Trump is good at saying outrageous things. Why people believe him is another issue altogether.
I think the OP is on to something. Most people–even pretty smart people–sound moronic in conversation. Just listen to an interview and read an unedited transcript on it. They’re barely readable.
I think there probably is something in our brains that goes into a different mode for conversations, where we simply don’t hear all the ums and ahs, the circumlocutions, the awkward phrasing, etc. Furthermore, when the content itself is lacking, we mentally fill in our own interpretation. Despite this, conversation feels comfortable–more comfortable than a more polished tone–and more honest.
Trump therefore is the perfect speaker for a category of voters: purely conversational in tone, and a complete lack of substance. The listeners can fill in whatever they wanted to hear.
I’d love to stick some electrodes into the brains of Trump voters and see which parts light up when they listen to Trump.
I am unable to locate it, but an anthology by Larry Niven (I think) had a story where some people had written a computer program that could create speeches not just with the words, but with all the gestures and pauses and accentuation marked in as well.
The idea being that they were testing this speech-writing program out, and they found a charismatic but somewhat dim person to read the speeches.
After a few shaky starts, it starts going well, and he starts getting attention, and eventually gets elected into office, IIRC.
At some point, he starts going off script, just using the skills he learned from reciting the speeches, and is still highly successful. I think that is where the researchers turn to each other with a “what have we unleashed” motif and the story ends.
I sometimes wonder if Trump is the monster that they created.
I’m re-watching the 2016 debates and boy oh boy, is it reinforcing what I’ve described. I can’t go into all the details, just watch it for yourself if you want to see it firsthand. Seriously, here’s a thought exercise: try to imagine Trump and Clinton reversed, making all the exact same points, but in the voice and cadence of the other.
Let me be very clear here, this ability is in no way exclusive to Trump. Just the opposite - it’s an ability that almost everyone possesses, which is the very point I’ve been trying to make, that a colloquial tone is more effective than a more polished and mannered one. There is no reason that a successful public figure employing this method of speech needs to 1. be a Republican, 2. sound like an idiot, or 3. appeal to “the lowest common denominator.” The individual in question just needs to talk at crowds people the way normal people talk to each other.
I saw a clip on Youtube of Steve Bullock, the Democratic governor of Montana, being interviewed by someone, and I thought he employed the same mannerisms very effectively in the interview. If he were to do so in a speech or rally, I think it would be very successful.
Yes, but all of this was observed by linguists two years ago–there were several articles about it. I don’t understand why you or the OP think this is some kind of new insight.
It’s a new insight in the sense that I arrived at it organically, not by reading any linguists or anyone who formally studied it in any official way. It’s just me using my common sense.
I didn’t read these articles. Got links? Preferably ones that involve dissecting the brains of Trump voters to search for abnormalities.
To be clear, I don’t think it’s just his limited vocabulary, inability to stick to a topic, or general lack of coherence. Those things help, but the conversational tone goes deeper than that, I think.
All of the “no he’s not” retorts raises the question. Even if he was not a great speaker (form over substance), wasn’t he a much better orator than Hillary?
No. He’s un-listen-toable. Clinton was just boring. Trump’s voice and manner of speaking are ear Kryptonite.
“Orator” has very specific connotations. Trump is not an orator at all. That is my point.
So your theory is that Trump became a serial liar right after getting elected (I think the NYT list currently runs to more than 3000 lies he’s said as president), but was scrupulously honest during the campaign?
No, he was the same liar during the campaign, too. This analysis lists 560 Trump lies during a period of just 28 days near the end of the campaign.
I watched a documentary about Huey Long recently. It showed some of Long’ s stump speeches. He reminded me of Trump; humorous and larger than life. Some folk just have a way to communicate with ordinary folk and manage to do it effortlessly.
Then perhaps your cat should run for President. The feline can’t be much worse than the top Democrats and I would assume is scandal free, but part of that would depend on the lifestyle you let the cat live.
