Making Donald Drumpf Again (One Blog Post at a Time)

Today let us discuss rhetoric.
Oratory.
Performance.
Something which in today's world is sorely ignored, much to our detriment.
Here is the best manifesto that I have ever heard on the power of words:

''

This is from an episode called War Crimes of the rightly beloved West Wing starring Martin Sheen.
In it he makes one of the most remarkable speeches.
For the lazy:

Then what is your problem?

Hackery!This guy was a hack!
He had a captive audience!
And the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn't know what to do with it.

You want him to sing "Volare?"

Couldn't have hurt.
Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.
They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.
These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.
Do you see?All hacks, off the stage!
Right now!That's a national security order.

And he sticks the landing.

Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.

And there it is.
Words, like music, when performed for the sake of an audience are an invisible force that we can use to influence ourselves and others.

A cursory glance at the internet reveals countless scholarly journals on the effects of music therapy:
Follow this link and find articles in journals spanning decades of research into the field.
You can start to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

These are excerpts from abstracts from studies conducted in the last year alone:

"background music disturbs the reading process, has some small detrimental effects on memory, but has a positive impact on emotional reactions and improves achievements in sports."

Not exactly music you can dance to, but that alone is telling. 

Music affects focus with particular (mental?) activities i.e. reading and supports/encourages others (physical?) i.e. sports.

One study suggests that listening to preferred music choices may help reduce pain and anxiety in patients undergoing treatment for renal failure.

Patients undergoing an incredibly arduous treatment for renal failure: hemodialysis reportedly experienced an improvement in their lifestyle listening to music.

Music therapy acts mainly through emotional and psycho-physiological pathways. It includes a series of techniques that can respond to targeted therapeutic objectives. Some studies have shown that music therapy reduces anxiety, alleviates periods of depression and aggressive behaviour and thus significantly improves mood, communication and autonomy of patients.

And this abstract I just didn't omit anything it is so good. 

This is an abstract about the treatment of children with music.

The conclusion that they drew was that music has the potential to improve not only psychological, but physical responses.

The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological responses of long-term hospitalized children when exposed to live music.Twenty-one paediatric patients at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital,London, between 3 months and 14 years of age, took part in the study. They were all long-term patients with cardiac and/or respiratory problems. They received music sessions for about 30 minutes, according to the child's state, during which a musician sang and played guitar. The children's physiological responses were measured with a pulse oximeter and their oxygen saturation level as well as their heart rate recorded before and after the music session. The analysis of the data showed that during the music sessions, the children's heart rate did not change significantly. However, when their oxygen saturation level was examined, a different picture emerged. In fact, the percentage of oxygen present in the blood increased significantly by the end of the music session.This suggests that music has an effect on the state of paediatric patients,potentially improving their physiological and psychological well-being.

Music is something that we do not fully understand, but is a powerful force that has a firm root in the medical community.
Now, what does this have to do with politics?
Well, given that this article started with West Wing, kind of everything.

You see, in it, President Bartlet creates a synonym between music (that powerful force we discussed) and words spoken for the sake of performance.
This is the most important time in history because media saturates all of our lives.

Average user in the US spends 5.6 hours online or connected to the digital sphere.

Facebook saturation increases every day.
According to this chart 1,550,000,000 users are on Facebook as of six months ago.
If the trend continues of 50-100 million per month growth, we hit 2 billion.
That is 2,000,000,000 users.
(Most of those are spam).

The point is, it is very easy to access an audience.
Again, how does this relate to politics?
If you saw this coming you are a god damn mind reader.

That is right.
Donald Drumpf.
Why?
Rhetoric.

Rhetoric used to be taught in schools.
No more.
It went out with Probability and Statistics and Free Play, I suppose.

But, what is rhetoric?
I googled it.
Rhetoric is the effective means by which to communicate an idea, but, and this here is important, persuade a listening/reading audience.

So here we have the world.

