2 authors, 2 perspectives on President Trump

It has been an eventful first year for the Trump administration – regardless of where you are on the political spectrum.

And, while we’re coming up on “year in review” season, we have two conversations on the president from slightly different perspectives.

The Show spoke with Scott Adams, the creator of the "Dilbert" comic and author of the new book "Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter." And then Robert Dallek, who has written about Richard Nixon, JFK and Lyndon Johnson, among others. His new book is called "Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life."

Scott Adams: ‘We're just not a species who makes decisions based on facts’

MARK BRODIE: We start with Scott Adams. He’s the creator of the "Dilbert" comic and author of the new book "Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter." Adams looks at president, and candidate Trump before that, through the lens of persuasion.

And Scott, you wrote about how you weren't necessarily looking to get involved in the presidential election, but when you saw then-candidate Trump, things changed for you. What was that realization like for you?

SCOTT ADAMS: Yeah, it certainly snuck up on me. I've got a background as a trained hypnotist, and I've been studying the various forms of persuasion for decades as part of what I do as a writer.

And when I started noticing that candidate Trump had the same set of tools, I realized that he was coming into a stick fight and bringing a flamethrower, but nobody could see the flamethrower, and it was actually the first debate that was the flag for me.

When he took that first question from Megyn Kelly about his comments about women in the past, and that should have ended his campaign right there, but he came up with the Rosie O'Donnell reply, which not only was not a direct reply to the question, but it was so interesting and provocative that we forgot the question for a while and just thought about the answer.

And it was very popular with his base. It was visual and it just hit every point of a trained persuader like nothing I've ever seen. And by the time he got to his “low energy Jeb” linguistic kill shot, I could see that the technique was not accidental.

BRODIE: Now, in theory anyway, you would think that all politicians should be working to persuade people, right? They're trying to get people to understand that their ideas are the right ones.

Do you see that there are other politicians trying to do this and just not as successful, or are they not even trying?

ADAMS: Well, I think most ordinary people who don't have this kind of specific background or at least filter on reality think that the facts are going to, going to win the day. And we're just not a species who makes decisions based on facts.

So one of the things you learn when you become a hypnotist is that the normal way of looking at the world is that, oh, we're a logical species, you know, 90% of the time anyway. But the hypnotist reverses that, and says we're irrational 90% of the time, and we make our decisions first and then we rationalize them after the fact.

BRODIE: How do you reconcile that now that Donald Trump is the president and he has to deal in facts?

I mean, there are certain things that come up, be they unemployment numbers or, you know, documents coming from foreign governments or things that other people are saying. I mean, at some point you do, do you, I guess as a president have to deal in facts.

ADAMS: Yeah, I mean, to some extent just to get through the day, facts matter to outcomes. So if you walk in front of a truck, that fact is going to matter a lot.

But once you understand that people don't make decisions based on facts, then you can, you can change your approach to accommodate that reality.

So for example, if the president says, hey, 100,000 people came to my rally, and then they fact check him and say, no, it wasn't 100,000, it was more like, you know, 50,000, he still has everybody thinking that a lot of people went to his rally. So in many cases the wrongness will attract your energy.

And if you, if you want to persuade, the first thing you need to do is capture somebody's focus and energy. And once he has your energy, you're thinking about the things he wants you to think about.

And the way we're designed is that reality is not based on facts, at least the way we process reality in our minds. It's based on how much time you spend thinking about things. Those things become the important things in your mind, even if they aren't.

BRODIE: In your mind, is there a difference between the kind of persuasion that a candidate might use on the trail with voters and the kind of persuasion an elected official might need to use with his or her colleagues?

ADAMS: Not a lot, no, I would say there's probably a 95% overlap without knowing what the 5% would be. Persuasion is a, is a general tool. You use it in everything from your, your work to your personal life.

BRODIE: The reason I ask is because clearly he was able to persuade enough people to vote for him that he became president. But once he's become president, it seems like he's had a slightly more difficult time persuading members, for example, of the Senate to pass a health care bill.

I'm wondering if it's maybe a more difficult sell for other politicians than it is for, you know, voters on the trail.

