The model
by digby
And I’m not talking about Melania Trump.
As a study of oratorical styles, this is genuinely worth watching, even if you don’t understand a word of Italian. Spend even 30 or 40 seconds and you will see what I mean. Or for a highlight skip to the passage from 0:50 to 1:50.
The speaker’s enunciation is so emphatic and precise, his wording so blunt and simple, and his argument so straight-ahead that even I, who last coped with Italian many years ago, can follow just what he is telling us. Oversimplified, the message is: make Italy great again! (And specifically its navy.) But again the real message has nothing to do with a particular language. It involves personal carriage, facial expression, stance of dominance, and interaction with crowd. I am sorry I had not taken time to watch this before. (Thanks to John Kenney for the lead.)
Trump retweeted this, by the way:
Yep. It’s the affect. Strutting dominance. But we knew that.
Important to remember it though. As the press, eager to curry favor, makes him normal, we should guard against forgetting what he actually is. A fascist.
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