Over at Balloon Juice, Annie Laurie has found this interesting video that analyzes the way Donald Trump uses language and how he organizes his thoughts. Bottom line: Because Trump is a salesman more than a politician, he is focused on closing the deal and creating a sense of urgency to buy his product. This differs from a typical politician in that Trump is less worried about having his words come back to bite him in the ass. It’s worth the time to view:
As Annie points out, this was also examined in detail by the New York times:
The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months. The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns, demonstrating how Mr. Trump has built one of the most surprising political movements in decades and, historians say, echoing the appeals of some demagogues of the past century.
Mr. Trump’s breezy stage presence makes him all the more effective because he is not as off-putting as those raging men of the past, these experts say.
The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use, based on a quantitative comparison of his remarks and the news conferences of recent presidents, Democratic and Republican. He has a particular habit of saying “you” and “we” as he inveighs against a dangerous “them” or unnamed other — usually outsiders like illegal immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian migrants (“young, strong men”) and Mexicans, but also leaders of both political parties…
I’m not sure is what is worse, that Trump is a big a huckster as he is, or that Americans are stupid enough not to be able to see through these techniques. I am leaning towards option 2. After all hucksters have been around since Eve first fucked over Adam. But Americans are supposed to be smarter than this.
It’s going to be a hell of a year.