BevH

1/ I am so tired of him. I am tired of his face. I am tired of his style of speech. I am so tired of his lies. I am tired of his bluster, his narcissism. I am tired of his fraud and his crimes. I am tired of the relentless news coverage and the danger he poses to democracy. I am so tired. Read on for why.👇 His Face Or, more specifically, his facial expressions. Let’s start with the pout. It’s his way of trying to look tough, but he can’t pull it off because he isn’t tough. If we’ve learned nothing else in the last eight years, it’s that he’s a perpetually aggrieved child who can never find satisfaction and who blames everything bad that happens to him on everyone else. Then there’s the sneer, which is worse. He saves it for those occasions when he scores a point against a perceived enemy — like getting the Mike Johnsons and Ron DeSantises of the world to come to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring, or on those alarming occasions when he gets away with breaking a norm (or a law) or, maybe even worse, when he gets an assist from an increasingly corrupt institution like the Supreme Court. Together, the pout and the sneer perfectly encapsulate the tension that exists between his arrogant belief that he is utterly untouchable and his desperately fragile ego and unconscious sense that he is a weak, terrified little boy. His Style of Speech He just won’t stop talking. And the longer he speaks, the more he lapses into a stream of consciousness that defies logic or meaning. There is no nuance, no attempt to be coherent, no aspiration to eloquence. Word Choice: Everything is always terrible or incredible. It is always like nothing you’ve ever seen. There are no shades of gray; only the black and white of hyperbole, because if it is in any way related to him or his enemies, it must be the best or the worst. Asides and Non Sequiturs: He meanders without ever really getting to the point, and along the way he veers off onto a totally unrelated topic. He could be talking about nuclear weapons and then launch into a monologue about water pressure or lightbulbs while his supporters wait for a conclusion he never draws. Repetition: When he wants to drive home a point, he doesn’t just repeat it once, he repeats it incessantly. He pounds it down. Repetition reinforces his message,even as it hides the lack of substance and factual information — and his brand of simple-minded patter makes it all the more effective. As Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for Nazi Germany put it, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” In cognitive psychology, this is known as the “illusory truth effect.” Rhetoric: He speaks down to the lowest common denominator and doesn’t hesitate to call on his followers to commit violence on his behalf, riling them up with promises to pay their lawyers or otherwise offering them immunity. It is the coward’s way, but he excels at it. And here lies his disturbing resemblance to cult leaders. They, too, traffic in simplistic tropes and make vague promises; they see themselves as unique, chosen, and, in some cases, divine; they create a clear division between their group (the “chosen” ones) and the out group (the “enemy” or “other”). Cult leaders dehumanize the other, portraying them as inferior or inhuman (“vermin”). Sound familiar? When you hear that voice, rambling, repetitive, and threatening, remember: it’s not empty noise — he’s preying on the vulnerability of his followers, who at this point seem almost incapable of listening to any voice but his.