What makes Trump adviser Stephen Miller so unlikeable?
by Kali Holloway at Alternet, Salon
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/15/what-makes-trump-advisor-stephen-miller-so-unlikeable_partner/
"SNIP..........
“Stephen Miller likes to use a lower register,” West indicates. “So, number one, the pitch he’s going for is at the bottom, even a little bit below, where he can comfortably speak. He’s also clenching his tongue a little bit while he speaks. This is a common, however unconscious, tactic by men to sound more masculine and authoritative. It’s just to suggest that extra bit of, Here’s what I have to say and welcome to it.”
West suggests that Miller’s cadence—which is more a sort of superior-sounding monotone—is another turn-off. He explains why Miller brings to mind the dude you had classes with in high school or college who everyone mostly wished would stop talking. Not the cool, interesting nerd, who was an inventive misfit waiting to blossom, but more like the unsympathetic know-it-all who repelled everyone with his smugness, arrogance and almost frightening dearth of charm.
“In the case of this particular gentleman, we have a situation where large swaths will feel that this is not a guy I would enjoy spending time with,” West says, making the understatement of the century. “It feels like he’s talking down to me, it feels like he’s being overly pedantic, and indeed, condescending. What he does though is, speaking of that guy in college we all rolled our eyes at, when you don’t have perhaps content on your side—without being overtly political here—what one has to do then is compensate for that. And that’s a keyword I’d like to highlight with you: What we don’t like about that, if we can remove ourselves from the political content for a moment, is generally the fact that it seems like this person is trying to compensate. We see a person who is trying too hard. That’s not an attractive quality, when we see someone pushing and trying too hard.”
In other words, “asshole voice”—another term McDonough helpfully offers—is not partisan. Though in this case, keep in mind that Miller spent his teen years harassing Latinos, African Americans and Asians, wrote columns while he was a student at Duke that were so racist his colleagues in Jeff Sessions’ Senate office were stunned, and helped Steve Bannon write the unconstitutional Muslim ban. All of which makes him seem not just deeply unlikable, but ideologically dangerous and a threat to democracy. Also, he cuts people off a lot, as West notes.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
As a Democratic committee person, I knew Nola Foulston, who prosecuted that soulless asshole. She's a good Democrat.
BTW, mine was a cinematic reference. Quint, from Jaws.
