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June 19, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
18:26
Episode 32 - That Big Rip in Reality You Just Saw From President Trump and Kanye
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Hey everybody! I'm sure you're all seeing the news.
Let me open up Twitter.
I want to read you a tweet from President Trump and from Kanye.
Let's see, where would that be?
Well, there's been a little bit of tweeting going on today.
So the tweet that's getting everybody's attention is that, I guess, Kanye tweeted a picture of himself wearing a MAGA hat that President Trump signed for him.
And then he later tweeted this.
This is one of the all-time great tweets.
This will, like, be in history as just, you know, one of the tweets that sort of defined what Twitter was all about.
All right, Kanye West. He says, You don't have to agree with Trump, but the mob can't make me not love him.
We are both a dragon energy.
He is my brother.
I love everyone.
I don't agree with everything anyone does.
That's what makes us individuals.
And we have the right to independent thought.
And then President Trump tweets back, Thank you, Kanye.
Very cool. Now, how big a deal is this?
Let me give you some context.
However big you think this is, don't know yet.
It might be bigger than that.
It might be bigger than that.
Now, I would say it's clear at this point that there's something going on with Kanye.
He's got a lot going on.
He's got albums. He fired his manager.
So there's a lot going on.
So, you know, I hope everything is good with him.
And I hope he knows exactly what he's doing.
I'm sure that we're seeing genius.
I'm not sure if there's anything else going on with him that we need to worry about.
That part you can't tell.
But the genius part is pretty clear.
Because his tweeting is, you know, is Trumpy and perfect.
Let me tell you why I think this is maybe a bigger deal than your first impression.
On the celebrity level, it's really good entertainment because it's the case of, as we like to say, it's a man bites dog.
It's just something you didn't expect.
It's out of place. It's fish out of water.
It's all those things. So it's everything that makes it newsworthy.
But that's sort of the base level.
There's something bigger here, and that's this.
We have this president whose biggest brand identifying characteristic is the negotiator.
And because our president is the most famous negotiator, We're watching what he does through their frames.
We see him negotiating with China, negotiating with trade deals, negotiating with North Korea, pre-negotiating with Iran.
Things will probably get a little hotter over there.
So our minds are tuned to it.
But we're also learning as we go.
We're watching the way President Trump is literally training us.
About how to think of things as negotiations.
What's your big first demand?
What's your visual persuasion?
Do you make them think past the sale?
Are you using optimism?
Are you making people feel aspirational?
Are you making a huge contrast between what they could have versus what they would have?
You know, so all of these techniques, you're watching the president model and demonstrate, and I believe it's sort of, it's having this effect on everybody else.
We're all getting smarter.
So we're all learning the skill just by watching it being practiced at the highest level.
About the African-American community in modern America, in modern America meaning like right now, is that they have given up all of their leverage.
And I don't know that it was intentional.
Maybe it was a historical drift.
But if you think about it, the only leverage in this sort of democratic republic kind of system is that you will change your vote from this side to this side if you're not getting what you want from that side.
That's the only leverage you have.
So to the extent that the black vote is sort of locked down, On the Democratic side, it gives African-American voters no power, right?
Because their vote is automatic.
There's no leverage.
You know, they're not really saying, I'm gonna vote for the Republicans if you don't give me what I want.
Kanye West, I'm sorry, yeah, Kanye West, but you know, before that, Candace Owens, are two voices that are not really the first people to be saying what they're saying, but they're the most effective.
So, you know, it's always hard to say who's the first person who comes up with any kind of an idea, the most effective.
And this idea is that it's okay To think independently and look for good things from anybody.
So it's okay to say you're mostly okay even if I don't like these parts about you.
It's okay to disagree with the people who seem to be on your team if you have a reason.
He's broken...
He's broken what I would call the couch lock.
Have you ever heard that term? It's a stoner term.
You know, you smoke a bunch of marijuana and you can't get off the couch.
You just... I think I ought to be doing something today, but I'm locked to this couch for a few more hours.
So, I would say the African American community had given up their leverage by being such a guaranteed democratic vote.
Kanye West...
Just sort of stuck a big old key in the lock and went like this.
And a lot of brains just went, oh, wait a minute.
We can vote for anybody we want.
And as soon as the black community quite seriously will vote for whoever does the best job, like really, not just talk, They have all the power.
Because everybody else is going to kind of stay in their lane.
You know, Republicans are going to be Republicans.
The Democrats are going to be Democrats.
But the black vote is big enough that if any substantial part of them says, you know, those Republicans, I know they didn't used to be a good deal, but what they're offering right now, You know, I already got a lot of good stuff.
You know, the laws are at least equal.
You know, there's a lot that is going right.
And that's probably not going to change.
But at the moment, Republicans, they got something I want.
Why can't I vote for him and get that stuff?
It's there.
I can get that stuff. So there's something very big happening, which is the ability to vote not based on, hey, this guy did one thing I don't like, but he's got some good ideas.
You can just take the stuff you like.
And it may be a very big deal.
But we'll see. We shall see.
