"Unlike all of the other candidates, [Trump] showed emotion, even malice. The carefully scripted talking points of Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz were swept aside by the visceral nastiness he was prepared to deal in."
George Friedman, Founder: Geopolitical Futures
Trump shows emotion.
The thing that distinguishes Trump's ability to communicate from that of "the typical politician" is that Trump openly and freely expresses rough emotions--anger, contempt, pride, malice, avarice, lust.
It makes him seem authentic. His supporters like it.
He motivates people who hate what he hates.
Trump is accused of inciting the violent insurrection that led to people charging down to the Capitol, breaking in, injuring and killing people, and disrupting Congress when it was counting electoral votes. Trump asserts he won a landslide victory and that the election was stolen from him. His anger and apparent certitude persuaded a majority of Republican voters to agree that the election was "rigged," and fraught with fraud. In speeches and tweets Trump summoned people to come to Washington DC on January 6, to stop the vote count that would confirm Biden's victory, and instead to award the election to him.
People flew in from around the country. Some came prepared with flags, banners, and hats, and some with weapons, explosives, and incendiary devices. There was merchandise: "MAGA CIVIL WAR" and the January 6th date. Trump arranged an event with his children and his lawyers as speakers. Don Junior warned "weak" Republicans" that Trump's people would be coming after them in primary elections. Rudolph Giuliani warned of "trial by combat." Trump was the headliner and final speaker. Then, following the event, the crowd was to go to the Capitol.
Donald Trump has been impeached, naming his actions on that day as the reason. Trump's former Attorney General called it "orchestrating a mob." A Republican House leader, Liz Cheney, said "The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack."
Really? Did he incite the attack on the Congress? What did he say? That matters legally. More important in terms of effect, how did he say it and to whom?
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| Click: from the White House |
Defenders of Trump point to this. See? Trump is clarifying what he intended all along. He wants laws obeyed.
The second video is the full speech on January 6th, a speech of over an hour. A reader need not watch it all. One can simply click anywhere in it, watch thirty seconds and then move forward randomly. It is all essentially alike. He is angry and bellicose. We need to fight, he said, and citizens need to have strength and courage to do the right thing, he said. He never says to go to the Capitol and vandalize it or kill people.. He never says to break the law.
The real communication takes place with emotion, not denoted words. He communicated anger, immediacy, huge consequence, righteous result, and a duty to act.
Act how?
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| Click: Save America speech |
He left that up to the crowd. They got the urgency and the goal. Go to the Capitol and do something. Something big and consequential and courageous. Trump is a poor general. He had not organized a plan or an endgame. The mob got the motivation, but when at the Capitol, they winged it.
Watch Trump talk. See the result.
One reader of this blog tells me he is "on the spectrum" of autism. He says he is very literal and is somewhat tone deaf to meaning embedded in emotional content rather than denoted words. He tells me he heard Trump say to go to the Capitol to stop a transfer of power to save America from great injury but did not hear specific instruction to do anything illegal. And somewhere in the hour speech he said to be peaceable. So what is the problem, he asks. Blame the mob, not Trump.
If one is tone deaf or willingly blind to what is taking place it is possible to perceive the two videos to be essentially equal in political communication. On January 6 Trump incited the crowd to storm the Capitol. Almost anyone can hear it, but a person can say they do not. Trump is skilled at avoiding provable criminality. Trump has plausible deniability. It is true; he never said to break the law.
The crowd got meaning from the tone of anger and urgency, from Trump's insistence that the situation was desperate and the fate of America was in their hands, if they had the courage to do what is right.
He brought the kindling and lit the flame.
4 comments:
Google what per cent of communication is through words. The results that pop up: 7% spoken words, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language. Take an anger management course (I’ve taught maybe 200 over a 30 year career in corrections) and this will be presented.
What did Trump present with body language and tone of voice?
Trump’s speech pattern sounds like a mob boss accustomed to talking on a recorded phone line telling his minions what he expects they must do to “please him”. His intent is clear in the inflection and tone of the words but not the words themselves. For example “Nice house. I sure hope that you enough insurance in case something happens to it. You never know, just saying.” Lawyers love to argue the precision and meaning of the words, but if you’re drinking with someone at the bar and they start talking like that one of two things happens. A fights starts or the bouncer throws all of you out of the bar. Or you perceive the intended threat but have no bases to bring charges. So in the end are you going to believe Trump or your lying eyes and ears. Case closed, is perhaps the way the Senate trial ends.
"Turn your cameras please and show what’s really happening out here because these people are not going to take it any longer. They’re not going to take it any longer.
We took them by surprise and this year they rigged an election. They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before.
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore
It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.
We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen, I’m not going to let it happen.
(Audience chants: “Fight for Trump.”)
And then we’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We’re just not going to let that happen.
(Audience chants: “We love Trump.”)
They’ve used the pandemic as a way of defrauding the people in a proper election.
You know what the world says about us now? They said, we don’t have free and fair elections.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore."
This was interspersed with a litany of falsehoods about election fraud presented as "facts". This speech, this rally, had one purpose. It achieved it.
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