"He speaks American, and those of us who also love the language are awed and delighted to hear it from an elected official."
Writes David Mamet, in the essay "Attention Must Be Paid," collected in "Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch."
Here's the footnote, which is the main reason I'm blogging this:
Those people who got so mad at Trump for lying — in Mamet's view, what really made them mad was that he did not lie. Consider that. It's the language he eschewed — the "hieratic language" — that's full of lies.
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63 comments:
He is correct about this.
But he puts it in words that have more than 2 syllables.
That means he is racist and evil according to democrats.
They are too stupid to actually discuss what Mamet is saying here.
You will also have a bunch of "conservative" Cruz/Desantis fans take a similar route in attacking Trump. The same type of person that supported Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican Primary.
A lot of people just want politicians to lie to them and confirm their tribal loyalty.
Trump opponents have Ph'd's in projection. Any discerning eye can see that, which excludes faithful of the Commie-Pinko left. My sister-in-law, a member in good standing of the teacher's union, being a stellar example. If you question her on any issue, she will respond with talking points from the union newsletter.
delighted? sometimes.
Awed? - uh no.
I prefer a pro-American anti-White Left Antifa terrorist, tho.
I've always been baffled by those folks who claim that PEDJT doesn't/didn't speak clearly. He may not have spoken elegantly but is there anyone who didn't understand exactly what he meant, almost all the time?
Except when he was fooling with us saying things like covfefe. Nobody had any idea what it meant and it probably meant nothing. But t was wonderful entertainment watching the progressives/fascists get all worked up about it and run around in circles chasing their tails.
Including some of our resident fascists here.
John LGKTQ Henry
Looking forward to reading this one. Mamet is certainly on a publicity campaign now, is this new book the reason? Joe Rogan, WSJ interview, other interviews, so on.
Mamet, orders of magnitude better than I at expressing ideas, but this is along my explanation of President Trump
He is not a politician, he did not build coalitions, He worked toward a vision.
Trump did his own wet work. That messy stuff, trial balloons that presidents always used to leak through a congressional aides locker attendant.
He did not lie, but those in battle with him did. Remember when he had Nancy and Chuck over for a meeting... and kept the cameras in the room? Nancy and Chuck were livid that if they talked the way they always talked in private, the public would see the lies.
The Abraham accords are brilliant.
The Resort Brochure he sent to North Korea about a mocked up vision of tourism in North Korea as a massive revenue stream. Trump was mocked, but using the carrot of wealth vs the stick of missiles is genius.
Peace Through Trade, what a concept. All the Rhodes Scholars at the State Dept, still have no idea what a great vision that is.
Obama lied: you can keep your doctor.
We are not spying on Trump.
Trump exaggerates, what Lie do you think of with him?
Trump's not lying forced D.C.'s career, congenital liars to defend or rewrite everything they ever said and did. This would be impossible and undermine their authority, so they must eliminate Trump.
Politicians want to be and in fact serve as creators and petty gods -- without their rules and their paper money nothing can happen. So, they must project correctness and authority. Trump the negotiator routinely sliced down the middle in pursuit of a deal. He was not a ruler and certainly not an autocrat, and destined to be at odds with all other politicians.
Notably, the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten was wiped from history by the priesthood. He sought to replace the traditional Egyptian fleet of gods in favor of a single god, and reduce or eliminate the priestly bureaucracy of the day.
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Akhenaten-The-Most-Hated-Pharaoh-of-Egypt
Trump outright lied about insignificant things—the size of a crowd, whether something had been done before. If something mattered, he did not outright lie, but he did insert “mistakes” that his opponents would seize on in order to trick them into talking about something they would not otherwise have talked about.
The problem is that Democrats and Trump's enemies believed what he said, such as Biden will give the country $7 gas, and worked to make it true. Trump's supporters didn't take him as seriously and enjoyed the hyperbole. Democrats are the true believers in Trump.
Much of Donald Trump's talk was puffery, which US law does not consider to be liable or criminal. The Wikipedia article about puffery includes the following passages:
.... In law, puffery is usually invoked as a defense argument: it identifies futile speech, typically of a seller, which does not give rise to legal liability. In a circular manner, legal explanations for this normative position describe the non-enforceable speech as a statement that no "reasonable person" would take seriously anyway. ....
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined puffery as a "term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined."
The FTC stated in 1983 that puffery does not warrant enforcement action by the commission. In its FTC Policy Statement on Deception, the Commission stated: "The Commission generally will not pursue cases involving obviously exaggerated or puffing representations, i.e., those that the ordinary consumers do not take seriously."
Not lying is entertaining. Try it sometime.
He did not take a knee, beg, and bray his fealty. Americans are such bitter clingers to self-evident, deplorable truths.
Mamet isn't wrong. Trump speaks in the vernacular that is most appealing to insecure people who lack basic compassion for others and are driven by jealousy. IOW, the voice of the Anti-Christ.
