How Talking About Trump Makes Him Normal In Your Brain

On the Media | Dec 2, 2016

“Don’t normalize Trump” has been a cautionary mantra chanted to and by the press since the election. From Obama’s gracious meeting with Trump to sloppy reporting on cabinet appointments, Trump critics fear that recent media coverage is whitewashing the threat that the president-elect embodies.

According to George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist and author of Don’t Think Of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, the very fundamentals of journalism should be redefined in order to stave off normalizing Trump. Lakoff and Brooke discuss the unconscious effects that Trump’s language, image, and name have on the brain.

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