Scott Adams on Trump

David Siegel sent me to a new Scott Adams post about Trump’s accomplishments so far:

[Update:  A commenter pointed out that I wrongly suggested that Adam’s claimed these were Trump “accomplishments”.  Actually he viewed them as “positive” events.]

Things That Are Positive

The economy

Trade deals

China relations

Russia (our frenemy) is working with the U.S. on Syria, North Korea

China is putting pressure on North Korea

Jobs

Healthcare progress (more to do)

Supreme Court nominee confirmed

Tax reform maybe

Optimism for an Israeli-Palestinian “deal”

Safe Zones coming along for Syrian refugees

Illegal immigration down over 70% because of Trump’s persuasion alone.

Business confidence high.

This is just bizarre.  Trump told us the economy under Obama was horrible.  Under Trump it’s almost exactly the same.  Job growth almost identical, GDP growth slower. Trump has accomplished almost nothing.  And now it’s good?

He has accomplished nothing significant on trade.  The only “plus” is that he has not implemented his worst ideas.  But abandoning TPP was a big minus.  What success is Adams referring to?  Surely not the deal where the Chinese tricked us?

China relations are no different.

The Trump Administration claims that Russian relations are at a new low.  What is Adams talking about?

China’s policy toward North Korea is the same as under Obama.

Job growth is the same.

I don’t see much sign of healthcare progress.

Yes, a Supreme Court Justice was confirmed–that’s a win.

Trump still lacks a serious tax reform plan.  So what is Adam’s giving him credit for?  Intentions?

“Optimism for an Israeli-Palestinian “deal””    Do I even have to comment on this?

Basically it’s all smoke and mirrors.  I understand that Adams has a lot riding on the success of Trump, but this list is just . . .

Sad!

PS.  I guess I’m not the only one who dislikes Trump.

PPS.  And don’t worry about these headlines, Scott Adams says things are going well:

Donald Trump’s leaking of classified intelligence to Russians ‘far worse than reported’

 

Donald Trump’s aides heard ‘yelling’ in White House office as presidency descends into chaos

 

GOP Senator: White House In A ‘Downward Spiral’

Update:  Recall this:

“The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!” the president said on social media in response to continuing coverage of the ongoing probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

As soon as Trump finds the leaker, I suggest he join OJ Simpson in searching out the real killer of OJ’s wife.


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29 Responses to “Scott Adams on Trump”

  1. Gravatar of bill bill
    16. May 2017 at 05:13

    And Gorsuch is a win for Republicans. His selection is totally unimportant for Trump.

  2. Gravatar of Matthew D Moore Matthew D Moore
    16. May 2017 at 05:21

    Adams’ whole bit is that reality doesn’t matter, only perceptions and persuasions matter. He is presenting Trump’s framing, deliberately disregarding objective facts. Adams would say that Trump is successful if people believe he is. As it happens, people don’t believe that at the moment. But attacking the raw framed claim isn’t engaging with his argument. You have to show that people won’t / don’t come to believe it.

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. May 2017 at 05:49

    Matthew, Just the opposite. Here’s what Adams said:

    “Did you find the pattern?

    All the important stuff is trending positive. Trump is not the sole cause of all that goodness, but he hasn’t broken anything important. That counts too. We’ve had plenty of presidents who broke stuff. Think of Nixon’s price caps, Carter’s hostage rescue mission failure, and Bush-the-younger’s Iraq war. When presidents don’t break anything, that’s a big deal

    The topics that are problematic for President Trump include unconfirmed gossip, rumors, fake news, irrational worries, imaginary problems, trivial matters, and simple differences in political priorities.”

    You should have read his post before commenting.

  4. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    16. May 2017 at 06:04

    Scott Adams is one big bag of hot air. And the best exhibit of confirmation bias. Only sees what he wants to see.

  5. Gravatar of Peter Peter
    16. May 2017 at 06:08

    Matthew, my take on Adams’ posts has always been that all his stuff about “Master Persuader” junk is and has always been his way of trying to hedge the fact that Adams himself finds Trump persuasive. He might at one point have thought academically that Trump frequently says things that aren’t true, but the more posts he wrote about it, the more obvious that he simply buys what Trump is selling.

  6. Gravatar of bill bill
    16. May 2017 at 07:39

    Trump has actually accomplished some things: I believe that immigration has fallen, the EPA is doing less, and Jeff Sessions is changing things. I’m against all those changes, but I do have to acknowledge them. Adams probably purposely didn’t mention them.

  7. Gravatar of Chuck Chuck
    16. May 2017 at 09:22

    “Basically it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

    That applies more widely than the present administration…

  8. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    16. May 2017 at 09:29

    @Peter: agreed, pretty close to my own take that Adams is a smart person and he can’t believe someone so stupid (about most things not everything) and incompetent can get so far. It must be ‘master persuasion’ not the idiocy of most voters.

