I agree with everything you say with one exception: I do care if they act presidential, because it shows that they are taking the debate seriously, but more to the point, it shows that they are capable of acting presidential when they need to. I’ve never seen Trump acting anything but a petty, hypersensitive, bullying boob. If I thought he were capable of taking a meeting with Pranab Mukherjee without making fun of his accent or offering to nuke Pakistan in return for certain considerations, I wouldn’t be quite as horrified of the thought of his presidency.
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Grade level is based off of Flesch-Kincaid or some similar readability metric based on words per sentence and syllables per word. Short, choppy sentences with simple words score at a low grade level, but such sentences are also what sound bites are made out of. We mock his low-grade-level manner of speaking, but it is one of the secrets to his success.
This thread has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 5.2, for those of you still laughing.
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And now that I’ve googled around a bit, it seems he (or his speech advisor) has recently raised the bar. His speeches the last couple months have been around a 6-7 grade level. That’s only slightly lower than Clinton, who scores 7-8.
Trivia time: of all the primary presidential candidates, who spoke at the highest grade level?
Dr. Ben Carson, 10th grade. Soak that one in.
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That’s in an attempt to appear more “Presidential” by being more boring.
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Reading his Wikipedia page, when endorsing Donald Trump, he said that Trump has “a cerebral side.”
Looking up the original quote, I was disappointed that that wasn’t an exact quote, because coming from a neurosurgeon, that could literally be taken to mean having “half a brain.”
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“Fruit salad of their life” is a very, very complex metaphor rich in meaning, fiber, and nutrients.
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Well, yeah—he’s a doctor.
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B F Skinner made this argument in Walden Two and I tend to agree - but good luck with that in a democracy with an average IQ of 100.
[edit - yes, @nimelennar, I do have a clue about statistics - I suspect I may have been learning the t distribution before you were born. I am guilty of the English thing of making an apparent foolish remark with a straight face and waiting to see if anyone gets it. See my post below for an explanation.
My point, in fact, is that what stops us adopting a rational approach to politics is that, barring a magical equality serum, the people doing the governing will always be more intelligent than the average of the people - and this will lead to resentment.]
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Even if every American were awesomely intelligent in exactly the way that IQ tests measure, wouldn’t they still, by definition, have an average IQ of 100?
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What did Einstein say about being able to explain maths to an 8 year old? I am not laughing; I agree, and it’s one reason sociologists tend not to get taken seriously.
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You mention IQ like it means something, when it really doesn’t. Even if it meant something, it doesn’t mean that high-IQ people are somehow more moral and less emotional than everyone else. That’s crossing over into neckbeard country. Besides, it’s not the low-IQ people you need to worry about, but the people who are sufficiently intelligent but apathetic and willfully ignorant.
Also, if you’re going to bring up IQ, I’m going to have to bring up John Sununu. He has one of the highest IQs ever measured… but he’s John Sununu.
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Am I missing something or was there no headline today saying in giant text :
“Trump LOST!”
Being such a “Winner” that would have hurt right? Even Huff Post is going easy on that headline. Unless, of course, I missed it. Perhaps saving the headline for November…
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Hillary got over the pneumonia. Trump will never get over being a jackass.
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He’ll never get over being a worthless bag of excrement either.
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That’s true. On the other hand, she’ll never get over being Hillary.
Not that I can find, just way too many boxing metaphors.
Note: the link above only displays the current day’s newspaper front pages, so any headlines about the debate will probably be gone tomorrow.
And hes was “wronging” when HRC was saying the Trump claimed that global warming was a plot by the Chinese. Which, of course, he actually did.
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Those sniffles were annoying…he’s been doing it for a while, especially when reading the 'prompter.
Trump was leaking snot out of his…whatever.
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I’m good with that.
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