Much has been made today of President Trump’s interview with Axios, because the media thought they finally found a 4 second clip where they could argue that President Trump wasn’t in full control of his interviewer, which they could claim was somehow representative of the entire interview.
I watched the whole thing, and it was typical Trump, right up to the brief moment where Trump wasn’t walking all over the interviewer, but instead stopped to shuffle through some papers for a fact he wanted to get correct. Nobody could do better than Trump at these things, but I wanted to take a quick look at the use of amygdala in the interview.
Here is the interview:
https://youtu.be/zaaTZkqsaxY
At 1:03, you can see Kayleigh McEnany walk behind President Trump, where she likely remained for the duration of the interview. At around 1:50 you can see there is what appears to be another female in a different dress back there with her, and knowing Trump’s White House staff, the probability is pretty high she will be another knockout.
I don’t know if it was purposeful, but positioning a group of beautiful, accomplished women behind him, looking right at the interviewer, as he tries to do his job, is going to put the interviewer’s amygdala at higher revs right out the door. Plus Kayliegh has a certain aggression about her, and she is a master of public interactions, which together could make the interviewer feel a bit as if he were being judged by a superior who wouldn’t feel afraid to pass a harsh judgement. If those girls all locked eye contact, which is itself amygdala-stimulating, the effect would be even greater. That will degrade the interviewer’s ability to think on his feet, and will make him more manageable.
My only worry is this guy gives vibes indicating he might be gay, in which case all of that would be for naught. But if he wasn’t that would be a boss move to seize the higher ground from an amygdala-standpoint.
Props to Trump on being a step ahead of this guy right out the door, when the guy asks him about positive thinking. Trump knew where he was going instantly somehow, and immediately went in the opposite direct to head him off, before he even presented the question. Obviously the media wasn’t going to air that. That shows that while exploitation of amygdala is important in these things, it is not a substitute for a fast mind with tons of experience in the game. It also shows Trump hasn’t lost any step in cognitive ability.
The next question after that was an accidentally successful amygdala hijack by the interviewer. Watch it while visualizing yourself as Trump, and notice how as the interviewer sets the premise for his question, you have no idea what the fuck this guy is talking about. Confusion and failure to understand in that setting is similar to a violation of expectation, given you expect the interviewer to be halfway cogent. Trump has just pointed out all the measures which need to be taken in a pandemic, and how his doing those things restrained the virus, and suddenly this guy is back on how the critics have said Trump’s positive thinking and pointing out how actions taken were the right decision, is bad leadership and not what needs to be done in a pandemic. You can amp up an amygdala just by saying something which leaves everyone wondering what you were talking about.
Trump played it perfectly by just shrugging off that unintelligible material and answering with what he wanted to talk about. At 6.50 you will notice the interviewer’s raised foot is kicking as an expression of stress and nervousness. These interactions themselves are amygdala-stressing. So just by going on the attack, this interviewer has moved himself toward being amygdala-hijacked, and made it that much easier for Trump to do it, should he choose to.
Trump keeps the pressure on and at 13:22 you can see the interviewer’s foot kicking is at a high rate. He isn’t getting what he wanted, he is stressed by the conflict, and his amygdala is reved up. At this point, I think Trump actually assuaged his amygdala my breaking out the graphs.
The graphs did two things. One the interviewer’s attention shifted from the imposing, domineering visage of Donald J Trump and a conflict with him which he was losing, to an inanimate sheaf of papers. And second, the tall, imposing President Donald J. Trump, who had been sternly staring him down and imposing his will, had his own attention shifted to the papers, which also relieves the amygdala-pressure on the interviewer. As that happens, you can see by 13:30, his foot kicking is beginning to slow down measurably as you watch it. The next time you see the foot is at 14:16, and all kicking has stopped, as it has at 14:24. By 15:00, Trump is beginning to shift from the graphs, and return to direct criticism with eye contact, about the interviewer not reporting things correctly. By 15:53, the foot has begun to kick again, and it is still going fast at 16:00.
This is important as it shows you that one, amygdala revving is not a highly visible quality. This guy did not look appreciably different from when he was in high revs, compared to when he was in lower revs. I have seen this doing the amygdala hijack. The people you are going to send into full breakdown do not show a slow, gradual, visibly graded progression from zen Buddha master to Meatloaf-level meltdown. They look about the same all along, and you have to just keep pressing until the valve blows. One it blows, the effect is instantaneous, and suddenly they either they begin throwing things around, or their eyes point in different directions and they have to go sit somewhere quiet, or they go possum on the ground. I think people like this have always been fucked up somehow, and they have grown practiced at hiding it. The only thing I have noticed is the most fucked up get a strange blanked out expression as they approach the redline, with the outside of their mouths pulled out and their eyebrows raised like Stan Laurel’s picture below, only without the smiling aspects, but more blank and unemotive. Joe Biden will be one of those guys, where his mouth is a straight line across, the eyes will be blank rather than smiling, and the whole face will look blank and dazed as he approaches his redline:
Had you asked me before this, I would not have seen a prop has being that deleterious to controlling an opponent’s amygdala. Though admittedly, a large part of it may be a physically imposing aspect to Trump’s countenance. But as I think about it, you have to control your opponent’s amygdala focus as much as you trigger it.