ADAMS: Well, there's a, there's a structural problem because in those cases he has to convince a lot of people who are dug in pretty hard when he's doing things like telling the world that the economy is going to be great under his administration. That actually makes the economy better.

Now, in the case of health care, I've argued since early on in the process that because the sides were so dug in and their positions were close to mutually exclusive, there was no deal to be had at the beginning.

BRODIE: Scott Adams created the "Dilbert" comic. His new book is called “Win Bigly Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter.”

Robert Dallek: FDR’s connection with people ‘was really quite special’

BRODIE: Now, from someone who didn't plan to get involved in the presidential election to someone who's made a career of chronicling presidents, Robert Dallek has written about Richard Nixon, JFK, and Lyndon Johnson, among others. His new book is called “Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life.”

And Robert, why did you choose now to write about FDR?

ROBERT DALLEK: Well, you know, there's an old saying that history is argument without end, and it seems to me that when you have a period of disillusionment with politics and a certain amount of discomfort, it's well for the country to read about a president who was so effective and so sensible and was such an effective leader.

BRODIE: What was it about Roosevelt and maybe his political skills and political calculus that led him to be as successful at getting through what he wanted to do as he was?

DALLEK: Yeah, you know, he had a kind of instinctual sense of how to lead, of where to take the country, how to speak to them.

Famously, he would give these fireside chats on Sunday night. And he only gave 31 of these talks in his 12-year period in office, and what's so striking is that after he died, somebody stopped Mrs. Roosevelt on the street and said to her, I miss the way your husband used to speak to me about my government.

He connected with people and it was really quite special.

BRODIE: How would you describe the general political climate during the time that FDR was president relative to what we see now?

DALLEK: Yeah, well, to begin with, it was perilous. There was a sense that the country was reaching its endgame. There was such a sense of uncertainty.

BRODIE: Did Roosevelt face the same kind of opposition, both political and personal in Congress, that the last few American presidents have faced?

BRODIE: Yeah, it got to a point initially, of course, he was able to put across 15 major pieces of legislation in his first 100 days, but by 1938, well into his second term, he was on the defensive.

And he tried to purge the party of conservative Democrats who were mainly Southern Democrats who controlled the major committees in the House and the Senate, and it failed. And indeed if it weren't for the onset of World War II in 1939, he, I don't think he ever would have won a third term.

But yeah, I mean there was something called the Liberty League that sprang up in 1934-1935, which was made up of conservatives who were complaining about the threat to individual liberties and the free enterprise system from Roosevelt's New Deal and the welfare state.

BRODIE: Well, it's interesting because, you know, you think of one of his great achievements which you referenced earlier, the onset of the welfare state, which is something that a lot of conservatives today decry and in many ways are still trying to undo.

I'm wondering what lessons there might be from Roosevelt's implementation and getting that through Congress and what is happening between the administration and Congress today.

BRODIE: Yeah, well, I think what Roosevelt understood, he was always a master reader of public mood, public opinion, and mind you, this wasn't because of polls. Polling didn't come into fashion until 1935, and he had an instinctual feel for the public attitude, the public mood.

And so he understood that if he were going to be successful, he needed to reflect majority sentiment.

BRODIE: It's striking to me that when you describe FDR, you describe him as a, among other things, of course, a master reader of the political mood, which is what many people also refer to President Trump as somebody who really can tell what the public is thinking and kind of appeal to how they feel at the moment.

Do you, do you see that as a, as a valid comparison?

BRODIE: Well, up to a point, in the sense that, yes, Trump has mastered this thing called the tweet and the way Roosevelt mastered radio as the new medium to reach the public, the way John Kennedy mastered television to reach a mass public.

So Donald Trump has mastered this business of tweeting the new, the new way of communicating to a tremendously large audience in the country, but the difference is that Trump commands the support of a minority.

Never have we seen a president in his first year with such low public approval ratings, you see. Well, you know, that's not going to get the job done, in this country, if you only have 36, 37% support, the Congress is not going to be excited to follow your lead.

BRODIE: Historian Robert Dallek's new book is called “Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Political Life.”