How to Help Trump, by George Lakoff

[Igel]

6. Lakoff's point isn't entirely wrong.

It's just rendered absurd by him.

I've long thought that most of reporting of Trump's outrageous behavior and utterances and that of his followers (which continues to the present) is misconceived: Surely if the public hears how racist/sexist/ignorant/etc. Trump's speech is when carefully parsed and placed in the proper framework they'll recognize how much a fool he is.

They understand him differently. He uses a different code, a different register. Repeating what he says strikes those that don't like him one way, because they interpret his speech using their own code. Those who support him hear him in keeping with *their* code. Grice would point out that there's precious little cooperation on the part of those who dislike him, and that reduces the willingness to try to understand (much like a lawyer and a hostile witness, or a politician faced with a hostile reporter, you see a range meanings and interpretations that the other person might be offering and pick the one that suits you in making him out to be as bad as possible).

Not an intelligent way of doing things if you want cooperation, dialog, understanding, and democracy. But very human.