Trump was the most law abiding trustworthy politician in my lifetime.
Trump communicated very well with those who had given up on politicians. Both parties lie to their voters. Trump did not. He exaggerated at times but did not lie and this was so disconcerting to the left that they could not process it. Interestingly enough, Bernie Sanders did not lie to voters and this is why he had to be taken out by the DNC. He was honest about his far left ideas whereas Biden gave the left a fake front man.
More gibberish from Mamet in that extract. Maybe I need to read the entire essay.
It's a stretch to say that he didn't lie. He's a bullshitter, but I can't say he lied more than more "acceptable" politicians. When I did a spot check on the WaPo Lie Tracker, I found that many of the so-called lies were differences of opinion, different assessments of what will happen in the future, and double counts of the same comment. If other politicians were held to the same standard, their lie counts would be just as high as Trump's.
Everything Mamet says is true, but the corollary is that Trump is spectacularly ill-suited for the political system we actually have.
This "Trump lies" all the time thing has been a meme out of control for years. We've had 'journalists' claiming that Trump lied at least 25,000 times in a week. Or that he lied at least 8 times more than Obama (how does one count those?). And there are always 4-6 other talking heads on the panels gleefully nodding in agreement when these things are stated.
When asked to name some of the lies, they are most often the purposeful exaggerations that so color Trump's speech. He speaks in superlatives. Everything he does is the best, or greatest, or it will be. That is part of his charm. Truthfully, it is part of what made him successful- boasting and inspiring. He boasts about everything Trump, yet he has inspired thousands of employees before he ever went 'public' by running for office.
Had he been a Democrat, he would have been lauded by the same people that saw nothing in Obama telling us we could keep our doctors and our insurance, or that Benghazi was because of an obscure video made by a more obscure person a year or so prior. Or that "there's no spying on Americans" going on. And on and on. Only with Obama, the lies were huge, and had huge impact. With Trump it was braggadocios.
Trump has a following is because he does connect to the man and woman on the street. That he also produced great things for the country was a plus. Compare that connection and those positive results that he had with our current state of affairs.
The usual lefties will be here shortly squealing like stuck pigs because of the plain truth of this.
If it weren’t for projection, the left would have no political program at all.
The Boys?!
Not sure what hieratic language is but I am sure of this: all political power in America is distributed in Ivy Dialect. He who speaks it succeeds. He who does not, fails … at least to enter the power circles. Sarah Palin didn’t speak it. She failed. Trump the same.
We on the Right need a champion who can turn it on and off at will. I once thought Romney was that man but it turned out he was just a Mormon working through the identity crisis all Mormons must work through. Plus he’s a giant dick. Newt is able and that’s why he mostly succeeded.
"undocumented immigrants"
Most of what I remember being spoken of as "lies" was just Trump using hyperbole. Even the rubes who went to his rallies knew it was hyperbole. It's hard for me to believe that the college-educated journalists who reported on him didn't recognize a common rhetorical device when they heard it.
I'm glad Ann is enjoying Mamet's new book. I learned some words that I didn't know.
I highly recommend it. It is a quick and easy read.
Taken seriously, not literally.
Blogger Howard said...
Mamet isn't wrong. Trump speaks in the vernacular that is most appealing to insecure people who lack basic compassion for others and are driven by jealousy. IOW, the voice of the Anti-Christ.
Typical Howard projection. When was the last time Biden didn't lie ?
JK Brown said...Trump's supporters didn't take him as seriously and enjoyed the hyperbole.
Still the smartest thing said about the Trump phenomenon: his fans take him seriously but not literally; his critics take him literally but not seriously.
When Trump said something to the effect that his inaugural had the biggest crowd. Was that an example of hieratic language?
“More gibberish from Mamet in that extract. Maybe I need to read the entire essay.”
He writes for people well above your level of intelligence. You should just give up, Readering. Fight battles you have a chance of winning.
I agree that Trump sometimes lied, but it was usually in the form of exaggerating, bullshitting, etc. Sometimes it was misspeaking in the midst of his stream of consciousness musings. Sometimes it was like a salesman trying to puff up his numbers (and for the economy, it seemed to be working).
But in many ways, he was the most honest politician I've ever observed. He was often a breath of fresh air. Not only was he honest, he spoke what the rest of us were thinking. "Shithole countries" comes to mind. Pointing out that John McCain was overrated. Telling a reporter that her question was stupid. There are hundreds of examples. He was constantly exposing the hypocrisy and superficiality of the elites, while speaking like a regular person.
