What Johnson offered wasn’t candor, it was cognitive evasion. From a behavioral lens, his hot mic moment reveals the architecture of complicity: acknowledge dysfunction, then deflect responsibility through false equivalence. “Both sides” isn’t analysis. It’s a rhetorical escape hatch.
Trump’s erraticism isn’t just a personality quirk; it’s a strategic distortion of norms, accountability, and institutional guardrails. As I’ve written in Cruelty as Strategic Export, the spectacle of chaos becomes the mechanism of control. When the commander-in-chief treats governance like improv night, the real emergency isn’t the shutdown, it’s the erosion of shared reality.
Thanks for keeping the lens sharp.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory
It also seems to be fear of reprisal in much the same way as Trump has wrongfully expressed his hate. But we are thick skinned and know that eventually he’ll go the way of every human being. What kind of world we want to leave behind?
There are lots of bad things other people have done, for various vile reasons, that enabled Trump. Trump is good at persuading people, primarily by promising them whatever it is they want, which is easy for Trump because he has no principles and no hesitation at lying. In 2016 Trump was very good at "Strategic ambiguity" and doing 'cold reads' on his audiences to find what they wanted.
Democrats have not been effective campaigners, though it can be argued most Republicans are not very good at it either. Most of them (both parties) have messages they either believe in, or have researched and convinced themselves that it is their ticket to success. Most of them learned (prior to Trump) that there are things you cannot say, and you cannot tell big lies. Trump's tactics come to him from much smarter people than he is, such as Roy Cohn and Steven Miller.
Trump has always been a bully. He is very practiced at being a bully. He has a long history of lying and cheating, being a con-man, committing fraud, not paying people for work they have done for him...
It is hard, even for Trump who creates his preferred fantasy world then insists other believe it, even when he regularly changes it, to never tell the truth. Facts are real and since Trump lives in the real world, sometimes it leaks into his fantasy world, which was never that carefully crafted in the first place and usually is just reality that has been reversed or exaggerated, or based on reality with some fantasy superimposed on it. Trump does most of his talking as a 'stream of consciousness' and the more his brain degenerated and the more power he has, the more desperate he becomes and the more he finds that no matter what he says, who likes him and who hates him does not change much, especially because that is one of the things Trump lies about, even to himself. So he often does say the truth, admitting his plans, his intent, his attitude towards certain people...
Trump had an effective, evil teacher, but Trump himself is not that smart and never was, other than the type of 'smart' an effective bully is. Even without mental and health problems, Trump was never a disciplined thinker, never a balanced individual, never embracing reality, and anybody who finds themselves with all their fantasies come true, all the power the pomp, the ability to say stuff and it happens... that can really go to your head and mess with your mind. Trump has been increasingly setting his playbook aside and just keeps pushing the limits of his power and the cowards are the ones who are letting it happen. There are players who work on manipulating Trump, which is easy because Trump cares nothing about anything other than himself.
Democrats have become the nerdy ones and have been hyper careful to not promise anything they cannot guarantee they deliver (because the media crucified Obama for every promise he did not deliver on, including ones Republicans specifically used their power in congress to stop), whereas Trump simply promised everyone everything, and enough people believed this guy who had been repeatedly proven in court to be a liar, because he at least promised them what they wanted. We can do so much better, it we just lost our fear of the media who has proven themselves time and again to not be reporting 'in good faith' in a manner that focuses on facts, other than simply repeating lies as though people could figure out for themselves that it was all lies. News either reports on controversies or they create controversies so they can report on them. When something is terrible, but it is no longer NEW, it is no longer news, so they don't report it.
So no, Trump is not brilliant, and Democrats are not helpless. Democrats just learn how to play 'hardball', not pulling any punches, not being afraid to 'mix it up', making BIG promises with plans for how to make them reality, then daring people to give them the power to make it real.
Trump’s power is not brilliance. It is behavioral exploitation. He reads crowds, not policy briefs. He promises everything, delivers chaos, and relies on cowardice to carry the rest.