For a reporter, had Trump wanted to go nuclear, that would clearly involve focusing the reporter on tangible facts which targeted the insecurities the reporter is trying to assuage by being a reporter. The primary targets would be, if he wants to seem intellectually capable, or even elite, point out basic errors in his logic, facts he has gotten wrong which he should have known better, and highlight areas where he knows nothing about the subject and is totally ignorant. Personalize it, so it is him specifically you are laying the attack on, and he doesn’t feel the attack’s focus is blunted by it being him within the broader media, which is helping him sustain the onslaught. And when you openly call him out on those, use the tangible evidence as a focal point, which makes the assertion undeniable.
If he wants to be trusted, highlight tangible evidence where he misled, lied, or got facts wrong, and focus him on how that tangible fact has destroyed his credibility going forward. If he wants to be respected, highlight how he has shown himself to not be of the caliber of reporter he is trying to associate with. If he is craving control, highlight how nobody would listen tot him now, and focus on the tangible fact which led to that state of affairs. In all cases mix the focus on the facts which support your assertion with the physical conflict stimulus of full eye contact, and aggressive assertion of control over the interaction, and just keep hammering, even if he looks like he is weathering the assault.
As for the argument over COVID, the amygdala responds to coarse stimuli. As you begin getting into minutia, and different death rates, and statistical comparisons, it begins to phase out. POTUS should simply use basic comparisons, rather than letting little arguments begin.
Point to Italy as an example of COVID not being under control. 25% of some of the smaller villages were killed by the virus according to some reports. They didn’t have enough hospital beds. They didn’t have enough respirators, and had to tell people they were just going to die. If you were over some age, like 65, they would simply tell you don’t bother seeking treatment, because they only have enough resources to try to save the young.
Meanwhile in America, Trump handled it so well, our people are debating if we even need to wear masks, or if the virus is a hoax. They weren’t debating about whether they needed masks in Italy. Trump handled the pandemic so well, that much of the country still doesn’t have any idea if the virus is even real. That is the type of broad, non-specific argument the amygdala responds to clearly, and which shuts down all dissent.
It is amusing to see the whole interview, because even with the reporter probably picking through a much longer taped of the interview to find the worst bits, the piece was still just Trump utterly destroying the interviewer and leaving him scrambling from each issue he broached, though you won’t see that headline on the evening Fake News.
It does give you a feel for the advantage President Trump will have going into a debate. He is actively seeking out these hostile encounters to build his amygdala, keep his edge honed, and keep his skill set sharp. As President Trump is doing this every day, Joe Biden is actively hiding in his basement, and hiding as he is at an age where his mind would deteriorate even if he were exercising it regularly.
If the Democrats don’t get rid of Biden, the debates will be quite a scene.
Spread r/K Theory, because if you can control the amygdala you can control the world.
“…Point to Italy as an example of COVID not being under control. 25% of some of the smaller villages were killed by the virus according to some reports…”
This whole sequence of events lines up exactly as if the virus was engineered. Over five different viral research centers wrote papers that said the virus was engineered. A former researcher who worked on viral weapons said that when weaponized viruses rapidly lose the weaponized portion. They are not stable. Italy, China they were some of the first affected and seemed to be very hard hit. The lower lethality in the US could be from the later infection as the virus breaks down and loses much of it’s weapons package. Becoming much more like the average virus that the weapons package was based on.
As an aside. I wonder why viral weapons lose their lethality rapidly? Hazarding a guess maybe it’s like the elements. Certain elements Fluorine, Aluminum, Sodium, will rapidly combine with other elements. You don’t see them alone in nature. They are usually compounded because of their affinity for other atoms makes them reactive. I wonder, warning I may be on a big stupid thought limb here, if a weaponized virus is the same. The more active a virus is and the more active binding sites it has on it’s surface the more likely it is to combine rapidly. This means it can’t hang around and spread. It will bind to “something”. The virus species that have a much less active binding will be able to persist longer.
“If the Democrats don’t get rid of Biden, the debates will be quite a scene.”
It will be like clubbing baby seals.
But look what was on the paper..
https://thedonald.win/p/Gc2u3oun/dont-f-with-me/c/