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Miami Herald: I’m done trying to understand Trump supporters. Why don’t they try to understand me?


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"Train and socialize": Expert on linguistic anthropology explains how Trump is warping MAGA minds

 

One of the Republican Party's most effective weapons in its campaign to end America's multiracial pluralistic democracy is a media propaganda machine that functions as a closed episteme and echo chamber. Anchored by Fox News, the feedback loop exerts a powerful if not almost omnipotent level of control over its public's beliefs, thoughts, values, behavior, and emotions. This is accomplished through a strategy of repeating lies, amplifying and circulating conspiracy theories, and encouraging violence and hatred against some type of Other.

 

Ultimately, Donald Trump and other right-wing neofascists, authoritarians, demagogues, and malign actors are political entrepreneurs who are leveraging a public that has been trained and conditioned over decades to respond to such leaders, messaging, and voices. Trump is a symptom of a much deeper problem in American politics and society, after all, not the cause.

 

Marcel Danesi is Professor Emeritus of linguistic anthropology and semiotics at the University of Toronto. His new book is Politics, Lies and Conspiracy Theories: A Cognitive Linguistic Perspective.

 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Danesi details how neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics can help us to understand why Donald Trump's MAGA cultists and other right-wing voters and followers will likely not be abandoning him any time soon. Right-wing demagogues like Trump, Danesi explains, are able to use metaphors and repeated codes and tropes as part of a larger rhetorical strategy that manipulates and triggers their targeted public on an almost subconscious level. The implications are ominous for American democracy and civil society because such programming is very hard to counteract.

 

Click on the link for the full interview

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43 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

 

 

I love the look on her face when she said "Look at the Supreme Court!" She was so convinced that she had just trapped him and dropped the ultimate truth bomb.  :ols:

 

And she also apparently thinks that if you hear anything, literally anything, on the news, then it's probably false, no matter the source. If you hear that the sun rose today on the news, it didn't. If you hear on the news that 2+2=4, then it doesn't.

Edited by mistertim
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38 minutes ago, mistertim said:

And she also apparently thinks that if you hear anything, literally anything, on the news, then it's probably false, no matter the source

Distrust in existing institutions is a key component of propaganda when taking over

 

same as a cult

 

if you can’t trust anyone, well, then, the only one you can trust is me. 
 

and trust in me you will, no matter what I say or order. 

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57 minutes ago, mistertim said:

 

I love the look on her face when she said "Look at the Supreme Court!" She was so convinced that she had just trapped him and dropped the ultimate truth bomb.  :ols:

 

And she also apparently thinks that if you hear anything, literally anything, on the news, then it's probably false, no matter the source. If you hear that the sun rose today on the news, it didn't. If you hear on the news that 2+2=4, then it doesn't.

People complain that people like her vote. And I get that concern. But she also goes to the grocery store before you and handles produce without buying it. And you know show uses her bare hand to wipe. Think about that the next time you select an apple.

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