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It's political bullshit.
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Do you understand?
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Politics aside, Donald Trump's ability to hold the attention of an audience and indeed a nation, is undeniable.
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It's true!
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It's true!
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It's a quality that anyone who has done public speaking, be it to a stadium, or a boardroom, would be envious of.
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We talked to experts to learn seven of the rhetorical tactics Trump uses that make it so hard to take your eyes and ears off of him.
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The usual so-called "experts."
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If you notice, that's my notes for this speech.
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We've gotta go free form.
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The single most important thing about Donald trump, from which a lot of other things follow, is most of the time, he speaks spontaneously.
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I like it better without the teleprompter.
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I don't want a teleprompter.
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I don't want it, right?
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Maybe when you run for president, you shouldn't be allowed to use a teleprompter because you find out what you're getting.
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Even when someone has prepared his speech for him, he very often breaks into spontaneous digressions.
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So his speeches are very much like the ordinary discourse that the rest of us engage in all the time.
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I refuse to say it was a scam tonight.
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This way they can't report that I said it.
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Paralipsis is a way of saying the thing that you say you're not going to say.
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So, a colloquially, it's "I'm not saying, I'm just saying."
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I will not say he's low energy.
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I will not say it.
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I won't tell you what he did because he actually grabbed one by the shirt, but I won't say that.
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I won't say that they all said he's our favorite, but they did.
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He's our favorite.
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It allows him to say the thing while he's denying that he will say it so that he can't be held accountable.
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It also creates this intimacy.
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You know, the crowd and Trump are connected because he's told you what he really thinks.
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America first, remember that.
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America first.
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America first.
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America first.
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He hardly ever uses filled pauses.
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There's almost no ums and ahs, and the lack of filled pauses does project a sense of confidence.
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On the other hand, he repeats himself a lot.
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Make America great again.
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We're going to make America great again.
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Look at this tremendous sea of love.
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I call it a sea of love.
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I call it extreme vetting.
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I call it extreme, extreme vetting.
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These two things are related.
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He's able to stall for time without having a lot of dead air.
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There's lots of repetitions, which is almost liturgical.
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So, you know, it works.
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They like it live.
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Some night I'd like to have it not so live so we could really talk, folks.
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He absolutely takes advantage of ambiguity.
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It allows everybody in the audience to fill in the blank for him.
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How do you make them pay for the wall, as you said?
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So easy!
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Will a politician be able to do it?
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Absolutely not.
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We know what we have to do, and we'll do it.
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So, don't worry about it.
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Don't worry about me.
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And I'm gonna do the right thing, whatever it is.
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Trump allows you to fill in the blank through that ambiguity.
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You help him to persuade you that he agrees with you, that he's already got the right answer, which is the answer that you know to be the right answer.
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You know, you're not allowed to use hairspray anymore because it affects the ozone, you know that, right?
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Hairspray is not like it used to be.
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It used to be real good.
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When he talks about politics, you get the impression that it's a well-rehearsed peeve.
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People are fed up.
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They're fed up with incompetence, they're fed up with stupid leaders, they're fed up with stupid people.
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Our airports are like third-world countries, our schools are a disaster.
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Our roads are collapsing all over the country—we are a mess!
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By the way, I don't like this mic!
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These people.
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This mic is terrible!
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Everybody likes to complain.
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Donald Trump complains about lots and lots of things, and some of the things he complains about are gonna strike a chord with almost everybody.
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Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now?"
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Out!
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"He's fired! He's fired!"
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Rhetorical theory would say that the way that you create identification with people
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is through pointing to an enemy and polarizing people.
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I think Islam hates us.
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Countless Americans are killed by illegal immigrants because our government won't do its job.
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We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing.
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He needs to create someone that we're against in order to motivate those people to act, right?
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Which is, to support him.
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I always hear about "The Elite." You know, the elite, they're elite?
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I think, you know what, I think we're the elites.
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They're not the elites.
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He's always talking about his beautiful people, his followers who are never going to desert him.
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Those are appeals to the crowd.
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The wisdom of the crowd knows more than these elite, corrupt, establishment, politicians, or the media.
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There's an unbelievable love in these rooms.
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All the same.
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I love you, too!
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I love you, too.
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I love you!
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Stand up!
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Who said that?
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He often does engage the audience as though they were in conversation with him.
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What do you like better, "Made in the USA" or "Made in America"?
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Which is better, "Person of the Year" or "Man of the Year?"
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Okay, wait, let's do a pledge, everybody—who likes me in this room?
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"I'm popular" appeals are something he routinely does to make himself be popular, seem popular.
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But also to reaffirm the loyalty of his followers.
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Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?
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I will tell you at the time.
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I will keep you in suspense.
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How is that Trump has been able to keep us on edge, keep us all interested?
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And my best answer is for that is that he is the modern day PT Barnum.
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We need PT Barnum a little bit because we have to build up the image of our country.
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If you knew anything about PT Barnum, he was a master at attracting attention, and he did that by making audiences curious.
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Think about how many times he's given us a cliffhanger .
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What's he gonna do next?
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Maybe it's the calm before the storm.
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What storm, Mr. President?
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You'll find out.
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Something's gonna happen, we'll find out, stay tuned .
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Stay tuned.
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Stay tuned.
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We can't turn away because he has got us so curious to find out what happens next.