Trump Is A Skilled Communicator to a Select Audience
A successful Democratic candidate for president in 2020 could learn some basic foundational communication skills from
Trump. Trump understands the importance of a visceral emotional connection with his audience. One of the most
important attributes for basic communication is body language, affirming the needs of the audience, being non-
judgemental, making people feel that they are acceptable just the way they are, and making them feel good about
themselves. My communication kudos to Trump are in no way meant to condone his lacking in integrity, gross incivility,
or his poor executive management skills.
As human beings our primary needs have a large emotional component. Not until the technology age have facts and
figures become paramount to emotional considerations. I do not believe that we have evolved to the point where our
Critical Thinking skills become the default place we go to as opposed to most of us who are triggered by our emotions.
Bernie Sanders seemed to embody many of Trump’s communication skills, unfortunately, Hillary, unlike her husband
lacked the communication skills that could elicit emotional and visceral responses from voters. Bill Clinton, FDR, and Reagan were also master communicators.
Basically, people yearn to feel good for who they are, they do not want to feel judged, and they want to feel heard.
Trump supporters and even Liberals who loathe Trump basically want to say “My candidate really gets me”. If one
harbors racist or intolerant opinions, does not feel comfortable with political correctness, is threatened by diversity,
yearns for the days when Christian White Men were always supreme, and enjoys the deluded romantic notion that
America was always an exceptional nation then Trump does a good job of reinforcing the message.
People resist change. Liberals do not want to become less tolerant, more apathetic, less compassionate, more rigid, and
closed minded. Liberals are very similar to Conservatives in their basic human needs.
A Democratic candidate for president in 2020 can only be victorious if they first viscerally connect with their audience,
make them feel safe, make them feel heard, communicate a resonant message, and in the end say, “He/She really gets
me”. It is obvious that Trump’s supporters can say “ He really gets me”, while not feeling pressure to be less racist or intolerant, less
culturally diverse, better educated, less misogynistic, community-minded, more physically and verbally civil, and have to
keep changing with the ascending trajectory of social progress. I never hear Trump say to his audience, “You need to be
more tolerant, compassionate, benevolent, kinder, act with integrity, better educated, and improve yourself”.
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