Listening to Donald Trump, am impressed with how like my dear old mother he is in his core messaging. Mom had this incredible trait of expressing herself in strong yet basically ambiguous phrasing that allowed her to make a statement in the hearing of her children & have each of us interpret what she said in totally different ways, each processing her words through our particular filters.
Mom talked a lot about the importance of communication, but (as it took a sister-in-law to point out) actually did darn little of it. Her #1 goal was NOT riling up people. Her messaging method worked to perfection. She came across as being open, when the outcome was actually total confusion as to what she DID say. "Well, Mom said..." "NO, she didn't! She said..."
What worked for her, didn't work for us, for our family.
It wasn't intentional. It was a learned defense mechanism Mom didn't even know she'd learned.
There are a lot of folks who think that Donald Trump communicates the way he does - in a flurry of fragments, typically ending with some form of disclaimer of any personal investment - for strategic reasons. I've lived with someone with a similar communication style, so my guess is it's a learned response, one which probably was imposed by outside influences rather than simply his natural way.
In sensitive moments, DJT - like my dear old mother - shifts to messaging mode. It's something he's truly mastered - the disjointed fragments, the squirm away at the end. We saw it throughout the primary, are seeing it (on steroids) in the general. Where others espouse positions & lay out policy, he focuses on messaging.
That's never been clearer than in his recent comment about "2nd Amendment people." Fragments - pause - distancing disclaimer. It broadcast a message, but what that message was depended on an individual's frequency level. What was received by one person as outrageous could be heard by another as a dire warning & even a patriotic call to arms.
Mom all over - she could say something that Peter, Mike, Mim, Ian & I each heard as supporting our point of view, not the others.
That single trait in a parent, more than any other trait in any of us, doomed my family to heartbreaking levels of irreparable dysfunction. Imagine what it's doing - to the country - at the level to which DJT has taken it?
I do have hope, because I've already seen what can be accomplished with a healthy dose of self awareness. In her late 80s (!), Mom finally had enough self knowledge & resulting self confidence to see how she naturally sabotaged what in her heart she saw as genuine communication. It wasn't easy, but she got there. But it only happened with those who loved her being open & caring & making it okay to take a scary path she'd avoided since her late teens.
Is there hope for Donald to be less Trumpish? Not as long as his current party, his fellow Americans & particularly those who matter most to him - his three oldest children - allow it to go on, unrecognized & unchecked.
Donald is a master of messaging. It's time he got one from the rest of us - ENOUGH. This stops here. You might still do that thing you do, but we're on onto it, it's lost the power it once held. Receivers are turned off, the messaging unreceived, with only your most fervent believers - the ones even you find scary - are getting them, which they'll do long after you stop sending. Until WE - party leadership, the country, his children - send that message, loud & clear, this insanity will continue.
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