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New Study Explains Why Trump's 'Sad' Tweets Are So Effective (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: During his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to circumvent traditional media broadcasters and speak directly to the masses. He is particularly known for one specific tweet construction: he sets up a situation that he feels should inspire anger or outrage, then punctuates it with "Sad!" New research from New York University suggests a reason why this style is so effective: a tweet containing moral and emotional language spreads farther among people with similar political persuasion. The study offered up "duty" as an example of a purely moral word, "fear" as a purely emotional one, and "hate" as word that combined the two categories. The research found that the use of purely moral or purely emotional language had a limited impact on the spread of a tweet, but the "presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word." The impact of this language cut both ways. Tweets with moral-emotional words spread further among those with a similar political outlook, and they spread less with those who held opposing views, according to the research published in the journal PNAS. The study looked at 563,312 tweets on the topics of gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change, and rated their impact by the number of retweets each one received.
He already knew about the Ten-word answer over a decade ago. And none of the words should have more than three syllables.
A short pithy rejoinder will accomplish more than a Platonic dialogue, no matter how well composed it might happen to be.
In fact, the only thing more powerful would be an acronym or emoji.
The vast majority of the population are semi-brainless machines whose hearts and minds are manipulated from simple word-commands from authority
Dark but true, deal with it
Why single out Trump? This "moral-emotional" style is what everyone is doing. Up to a few years ago it was only feminists and other left leaning political groups who were using it, but now even right leaning political groups are using it. Trump is only following the trend. Rational discourse is dying in the West.
Because part of the study was measuring the rate of spread among people with the same and opposite political views to the tweeter using the moral-emotional language, so tweets about divisive topics make perfect candidates as there are clearly identifiable sides.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
During his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to circumvent traditional media broadcasters and speak directly to the masses without any kind of feedback.
In short he knows the shit he is shovelling doesn't hold up to questioning, so he avoids all those pesky hard questions. He does this through twitter, surrogates, and Fox News, and probably other ways. Hell he is currently cutting video from daily briefings and even cutting making them live. Basically that is an indirect way to prevent negative information (truth) from spreading quite so quickly.
He is a con man in the middle of the biggest long con of his life, just hoping he can keep fooling enough of the populace to keep on keeping on. He will say anything to keep up the con, and he doesn't appear to care about the consequences.
Why is it we as a country accept politicians without any sort of moral center? Sure a few of them will stand up for what is right, but even then a lot of them shut up if talking might cost them an election. A good man does what is right not just when it benefits him.
I'll end with a quote from Babylon 5:
"How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame; for one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see. I have been in the service of the Vorlons for centuries, looking for you. Diogenes with his lamp, looking for an honest man willing to die for all the wrong reasons. At last my job is finished. Yours is just beginning. When the darkness comes, know this: You are the right people, in the right place, at the right time."
An other article from today calls Trump a genius.
https://townhall.com/columnist...
"He is able to speak directly to the American people without going through the biased mainstream media filter. The media doesn’t get to ask him slanted questions or pick and choose parts of his press releases to publish. Instead, Trump gets immense control over every single sentence he issues, which are then read by millions of Americans. "
Regardless whether you love or hate the man, you do have to admit it is an effective way to deal with unfriendly media.
because he's the only populist. Everyone else is either like the Republicans and busy telling us why we can't have nice things (austerity) or the Dems and just shouting about how bad the other side is because they're in deep with the same mega corps that bought off the Right. There's an itty bitty tinsy tiny group that rally around Bernie Sanders and that's about it. So when Trump started saying things like healthcare for all and good jobs and education folks rallied around him because, hey, whatdayagot to lose?
Trump is not a populist. He is a con man, pure and simple. I'm not sure he cares about much but winning, not even what he wins. Bernie had a fair amount of support. Trump is technically correct in that he didn't really quite get a completely fair shot, but then Trump said that, not to be fair, but to attack Hillary and all the rest. As far as Trump's healthcare for all and what do you have to lose, well 22 million people could find out soon.
Simply put, the republicans demonized Obamacare beyond all reason. They did that for two reasons. First, it worked. That was the main reason. It got them votes. Second, some of them hated it for ideological reasons, though I suspect the actual number is smaller than expected. That all being said, the books gotta balance folks. To save some money, those people either have to get less service, or you have to increase the pay in from others. Also once you fracture everything into crappier plans, you make the useful plans dramatically more expensive.
So we can break the what do you have to lose question down.
