Trump’s Back Off On Backing Off, And Amygdala Desensitization

Trump backs off backing off:

Donald Trump put his foot on the gas pedal again, driving home the accusation he had reversed himself hours earlier that President Barack Obama founded the Islamic State.

Trump had eased off the claim Friday morning, blasting the media for seriously reporting what he suggested was a sarcastic comment. “Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) ‘the founder’ of ISIS, & MVP,” Trump tweeted. “THEY DON’T GET SARCASM?”…

But during an afternoon rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump said his initial remark wasn’t “that sarcastic, to be honest with you.”

Trump views the brain as a piece of clay you mold gradually. He comes on hard to burn an idea in hard, but only some take the whole idea, some think it partly true, and some reject it. He then backs off to reduce amygdala resistance to himself, then casually pushes back to his original position.

It is as if you push an idea into clay, but at first it will only go so far, because people who have only partly accepted it may resist going farther in one push. So you wait a bit, relax amygdalae by saying you were just joking, though only a little, and then let them acclimate to their partway-agreement with you. As they acclimate to the moderate form of the idea, you then push again and drive it in deeper after their resistance has diminished.

An understanding of amygdala resistance, and how to minimize it is important to manipulation/persuasion. I remember a spy saying that when he recruited assets, if he just popped up in front of them and made a pitch, he found they would resist him. Their amygdala was on fire with this new character they had just encountered out of the blue, and that agitation made them resistant.

He said he had much better success by first passing the individual on the street, without them noticing. A couple of days later, he would wait on line in front of them at the grocery store. Three days later he would bum a cigarette off them at a bus stop. Later he would recognize them on the street, and say hi. By then he was somewhat familiar, their amygdala didn’t light up around him, and then the person was ready to be turned. I view it as being similar to guys who run game saying girls stiffen up and reject them if they stand in front of the girls, but the girls are mush less on guard if the guy stands off to the side and turns away slightly, to diminish amygdala agitation by not directly facing them or blocking their way.

Obviously, Trump is on another level, so all we can really do is watch and try to learn as he rewrites every political rule in the book. But is a great opportunity to watch a master and try to relate his mastery to an understanding of amygdala.