One of Trump’s most hyped statements has been the idea that he will build a wall across the southern border that separates the United Staes from Mexico. It sounds crazy and very difficult, both in the act of actually constructing it and getting funding from a likely unsympathetic congress. Why would Trump propose such a thing?
I’m going to take a page from Scott Adams’ argument that Trump has a master plan with such outrageous statements. I suspect Trump’s thinking goes along these lines. He knew, before he made this statement, that a certain percentage of Americans are unhappy with illegal immigrants and would like something to be done about it. Those potential voters were observing the solutions other politicians were proposing, all basically variations of “more enforcement with some amnesty.” Then Trump comes out with, “I’ll build a wall.” This is a loud, definitive statement in the opposite direction of the (far more do-able) amnesty proposals. Trump becomes “their guy.” He has branded himself as the anti-illegal immigrant candidate. And he gets a lot of attention from the media in the process. To people who only pay cursory attention to the news, Trump becomes a serious contender. After all, look at all the attention he’s getting.
The moral is: to get noticed, make big, extreme statements, even if they are ridiculous.
But I suspect there’s another reason. I’ve been reading an interesting book, “You Are Not So Smart,” about the various foibles of the human mind. One chapter starts with the following imagined scenario.
You walk into a clothing store and see what is probably the most bad ass leather jacket you’ve ever seen.
You try it on, look in the mirror and decide you must have it. While wearing this item, you imagine onlookers will clutch their chests and gasp every time you walk into a room or cross a street. You lift the sleeve to check the price – $1,000.
Well, that’s that, you think. You start to head back to the hanger when a salesperson stops you.
“You like it?”
“I love it, but it’s just too much.”
“No, that jacket is on sale right now for $400.”
It’s expensive, and you don’t need it really, but $600 off the price seems like a great deal for a coat which will increase your cool by a factor of 11. You put it on the card, unaware you’ve been tricked by the oldest retail con in the business.
The chapter then recounts several studies observing “the anchoring effect” a tendency to value things based on an arbitrary number placed in your head. (Here’s a link to the chapter online.) The chapter closes with…
Remember this study if you are ever in a negotiation – make your initial request far too high.
You have to start somewhere, and your initial decision or calculation greatly influences all the choices which follow, cascading out, each tethered to the anchors set before.
You probably see where I’m going with this. Trump’s initial offer on the issue of what to do about illegal immigrants is way too high—let’s build a wall. People negotiating with him will realize this and will settle for terms they would have considered unseemly had they been negotiating with someone with a more reasonable initial offer. They will pay 400$ for a $300 jacket (originally marked at $1000) so to speak.
Of course, Trump will never get to make that offer if he doesn’t become President. But by proposing his wall he is saying to voters opposed to illegal immigrations, “I will drive a hard bargain on your behalf.” The details of his rather outrageous proposal are not important, the willingness to make it is.
It seems like there’s a lot that could go wrong with this tact. Are there enough voters opposed to illegal immigrants to create a voting bloc? Will such statements turn off a big segment of other voters? Perhaps. But I don’t think Trump, a guy who is not a career politician, had many other options to work his way into people’s minds as a serious contender. He had to think big, and so far it’s worked.