Trump keeps losing his train of thought. Cognitive experts have theories about why
Trump keeps losing his train of thought. Cognitive experts have theories about why
Shifting from topic to topic, with few connections, is one of several disjointed and occasionally incoherent verbal habits that seem to have increased in Trump’s speech.
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Even as Trump speaks with more derailments, Pennebaker found that he’s relied on unusually simple words and sentence structures since before he was elected president. A linguistic metric of analytic thinking shows that Trump’s levels of complexity have always been unmistakably low, said Pennebaker. Whereas most presidential candidates are in the 60 to 70 range, Trump’s speeches range from 10 to 24. “I can’t tell you how staggering this is,” said Pennebaker. “He does not think in a complex way at all.”
I think that there are many things we can get mad at Trump for, but simple vocabulary isn't one of those things.
Speaking clearly is a virtue. Using plain language makes what you're saying easier to understand.
Using complex jargon where an 8th grade level of speech will do increases the load on people's heads, which makes them get tired faster, and makes your message less accessible to immigrants.
Trump is still not understandable even given the simple vocabulary, which is a huge strike against him.
I think that there are many things we can get mad at Trump for, but simple vocabulary isn't one of those things.
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Trump is still not understandable even given the simple vocabulary, which is a huge strike against him.
You said it all, the two paragraphs in between are true, but not really relevant to the situation.
Trump isn't speaking simply because he is brilliant educator, it is because he is dumb - which is not good qualification for the president.
“He does not think in a complex way at all.”
And believe it or not, that right there is the reason his base is so rabid in its support for him.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Trump supporter. Life has kicked you in the teeth repeatedly, and you're not bright enough or educated enough to recognize when it's been self-induced and when it's been caused by someone else. Chains of complex causality elude your understanding. The world seems complicated and mystifying, and all the Kids These DaysTM are talking in ways you don't understand about subjects that confuse you. You're not what anyone would call a "nuanced thinker," and maybe you legitimately don't even know what the word "nuance" means.
You view the world through a lens of black and white morality, and complex moral questions feel like confusing wordplay to you. You latch onto a form of religious faith that draws bold lines between Good and Evil. And you are instantly and immediately worshipful of anyone who tells you they have all the answers and can make the way you see morality into reality, and can solve the world's problems with simple solutions. It's even better if they tell you those problems aren't real. It's comforting in a confusing world.
You look at politicians like Kamala Harris and they say things that confuse you. You've heard of "word salad," so you mock her for it, when what's actually going on is that you can't comprehend what she says. Sure, you also frequently can't understand the sentences Donald Trump says, either, but he uses simple words, and if you focus, you can make the words mean something to you, and that's enough. He's like you, but he has the power to affect the confusing world and make it make some kind of sense. The ideas he presents to you - whether it's "build the wall" or "tax cuts" - are simple enough for you to grasp.
And that makes you feel smart. You can basically figure out what he wants, and it's the same things you want: Simple, sound-byte-sized solutions. Chanting them makes you feel good. So you'll follow him to the ends of the Earth.
Edit: I want to make something clear. I don't think these people are inherently stupid. I think they've been raised badly, they've been brainwashed by the "Fox News" infotainment channel, and they've been intentionally miseducated by nearly everyone in their lives.
Imagine you were raised specifically to not understand how computers work, and to believe that anything complicated anyone does on one is either a) gibberish, or b) magic. Then someone shows you a computer up-close for the first time. Not only are you not going to be able to comprehend the "desktop" metaphor, you'll probably believe all this talk about "windows" and closing or opening applications is just word salad. It won't mean anything to you.
I've never seen "because people are fucking stupid" put so eloquently. Jk. It's not just the fact that they are uneducated. It's FEAR. They understand simple phrases that scare them into believing that they have to vote for the man that will protect them from evils. Meanwhile, the other candidate plays into their fears of being inferior, because "They don't speak like me, they must think they are better than me."
I mostly agree but I don't think reducing the argument down to, "Trumpites are really dumb" tells the whole story.