Saturated by Social Media

Where there is a total lack of education of anything that could be useful to a population.
For those who want some really amazing views on education check out Sir Ken Robinson's TedTalk or my earlier post.
The argument essentially goes:

1. Education (as we know it) is an institution to produce worker bees for the industrial revolution
2. Education (as we know it) has not been changed in the last 100 years since its inception
3. Education (as we know it) is rooted only in the trades/disciplines that will help worker bees

• math
• science
• english
• humanities

This is the state of the world (or at least one picture of it)
Humanity, constantly communicating, with little formal education in things like recognizing persuasive arguments.
And we get moments like this:

It cannot be plainer.
He argues and his audience reacts violently.
In fact, here is another video by the eminent Rachel Maddow where she systematically breaks down Drumpf's rhetoric and how he is using it to incite violence.

Donald Drumpf is not only a character, he is an orator.
Taking a look at the inherent message that he sends is one of hate and violence.
That cannot be questioned.
But, it is the people at his rallies who are listening.
And they are acting out.
And he abdicates responsibility.

What he is doing, if you listen closely, if you really listen is a war cry.
It sounds like a beating drum.
It is a call to arms.
He is militarizing the American public to a call to action of Hitlerian proportions.
And yes, I know I just succumbed to Godwin's Law, which states: 

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"

But, I am not the only person making the comparison:
In fact, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan said:
AND I FUCKING QUOTE THIS

“They might be rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany, because I saw…what Donald Trump said about preserving America and making America great again to Hitler in Germany preserving Germany and making Germany great again and free again and not beholden to these Communists on one side, politically who were trying to destroy their land and their freedom, and the Jewish capitalists on the other, who were ripping off the nation through the banking system.”

THAT FELLOW WITH THE MUSTACHE BACK THERE IN GERMANY!
I can't even.
When you are endorsed by this guy:

The commentary writes itself.

But, the point I was making is this:
Donald Drumpf has a powerful message of hate.
Powerful because he does have followers, rabid even, for attention in the spotlight.
How does he do this?
The sound of his rhetoric is a call to arms, to attack the other guy.

But, it has got to be countermanded with a message of powerful love and peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you our sitting president:


Point for point it is unreal to me that Drumpf is allowed his seat in politics.
He has wormed his way to all but assuring the presidential nomination and being a single race away from the same office as President Barack Obama.
That is...unconscionable to say the least.

Now, many people are asking what can we do?
What can we possibly do?
This may be the subject of a longer post, but here it is:

In the face of overwhelming violence, as in the case with school shootings, the best thing is for the majority of the public to ignore it.
Why?
How terrible!
In fact, we get studies like this:

Recent shootings at schools around the country have resulted in widespread fear and panic among both students and parents, prompting a myriad of responses to make schools safer. Yet, empirical data suggest that despite the recent shootings, schools remain extremely safe places for children, and school violence is lower today than it was several years ago. The present research focuses on the construction of school shootings as a moral panic, with examinations of the roles played by the media, the public, and politicians in using isolated incidents (albeit heinous offenses) to support their interests. The interactions between these groups and the resultant punitive actions directed toward juveniles are discussed.

Schools are safer than we are led to believe by the media.
The whole country is in a mass panic, when in fact, albeit the crimes are heinous, they are rarer than they were.
It is a smoke screen.
A narrative perpetuated by politicians to push their own agenda (yes, even democrats).
I won't say ignore the narrative because that is not helpful.
But, be aware that what is reported may not be all that is happening.

Donald Drumpf is a bigoted parrot, regurgitating whatever comes to him in the moment.
That is probably not all that he is doing.
That is probably not all that the Republican party is doing.
 Don't ignore his dangerous rhetoric because it is inciting violence.
But, please, don't rise to his challenge.

Nuclear escalation only raised the threat of nuclear war.
It wasn't until we started nuclear disarmament that we could tear down the walls.

For those that are interested in the art of rhetoric, check out this link from the art of (wo)manliness.