As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. in other words, it was a joke
Posted on 09/25/2016 12:39:13 PM PDT by Be Careful
As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump, and I owe you an explanation. So here it goes.
1. Things I Don’t Know: There are many things I don’t know. For example, I don’t know the best way to defeat ISIS. Neither do you. I don’t know the best way to negotiate trade policies. Neither do you. I don’t know the best tax policy to lift all boats. Neither do you. My opinion on abortion is that men should follow the lead of women on that topic because doing so produces the most credible laws. So on most political topics, I don’t know enough to make a decision. Neither do you, but you probably think you do.
Given the uncertainty about each candidate – at least in my own mind – I have been saying I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. That neutrality changed when Clinton proposed raising estate taxes. I understand that issue and I view it as robbery by government.
I’ll say more about that, plus some other issues I do understand, below.
2. Confiscation of Property: Clinton proposed a new top Estate Tax of 65% on people with net worth over $500 million. Her website goes to great length to obscure the actual policy details, including the fact that taxes would increase on lower value estates as well. See the total lack of transparency here, where the text simply refers to going back to 2009 rates. It is clear that the intent of the page is to mislead, not inform.
So don’t fall for the claim that Clinton has plenty of policy details on her website. She does, but it is organized to mislead, not to inform. That’s far worse than having no details.
The bottom line is that under Clinton’s plan, estate taxes would be higher for anyone with estates over $5 million(ish). I call this a confiscation tax because income taxes have already been paid on this money. In my case, a dollar I earn today will be taxed at about 50% by various government entities, collectively. With Clinton’s plan, my remaining 50 cents will be taxed again at 50% when I die. So the government would take 75% of my earnings from now on.
Yes, I can do clever things with trusts to avoid estate taxes. But that is just welfare for lawyers. If the impact of the estate tax is nothing but higher fees for my attorney, and hassle for me, that isn’t good news either.
You can argue whether an estate tax is fair or unfair, but fairness is an argument for idiots and children. Fairness isn’t an objective quality of the universe. I oppose the estate tax because I was born to modest means and worked 7-days a week for most of my life to be in my current position. (I’m working today, Sunday, as per usual.) And I don’t want to give 75% of my earnings to the government. (Would you?)
3. Party or Wake: It seems to me that Trump supporters are planning for the world’s biggest party on election night whereas Clinton supporters seem to be preparing for a funeral. I want to be invited to the event that doesn’t involve crying and moving to Canada. (This issue isn’t my biggest reason.)
4. Clinton’s Health: To my untrained eyes and ears, Hillary Clinton doesn’t look sufficiently healthy – mentally or otherwise – to be leading the country. If you disagree, take a look at the now-famous “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead” video clip. Likewise, Bill Clinton seems to be in bad shape too, and Hillary wouldn’t be much use to the country if she is taking care of a dying husband on the side.
5. Pacing and Leading: Trump always takes the extreme position on matters of safety and security for the country, even if those positions are unconstitutional, impractical, evil, or something that the military would refuse to do. Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump “paces” the public – meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some. He does that with his extreme responses on immigration, fighting ISIS, stop-and-frisk, etc. Once Trump has established himself as the biggest bad-ass on the topic, he is free to “lead,” which we see him do by softening his deportation stand, limiting his stop-and-frisk comment to Chicago, reversing his first answer on penalties for abortion, and so on. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump look scary. If you understand pacing and leading, you might see him as the safest candidate who has ever gotten this close to the presidency. That’s how I see him.
So when Clinton supporters ask me how I could support a “fascist,” the answer is that he isn’t one. Clinton’s team, with the help of Godzilla, have effectively persuaded the public to see Trump as scary. The persuasion works because Trump’s “pacing” system is not obvious to the public. They see his “first offers” as evidence of evil. They are not. They are technique.
And being chummy with Putin is more likely to keep us safe, whether you find that distasteful or not. Clinton wants to insult Putin into doing what we want. That approach seems dangerous as hell to me.
6. Persuasion: Economies are driven by psychology. If you expect things to go well tomorrow, you invest today, which causes things to go well tomorrow, as long as others are doing the same. The best kind of president for managing the psychology of citizens – and therefore the economy – is a trained persuader. You can call that persuader a con man, a snake oil salesman, a carnival barker, or full of shit. It’s all persuasion. And Trump simply does it better than I have ever seen anyone do it.
The battle with ISIS is also a persuasion problem. The entire purpose of military action against ISIS is to persuade them to stop, not to kill every single one of them. We need military-grade persuasion to get at the root of the problem. Trump understands persuasion, so he is likely to put more emphasis in that area.