The world has gotten increasingly more complex and opaque, it's hard to know for sure what is really going on out there, even for people who are actually paying attention and trying to figure things out.
On top of that leaders are becoming more adept at playing the kind of games the Russians are really good at where everything is obfuscated and few people come across as open and genuine in their opinions.
We know people like Trump routinely lie. Back when things were simpler that wouldn't be tolerated by the electorate. We would've demanded at least some degree of honesty. These days, lying has been normalized to the point where Trump can spit out falsehood after falsehood for 90 minutes on live TV and get away with it.
For Trump supporters, if everything is fake and everyone lies, they figure they might as well get behind their orange god because the alternatives are just as bad.
That sounds nice and all but I’ve routinely noticed that the “lesser of two evils” crowd always manages to pick the meanest, dumbest, and most comically disasterous evil between the two.
When you break something down like that to give grace it still has to fit that aspect worth giving grace to. In this case sure “everyone lies” but why, in this quite honestly misleading hypothetical, do they choose the one whose baseline, out-in-the-open promises are so fucking awful? Why do they choose the one whose lies aren’t even consistent enough to pretend like they’re able to string two thoughts together? And then they pile onto the people who aren’t even fucking lying or whose lies/miscommunications are so much less significant.
Honest to god, and I know it doesn’t feel good, but I think they may just be fucking stupid as hell. It doesn’t mean I would support any kind of fucked up testing, stripping of rights, or any lack of basic respect for their humanity but my god are they dumb.
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Sidenote: Maybe I’m more intelligent than I feel comfortable saying but it really seems like so many people are stupid. Like, really stupid. It feels wrong to say that I’m special when I see so many examples of people being far more clever than I am yet I still can’t help but wonder if there are simply hordes of people out there who are basically just head-empty and so easily manipulated they may as well- well that’s a path I don’t want to explore much further but you get the point.
That sounds nice and all but I’ve routinely noticed that the “lesser of two evils” crowd always manages to pick the meanest, dumbest, and most comically disasterous evil between the two.
I think that's another side to this - many of these people are just plain mean. They want to see pain inflicted on those they dislike and they want to be a part of the in group meting out the punishment.
Several studies have examined brain scans and tried to detect differences between those on the right and left and there does seem to be evidence that people who identify as right wing have an over-developed response to fear stimuli. While not evidence of stupidity, such a response can make these people take decisions which seem bizarre to those who don't react in that way.
This explains the success of the fear-based messaging that is far more common in right wing media and politics. Someone is always coming to take your guns. Caravans of migrants are coming to rape your daughters and murder your sons.
Anyway, I'm just spitballing. I think there's a whole lot more to this than them simply being stupid.
A lot of people are very stupid. Remember the quote by the late, great George Carlin:
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
If we talk about Trump in particular I think part of it is identification: they see in his persona somebody they recognise from their mirror. Simple minded, loud, rambunctious. They feel alienated by the classic "coastal elites" - lawyers and dyed-in-the-wool career politicians who use big words. Trump's persona speaks to their core identity (note the use of the word persona - he is of course in actuality a multimillionaire, as far abstracted from them as anyone in Washington).
There is also an aspirational aspect I think - and I'm not only talking about money or fame. He doesn't "play by the rules", he says whatever he wants - whenever he wants. He has no respect for anyone. He flies around in a private jet and lives on a golf course. He grabs celebrity women by the pussy. They wish they could also be like that, it speaks to something deep inside them, a hidden, rotten part of American culture that for once has been let out in the open.
I just call them "hold my beer voters"
That's true, but even a previous analysis by the same site^[1] back in 2017 noted an already at that point notable deterioration in speech pattern and vocabulary, noting that in the 80s and 90s:
...Trump fluently peppered his answers with words and phrases such as “subsided,” “inclination,” “discredited,” “sparring session,” and “a certain innate intelligence.” He tossed off well-turned sentences such as, “It could have been a contentious route,” and, “These are the only casinos in the United States that are so rated.” He even offered thoughtful, articulate aphorisms: “If you get into what’s missing, you don’t appreciate what you have”
Yeah, if you listen to interviews from the 90s it's like a different person.