  9. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    16. May 2017 at 09:58

    Scott, this is interesting: http://theresurgent.com/i-know-one-of-the-sources/

  10. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    16. May 2017 at 10:08

    … that link ties in nicely with the “far worse” link you posted.

  11. Gravatar of Gordon Gordon
    16. May 2017 at 11:38

    Unfortunately, it’s not just Scott Adams who is giving questionably positive assessments of Trump. The other day I saw Rick Newman who covers finance and economy for Yahoo News give Trump a B. And one reason Newman gave this assessment is due to the last 2 jobs reports indicating over 500k jobs added over the last 2 months. Unfortunately, he did not seem to be aware that this number came from the household survey rather than the establishment survey. And the establishment survey shows only 289k jobs being added during the same period. The more that I’ve learned about economics, the more I’ve realized the extremely poor job that reporters do covering the topic.

  12. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. May 2017 at 12:23

    Thanks Tom.

    Gordon, Good point.

  13. Gravatar of AnotherMatt AnotherMatt
    16. May 2017 at 13:49

    Scott, I think I’ve got a reading comprehension problem. You say, “new Scott Adams post about Trump’s accomplishments so far.” I click the link and the second sentence is “Here I will include topics that are not necessarily the president’s accomplishments or faults.”

    Then you point out why the things that Adams listed as “positive” are not Trump’s accomplishments.

    I read Adams as saying here are positive things that Trump is successfully taking credit for, regardless of whether he deserves it or not and regardless of whether or not there is hypocrisy involved or not. If you like the state of the economy then Trump will take credit, if you don’t like the state of the economy then Trump will either explain why should like the the state of the economy and take credit, or explain why for you the economy stinks and someone else to blame. Which someone else? Whomever you already blame. There’s basically two Trump modes here, accepting credit (due or undue) or joining you in opposing your enemies (real or imagined). In which case I don’t think you and Adams have much of a disagreement.

  14. Gravatar of Rick G Rick G
    16. May 2017 at 15:00

    I had a similar reaction to that post, but I think Adams’ larger point might be that all the things in the “good” column, even if not attributable to Trump, are still important to voters and going well enough that they will protect Trump from the scandalous things in the “bad” column.

  15. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. May 2017 at 16:04

    AnotherMatt, Ok, but that seems a bit disingenuous to me, especially given what he says at the end of the post, and given the reason Trump was elected.

    There’s one thing that both Trump’s fans and critics agree on—he was elected primarily due to the bad economy. So in what sense is the economy now good? Is Adam’s saying that Trump was wrong and Obama was right about the economy? Was Adams saying that during the campaign? I seriously doubt it, but if he was then I’ll correct the post.

    In any case, my main point here wasn’t that Adams was wrong about who deserved credit, but rather that the so-called “positives” were mostly imaginary–except the Supreme Court confirmation. So either way, Adams is wrong.

    Rick, If things are going well, then why was Trump elected?

  16. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 16:12

    This is just bizarre

    Of course it is, it goes against your fake news inspired DNC water carrying narrative!

    Trump told us the economy under Obama was horrible. Under Trump it’s almost exactly the same.

    No it isn’t

    And don’t worry about these headlines, Scott Adams says things are going well:

    “Donald Trump’s leaking of classified intelligence to Russians ‘far worse than reported’”

    This sounds like intriguing clickbait, let’s see that link:

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-leaking-classified-intelligence-061200404.html

    And let’s go deeper:

    “Citing current and former US officials, the Washington Post said”

    Hahahahaha, WaPo

    Hahahahaha, “citing US Officials”

    The WaPo reporting on “US officials”? Fake news

    You might as well say the National Inquirer cited anonymous sources that aliens kidnapped Stephen Hawking

    Next:

    Donald Trump’s aides heard ‘yelling’ in White House office as presidency descends into chaos

    Oh no! We better believe that! But to be sure, let’s just click on that link, what do we find?:

    “Buzzfeed’s White House correspondent Adrian Carrasquillo said journalists in the hallway could soon “hear yelling coming from the room where officials are”.”

    Hahahahaha, left wing Buzzfeed

    The same “failing pile of garbage” (that’s a funny label) that published a fake dossier about fake pissing on hotel beds.

    The same that claimed Ivanka is purposefully hiding her Jewish ancestry.

    The same whose writer Benny Johnson was found guilty of plagiarizing
    over 40 different times before being fired.

    The same that published an article titled “White People Are A ‘Plague To The Planet’” and other racist drivel:

    http://imgur.com/a/3ooKr#ENGBxnh

    The same that claimed its own poll “No longer reflects REAL PEOPLE” and edited it after the results were in favor of Trump:

    http://www.mrctv.org/blog/buzzfeed-hilariously-updates-own-online-poll-due-huge-trump-showing

    Hahahahaha, Buzzfeed, Sumner is citing Buzzfeed!! I can’t even

    GOP Senator: White House In A ‘Downward Spiral’

    Oh no! That surely must be the beginning of a resurgence in Gary Johnson’s political career. A GOP senator is saying something negative about Trump, wow, I thought this whole time that the GOP was a cult that all worshipped Trump.

