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| #Post#: 4575-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Trump's rhetoric | |
| By: agate Date: October 3, 2024, 1:45 am | |
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| Over the years--quite a number of years--Donald Trump may have | |
| perfected some rhetorical techniques that have helped to put him | |
| over among a substantial segment of the population. | |
| We aren't always aware of just how much a tone of voice, the | |
| cadences in a person's speech, affect the way we respond to what | |
| that person is saying. We think we're taking in only the words | |
| and evaluating them in a rational way, but we're also reacting | |
| to the tone a person uses. | |
| In the usual spoken English sentence, the speaker drops the | |
| pitch in his voice towards the end of a sentence. It's a signal | |
| that the sentence is ending. A rise in pitch at the end of a | |
| sentence signals a question. Now Donald Trump, in his | |
| exhortatory mode, doesn't drop or raise the pitch of his voice. | |
| He lets it hang there. He does this repeatedly in the course of | |
| a speech. In ordinary conversation this might signal boredom or | |
| just an uncompleted thought. But in front of a crowd of | |
| listeners, where the speaker has been declaiming for a while, | |
| the effect may be to create an uneasiness, a sense of impending | |
| doom. The sentence just hangs there, sounding unfinished and | |
| suspended. | |
| Suspense is in the air then. The lack of a pitch change at the | |
| end of a sentence is a "Wait for it!" moment. | |
| This was especially noticeable in his speech at the rally in the | |
| Capitol on January 6. It becomes most noticeable at about | |
| 3:37:19, and especially at 4:40:30, when he says, among other | |
| things, "You're not going to have a country any more." | |
| https://www.c-span.org/video/?507744-1/trumps-jan-6-rally-speech | |
| He moves on to the part where he implies a clear intention to | |
| join the protesters who are assembled before him by stating: | |
| "We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue..." and following | |
| that with a number of statements with the subject "we." | |
| He makes it perfectly clear that he intends to be right there | |
| with them. And this moment, at this rally, is the "Wait for it!" | |
| moment. Something big is about to happen. | |
| His tone says it all. | |
| As it turned out he wasn't there for that moment when his MAGA | |
| people stormed the Capitol. | |
| But he certainly stirred them up. How can there be any doubt | |
| about it? | |
| #Post#: 4608-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Dangerous times in the US | |
| By: agate Date: November 4, 2024, 1:27 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| "Caution--this road crooked and steep" was a sign I remember | |
| seeing often in my childhood in a mountainous part of this | |
| country, where the roads wound around every which way. | |
| It's a sign this country might need to have posted somewhere too | |
| just now. | |
| We shouldn't underestimate the danger posed by Donald Trump. | |
| Maybe a democracy can't succeed with a country as big as ours | |
| now is. In my lifetime states have been added, and the | |
| population has increased as it has done in most parts of the | |
| world. | |
| Maybe a democracy can't succeed in the world of modern | |
| technology, either. It is now possible for one person, given | |
| enough resources, to acquire a following of so many supporters | |
| that that one person can take over this country. | |
| The shameful Republican Party's candidate for President of the | |
| US has no intention of preserving democratic institutions. He | |
| has already managed to create a Supreme Court that will do his | |
| bidding. He has stated his intention to do away with the | |
| Department of Education. There have been indications that he | |
| would weaken or abolish Social Security, Medicaid, and the | |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development. | |
| He has repeatedly shown and stated his admiration for known | |
| tyrants. | |
| He is contemplating installing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge | |
| of this nation's health. RFK, Jr., is a known vaccine denier. If | |
| anyone thought the pandemic was mishandled during the Trump | |
| administration, health crises with RFK, Jr., at the helm are apt | |
| to become a very tragic disaster. | |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr. | |
| There are many in the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian | |
| segment of the population who believe that Trump has been sent | |
| by God to save this country from ruin--and from anyone different | |
| from themselves who enjoys the privileges of US citizenship or | |
| who seeks them by coming from another country looking for a | |
| better life. | |
| A while back there was news of the Trump Bible, being sold for | |
| $59.99 and including the US Constitution, the Declaration of | |
| Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Bill of Rights. | |
| According to the PBS News, the Bibles were printed in China, a | |
| country Trump is often railing against: | |
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/thousands-of-trump-bibles-were-printed-in… | |
| In the article, we learn that more is being done to further the | |
| notion of Trump as a sort of Messiah: | |
| [quote] A version of the $59.99 Bible memorializes the July 13 | |
| assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania. | |
| Trump�s name is stamped on the cover above the phrase, �The Day | |
| God Intervened.�[/quote] | |
| Come to your senses, America. | |
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