The 7%--38%--55% Rule.
Meaningful communication is 7% the words themselves, 38% the tone of the speaker, and 55% the body language while speaking.
Albert Mehrabian, a professor of psychology at UCLA, made this allocation of what registers in human communication. His formula became famous, and he with it.
Mehrabian's Rule seems oddly precise for something so subjective, but generally I think it is about right. Policy is not irrelevant, but most voters are not looking at a checklist. They are trying to infer who is on their side and will protect and represent them. The personalities and mannerisms of Joe Biden and Donald Trump demonstrate Mehrabian's Rule. Joe Biden says the right thing but he sounds old, weak, and hesitant saying them. Strongly partisan Democrats take comfort in Biden's denoted words and tell me that Biden is just fine. They tell me his low-drama, low-impact communication manner is a feature, not a bug. "He says all the right things," they tell me. They are 7% right.
Trump presents himself to the public in a way that reminds me of stars in silent films a century ago. He makes big unmistakable gestures. He speaks English, of course, but his bombastic, domineering, ultra-confident style is unmistakable. He could be speaking a foreign language and we would absorb the big message: The man-in-charge.
Trump established a social medium platform, Truth Social, www.truthsocial.com. It is Trump's alternative to Twitter. It is a soap box and fan club for Trump, and as such it reveals an unmediated Trump. He is on home turf and among cheering supporters. He doesn't get cautionary cues from third parties. We get to see who he is and what his supporters like. Truth Social is a public service to voters.
He likes to playact being King.
This would be silly, goofball image-making, except that Trump-as-King is congruent with Trump's understanding of the limits of the presidency in a constitutional republic. Trump openly and unapologetically mixed personal and family interests with the office. He thought laws regarding conflicts of interest, emoluments, record-keeping, and the Hatch Act didn't apply to him. His "perfect phone call" with Zelenskyy, in which he asked for a political favor as condition of getting Congress-approved arms, was indeed perfect in his mind. Trump is the state. His interests are the country's interests. This isn't an unpopular view. He has a huge fan base. Monarchy and strong-man dictatorships have appeal when people feel worried or threatened.
Joe Biden criticized the "MAGA King" role that Trump was presenting on Truth Social. Possibly he thought Americans would recoil from monarchy. Trump did not deny it. He embraced it. Trump "re-Truthed":
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| Trump, in laurel leaves, armed, clawed, imperious. |
Trump in Truth Social published a variety of similar images, without apparent irony or reservation. Muscular, decisive, stern-faced Trump.
The role of king is hereditary.
There will be another election in 2024, and Democrats will have 2023 to select an alternative to Biden, if they choose to do so. Democrats do not need to replace Trump with a Democratic look-alike to Trump. Indeed, they must not. But they need to pick a person who looks and sounds like a leader.
9 comments:
Great oratory has the power to uplift, motivating citizens to fight injustice, throw off tyranny and lay down their lives for a worthy cause. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level and his bullying banter brings out the worst in us, which obviously resonates with a majority of Republicans. I suppose you could call that a strength.
Recently, Trump raised the possibility of another civil war. Bullies, especially fascist bullies, obviously have great appeal to a lot of Americans. The fact is that until the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was deeply, dangerously divided over WWII. Unfortunately, Biden isn’t much of a Churchill.
This fits with the idea I heard a long time ago that to really understand the appeal of a politician, you should listen to them with the sound turned off.
My personal impressions:
Donald Trump: dominant asshole.
Joe Biden: nothing happening.
Kamala Harris: sad, nervous, uncertain.
Kate Brown: nervous, uncertain.
Tina Kotek: rigid.
Betsy Johnson: dominant.
Ted Wheeler: weak, uncertain.
Joanne Hardesty: rigid.
Many Americans are absolutely NOT impressed. We loathe his behavior and we don't reward it with praise and awe.
He has a following, but it is not widespread. I did not notice any recent popularity statistics in this blog. The Hannity/Carlson audience is not really that large and is mainly comprised of dumb white men.
I really do not understand why this blog is so impressed with this unstable egomaniac. Charles Manson and Jim Jones had followers too.
Anonymous asks an excellent question. Why am I so impressed by this unstable egomaniac. I am"impressed" in the sense of paying attention and getting a strong impression. I loath Thump. I think he is dangerous because he excited something I had not realized was floating inside the American constitutional system. I had assumed that "good Republicans," i.e. the people who voted for Romney, Bush, McCain, Dole, etc. would recoil from Trump. Bob Dole fought and was badly injured fighting for democracy. And yet, when America needed Republicans to stand up and distinguish between Trump and a constitutional republic, they chose party. The reason for that is the GOP electorate, combined with that lack of GOP-leader integrity.
Voters in Georgia may re-elect Raffensperger. Apparently it will be close. They heard Trump pressure Raffensperger to cheat. He wouldn't. Instead of being universally understood to be a hero for fair play, a significant number of Georgia Republicans insist on believing Raffensperger stabbed them in the back. Trump, alas, is not irrelevant.
People who die of heart attacks or strokes or cancer are not 55 or 60 percent consumed by the disease. Most of their bodies might be perfectly healthy--except for the clot or the area of cancer in the liver or brain. It doesn't take a lot of Trump to destroy our democracy. Just enough Trump, in the right spot.
Trump is not irrelevant, alas. So I report on it.
Peter Sage
Trump increased his share of minority voters in 2020.
Anti-wokeness doesn’t just appeal to white voters.
Response to Peter:
Trump got himself elected president. Very few people have the skills and force of character to do that. It is unfortunate but true that those attributes have no correlation whatsoever with virtue.
A heads-up for Anonymous:
Trump remains the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. The latest poll I could find indicates he still has the support of 60% of Republicans. Ignoring him won’t make him go away.
Liz Cheney is also warming us as is Peter Sage. The coup is in the open. We are distracted. The tide is coming in and, if the analogy is accurate, will wash away our sand-castle republic. You are warned. Follow the Jan 6th committee report come to you in early June. Pay attention, please
Thank you for the information. I never said that he should be completed ignored. But giving him all of the sick attention that he craves is not the answer.
The possible support of 60% of Republicans does not strike me as very high, although it not low.
Thankfully there are also Independents, Democrats, Green Party people and Libertarians. His support is lower when you look at the entire picture.
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