What do sick people have to lose? Their lives, or their quality of live, or time on earth, etc, depending on the details of what happens. In short their is likely to be a correlation between their remaining life spans and what gets signed into law.
What do healthy young people have to lose? Not much, as long as they can stay young. They will probably even save a bit, though you might want to warn them that aging is a preexisiting condition.
What do older people have to lose? Pretty much everything, up to including everything they own, if they aren't careful,l and of course their lives. If their bills double and triple, do you think they can pay them?
Can obamacare be fixed? Sure first stop trying to kill it. Second, maybe add in the republican ideas to make just buying health care after you get sick impractical, and then maybe the across state lines stuff, and leave all the taxes in place.
Do republicans know obamacare can be fixed? Well, as Sarah Palin might say, "You betcha." There is a reason they don't have the CBO score ideas like I just gave. They don't want those kind of results made public. Not long ago one of them mocked the democrats by saying all they would do is offer endless single payer amendments, as if they would automatically be bad. Why not just have the CBO score all the ideas and see which one is best? Their best guess is a heck of a lot better than not having any estimate at all.
Calling him any sort of stupid is belied by the fact that he is a self-made billionaire, successful reality TV star
A self-reported billionaire, who started up with a "small loan" from his father, that has a track record of enriching himself by not upholding his part of contracts and screwing over his contractors. For the second part of your statement, do you also consider the Kardashians to be Mensa-grade?
Yes, emotionally manipulative language is effective, but it doesn't have to be. Train yourself to look for it, and then choose to reject it. When you see someone appealing to your emotions instead of your reason, recognize what they're doing and call them out for it.
They ought to be teaching this to school kids.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I don't understand where fair an balanced comes from. It's a bunch of BS. Trump commits a new atrocity ever day of the week, but for some reason we have to trawl the bottom of the barrel to find a Democrat snafu to keep it fair. Oh hey guyz, remember that tiem dat Obummer wore tennis shoes and dress pants. OMG so unprofessional. Fair an balanced is how we end up with morons like Alex Jones getting air time. The guy should be sitting in a padded cell, not making six figures telling people there's a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza place that doesn't even have a basement.
Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.
For reference - the UK NHS budget is £120m (USD$153m) for 65m people.
I can definitely see a US single payer programme costing way more per capita for many years (possibly decades) as the "old way of doing things" is unwound though.
Since the federal government already borrows $4 out of ever $10 it spends just where do you see the money to pay for a single payer system coming from?
I mean the obvious place is from the budget of the Department of Defense, right?! Most of the Americans I know (I lived in Ohio for two years) would happily stop exporting shrapnel and high explosives to the middle east if it meant they could get more efficient healthcare services.
I do have some sympathy for you, but your situation is unusual. You're pretty much at the poverty line with your yearly income due to disability and that does mean that you don't have a lot of choices for health insurance. And I hate to break it to you, but your premiums were still going up without Obamacare. Premiums went up constantly before it. They've gone up with it. They'll go up when AHCA gets passed. There's nothing in AHCA that's going to be of benefit to you.
I'm not accepting your numbers for US single payer insurance costs, which were no doubt pulled out of some biased right wing article you found. I also hate to break this to you, but single payer insurance is inevitable. It's the only thing that can ever bring costs down other than providing catastrophic only coverage that pays for nothing else, which would be a big problem for you. And even providing catastrophic only coverage is likely to see premiums go through the roof because the insurance companies will get less money that way in premiums, so they'll make it up by raising costs.
Your argument about the government paying pension plans is bogus because the US government back in the 1980s moved away from a pension plan system for federal employees and for over 30 years now all federal employees have had to have 401K plans. They have no choice.
Personal anecdote, but my coverage through MassHealth is the best coverage I've ever had. Coverage and premiums vary tremendously from state to state. Compared to Mass, the ACA health care available in New Hampshire is a disaster, I hear. That's not the case in my neck of the woods.
Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.
Well, duh. Our health care system is purely for-profit, which means taking advantage of sick people... people in duress who are desperate to get better and know that if they don't, they can't work and are basically fucked. No insurance plan will help if a US medical procedure costs 15-20 times as much as the same procedure in Germany. Most nations in the world have aggressive price control for their health care specifically to prevent profiteering. But here in the US, that's called punishing success, so of course we can't do that, and pharmaceutical companies rank among the most profitable companies in the world because it's a comfortable racket if you can get your foot in the door.
Sad!