It is almost like Trump has read all the Cognitive Neurosci, and combined it with a deep foundation of raw political genius. A 51 minute press conference, featuring the loved ones of fellow Americans killed, designed to have soundbites pulled for commercials, all revolving around this:
‘The illegals COME IN, and the illegals KILL their CHILDREN!’
He even uses emphasis to subconsciously link the concepts “COME IN” with “KILL…CHILDREN,” in the amygdala, in an almost hypnosis-like fashion.
Mortal Salience stimuli precipitate shifts toward conservatism across all measures of conservatism in populations exposed to them. This stimulus immediately activates the primitive threat recognition circuits in the amygdala, especially when it is tied with your own children being killed. The amygdala turns on and warms up for K-selected action, and in its more activated state, it will feel disgust more strongly, feel anger more strongly, and identify other threats more effectively. It will get irked by out-groups, angered by child-mistreatment, and enraged by in-group members who damage group-competitiveness, or otherwise exhibit disloyalty. It will discern reality, and relevance-weigh data for importance better. You will become more competitive, more demanding of loyalty, more worried about your children, more demanding they be protected, more demanding of loyalty, more conscious of threats, and more willing to sacrifice to deal with them.
For weakly rabbitized humans dulled into anti-aggressive, r-selected, hedonistic bliss by free resources and a leftist media that denies threat, this heightened state is like waking up the American patriots inside them. RINOs will become more conservative and begin to get irked by weak and timid RINO candidates, and liberals will head for the hills.
Then after shocking everyone into their K-selected modes, he presents the image of an alpha leader of a group of rightly pissed off people, facing off with the press. Then he calls the press out on being the out-group. When one reporter says, “not me!,” Trump essentially says, “No, you’re OK, but everyone else here is an enemy.” Even members of the press are scrambling to escape that loser group, and seeking Trump’s approval, before the ass-kicking begins.
If you are in a bar, and two groups face off, and you are weakly associated with one group, the very image of potential group conflict will drive you to increasingly self-identify with your group. It is instinctual. A guy who could have gotten along with everyone will navigate to be physically within his group, and if violence begins, he will fight right alongside everyone on pure instinct. Those not associated with any group will navigate to be behind the stronger, more aggressive group.
These are very primal buttons, and Trump presses them like Mozart tickling piano keys. When presented to a large population, a whole swath will begin to behave primally, and switch to your side.
I feel like I am ahead of the curve in understanding the mechanism behind all this, but if Trump hired me, I am not sure I could do any better than him at this game. Either he has hired some really smart people to plan all this, or he is just a natural genius.
Which raises an interesting question. We always look for the best candidate to make the best immediate decisions for eight years. Suppose we looked at the long game, from a cognitive neuro-sci perspective instead.
Suppose a Trump presidency was sub-par in some respect, or even a few respects. Abortion, social issues, shrinking government, etc. But suppose during it, for eight years, we had exactly the opposite of the Bush years. Bush made decent immediate decisions, but never introduced any of these stimuli, and in so doing, he destroyed conservatism over the long haul. Suppose for eight years, Trump destroyed the media. He humiliated SJWs. Suppose every day he woke up the population with his aggression and focus on these issues, made competitiveness normal, made everyone reject liberalism, made raw truth-telling de riguer, and made support for political correctness into something akin to supporting baby-killing.
Do we want eight years of good decisions followed by Barack Obama, or might we want eight years of anything, followed by a population that will demand a Ronald Reagan?
There may just be a good rational case for Trump beyond his immediate ass-kicking of the media.
[…] By Anonymous Conservative […]
“…………….Suppose a Trump presidency was sub-par in some respect, …………..”
AC what the f**k ………….sub-par? SUB-PAR ? after obama can any fucking thing be sub-par?
LOL. Too True.