Scott Adams Says This Anti-Trump Ad Backfires

So an anti-Trump group put together an ad consisting of women reading the mean/stupid thing Donald Trump has said about women:

Says Scott Adams:

Have you seen the anti-Trump video that features women quoting Donald Trump’s most offensive statements about women?

I just showed it to a woman. She thought it was funny. Apparently nothing that Trump says comes off as offensive to her.

The reason I checked with a woman is because I didn’t trust my own reaction. To me, the video looked like the most tone-deaf ad of all time. I would rank it as among the worst I have ever seen in terms of persuasion. I’m guessing it worked in Trump’s favor.

On the 2D level of reality – where we pretend people are rational – the video makes perfect sense. The makers of the video figured women voters would not like a candidate that says bad things about women. That seems totally logical. I can see why they made the video.

But on the 3D level of persuasion, what the viewer sees is several average-looking women in bad moods complaining about a guy being, well… a guy. I assume men won’t be offended by the video because Trump is no more of a jerk than most men. And men probably don’t get a warm feeling from the judgmental, angry messengers in the video. That video looks like a huge fail to me.

While I’m not on-board with Adams’ “people are just moist robots” thesis, I think he’s right about this video.

“Oh look, Reginald! That uncouth vulgarian is distressing his class betters again!”

“Shocking, Eleanor, simply shocking!” (drops monocle)

The ad ignores the reality that a great deal of Trump’s appeal is his willingness to transgress against the unspoken shibboleths of the overclass. People are voting Trump because they can’t punch an NPR host in their smug face over the radio.

When a whole bunch of dour middle-aged feminist scolds (which is what it comes off as) read Trump quotes in the manner of “celebrities read mean tweets,” the result is laughter, not outrage. The real tone of the ad is “We know better than you, and Trump offends our finely-tuned sensibilities! Doesn’t our naked contempt dissuade you from voting Trump, you dim-witted flyover country rubes?”

No wonder they disabled video comments on YouTube.

So the Our Principles PAC (headed up by ex-Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush staff) should stop running this thing, as it’s only helping Trump.

And that Princess Di quote is pure comedy gold…

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2 Responses to “Scott Adams Says This Anti-Trump Ad Backfires”

  1. Jimmy says:

    Maybe this is why I don’t understand the draw of Trump:

    “I assume men won’t be offended by the video because Trump is no more of a jerk than most men.”

    Our culture is lost if most men think like Donald Trump.

  2. Regina says:

    Hillary seems to surround herself with frumpy, sour-pussed matrons. If she wants to appeal to men, she needs to include them in her ads, in equal numbers.

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