I guess I cratered the Jan 6 thread… sorry, @Aspenglow. I wasn’t paying attention.
But I still want to know:
RE the trump video [he starts around 1:15]: I’m proud to say that the last time I heard trump’s voice for longer than a few seconds was when he debated Hillary Clinton in Oct 2016. Yup-- I don’t watch TV news ever, and if I was in the car and he came on the radio, I turned it off for 30 seconds or more to avoid hearing him and his sound bite. I never watched or listened to any of his regular speeches. The sections of the brain where the rest of you have embedded memories of his droning (I assume) blahblahblah for the last six years-- those part of my brain are mostly unsullied.
In the spirit of scientific exploration, I did watch the video posted here, and this is my question: has he always spoken with that exaggerated lip motion? Curling his lips around every word as if he’s chewing them?
Back in my drinking days, I remember talking in that exaggerated, careful way when drunk in a pathetic and futile attempt to fool people into thinking I was sober. (HA!) Or it reminds me of when someone is waking from a deep sleep and has to shape each word carefully. Or maybe someone who has had a stroke or some kind of brain damage. Like uttering each word is a separate effort, and speaking a whole sentence requires careful focus.
Has he always done that? This does not strike me as normal speech by someone with a fully functioning and responsive brain. I’m not an expert, but I haven’t had the opportunity misfortune of getting used to the way he talks. This seems very odd to my virgin-ish ears.
Are there any speech therapists on the board?
I’m putting this in The Pit so people can say whatever they want about trump’s speech patterns and speech content. Have at it.
I was posting a response, but the thread had been locked.
Long story short, I found an interview from 1980 and another from 1992 where he definitely didn’t bare his teeth that way. I didn’t bother finding any more video after that.
I’ve wondered for a while whether he has dentures he’s never gotten used to, or whether he’s afflicted by any of the many conditions which affect elderly folks and impact their speech.
Or else he just decided at some point that speaking in that way seems forceful and powerful. Or he had a vocal coach who gave him exactly one lesson before getting fired and he confused his stretching exercises with what he’s supposed to do on camera.
In the 10 seconds of that video I was only able to stomach, he looks the same as usual, just speaking with emphasis. Hence Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of him, which really isn’t even a caricature, but a spot-on imitation. But maybe I’d have to watch more than 10 seconds to really see what you’re referring to.
I think it’s this. I don’t think he normally talks this way to anyone privately. He talks this way when he is in front of a crowd or a camera. This is his “I’m important and you must listen to every word I say” voice. Sound bites I’ve heard from his rallies have similar speech patterns.
As to why he thinks he has to talk this way to publicly communicate is anyone’s guess. Perhaps he is mimicking someone he admires, but I can’t think of anyone who talks this way. Note that I am not a speech therapist.
If you watch this interview from 1990, you can see some hints of his current speaking style. It’s become exaggerated to a point of self-parody by now, but you can see early elements of it here. Some pursing of the lips pronunciations, some short interjections in the middle of a sentence, even some of the same themes about “the media”. But he also manages a few coherent sentences, which I don’t think he could pull off today.
The change in his speech just looks and sound to me like he’s old. Old people do often speak louder because they don’t hear as well as they once did, and that alone would change the way they move their face. Having dentures would explain a lot as well.
Trump is 75 now and was 43 in that 1990 interview. The difference in his hearing might be gigantic, which would in turn make him talk louder and quite plausibly less coherently.
That was very interesting. I see what you mean-- there’s a hint of the exaggerated lip thing, but generally in this CNN video he speaks like a normal person, at normal speed, moving his head in a natural way. The words pretty much flow out as they do when a normal person is speaking.
Contrast that with the robotic, highly focused way he speaks in the OP video, head stiff and unmoving and especially the lips slurping and curling around every syllable.
I know a LOT of old people (besides the fact that I’m one), including people in their 90s, and I don’t know anyone who talks like this.
I read a tweet from a comic named Noel something, who worked on the apprentice show. He claims that Donald has a hole in his upper mouth from all the adderal he has snorted. He claimed the dental piece that Donald has to wear over this hole slips out of place at times or irritates him or something.
I think this might account for some of what he’s doing. Trying to keep the plate in place. I’m basing this on Noel telling a true story though.
I think you 're right that its his public speaking voice. He doesn’t sound nearly as bad in one-on-one interviews. For example here he is on 60 minutes.
I’ve never heard anyone mention it, but I’m curious. He used to purse his lips into a rectangle. I know that octopus suckers aren’t rectangular, but it always made me think of octopus suckers anyway.
Now you never see the rectangular kiss-face. Could he have gotten botox to keep from doing that? Or be training himself not to do it?