But more importantly, he pulled the mask off the entire apparatus of government, and exposed how corrupt and deceptive the whole system is. Who lied more? Trump? Or the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ, the FISA court, the State Dept., the Democratic party establishment, the mainstream press, etc? Even agencies that were supposed to be relatively neutral and apolitical - the FDA, the NIH, the WHO - proved themselves to be manipulative entities filled with political hacks. Trump had a unique gift for exposing how deep the rot had infiltrated the entire system. Indeed, sometimes his so-called lies were necessary to shine some light into the dark places.
That doesn't mean I think Trump is an honest man. He's obviously a narcissist. But no one else could have accomplished what he did, in such a short time, with so many enemies attacking him. And sadly enough, the system won. Spare me the concern over Trump's deceptions. The "deep state," aka the "swamp," is nothing but lies all the way down.
Every single person lies. I don't want to quibble over exaggerations vs. lies. But it's a question of degree and intent.
Trump lied primarily to make himself or America look better. Like a salesperson selling himself and selling the greatness of America. Yes, a big part of it was to make himself look better in an attempt to gain and remain in power. It doesn't hurt his supporters to admit this, and I'm not sure it's possible to achieve anything important in politics in the current atmosphere without overselling yourself to some degree, because then you're unlikely to ever have any power. His lies also tended to de-emphasize some problems, which isn't exactly helpful. But, on the whole, he meant what he said and these types of lies have minimal negative real consequences. His salesmanship was transparent to virtually everyone, supporters and opponents alike.
On the other hand, as everyone knows, real politicians lie much of the time. It's usually intended to trick people into believing the politician will do one thing when in fact they have no commitment to it or even intend to do something else. Or it's a complete fabrication, pandering, even when the politician doesn't believe what she's saying. This type of lie contributes to the destruction of civilizations. Just ask the soviets.
Trump speaks in the vernacular that is most appealing to insecure people who lack basic compassion for others and are driven by jealousy. IOW, the voice of the Anti-Christ.
This is what we call "walking the line" between projection (a defense mechanism) and insanity (the failure of defense mechanisms).
Everything Mamet says is true, but the corollary is that Trump is spectacularly ill-suited for the political system we actually have.
I cannot disagree, but I will take a different perspective.
Our political system is spectacularly ill-suited for the non-politicians that our Founding Father were hoping for.
"It is the immemorial tactic of a dictatorial regime to accuse its opponents of what it is doing. Donald Trump was vilified by the left because "he lied; in fact, he was ar a disadvantage because he did not lie. He was,by by inclination and experience, a superb director - that is, one who achieves a goal through inspiring employees - but he had neither the inclination nor experience to rule, which is to control disparate groups through false promises, stealth, deception, propaganda, and lies. Its all there in The Prince. We don't know if todays thugs have read it, but we may be sure Marx did."
Ann requested comments on: "Those people who got so mad at Trump for lying — in Mamet's view, what really made them mad was that he did not lie. Consider that. It's the language he eschewed — the "hieratic language" — that's full of lies."
Where to start? Niccolò Machiavelli published The Prince in 1532 - and so he never met an Italian like Donald Trump unless there was something in this old book that I didn't find about politics and the Mafia.
In 1987 Leo Strauss wrote:
"Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country . . . in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician . . . ."
Strauss who likely never met Donald Trump either, was far more correct than David Mamet who would blame the left for Trump's personal lawbreaking and lies. Nothing was mentioned in Mamet's "Love of Trump" chapter that attributed TFG's actions to his racketeering and to his love of money and self. Obviously, Trump was supposedly right and there must be an argument somewhere to prove it.
Hieratic language is a good example of hieratic language. It pertains to language used by the ordained and initiated. I think Obama was the master of hieratic language in our time. That made Trump's contrast with his predecssor so glaring....I don't think Trump lied any more than the average politician but his style was definitely was much easier to characterize as mendacious. You can tell some real whoppers if you say them in Latin with incense burning in the background...Well, Obama didn't actually say it in Latin, but he used Harvard speak and the media said amen after every statement....I know there are a lot of Trump fans here, but for every person who was inspired to vote for him because of his bluster, there were 1.08 people who were inspired to vote against him. Both Bushes could get tangled up in syntax, but I don't think anyone voted against them because of their language.
Trumps “Lies”:
Actual Lies – more frequent than most of his fans like to admit, but much, much less common than most of his critics claim.
Hyperbole – As others have said, much the most common kind of ‘lie”.
Out of Context Quotes – pretty common. Trumps discursive way of speaking helped his enemies here a bit. As we all know, Trump veers from topic to topic when he speaks, improve style, and frequently doubles back to a point he has already made. Often, he would make a claim with a qualification, something like this: “We had fabulous job creation, the best ever until Covid” then on to another topic, then back to the first point, often combining the two as twin examples of the greatness of Trump, but this time leaving off the qualification: “We developed the vaccines in record time, an absolutely great, wonderful achievement. And we had the best job creation ever. Another great achievement”. Anyone listing to the speech would remember the qualification, but the Washington Post, CNN, etc. would pull the second quote about jobs, ignore the first, and claim it was a lie, on the grounds that by the end of the administration the job creation figures were much worse than Trump said.