From a behavioral lens, this is not leadership. It is dominance through distortion. Strategic ambiguity, grievance amplification, and the erosion of shared reality are not signs of strength. They are signs of a system that rewards spectacle over substance.
Democrats do not need to mimic his style. They need to understand the architecture and stop playing defense against a spectacle designed to keep them reactive.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory
Look, the mad wannabe dictator IS the joke except that the millions of federal public servants who are suffering from the shutdown are not laughing (including the military). Oh, they'll be fine and will be paid for their time off when the government finally reopens I'm told. Well, according to the rantings of the orange-faced clown, he's going to somehow figure out how to deny federal employees who are Democrats their backpay. Who shall deliver us from this turbulent lunatic?
Rosaline, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, tells the careless jokester Berowne, "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it, never in the tongue / Of him that makes it."
Someone needs to test Trump's sense of humor and flood the zone with a Trump 2028 image of him, pantsless, in a diaper, hunched over a walker with his trademark suit jacket and extendo red tie on top, line of drool descending from his mouth and a Trump 2028 hat perched on his head. Bet that legendary sense of humor will kick right in.
This shit is not funny. It’s mean. It’s hateful. It’s bigoted. It’s insulting. Anyone who condones it or passes it off as a joke is no better than the person who disseminated it. And, further, if it resonates with you, please look in the mirror and see someone who needs a better education in the differences between right and wrong. If you’re not sure, you’re welcome to join us on October 18 and see how people who truly love this country express themselves as we assemble to send a big message to Trump and his lackeys: NIMBY
May I just point out that the defense that Trump is “just good at trolling” is pretty damning? After all, most people complain about trolling on social platform. Trolling seems to be just bullying on steroids (the steroids being the social network themselves). So why should people find trolling wonderful just because it’s done by Trump?
Jesse Watters, a host on Fox said “You can’t be a dictator with dementia.”
First off, yes you can, and Second off, we need to thank him for admitting Trump is working on being a dictator. Of course it will be passed off as a joke, but it wasn't.
Every time they 'leak' the truth, they claim it was a joke, but we KNOW Trump has dementia (along with a lot of other psychological problems to such a serious and dangerous nature he should never been allowed to function as an adult and should have been committed long ago) and we KNOW he and his minions are working real hard to make him a dictator.
We know these things because the evidence, hard evidence both witnessed in the real world results as well as the endless statements by Trump (including an epic number of provable lies).
What Johnson offered wasn’t candor, it was cognitive evasion. From a behavioral lens, his hot mic moment reveals the architecture of complicity: acknowledge dysfunction, then deflect responsibility through false equivalence. “Both sides” isn’t analysis. It’s a rhetorical escape hatch.
Trump’s erraticism isn’t just a personality quirk; it’s a strategic distortion of norms, accountability, and institutional guardrails. As I’ve written in Cruelty as Strategic Export, the spectacle of chaos becomes the mechanism of control. When the commander-in-chief treats governance like improv night, the real emergency isn’t the shutdown, it’s the erosion of shared reality.
Thanks for keeping the lens sharp.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory
Former Foreign Service Office
It also seems to be fear of reprisal in much the same way as Trump has wrongfully expressed his hate. But we are thick skinned and know that eventually he’ll go the way of every human being. What kind of world we want to leave behind?
There are lots of bad things other people have done, for various vile reasons, that enabled Trump. Trump is good at persuading people, primarily by promising them whatever it is they want, which is easy for Trump because he has no principles and no hesitation at lying. In 2016 Trump was very good at "Strategic ambiguity" and doing 'cold reads' on his audiences to find what they wanted.
Democrats have not been effective campaigners, though it can be argued most Republicans are not very good at it either. Most of them (both parties) have messages they either believe in, or have researched and convinced themselves that it is their ticket to success. Most of them learned (prior to Trump) that there are things you cannot say, and you cannot tell big lies. Trump's tactics come to him from much smarter people than he is, such as Roy Cohn and Steven Miller.
