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Showing posts with label Trump's Body Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump's Body Language. Show all posts

Anger And Hatred, What Are Powerful Speaking Techniques To Move An Audience?


I speak on nonverbal persuasion theory.  I have studied hundreds of hours on different political figures speaking over the years from Kennedy and Martin Luther Kind to Hitler. I have indeed watched hundreds of hours of video of Hitler's speeches, parades and interactions. I was the nonverbal communication expert on a six-part series on Hitler’s rise and fall. I watched the propaganda. Anger has the strongest pulling effect. 

In Trump's  Pennsylvania rally after the Parkland shooting Trump is seen speaking with not one not two but three blonde teenage girls behind him. In this rally speech trump smears, name calls and denigrates the credibility of the national media and trash mouths specific individuals. The speech tears down. It's not rallying people to a positive cause or a positive change. It's filled with anger and attacks without a focus other than to be angry.

In the background the girls make faces grimacing and smiling. And seemingly cheer him on smiling at the cameras. These are not young people standing up to a cause they believe in. They are cheering an angry guy. When I watched it a chill went up the back of my neck. Because these are young people who are being persuaded by anger. In the video, you can see that the girls don’t even hear the end of his sentences before they cheer or boo.  It doesn’t matter who or what he attacks. They just hear a few hate-filled words and react with their limbic brains to the anger. Anger is the strongest persuasive force. But, there is a cost. 

So what are the positive actions we can take? I plan on talking about this with young people I know and ask them what they feel as Trump speaks, I will work on being someone who will not only point out negative behavior but notice if I model better behavior. I will focus on positive action.


Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Trump's Body Language During Endorsement of Paul Ryan, Was Trump Telling the Truth about Ryan?

Trump, as you may have guessed, does not like Paul Ryan. And there was a big tell that showed his  hatred of Ryan when he did talk about him!
First you will notice in the clip that he was, for the most part, reading from a script during his so called endorsement of Paul Ryan.  Instead of praising Ryan, Trump chose to spend the majority of his on air time, reading the script about topics that had nothing to do about Ryan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTPpH5-p5us

When Trump was off script he made his usual negative statements. Interesting that endorsements are typically very positive and rather "Rah Rah for the Party" scripts but, when he was off script he was negative. For example, he said of our functioning international trade agreements. “Trade is a disaster. “  A particularly telling sentence that was part of a rambling rant struck me as typical of his negative statements in speeches and interviews, but horrible when you think it is coming from the mouth of someone running for president. “We don’t win at any level at anything.” Just sit with that sentence for bit. Hear that coming from the president, imagine, a past president you admire saying of America, “We don’t win at any level at anything.” Again, he said this off script and delivered it in a casual, off hand manner non verbally.   I am trying to be objective about this and view this a Media coach and Nonverbal communication expert analyzing someone speaking to endorse a candidate in a prepared speech. 

It's also revealing that Trump  could not sustain a positive flow of his speech for more than four sentences even when reading from the script. If he read a few positive sentences he would go off script and say something negative. (If you read my posts on anger you will see how negativity works for him.)  For example, when he looked down at his script he said, “We will work together as friends...” but seconds later got off script and said negative things about voter ID.
He choose not to give specifics praise about Ryan, he kept repeating that same two phrases, "He is good man." "Paul Ryan, he is a good man and a good guy." Before this, his baseline for off script statements was to look up and often to look at the camera,  But as he said those statements,  he looked down, paused and did a lizard tongue thrust, stuck out is tongue is dislike and attack of Ryan and then he said, “and we may disagree.” This showed he does not believe Ryan is a good guy and with the lizard tongue thrust, he attack and extreme dislike of Ryan. 



Trump's Body Language During Endorsement of Paul Ryan 



Trump endorses Ryan 



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.