Watching politicians with the sound off.
One of the insights I got from watching about 100 presidential events live and up close is that I am watching a performance.
Candidate events are a form of concert, a one-person stage play, or a stand-up comedy act. The words said by a candidate are intended to look spontaneous, and there will be new material, perhaps, but what audiences see is about an hour of well-scripted and practiced material. I think the biggest thing a person takes away from candidate events can be expressed in a few words, and it focuses on manner not denoted content.
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| Beto O'Rourke: Animated. Enthusiastic. |
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| Eric Swalwell: Sincere. Unguarded. |
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| Tulsi Gabbard: Controlled. Guarded. Intense. |
There is a school of thought that candidate performances, and especially "debates," should be viewed by audiences without sound. The body language alone reveals whatever iimportant interaction happened. Watched without sound would have focused attention on the strange moment in 2000 when Al Gore walked up to within ten inches of George W. Bush while Bush was talking. It was so strange, so mannered, so clearly a device, that I had the impression some advisor had instructed Gore to do a body-space invasion to look alpha-male tough. Bush looked at him like he was weird. That defined the main take-away of the event: Weird artificial Gore. Soundlessly watching Trump lurking over Hillary in 2016 confirmed him as a bully and woman abuser, but a great many people welcomed it. Apparently, there was a lot of hostility toward Hillary.
In non-debate settings viewers pay attention to politicians when they give a sloppy salute getting off Marine One, when they stumble over sandbags, when they sip water while protecting a silk tie, when they stand on a balcony and whip off a mask.
Michael Trigoboff is a now-retired professor of computer science. His long-time career focused on the exacting and rigorous work of writing code that isn't buggy. He expresses to me frustration with fuzzy-thinking progressives who look for societal reasons -- excuses -- for crime, for poverty -- and top of mind for him -- bad computer code, and then want to shield those people from the consequences of their actions.In computer code, "pretty good" is bad and subjective impressionism is worthless. Objective denoted code is what matters. I see things differently. In my view of politics, the denoted words are relevant but secondary. I think people generally, and voters especially, base their decisions on gut feel and intuition.
We have been advised to take Trump's words seriously, but not literally. Trigoboff is all about the literal. I wanted to see what a literal thinker observed about the GOP debate on Wednesday, having viewed it with the sound off.
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| Trigoboff |
Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff.
Here’s what the candidates at the Republican debate looked like to me with the sound turned off:Mike Pence was dignified, massive, and presidential. By “massive”, I mean that Pence did not allow the actions of any of the other candidates to have a visible effect on his composure. You could see that he expected them to react to him, and not the other way around.
Nikki Haley spent a lot of her time looking indignant. She did not project the massiveness I mentioned about Pence. Occasionally she looked really happy, which was probably a good thing for her image, and was a lot more appealing than the indignance.
Tim Scott projected a very positive and happy image. It looked like it would be very nice to be around him. But he leaned back a lot, and did not ever seem to project himself forward, which made him seem uncertain and passive.
Ron DeSantis never smiled, except one time briefly at the end of the debate. He looked grumpy and dour, and had zero charisma. You would not want to be around him.
Vivek Ramaswamy was like a noisy little yapping dog; I wanted to take him right back to the pound. His fake teeth-whitened grin was in additional irritant. He looked like an arrogant lightweight.
Doug Burgum came across as a nice guy, but there was no force behind him. He looked tentative and unsure of himself.
Chris Christie looked like he had accidentally wandered in off the set of the Sopranos. He had the kind of massive presence that Pence did, but the flavor was menacing, as opposed to Pence’s more positive version.
Asa Hutchinson with his tentative smile just basically disappeared into the background. It was like no one was really there.
23 comments:
If the debaters were serious candidates with something to say, it would be ridiculous to watch them with the sound off rather than listen to their position on the issues. In this case, however, it probably makes no difference.
During the so-called debate, the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support Trump as the nominee, even if he was convicted. Asa Hutchinson was the only one who didn’t. They were also asked to raise their hands if they believed human behavior caused climate change. Only Asa Hutchinson did. He may be their only sane candidate, but Mr. Trigoboff describes him as “no one was really there.” Very interesting.
