113 Shares Reddit Email

Scott Adams did a good Periscope today on — Scott Adams explains some of the persuasion technique missed by the the shithole media. I think he’s a little bit as confused as I am why Dick Durbin (NOTE A) would leak that President Trump asked ‘why should we allow people from shithole countries into the United States?’

What Scott was focusing on was the use of swearing as a negotiating tactic. Let me spend a few minutes recapping before I ask the same thing Scott was getting to at the end of the Periscope which was — why did Dick Durbin throw the entire country under the bus?

I’ve been in my fair share of high level executive meetings and men — and woman — swear. There are good reasons as Scott notes:

Swearing clearly shows things you feel strongly about. It says “you can try to negotiate with me on this point but I’m probably not going to budge and if I do, I’ll want a big concession.” Swearing is a privilege of power. If you’ve ever been told that your ideas are fucking stupid by a CEO, you know what I mean. People swear and otherwise behave inappropriately to create a bond of trust that people will not share the inappropriate behavior outside the room. It’s a symbol of friendship since you only share these moments with people you know, like, and trust. Swearing makes something memorable. You might forget everything else in the meeting but if the CEO starts swearing, you’ll damn well remember it and you’ll compare notes afterwards with others who where there.

So President Trump no doubt used harsh language and no doubt swearing because he was in a room of powerful people and he needed to establish that he was running the show.

He’d no doubt used the same technique hundreds of times but this time was different. This time Dick Durbin broke the “collegial trust,” as Scott called it, and leaked the statement to the press.

Why? It seemed that progress on a very difficult issue was being made that presumably could benefit the country. And yet he threw President Trump and the entire negotiation under the bus. Why would he do this?

Occam’s Razor might be right in this instance that Dick Durbin is an idiot, a Democrat, and someone who would sacrifice the good of the country for his ego and his liberal inclinations.

But just for grins, let’s see what else there might be.

The best I can come up with is that Durbin decided since he couldn’t swear back at the President with “I’m a fucking Senator and I’m fucking well driving this agenda,” he did the next best thing.

It’s too bad since if he’d actually said it to President Trump’s face, the President would have probably just smiled and said “come up to the residence for dinner. You’re my kind of people you magnificent bastard!”

Scott had another observation which is that Durbin had signaled that they had a deal and evidently thought President Trump would rubber stamp it which may also be a source of ire.

In any instance, President Trump can easily now stall for time and insist that Durbin produce the plan so the country could debate it and once again gain control of the discussion.

Let me end with this:

Thirty years from now when you’re sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, ‘What did you do in the great World War Two?’ You won’t have to cough and say, ‘Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.’ No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say ‘Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named George Patton!’

Thirty years from now people will be asking “what was it like to be have Donald Trump as President?”

“He was a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch but he made American great again!”

NOTE A: Yeah, no one knows who leaked it but since the MSM doesn’t care, I don’t care either and I’m going with Dick Durbin.