Most of the job of president is persuasion. Presidents don’t need to understand policy minutia. They need to listen to experts and then help sell the best expert solutions to the public. Trump sells better than anyone you have ever seen, even if you haven’t personally bought into him yet. You can’t deny his persuasion talents that have gotten him this far.
In summary, I don’t understand the policy details and implications of most of either Trump’s or Clinton’s proposed ideas. Neither do you. But I do understand persuasion. I also understand when the government is planning to confiscate the majority of my assets. And I can also distinguish between a deeply unhealthy person and a healthy person, even though I have no medical training. (So can you.)
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I will be live streaming my viewing of the debate Monday night, with my co-host and neighbor, Kristina Basham. Tune your television to the debate and use your phone or iPad with the Periscope app, and look for me at @ScottAdamsSays.
Adams is not trying to persuade us, he’s trying to persuade the LIV’s who really don’t understand anything more than what they feel about what they heard from the MSM. I would guess that Adams knows that people like us understand a lot of things the LIV’s do not.
That’s what I said.
“I don’t know the best way to defeat ISIS. Neither do you”
I do. Apologize to Assad and say we will destroy the monster we created and then leave. Fully surround them with a large mechanized land army, no special forces bullcrap here.
Advance and destroy them with artillery and mechanized invasion...advancing through Germany, or Desert Storm is an example.
Impound -every-single-person- found inside the perimeter. Sort through carefully, looking for the genocidal war criminals that abound. Their photos are widely known.
Hang every single war criminal. Nuremburg is the template.
Deport all EU Syrians back to their country to rebuild. Fund the rebuilding as an apology to Syria for our starting ISIS and the revolt.
Spend the next 60 years pursuing every single war criminal that escaped the ring of steel before it was established.
Eichman and Claus Barbie are the models here.
The answer is fairly simple.
I don’t consider an endorsement of Trump to be much of a gauge how smart someone is. People have a 50/50 chance at getting it right without anything else considered.
Then you take one look at Clinton, and any person with very average intelligence should be able to see through her.
So while I actually do appreciate this endorsement, I don’t think he’s brilliant. He just figure something out that any person with a functioning brain would.
I like most of his reasoning too, but he lost me with the insult to men on abortion.
I know what is write and wrong on that issue, and frankly I know the right and wrong positions on a number of things he waved in the first and second paragraph.
Sounds like a good plan. Does anyone have the will to implement it?
He’s a comic strip writer, not claiming to be partisan or conservative. If he can reach a few liberals or independents, good for him.
“The entire purpose of military action against ISIS is to persuade them to stop, not to kill every single one of them. “
Love this guy but he’s wrong here. This is Iwo Jima and the goal should be to exterminate every single ISIS member... don’t stop until there are only 5 or 6 left hiding in caves. Others in the world need to see this as an object lesson.
Not everyone writing their own opinion is running for office.
Oh, not at all, not even. But I do think that IS the solution.
The death tax issue is a motivator for me.
Irregardless of whether a person may or may not be affected by this, it’s the unreasonable nature of it that sets me off.
As this guy astutely mentioned, they take 50% of your income up front, then want 50% of what’s left when you die.
The absurdity of this is even more so, when you consider how hard you work, the risks you take, and the losses you endure, on the way to building your wealth. Where was the government? Did it help you? Did it guarantee your success? Did it share your losses? Ah NO!
The government has no right whatsoever to what we accumulate in our lifetimes, especially in light of it doing everything it can to prevent it.
I don’t disagree with that.
Check this out also.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3473318/posts?page=24#24
You shouldn’t have to be running for office to have a broad understanding of the major issues of the day. If Scott is really as uninformed as he says, which I doubt, it would be a real shame.
TTTT!
At the end of World War 2, there were still millions of Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Imperial Japanese troops around. Many fully armed. However, we convinced them to surrender.
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As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. in other words, it was a joke
What I read is to let women lead on policy. I agree with that approach. Men should be an important part of the conversation but should not be seen as telling women what to do per se.
I know, but Adams would never understand what makes us tick. Most, if not all, on this board are political junkies. I am, and my dad was, and my kids are.
Half of the voters would never admit to not grasping the issues...or the issues are a snoozefest to them.
So they pick one issue they perceive as affecting them, as Adams has done, and they vote based on their grasp of that issue.
Dims know this and use it to divide and conquer, IMO.
I’m glad he’s come forward. He has a lot of admirers who might listen to his reasoning.
>>I question his judgment.
His judgment on this issue has been well-documented in his blog for the past year. His final decision to switch sides is quite momentous.
Exactly. Hillary isn’t anything new in the Progressive party.
She isn’t unique, she is exactly like everyone else with the (D) in their name. Same exact person.
She represents her party with 100% precision and accuracy.
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