It reminds me of back in 2011. Jon Huntsman was one of the many Republican candidates until he made the mistake of tweeting: "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” That pretty much ended his campaign. It looks like not much has changed except for the party turning into a traitorous cult.
My favorite was Sarah Palin winking at me. That's when I knew she wanted me.
Watching with the sound turned off is a clever technique for seeing body language without being distracted by the verbal content. Denying the value of this technique is to deny the significance of charisma in presidential elections.
It might be better for democracy if voters only concentrated on policy and ignored charisma, but we don’t live in that world.
Great guest post.
Smart AND made me laugh.
Twofer.
Reagan beat Carter in no small part because he projected optimism in both demeanor and words.
I personally wasn’t taken with it but that’s what happened (and Carter’s presidency was weak on its best day).
Ironically, the antagonism and defiance now seen in the viral mugshot meme, which of course was selected with careful calculation, is going to be the hardline sell this year.
Which imo says way, way, way more about where we are now in this country than it does about the candidates.
(If the candidates are Biden and Trump, are we at tragedy or farce?)
Lastly, this new Gallup poll. Congress deserves its bottom-of-the-barrel ranking, but … there’s no good news here.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/508169/historically-low-faith-institutions-continues.aspx
Mr. Trigoboff referred this episode of rectus as a "smile". Little wonder the other participants in the so-called "debate" treated DeSantis like he wasn't there.
https://twitter.com/brenonade/status/1694519144295563733?t=WLHs-CDa1XfqF1DcuPNLqg&s=09
I suppose evaluating candidates on the basis of charisma is one way to make a choice, but it isn't likely to be the best. Believe it or not, some people actually consider Trump charismatic (I am not making this up), but I have no doubt that history will judge Jimmy Carter a far better president, regardless of charisma.
It’s not a matter of advocating that presidents be chosen on the basis of charisma. It’s noticing that charisma is actually a significant factor in how politics works.
One definition of charisma is the ability to have a strong emotional effect on people. Donald Trump clearly has that in spades. Democrats’ emotional reaction to him is very negative but it’s still a strong emotion.
Ed is still losing his battle with autocomplete… 😀
I agree with Sally. Reagan versus Carter was “morning in America“ versus malaise. Carter’s weak response to the Iran hostage crisis didn’t help him either.
There was a joke going around in November, 1980 after Reagan won the election:
Q: What’s flat, green, and glows in the dark?
A: Iran, after January 21.
According to Merriam-Webster, charisma is “a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (such as a political leader).”
Trump may have that effect “in spades” on Republicans, especially on his xenophobic, misogynistic, white supremacist base, but not on anyone able to tell right from wrong. In fact, most Americans want him put on trial, which definitely does not fit the definition.
P.S. Nuking Iran is a pretty sick “joke.”
Mike steely, Christie did NOT raise his hand. Look at, and listen to, the video. These fotos are very misleading re Christi’s hand-raising (not).
https://news.yahoo.com/seven-eight-republican-candidates-raise-024924011.html
Carter's first challenge was to out-charisma Gerald Ford. Sheesh. Not a heavy lift. But Reagan? No one was gonna beat him.
Trump has the charisma effect on Democrats in spades, just with the opposite polarity.
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PS: There’s no arguing taste, especially when it comes to humor.
Humor plays at the edges; it expresses feelings that would otherwise have no outlet. People with free, flexible minds get the joke.
It sounds like those who find Trump charismatic assume that everybody must. It's true that he attracts the far-White like moths to the flame, but anybody with a clue finds him traitorous and repulsive, which is pretty much the opposite of charismatic.
PS: Regarding the 'joke' about nuking Iran, there's nothing humorous about the mass murder of over 80 million people.
I suspect my friend Hideko, who was a child in Hiroshima t h at awful day would agree with you, Mike.
Evidently you haven't noticed that there are black, brown, Asian, and Hispanic supporters of Trump.
Your brush is a bit too broad.
No one took the joke literally; no one expected Reagan to actually nuke Iran, and he didn’t. It expressed an emotion, not an intention.
Some joke. Very fucking funny. :-(
M2inFla -
It's true, not all Trump's supporters are White, but they are all as crazy as he is.
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