Now, I've heard people say that Kanye is doing it just for attention to sell albums.
I would like to question that assumption.
I don't know that it would be a good idea to support Trump to sell albums.
In fact, it feels like the very worst idea that I've ever heard.
So those of you who are saying that Kanye is just trying to sell albums and that what he's doing is all part of his marketing deal, my view is that he's way smarter than that, meaning that he would know quite certainly that a full embrace of Donald Trump,
even without embracing his politics, I don't think it's going to help him.
Because I don't see the Republicans buying a lot more of Kanye music.
Because if they liked him before, you know, they would have been buying it already.
And if they don't like the music he produces, they're not going to buy it just because they like his politics.
So I don't see them picking up anybody on the pro-Trump side who wasn't already there.
There must be plenty of pro-Trump customers who were already buying his music and had nothing to do with politics.
It was just they like his music.
You know, I will confess I'm a music guy, but one of the few albums that I have purchased was one of his, and it was awesome.
So I don't think it helps him, marketing-wise, and I think he would know that.
So it seems to me that whatever is happening, whatever a company is doing, makes perfect sense.
Now, just before I got out and I saw a quote that said, There's one word, decentralized, and it was retweeted by Taleb, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, who was saying, what's going on here?
Now, I don't know what's going on with decentralized.
I'm guessing it either applies to the blockchain or it applies to the fact that power is so conspicuously moving onto the internet.
You're watching the people come alive a little bit.
You're watching ideas of what used to be a limit.
You're watching that fall away a little bit.
So, decentralized might be just one word that describes everything that's happening right now, right this week.
That the views of individuals and the power of the Internet You know, power is now sort of decentralized.
No, I don't know that that's what he means.
And I think it's fun that he makes us think about it and talk about it.
It's all very smart. It's, you know, sort of like the confefy strategy of tweeting.
By the way, have you noticed just the last few days that even his tweets look like they have a Does that sound better?
I'm not gonna say.
I think that's better now.
My microphone was on the ground.
I'm not gonna say that Kanye has decided to run for president.
And I'm not gonna say that, you know, I would support him if he did or his policies would be good.
We don't know any of that.
But if you just judge what he's doing today, it's really good.
So he has not only, Kanye has not only attracted an enormous amount of attention, but he's focused on what was an insanely productive avenue that was completely unserved, which is the reasonable person.
As weird as that sounds, the space in the political conversation for a reasonable person was completely empty.
And he saw it.
And he said, well, this would be useful.
Let's see where the reasonable middle gets us.
Let's see what happens when we stop being assholes to each other.
And just try to be helpful.
Now I hope that's his thought process.
And I hope that there's no way to know what's in his mind.
But it looks like he just saw this opportunity to do something that would be a personal risk.
This is a personal risk.
There's skin in the game here.
Kanye put his neck on the line to get this point across.
And I believe, because I don't see another reason that makes sense.
Kanye wants to sell albums.
Doesn't make sense. I don't think it's going to help him sell albums.
But the wanting to make the world a better place in this particular way, in a way that he could do, had the power, had the opportunity, saw the opening, took it.
That's what it looks like happened.
And for that, my God, good job.
All right. I don't know how to get rid of the racists who are commenting on here.
Dragon energy.
So, yeah, so in the tweet, Kanye uses the phrase dragon energy.
I feel like I know what that means.
You know, just sort of another way to say sort of warrior, you know, sort of an ambition, you know, can't stop me, sort of a power reference.
But notice how visual it is.
Dragon. You know, the best persuaders are visual.
So what has Kanye given us today?
A picture of a Make America Great having a visual.
And he referred to dragon energy.
You see the dragon. You can't say dragon energy without...
No, you see the dragon right there.
Very, very visual.
These are the tells that his talent is not...
His talent for persuasion is not an accident.
He's really, really good at this stuff.
You want dragon energy?
Well, it seems to me that if there isn't already a dragon energy drink, that there will be soon.
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately, it will remind people of Charlie Sheen and Dragonblood.
But I think the way Kanye did it was smarter.
Because rather than saying it was something about...
If Kanye had said, I have dragon energy, and maybe he has at one point, but if he had said it in the tweet, people would say, well, that's a funny thing to say about yourself.
But when you say that two people have dragon energy, it really does change it.
It softens it because you're not really talking about yourself.
You're talking about a... An analogy that applies to you and another person, so suddenly it becomes a little less narcissistic than it would if you were just talking about yourself.
Slightly less. Maybe it's a Game of Thrones thing.
Yeah, maybe it is. Yeah, so the...
I would...
I don't know if, yeah, we'll see if Kanye is helping Trump.
I don't see that as the direct effect that might be an outcome.
I see Kanye helping people.
So my take on this is that if you're thinking Kanye is all about helping Trump, I'm not really seeing that, except that Trump is a person and he's part of this great experiment.
Called the United States.
But this feels like it's directed at the public.
It doesn't feel like it's directed at Trump.
He would just be one of the many who could come out better if free thinking is allowed, which is the message here.
All right. And Kanye should redesign the Make America Great Again hat.
That's a funny idea.
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