4 ms·

I find myself weighing whether it's better to get the unemotional, unadulterated statement from a President or the focus-grouped, feel-good, superficial stateme

by Pigo 9y ago

I find myself weighing whether it's better to get the unemotional, unadulterated statement from a President or the focus-grouped, feel-good, superficial statement. I can see why someone would prefer either side, but I find both wanting.

cromwellian 9y ago
So you think Obama hired a focus group to test if quoting Nelson Mandela would work? And to call Trump's statement unemotional and unadulterated seems weird, because the teleprompter driven statement was delivered in a way that seemed so forced and inauthentic, it rang as false. Sometimes emotion is needed to convey gravity and authenticity of a statement. I'm pretty sure if Obama was still President, he could have given a morally strong statement on the recent events. Did you see his press conference after Sandy Hook? That's what the nation needed when 2 dozen children are murdered, not a lifeless set of talking points written by your communication director. This is not deification as another poster commented, it's the fact that other leaders, including Bush Jr, were far more effective at delivering moral clarity at times of national crisis or sadness. Remember Reagan's address after the Challenger explosion? I'm still wondering at what point, Trump dead-enders will see something that finally makes them realize his extreme flaws as a leader and a person make him pretty unsuitable for the job he's been handed. It's not the left wing media, it's not the establishment, it's not fake news. He's doing it to himself.
- kumarvvr 9y ago
  Obama did a better job communicating with emotion through a tweet, than Trump did with a live press conference.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Oh I think Trump does a great job of displaying his emotions through live press conferences. It's just that a lot of people feel quite differently about these issues from the way he does.
    - cromwellian 9y ago
      Trump seems to be able to display only two emotions: Anger and Frustration, that's an insufficient set for what is needed.
      - kumarvvr 9y ago
        Insufficient set for what is required to be a normal human being.
- Pigo 9y ago
  Every Obama picture seems so staged, and you must be kidding yourself if you think he doesn't have a social media team making sure his public image is always on point. I don't even know what teleprompter statement your talking about, as I haven't been paying that much attention to this Charlottesville situation. I'm just talking about his tweets in general, which are embarrassingly unthought-out. For better or worse, we all know what's really going on in his mind. He's not going to pose for a cute picture the same day he's ordering another drone strike. Personally, I don't need emotional statements, but I see how people do. Like I said, I don't care for either. It's just an interesting dichotomy.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    That baby photo was taken at a daycare in Bethesda next to his daughter's school. It's not hard to get a photo of babies at a daycare, nor is it hard to find one with more than one race in it, given that area is diverse. Nor would it be hard to find at least one photo of children of different races together after 8 years. Obama's photographer Pete Souza is very good at his job at capturing moments of Obama interacting with people at a large variety of locations, a lot of it shot documentary street photography style. Obama wanted to tweet a message of unity, the same message Dr King gave in his I Have a Dream Speech, and the best way to do that, to get that point across, is with photos of children. I don't know that Obama has an image team, maybe he does, but he seems to be intelligent enough over his long career, to have curated his own image, well before he became the President. He is very self aware. But one thing is for certain: Trump not only needs a social media team, he needs the self awareness to listen to them.

by Pigo 9y ago

cromwellian 9y ago

So you think Obama hired a focus group to test if quoting Nelson Mandela would work? And to call Trump's statement unemotional and unadulterated seems weird, because the teleprompter driven statement was delivered in a way that seemed so forced and inauthentic, it rang as false. Sometimes emotion is needed to convey gravity and authenticity of a statement. I'm pretty sure if Obama was still President, he could have given a morally strong statement on the recent events. Did you see his press conference after Sandy Hook? That's what the nation needed when 2 dozen children are murdered, not a lifeless set of talking points written by your communication director. This is not deification as another poster commented, it's the fact that other leaders, including Bush Jr, were far more effective at delivering moral clarity at times of national crisis or sadness. Remember Reagan's address after the Challenger explosion? I'm still wondering at what point, Trump dead-enders will see something that finally makes them realize his extreme flaws as a leader and a person make him pretty unsuitable for the job he's been handed. It's not the left wing media, it's not the establishment, it's not fake news. He's doing it to himself.

kumarvvr 9y ago
Obama did a better job communicating with emotion through a tweet, than Trump did with a live press conference.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Oh I think Trump does a great job of displaying his emotions through live press conferences. It's just that a lot of people feel quite differently about these issues from the way he does.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Trump seems to be able to display only two emotions: Anger and Frustration, that's an insufficient set for what is needed.
    - kumarvvr 9y ago
      Insufficient set for what is required to be a normal human being.
Pigo 9y ago
Every Obama picture seems so staged, and you must be kidding yourself if you think he doesn't have a social media team making sure his public image is always on point. I don't even know what teleprompter statement your talking about, as I haven't been paying that much attention to this Charlottesville situation. I'm just talking about his tweets in general, which are embarrassingly unthought-out. For better or worse, we all know what's really going on in his mind. He's not going to pose for a cute picture the same day he's ordering another drone strike. Personally, I don't need emotional statements, but I see how people do. Like I said, I don't care for either. It's just an interesting dichotomy.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  That baby photo was taken at a daycare in Bethesda next to his daughter's school. It's not hard to get a photo of babies at a daycare, nor is it hard to find one with more than one race in it, given that area is diverse. Nor would it be hard to find at least one photo of children of different races together after 8 years. Obama's photographer Pete Souza is very good at his job at capturing moments of Obama interacting with people at a large variety of locations, a lot of it shot documentary street photography style. Obama wanted to tweet a message of unity, the same message Dr King gave in his I Have a Dream Speech, and the best way to do that, to get that point across, is with photos of children. I don't know that Obama has an image team, maybe he does, but he seems to be intelligent enough over his long career, to have curated his own image, well before he became the President. He is very self aware. But one thing is for certain: Trump not only needs a social media team, he needs the self awareness to listen to them.