openpolitics.com

Tag: politics

  • The Art of the “Deceptive Answer”

    How Trump used “Weasel Words” to Trick Us into Thinking He Agreed to Testify Under Oath.

    There is so much media attention to President Trump that it amazes me that I haven’t heard anyone else debunk the conventional wisdom that President Trump agreed to testify under oath — “100%.”  This would be true if he had stopped speaking at that point, but in the 9 quick sentences that followed, Trump used a tricky distraction technique to take back his word.

    What Trump actually agreed to:

    • Trump may, or may not have asked James Comey for his loyalty, but if he did, Trump didn’t ask Comey to put his hand on the Bible when Comey’s allegiance was requested.

     

    Trump’s tricky answer is either a strange accident, or an example of a “master manipulator”1 practicing his craft.  The creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, has been arguing for a long time that Trump’s “persuasion skills” are the best he’s seen.

    In the rest of this post, I’ll compare Trump’s skill at the “trick answer” to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s attempts to trick the public, showing you how Trump takes deception to a whole new level.

    What is a “Non-Denial Denial”?

    The non-denial denial is a statement that is designed to appear to the uninitiated like a legitimate denial of an allegation.  It is used to deceive the public, often by answering a different question than what was asked or implied.

    Let’s compare how Bill, Hillary, and Trump execute assertions and denials using various tricks:

    Jump to Section on: Bill | Hillary | Trump

    1) Bill Clinton: Use a Word with a Private Definition

    Sometimes a non-denial denial hinges upon the definition of the word, which the politician has carefully selected to mislead the public.

    Watch Bill Clinton slyly slip in the term “sexual relations” into this press event so as to give hope to supporters looking for an excuse to still believe in him.  (The term “sexual relations” was chosen because it was defined to not include oral sex).

    This word trick gave those who wanted to believe in Clinton a reason to withhold judgement for a while.  If I were to score this trick on execution, I would give it a 9 out of 10, but note, Bill still got impeached.

    2) Hillary Clinton: “Wipe Like with a Cloth”

    (more…)

    1. Dilbert creator Scott Adams says that “persuasion” is not good or bad in itself.  Persuasion is a tool that can be used for either good or evil. When persuasion becomes “manipulation”, I no longer see that as neutral.↩

  • How would Frank Luntz frame Warren Buffett’s Tax Debate?

    The Secretary-Billionaire Tax Equality Principle

    Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed recently that suggested that the top 0.3% of yearly earners were paying too little in taxes.
    One of his favorite illustrations of this point is that his secretary pays a much higher tax rate than he does.

    His prescription is:

    • undefined cuts to entitlement programs
    • higher taxes on the top 0.3%

    The Power of Framing

    The idea that a secretary should not pay a higher tax rate than their billionaire boss
    is hard to argue with and shows the power of “framing”.

    Here’s an other tax framing idea:

    It is often said that we don’t want to push the burden of current spending onto future generations.

    Reihan Salam: During the Bush years, it was often said that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts represented redistribution from future taxpayers to current taxpayers.

    You might reframe this as:

    Those older Americans, who can afford it, should not get a better deal their grandchildren’s generation

    But how would Frank Luntz say it?

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