The above video contains outrageous speeches made by two con artists. Be careful!
You are not supposed to learn them by heart.
If you wish to “criticize” Trump, please try to actually criticize against his precise words (i.e. not quotes taken from other “criticizers”) not taken out of context. Otherwise, you will quickly be perceived as a Trump basher, which I believe you are by the way.
I am sure you listened to the three presidential debates on TV.
Criticising the bully does not costitute “Trump-bashing”.
Donald Trump’s slogans are vague in most cases. But everybody knows that they are spoken in a certain context, which everyone can identify. Everybody can notice the context. His speeches are full of absurd, outrageous ideas, which clearly show us what he intends to convey in which context.
Thank you for responding to my post.
"KAINE: When Donald Trump says women should be punished or Mexicans are rapists and criminals …
PENCE: I’m telling you …
KAINE: … or John McCain is not a hero, he is showing you who he is.
PENCE: Senator, you’ve whipped out that Mexican thing again. He — look …
KAINE: Can you defend it?
PENCE: There are criminal aliens in this country, Tim, who have come into this country illegally who are perpetrating violence and taking American lives.
KAINE: You want to — you want to use a big broad brush against Mexicans on that?
PENCE: He also said many of them are good people. You keep leaving that out of your quote. And if you want me to go there, I’ll go there."
“Pence: Yes, Trump called Mexicans rapists and criminals, but you keep forgetting about the other part” http://wpo.st/vlkO2
Does the phrase “many of them are good people” make sense in his entire speech?
Do you agree with Pence?
Trump’s border wall may be collapsing Trump's border wall may be collapsing - POLITICO
I would like to memorize one of his speeches. I find his style of speaking fascinating and I would love to mimic it.
You might want to become his “apprentice”. I wonder what you are going to sell. Trump Wine, Trump’s Huge Wall, Trump’s Fat Chicken, or Trump’s Glittering Diaper? I will never criticize you for being a big fan of the Trump brand.
I apologize beforehand in case the above remarks sound sarcastic.
Of course, who wouldn’t want to be an apprentice of the next POTUS? But no I just find his manner of speaking very interesting and clearly he’s been able to use it very effectively.
I watched all three presidential debates. You do not criticize a “bully” if you dont respond to what he says. In my mind it is more like bashing since you are attacking a fictitious strawman.
Trump is not a bully and if you believe his speeches are “full of absurd, outrageous ideas”, I would prefer it if you actually referenced his precise words so that someone could debate that statement. I have a suspicion you don’t actually listen to him at all though and instead just parrot what the newspapers you follow say.
Pence is not Trump.
Pence and Kaine talked about Trump’s messages at public events. The point is in what way “leaving something out of the quote” matters in the specific context.
During the US Presidential campaign I didn’t actually watch that much of Trump’s public speaking (hey, I don’t have a US vote, so I didn’t have a dog in the fight.) However, I recently heard a podcast by (if memory serves me correctly) Sam Harris, where he was absolutely excoriating about Trump and his manner of speaking in public. So I went to Youtube and listened to some stuff - speeches at Trump rallies and clips from debates and interviews.
I understand exactly where the critics are coming from. Yet I think they are missing something - and it’s quite hard to put a finger on exactly what it is.
I suspect that really effective political communication isn’t all that much about about cogent argument, or about being elegant, erudite, coherent, and so on. It probably has more to do with psychology and raw emotion. Humans are not wholly rational beings. We like to think we are, but the truth is that we often make judgments and decisions based at least partly on gut-instinct and emotion - and we then rationalise those judgments and decisions afterwards. This applies equally as well to bad decisions as to good ones.
When I started smoking cigarettes as a student, was it really because I wanted to supercharge my brain before exams and to stay awake studying late at night? Or was it because I fancied the knickers off of a girl who was a smoker?
When I decided to buy a Macbook Pro (good decision this time!) was it based on a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the various product options? Or was it because all of the cool people that I have ever seen have one?
What a compelling political speaker needs to do, in my opinion, is to be psychologically in tune with the audience. He or she needs to grip the attention of the listeners - and to keep it. To do that one needs a certain showmanship, in other words to have tremendous charisma and panache. One needs a certain cockiness and confidence - yet without pomposity. There should be flashes of self deferential humour mixed in with the arrogance. One should wildly exaggerate points. One should oversimplify things. One should bend the facts a little.
