see Adams restating “There’s a sucker born every minute” or “Never underestimate the stupidity of the masses” (yeah, I know, paraphrased) as genius. So what? Yeah, renaming long-established concepts — calling rationalization a “fake because,” for example — is more self-help manual schtick than genuine insight. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/36 "2016-10-19T15:14:20Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Can’t help noticing this from Adams’ blog[a month ago](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/149412367306/con-man-or-hitler): > > Adams is putting a lot of opinions out there, and not all of them are consistent. This considerably increases his probability of a lucky shot. I do not think these quotes are at all inconsistent. Trump _can_ care about the African-American community but at the same time engage in a political act which is aimed primarily at “undecided whites”. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/37 "2016-10-19T16:12:38Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > I do not think these quotes are at all inconsistent. Trump _can_ care about the African-American community but at the same time engage in a political act which is aimed primarily at “undecided whites”. No they are directly in conflict because “care” in the context of pundits talking strategy is caring about getting their votes. So he’s saying pundits are using pretzel logic/cognitive dissonance, also he agrees with them. Then there’s his interesting view of the first debate: > [@](#): > > Here’s how I score the night. > > Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner. I call that victory on the 2D chess board. But voters don’t care about facts and debating style. They care about how they feel. So let’s talk about that. > […] > But Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate Trump is the 3-D chess master. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/38 "2016-10-19T16:55:12Z")
See, there’s a difference between someone like Putin or Trump or Hitler being a 3D chessmaster who understands the game and thus is always several steps ahead of the primitive dunderheads back at headquarters, and Putin/Trump/Hitler being out of context problems for the normal people back at headquarters. It’s very clear that Trump has some magic buttons that he presses to get results. And his brilliant 3D chess strategy is to keep pressing those buttons over and over again as hard and as fast as he can. If the magic buttons work, he’s a genius. And when the magic buttons stop working he’s revealed as a dolt, because he’s just going to keep pressing the buttons harder. He’s an unstoppable out of context problem for his adversaries at first, but when they figure out his shtick they become unstoppable out of context problems for him. The reason we know he’s not a 3D chessmaster but rather a clever idiot, is that he can’t change his strategy just because his strategy isn’t working anymore. A real David Xanatos doesn’t keep pressing the buttons that won him the primary, because he realizes that he’s in a different sort of contest in the general election. That’s why all the “smart” people expected the Great Trump Pivot after the convention, where suddenly like magic Trump would start acting like a grown-up. Because he obviously didn’t care about the issues he claimed to care about in the primary, so he’d just do the expedient thing and pivot to grown up positions that would win him the general. But all that ignores the fact that Trump didn’t push the Wall because he thought it was a popular policy with Republican primary voters, but because it got him roars of approval at his rallies. And that’s what he really cared about, getting the rush from getting those cheers. And since he could never get a crowd to roar with approval at sensible grown-up positions, he could never pivot to those positions, no matter how many votes it would have gotten him. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/39 "2016-10-19T17:02:39Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > No they are directly in conflict because “care” in the context of pundits talking strategy is caring about getting their votes. So he’s saying pundits are using pretzel logic/cognitive dissonance, also he agrees with them. I do not think so. Look at the entire blog post the quote comes from. The main thrust of the post is about how Trump is perceived by the media and the voters in general \*not \*African-American voters in particular. There is barely a sentence in Adams’ blog post about Trump winning a greater number of African-American votes. Assume for a shocking second that Adams is a competent writer; that he picks his words intentionally and not at random. I think it therefore telling that in the quote under discussion Adams chose to use the phrase African-American \*community \*not African-American _votes_. If Adams wished to use the term _African-American votes_ he could have easily done so. His word use was intentionally specific. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104/40 "2016-10-19T17:22:54Z")
Well, I don’t think Adams is a particularly competent writer but putting that aside then he is misrepresenting what pundits were talking about or nutpicking the pundits at alternanet. Mainstream pundits were talking about his lack of support in the black community. At the end of the day, Adams seems to attribute almost every Trump move, even obvious missteps, to over our heads brilliant strategy/persuasion tactics. I really can’t take any of it seriously. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-these-oddball-political-comments-by-dilbert-artist-scott-adams/766104.md?page=3)