One of the major debates in marketing is: Do Facts Matter To Persuasion? The good news is that it will never be finished. Sometimes they do, sometimes less so is probably the answer. Still, it generates debate.
Understanding People Who Don’t Think Like Us
I really wanted to like Scott Adams’ Win Bigly. What was Adams seeing that I’m not seeing?
The problem is that I’m still a bit confused. Adams describes himself as historically socially liberal in his views. As such, it is very surprising that he is such a big Trump supporter. I was left wondering what he really thinks is important. As far as I can tell, it seems to be that he doesn’t want estate taxes to increase. He seemed remarkably calm about many things that could hurt other people. Yet, he got super passionate about him not paying estate taxes. By the end I must confess that Scott Adams did not win me over as a human being.
Explaining Trump’s Win
That said, the basic premise of the book is a good one. Adams wants to explain how Trump could win the 2016 Presidential election. He does this pretty well by suggesting that commentators focused too much on what Trump was saying rather than how he was saying it. He suggests, rightly I’m sure, that we all suffer massively from confirmation bias. We see the world that we expect to see. Ignoring Adam’s lax use of terms — cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias etc… — this argument is plausible. Indeed, he seems to suffer from it himself a lot. He is clearly interpreting evidence to fit his world view. Adams has a get out though; he tells us that we shouldn’t really think of what he says as facts just his view. His view being that he is a brilliant political analyst.
Glibness
What annoyed me most was the general glibness of the book. Adams seems to have abandoned not only the idea that facts matter in persuasion. (A disappointing but defensible view). In addition, he also seems to think that facts do no matter at all in reality. (Except the most important “fact” to him that estate taxes are “confiscation”).
Adams doesn’t just argue that because Trump is a “master persuader” he won. Adams seems to believe it is good that Trump won because he is a master persuader.
Never mind that his initial deportation plan was mean, impractical and — many would say — immoral. Trump’s position gave him plenty of room to negotiate back to something more reasonable after he was in office.
Adams, 2017, page 8
Even if you believed it would be sufficiently negotiated back (and I’m not convinced this turned out to be true) is this okay? Is using something mean, impractical, and immoral really okay as a negotiating tactic? Scott Adams thinks so.
Do Facts Matter To Persuasion?
I was left thinking Adam’s view of the world is close to something I’d associate with an ill-informed kid who has just read about post-modernism on Wikipedia. Nothing is real (apart from estate taxes obviously). Being good at persuasion doesn’t change that facts exist. Adams has some solid advice on how to improve your persuasion but surely it still matters what you are trying to persuade people to do.
For more on Scott Adams and his great idea of Confusopoly see here.
Read: Scott Adams (2017) Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter, Portfolio