Let’s face it, we all prefer websites and newspapers that are supportive of our personal points of view.
But sometimes even a neutral observer can admit when a publication has an agenda.
Newsweek was once a proud print magazine. The website has now devolved to the point of absurdity, with rock-video propaganda on every page aimed at keeping as many ignorant and stupid college students as possible voting Democrat without thinking twice.
Ethically speaking, that would be okay if the outlet called itself “Rock and Roll Republican Rats.” But it doesn’t. It calls itself “News” week…dressing up one radical, hateful, divisive opinion after another in the guise of “news.”
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Oh, and did we mention that Newsweek hates Trump? Really, really hates Trump.
In today’s beauty of a post from the slanted site, so-called “serious” journalists and researchers agree that President Donald Trump is like Charles Manson, casting a spell on the American public to get them to…murder actresses and cowboys???
It’s a convenient attack, since Manson, convicted of planning the murders of actress Sharon Tate and her housemates along with possibly murdering several other people in cold blood himself, just passed away.
But you get the feeling that any evil figure who dies or is in the news will be compared to Trump by the same slimy “journalists.”
An excerpt from the story, called HOW MURDERER CHARLES MANSON AND DONALD TRUMP USED LANGUAGE TO GAIN FOLLOWERS:
According to psychoanalyst Mark Smaller, past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, part of Manson’s power lay in the type of language he used. Notably, Manson was able to speak in a way that engaged those who felt marginalized or alienated.
“A charismatic leader knows how to speak to people in a way that will emotionally engage those people,” Smaller told Newsweek.
Smaller is clear that he does not believe President Donald Trump is similar to the convicted killer, or that their followers have any shared beliefs or characteristics, but he did say we can look to the current president to see how language is used to form a bond with followers.
“Our current president speaks in an emotional or affective way to large numbers of people in our country who feel a kind of alienation or disconnection from the government,” he said. “They feel very responded to and become his political base.”
“They can feel like somebody has their back,” he said.
Smaller doesn’t have specifics on what Manson may have told followers, but said cult leaders may say things like, “Your parents don’t really care about you. Your community doesn’t care about you. The government doesn’t really care about you, but I’m going to not only care about you, I’m going to take care of you. I understand how angry, neglected, and hurt you feel.”
This ability to empathize is a key component of manipulation, according to Dr. Carrie Barron, a psychiatrist at Columbia University.
“There’s a very distorted dark side of empathy,” she said. “You can use empathy to get inside another person and manipulate. You know the inner workings of another person. You’re able to perceive that without thinking about it.”
But while it’s clear that manipulators, like cult leaders, prey on people using language, Barron said there’s usually a combination of factors that make them successful. And she warns that many times the perpetrators appear more vulnerable than they really are, though there’s still a lot that we don’t know about these types of people, according to Barron.
There’s no question President Trump uses persuasion tactics on the public. But the article leaves out one very crucial detail – what is the ultimate goal of the persuader? Charles Manson’s was to cause murder and mayhem.
Donald Trump’s ultimate goal? #MAGA!
Pretty big difference there. Just don’t expect to read – er, see a rock video about it on “Newsweek.”
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