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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1734 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 30, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So, Trump was on the Lex podcast https://x.com/lexfridman/status/1831010861248585738

I don't care to comment on the substance of this at all, except perhaps Lex asks Trump if Congress would become better if they all took mushrooms lol and, IMO, Trump pauses almost imperceptibly like "wtf" but then smoothly pivots into medical marijuana. Well done.

I find Trump's answers kind of uninteresting and he evades a lot of gotcha questions, typical politician stuff. But what always astonishes me when I listen to him talk is that his speech seems specially crafted to communicate with people who have ... 3 second long attention spans at best?

At first I thought this might be an example of Trump's dim wit, but I don't think that's it. I think it actually takes incredible skill to speak in a way where people with median IQ hear you and don't get confused because you're hyperlinking to things that came up too long ago and have long since fallen out of their short-term memory.

One example is pretty early on Lex asks him if politics is a dirty game? Trump says yes. Lex immediately follows up, almost interrupting, to ask him how you win at this game? And from there Trump completely totally pretends this has nothing to do with the game being dirty and instead he switches gears to answering as if he asked an independent question "how do you win at politics in general?"

I find that remarkable. I don't think I could do that. I'd probably spend a really long time constructing a solid answer that covers these points

  • politics can be dirty
  • <anecdote about outrageous thing my opponent did>
  • but you gotta take the high ground
  • <example of you playing dirty that you spin as taking the high ground>
  • finish up with more milquetoast answers about meeting people and listening

and I'd probably impress the top 10% of listeners and make everyone else think I'm some huge bullshitter because they forgot most of what I said by the time I was done.

I don't really want to become some kind of Trump analyst but there are other examples.

One time during a press conference with leaders of Congress, Trump brought up winning Iowa and Schumer butts in, with a sarcastic comment about how you know Trump is in trouble when he brings up Iowa, and Trump just deadpan responds "but I did win Iowa". I found that remarkable because even Schumer, who successfully became Senator of New York and is the Senate Majority leader, used air time to say something snarky that maybe 10% of viewers would understand while Trump just took the opportunity to turn it into a positive for him that almost everyone understands.

tl;dr Trump's actually really skilled at communicating with the general public, much to the frustration of people who can rub two brain cells together and find his speech agonizing.

It's not that those people have shorter attention spans. It's more that most people just don't take politics all that seriously. Because let's face it: electoral politics is not serious business. Voters do not think of themselves as board members trying to pick a new CEO, even though the two situations are structurally analogous. The huge difference of degree has resulted in a difference of kind. For most people, discussing politics is similar to watching sports: an amateur hour time when intellectual rigor is out of place, a time for letting one's hair down and cracking silly jokes (kind of like the Friday Fun threads. "This is for fun!")

Trump's actually really skilled at communicating with the general public, much to the frustration of people who can rub two brain cells together and find his speech agonizing.

Reading transcripts of his speeches, especially off-the-cuff ones at small-town rallies, is... an experience.

yes I agree transcripts of his speeches are brain rotting

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