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Here are Trump’s tools for presidential victory, ‘Dilbert’ creator underscores on ‘Bill Maher’ (+Video)

By Michael Cavna
May 28, 2016

IT’S FAR TOO soon to take a victory lap. But Scott Adams can take a bell lap.

The “Dilbert” creator appeared on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” Friday evening, buoyed by the fact that his Donald Trump predictions, issued since last year, are continuing — like the presumptive GOP nominee himself — to gain traction among many people.

As The Post’s Comic Riffs wrote in March, Adams has been fascinated since last summer with how the stumping Trump was deploying the techniques of a “master persuader.” That recognition prompted Adams to predict Trump’s rise and subsequent victory, ultimately telling Comic Riffs that Trump will win the presidency in a landslide.

“He’s not a crazy clown — everything he’s doing … is ‘persuasion perfection,’” Adams reiterated to Maher on Friday, referencing formal tools in the art of persuasion. Added the cartoonist: “He’s basically taking a flamethrower to a stick fight.”

[Donald Trump will win in a landslide. *The mind behind ‘Dilbert’ explains why.] http://tinyurl.com/je5ockf

In the interview, Adams maintains these six points:

* That Trump’s campaign aim when speaking, smartly, is “not about facts,” but rather is about “focus and attention.”

* That Trump is skilled at not providing many rhetorical targets for his opponents to attack.

* That Trump is adept at the “sticky insult,” such as labeling Jeb Bush “low-energy.”

* That Trump has a knack for branding foes with negative nicknames — such as Crooked Hillary and Lyin’ Ted — because he is appealing to “confirmation bias.”

*hat Trump is deft at how he tries out these negative nicknames in public, right before our eyes — like staging “A/B” auditions for the audience itself to decide whether “Heartless Hillary” or “Crooked Hillary” has better resonance.

* That for all the rhetorical technique Trump has in these areas, “there’s none of it on Clinton’s side.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/28/here-are-trumps-tools-for-presidential-victory-dilbert-creator-underscores-on-bill-maher-video/