Trump ticks absolutely all of these boxes.
I’m not saying that it’s ethical. I’m not saying it’s intelligent (although it may be political genius!?) But if the object is to communicate and drive things home with voters (many of whom are not intellectuals or academics, of course) then there is undoubtedly something tremendously effective and compelling about his performances.
Quite honestly, if I had dead time to kill between flights, would I rather listen to Donald Trump thuggishly putting the boot into “low energy Jeb Bush”; or would I rather listen to some wonk in a suit being soberly critical of Governor Bush’s track record in three key policy areas, by analysing the outcomes of his strategy for X and Y, while nevertheless partly agreeing with his approach to Zzzzzzz…?
Honestly, I would only choose the latter if I wanted to nod off to sleep!
The guy is pure political box office. It is something new in US politics. It is truly terrifying, in a way. But I have a feeling that the next 4 years are going to be one hell of an interesting ride.
If you find Donald Trump’s level of English to be too simple, then take a look at our PM Justin Trudeau. He speaks like a poet and I find him to sound very pretentious both in French and English, but then again maybe you’ll
like him.
"After Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction that never were, plenty are understandably wary of accepting the word of the intelligence agencies. But Trump’s scepticism – cynicism is a better word – operates on a different level. ‘Nobody really knows,’ he says about the hacking charges, the very words he uses about climate change, in the face of a vast body of evidence. Recall that he also says that he won the US popular vote ‘if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally’, a flagrantly false claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
We’ve been calling this ‘post-truth politics’ but I now worry that the phrase is far too gentle, suggesting society has simply reached some new phase in its development. It lets off the guilty too lightly. What Trump is doing is not ‘engaging in post-truth politics’. He’s lying.
Worse still, Trump and those like him not only lie: they imply that the truth doesn’t matter, showing a blithe indifference to whether what they say is grounded in reality or evidence.
Back in 2000, such a posture left you isolated in that never-never world inhabited by Irving. Today you’ll have a US president, a British foreign secretary (never forget the £350m Brexit bus), as well as a ready army of fake news consumers to keep you company."
Don’t call it post-truth. There’s a simpler word: lies | Jonathan Freedland Don’t call it post-truth. There’s a simpler word: lies | Jonathan Freedland | The Guardian
Yutaka, since you are obviously interested in politics and using it to improve your English even further, I thought you might enjoy seeing this article about the degree to which the American public believes in conspiracy theories. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/12/28/americans-especially-but-not-exclusively-trump-voters-believe-crazy-wrong-things/?utm_term=.0397457469c6
“Some of these misperceptions and false beliefs may seem laughable. To me[Catherine Rampell], they’re terrifying. They result in misused resources, violence and harassment, health risks, bad policy, and, ultimately, the deterioration of democracy. Good governance becomes more challenging when Americans live in parallel universes of facts.”
The above excerpt is from the article Steve suggested.
Prinz of May wrote at the end of his long “analytical” comment:
“The guy is pure political box office. It is something new in US politics. It is truly terrifying, in a way. But I have a feeling that the next 4 years are going to be one hell of an interesting ride.”
I don’t know if Donald Trump’s style of politics is really “new” (or epoch-making) in US politics. I wonder if you are looking forward to a “terrifying” experience or an “interesting” experience. I would like to know what causes you to feel terrified “in a way.”
(Edited)
Nobody in Canada believes in conspiracy theories. Obviously.
“…his long “analytical” comment:…”
It wasn’t an “analytical” comment so much as my opinion. And it wasn’t SO long, was it? (Some dogs in Deutschland have a longer Schwanz!)
“…I wonder if you are looking forward to a “terrifying” experience to an “interesting” experience…”
I assume you meant “or an interesting” rather than “to an interesting”…?
(The answer is: “both”!)
“… I would like to know what causes you to feel terrified “in a way”…”
Cos the guy is batsh_t crazy, man!
“I assume you meant ‘or an interesting’ rather than ‘to an interesting’…?”
Yes, there was a mistake.
The comparison to Hitler is not so outrageous - at least in terms of speeches and rhetoric.
People forget that Hitler (in the 1920s and 30s) was a political genius. An evil genius, yes. But he sure knew which emotional buttons to press in his audience, how to excite them, how to whip them up, etc.
Whether Trump will be more literally like Hitler (causing wars of aggression, persecuting and killing political opponents and minorities, etc.) I very much doubt.