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Rory Sutherland Discusses Why 'Smart People' Misjudged Trump's Electoral Success
Overview
Rory Sutherland analyzes why elite opinion and traditional polling failed to predict Donald Trump's political success, arguing that academics and commentators are often out of touch with regular voters. He highlights alternative insights, such as primatologists predicting the outcome through body language, marketing data showing high brand voltage for Trump, and research methods that ask what neighbors will vote for rather than directly polling individuals. Additionally, Sutherland criticizes elite media lenses regarding ethnic groups, questions the efficacy of paid celebrity endorsements, and suggests that Democrats suffer from a perceived lack of affection for the public.
Key points
- Rory Sutherland notes that while academics failed to predict Trump's 2016 win, primatologists studying apes and chimpanzees correctly anticipated it based on body language.
- Elite commentators misread the reaction to a comedian's joke about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally by viewing Latin American voters through a monolithic ethnic lens.
- Paid celebrity endorsements, such as Taylor Swift's, are described as largely ineffectual and self-canceling in politics.
- Alternative marketing data, specifically brand voltage metrics from WPP, accurately pointed to Trump's strength before the election.
- Asking respondents who their neighbors will vote for serves as a clever lateral hack that bypasses the distortion of how people want to present themselves.
- Sutherland suggests that the Democratic Party has lost a genuine sense of affection for the public compared to creators who embrace humanity in all its variety.