You are being manipulated with labels
Your mind is being manipulated by a very sly communicator. “Low energy” Bush. “lying” Ted Cruz. Look at that “face” Carley. You are witnessing the “Attribution theory,” election. If a label is stuck on someone’s head and it stays there… it may be hard to shake.
The bragging Republican presumptive nominee and egomaniac Trump likes to stick labels all over people. He’s aiming for what is called “internal attribution.” He’s creating names to pin negative internal characteristics on people to define his competitors. In the future, he’ll use any minor situation to confirm the label and define the entire person.
When Trump loses he uses “external attribution.” “Well, you know there were 19 people in the race, I couldn’t win every race.” He sticks the Trump failure to some external situation. Then, it has nothing to do with him that he turned off millions of people who voted for someone else.
Labels work even when they aren’t true.
Bush was either low energy, or tired on days that he worked really hard; just like everyone else. Ted Cruz was either lying (which he usually is), or people would look at the bully Trump’s lying. Trump got people to look at Cruz’s honesty, even though Politifact rates Trump the most dishonest candidate. In his Politifact profile, Trump’s controversial “factual” statements have been rated at 2% true.
Both Democrats are honest, but Trump will manufacture the opposite impression
In sharp contrast, both Democratic candidates are the most honest politicians today. Most of what Bernie and Hillary say is true, or mostly true. Right now, Trump aims to stick dishonest labels on our party leader. Politifact checks the most controversial factual statements only, and in Hillary’s profile, and Bernie Sanders profile, you can see how dramatically more honest their controversial statements are than Trumps.
I believe Trump is a fact-free know nothing, or he knows and Trump spreads lies to manipulate you and get in your head. He’s taking advantage of the theory of internal attribution to control the way you think. Scheming Trump is usually able to do it with one or two words. This allows for a massive simplification of the entire election for people who don’t care to consider the policy differences between candidates.
People are countering this now. I’ve launched the “Fire Trump” page to capture all the labels that those retaliating aim to stick on his face. Reality is, we have to win the race to define him before he defines our candidate negatively, or we lose the race.
Now you know what attribution theory is. Don’t fall for it! Don’t even let it into your head. If you see Trump on TV turn the disgusting bastard off!
There you have it: Trump, the Great Manipulator.