    Update: Recall this:

    Hahahaha, left wing politico

    This is comedy gold everyone

  17. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 16:26

    Mark this acronym, because you are going to hear about it in the coming weeks/months: SEIU

    These are the people who John Podesta uses to do his “dirty work”, like murder

  18. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 16:29

    Jennifer Palmieri as well

  19. Gravatar of AnotherMatt AnotherMatt
    16. May 2017 at 18:25

    Scott, insofar as there was a difference between what you felt Adams wrote as opposed to the literal words on the screen you’re proving his larger point that there’s no objective reality, only perception. I believe his Master Persuader thesis is that Trump is good at taking all these things he only has little to no positive control over and leaving people with a vague association between the positive thing and Trump. Like if you gave a speech in beautiful weather and opened by saying that you ordered up a beautiful day for your audience. People who don’t care for you would point to your words and claim you were mad or had a god complex, but by and large people might start to form slight positive feelings towards you because of the beautiful weather. As for the other random things that Trumps says… haven’t you ever had a desperate undergrad search for just the right words to get what he wants from you? I just need to get a C to graduate… My grandmother died… I mean my father is a big donor… I mean I was just telling my friends the other night that NGDP futures markets are clearly the way to go… did I mention my I think my friend’s father is on the federal reserve?

  20. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    16. May 2017 at 18:53

    ‘I read Adams as saying here are positive things that Trump is successfully taking credit for, regardless of whether he deserves it or not and regardless of whether or not there is hypocrisy involved or not.’

    Adams didn’t even say THAT. He merely listed some positive trends and some negatives. In his judgment the positives are the more important issues, and the negative trends/criticisms are trivial. About which, Adams is mostly correct.

    Such is the irrationality of Trump’s critics they can’t even read simple, declarative English sentences concerning him, correctly.

  21. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 18:59

    Nigel Farage: “What on earth is wrong with countries sharing intelligence to stop ISIS?”

  22. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 19:55

    Impeach Trump!

    https://theintercept.com/2017/05/02/trumps-support-and-praise-of-despots-is-central-to-the-u-s-tradition-not-a-deviation-from-it/

    And, uh, ALL FORMER LIVING PRESIDENTS SINCE WW2 TOO!

  23. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 19:59

    “What’s really infuriating those attacking Trump for doing what the U.S. government has been doing for decades — supporting and praising heinous tyrants — is that he’s denying them the ability to maintain the myths they desperately tell themselves about their own country. Being able to claim that the U.S. is devoted to spreading freedom and democracy in the world is central to their internal monologue. From the Washington Post newsroom to the corridors of the State Department, this is the fairy tale that they tell themselves every day in order to justify their position as global arbiters of the behavior of other countries.

    Once that veneer is removed, once that fairy tale is dispensed with, then the harsh reality stands nakedly exposed: What they are defending is nothing more than the illegitimate and arbitrary exercise of imperial power. The loss of this fiction imperils their entire moral framework.”

  24. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 20:49

    Flynn was cleared by FBI on Jan 24 and Trump met with Comey on Jan 27. So why would Trump ask Comey to drop the Flynn investigation?

    Fake news!

    Comey wrote a “memo”, to himself, but did not release it, until after he was fired?

    Fake news!

    Every single person PRESENT at the intel meeting said the WaPo story is false.

    Fake news!

    They are trying to distract from the DNC murdering Seth Rich. They are getting scared!

  25. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    16. May 2017 at 20:58

    This man’s name is Shawn Licas

    https://i.redd.it/j94vu3v0zyxy.jpg

    He served Debbie Wasserman Schultz with a suit claiming she rigged the primary for Hillary Clinton.

    He was found dead in his bathroom by his girlfriend

  26. Gravatar of Major-Freedom Major-Freedom
    17. May 2017 at 03:14

    The fake news knows that their readers rarely read the whole articles. They know the titles are what the shills latch onto and spread.

    This is why so often, in the WaPo and NYT, you see deep in the articles statements that completely contradict th title,mor at least call it into question. So many times I have seen clickbait titles with content that includes at the end “no firm evidence of what we just said yet”, or some other clause. Or they correct their articles with a small statement in a future issue that hardly anyone reads.

  27. Gravatar of Major-Freedom Major-Freedom
    17. May 2017 at 03:16

    Or you see the article article’s thesis predicated on “unnamed sources” or “US intelligence officials”.

    Every single one of the headlines Sumner posted here, are based on “sources”, which today means fake news.

  28. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    17. May 2017 at 07:34


    Rick, If things are going well, then why was Trump elected?

    I thought it was common agreement that Trump was elected mostly because of “cultural” reasons, and not so much because of the economy.

  29. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    18. May 2017 at 06:33

    AnotherMatt, I agree that there is no such thing as objective reality.

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