All politicians flip-flop, but with Trump, I see him either delivering or trying to deliver on his campaign promises. He has raised an eyebrow or two on the NRA. I think he said politicians should not be afraid of them. The NRA’s control over politicians is over blown. They don’t come close to contributing as much as some of the unions in terms of the amount of money donated.
He’s matching up about equal with every politician, as bet I can tell. They all make some attempt to get their policy passed though, generally, they only make the faintest effort when a particular promise was something stupid that they were forced to commit to, knowing that it would be harmful to the general public or otherwise be completely unworkable.
I’m not aware of any policy that Trump proposed during the campaign that didn’t fall in that bucket. To the extent that he’s making any effort to get his policy enacted, that’s more a display of how little he cares about the country than it is a display of honorability.
I had had some mild hope, before the election, that he’d be the first politician to tell people that he’d looked at the issues, talked to the experts, and realized that there was more to the story, explain it to them, and apologize for inadvertently misleading everyone during the campaign. Instead, he talked to the experts - and we’re talking about his own, hand-picked appointees - and they carefully and thoroughly went through all of the options, what was good and bad about each, and made some reasonable proposals to either augment or replace his campaign positions with something that wasn’t destructive and harmful. And, rather than trust them and take on new knowledge and appreciation for the world, or even take into account their warnings, he simply decided to go ahead even if it wreaks havoc across the globe.
So, joy.
It is a singular President to slap sanctions on a number of hostile countries - understanding full-well how they work and why they are effective - to just turn around and do the exact thing to his own country, via tariffs.
It might not seem like these are the same thing to you, but a whole roomfull of people who do banking, financing, and economics would have carefully explained to him that there is no actual difference between a tariff and a sanction, and yet he went ahead and did it. He took the country and stuck his dick up its rear, no lube, just cause he promised to. If you’re thanking him for it, then I’d prefer you keep your personal brand of masochism in the privacy of your bedroom.
I see. I can appreciate that–thanks.
Here’s one. If I get a moment, I’ll check EBSCO.
Trump’s speeches (at least at his rallies) seem incoherent in print, but that’s because print doesn’t show his pandering techique.
In particular, Trump “goes fishing” when he speaks. He throws out a topic, and gauges the crowd’s reaction, and if they don’t respond sufficiently, he changes the topic mid-sentences (or mid-train-of-thought). He does this until something gets a response, and once it does, he amplifies on that. It is technically and objectively–measurably–pure, 100%, unadulterated PANDERING.
It’s trial and error, but he’s built up a repertoire of topics now. From the start he knew that one sure-fire pandering topic–that never fails–is to appeal to grievance--the fantasy of entitled whites that somehow they are no longer getting what they deserve (just for being white).
One wonders, if this hypothesis is true, if it took Trump getting older and a little farther removed from his formal education to be get to the point where this would work.
Go watch videos of Trump interviewing back in the 80’s. He seems considerably more lucid, on-point without meandering, quick, and articulate than he does now. Maybe that guy wouldn’t have been able to pull this off back then.
I refuse to believe he’s ‘pulling’ anything off. He’s a moron that fell ass backwards into another group of morons that cheer their new moron leader on.
If he spoke better in the past it’s because he had some control of the connection from his brain to his mouth. He knew that saying downright hateful stupid things would not go over well. That control has being lost. The traffic cop is gone, the fuse is blown. We are now in complete short circuit mode.
Full stop.
That’s a pretty grim assessment of the critical-thinking skills of ordinary folk.
When a smart person talks about things they understand well, they use a lot of qualifiers. For example: an economist discussing raising the minimum wage will mention both the upsides and downsides, a climate scientist will point out that weather is not climate and we can’t point to any one event as proof or disproof of global warming, a good financial planner will point out the uncertainty of investments, lay out the risk and rewards, and let the investor make the final call.
Dumb people, or people speaking about things outside their area of expertise, tend to be speak with more certainty. I think that a lot of Americans become frustrated when they listen to experts. An expert can sound wishy-washy. People want someone to tell them what to think.
Trump is a salesman (as opposed to a businessman) and a good salesman believes what he says rather than saying what he believes.