Honest Policy Differences as Lies – Trump would make a common, even threadbare, conservative policy point and somehow it would become a “lie’. “Raising the minimum wage will increase youth unemployment”, followed by a fact check citing some study claiming the opposite and then the usual attribution of dishonesty.
I’m sorry to say I see people on the right also using this last trick pretty often. Please don’t. it’s an ugly and stupid way of arguing. Just because people disagree with you does not automatically mean they are lying.
I'm reminded of the scene in Airplane where a woman tells the flight attendant, "I speak jive."
Trump's problem is he never knew--nor gave a flying flip about--how to speak "woke". And for that the wokerati pilloried him.
Thanks Iman, very hieratic of you. Did I use that correctly?
Lying in a 'Political' context [power relationship] would be claiming not in it for the $$$.
which is why they went after Trump on emoluments since he did not take salary for the office.
that is all one needs to know
When was the last time Biden didn't lie ?
“It’s Not A Lie If You Believe It.” --George Costanza
"hieratic language"
The language of the priests. Does this mean Trump wasn't drawn in by the global warming scam?
Mamet nails it. He's famous for his acting truism just say the lines the language itself is the message. The actors in his movies, House of Games come to mind, all deliver the lines in monotonic deadpan.
Trump speaks Brooklyn. Not the Hillary fkn Clinton Brooklyn but old Brooklyn my Brooklyn the broken land. I never could stand Trump, not hate but thorough contempt. Then I got it. No fake sincerity no humility either but straight in your face honesty. He says what he means albeit with hyperbole. He's a salesman not a bloody lawyer. That there alone redeems him.
I cannot imagine any other politician withstanding nonstop attacks from every single major institution comprising the entire political universe. Try to imagine Romney or Biden or Obama withstanding such relentless withering barrages over 4 years.
Trump is a fucking hero.
I bought Mamet's book and have read three of the essays so far. What a wonderful writer he is.
"Trump speaks Brooklyn."
Queens.
"Our political system is spectacularly ill-suited for the non-politicians that our Founding Father were hoping for."
What makes you think our founders were hoping for non-politicians? They were all wealthy and politically sophisticated, and they knew they and those of their elite ilk would be the leaders of the new nation, and this was as they wanted it to be.
I’m just more and more interested in hearing about and from him. I love his meme- I just love names, in general. I’m a weirdo. But who we are is somewhere in the name, to me.
"(Mamet) writes for people well above your level of intelligence. You should just give up, Readering. Fight battles you have a chance of winning."
Ha! A baseless insult of someone else made only to flatter yourself, (as you presume yourself to be one of those people of high intelligence who can grok the alleged--but not demonstrated--"elevated" discourse of Mamet).
I'm starting to warm to Mamet, for the enemies he makes.
Saying things are great or wonderful or the best ever is pretty minor compared to the untruths politicians usually say. Whether or not what happened was great or wonderful or the best ever, Trump generally delivered. Biden says he delivered when he didn't, or he says things that were his fault were somebody else's. If everybody knows you are a bullshitter -- that is, that you like to show off and exaggerate -- and nobody is afraid to say it, are you really that dangerous? If the media was actually honest about Biden's bullshit exaggerations, lies, and evasions I might feel better about him. It's their refusal to do so that irritates.
Oh my, Peter Speiker... good grief about your comment. Not a complement dude.
Valentine Smith
"No fake sincerity no humility either but straight in your face honesty."
What planet do you live on?
"Trump exaggerates, what Lie do you think of with him?"
"We have it under control. It's going to be just fine"
Everything Mamet says is true, but the corollary is that Trump is spectacularly ill-suited for the political system we actually have.
In which case we might think about fixing the system. We the people and all that stuff. The one we have now has no place for honest men.
I am unsettled by his rhetoric in the sense I find much of it counterproductive, but say what you want about him, he's the cleanest politician in my lifetime. With the receipts to prove it.
‘If I run for president, I will absolutely release my taxes,’
The UK doesn’t have a Trump, so JK Rowling must do.
rhhardin said...
"Not lying is entertaining. Try it sometime."
Something I learned from my big brother at an early age. " Don't lie. You have to remember too much. Always tell the truth. But tell the truth in a way that nobody believes you."
God rest his soul, he was a brilliant man.
Mamet in trouble for assuming most male teachers are inclined towards pedophilia.
Don't know about that, but stats show teachers make catholic priests seem like choir boys.
I don't care what people may say, I know everybody lies.
Lie to Me, Chris Isaak, acoustic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNXb6WEZSo8
Blogger Mutaman said...
"‘If I run for president, I will absolutely release my taxes,’"
What I found funny was you couldn't understand them if he did release them.
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