Trump has always been a bully. He is very practiced at being a bully. He has a long history of lying and cheating, being a con-man, committing fraud, not paying people for work they have done for him...
It is hard, even for Trump who creates his preferred fantasy world then insists other believe it, even when he regularly changes it, to never tell the truth. Facts are real and since Trump lives in the real world, sometimes it leaks into his fantasy world, which was never that carefully crafted in the first place and usually is just reality that has been reversed or exaggerated, or based on reality with some fantasy superimposed on it. Trump does most of his talking as a 'stream of consciousness' and the more his brain degenerated and the more power he has, the more desperate he becomes and the more he finds that no matter what he says, who likes him and who hates him does not change much, especially because that is one of the things Trump lies about, even to himself. So he often does say the truth, admitting his plans, his intent, his attitude towards certain people...
Trump had an effective, evil teacher, but Trump himself is not that smart and never was, other than the type of 'smart' an effective bully is. Even without mental and health problems, Trump was never a disciplined thinker, never a balanced individual, never embracing reality, and anybody who finds themselves with all their fantasies come true, all the power the pomp, the ability to say stuff and it happens... that can really go to your head and mess with your mind. Trump has been increasingly setting his playbook aside and just keeps pushing the limits of his power and the cowards are the ones who are letting it happen. There are players who work on manipulating Trump, which is easy because Trump cares nothing about anything other than himself.
Democrats have become the nerdy ones and have been hyper careful to not promise anything they cannot guarantee they deliver (because the media crucified Obama for every promise he did not deliver on, including ones Republicans specifically used their power in congress to stop), whereas Trump simply promised everyone everything, and enough people believed this guy who had been repeatedly proven in court to be a liar, because he at least promised them what they wanted. We can do so much better, it we just lost our fear of the media who has proven themselves time and again to not be reporting 'in good faith' in a manner that focuses on facts, other than simply repeating lies as though people could figure out for themselves that it was all lies. News either reports on controversies or they create controversies so they can report on them. When something is terrible, but it is no longer NEW, it is no longer news, so they don't report it.
So no, Trump is not brilliant, and Democrats are not helpless. Democrats just learn how to play 'hardball', not pulling any punches, not being afraid to 'mix it up', making BIG promises with plans for how to make them reality, then daring people to give them the power to make it real.
Trump’s power is not brilliance. It is behavioral exploitation. He reads crowds, not policy briefs. He promises everything, delivers chaos, and relies on cowardice to carry the rest.
From a behavioral lens, this is not leadership. It is dominance through distortion. Strategic ambiguity, grievance amplification, and the erosion of shared reality are not signs of strength. They are signs of a system that rewards spectacle over substance.
Democrats do not need to mimic his style. They need to understand the architecture and stop playing defense against a spectacle designed to keep them reactive.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory
Former Foreign Service Officer
Look, the mad wannabe dictator IS the joke except that the millions of federal public servants who are suffering from the shutdown are not laughing (including the military). Oh, they'll be fine and will be paid for their time off when the government finally reopens I'm told. Well, according to the rantings of the orange-faced clown, he's going to somehow figure out how to deny federal employees who are Democrats their backpay. Who shall deliver us from this turbulent lunatic?
Excellent article. Thank you. Trump has no sense of humor. This is driving his vengeance against everyone who ever “wronged him” in his eyes.
Mike Johnson is the biggest hypocrite. He needs to read his Bible more closely.
I see no evidence that Mike Johnson has ever read the Bible.
Rosaline, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, tells the careless jokester Berowne, "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it, never in the tongue / Of him that makes it."
Someone needs to test Trump's sense of humor and flood the zone with a Trump 2028 image of him, pantsless, in a diaper, hunched over a walker with his trademark suit jacket and extendo red tie on top, line of drool descending from his mouth and a Trump 2028 hat perched on his head. Bet that legendary sense of humor will kick right in.
This shit is not funny. It’s mean. It’s hateful. It’s bigoted. It’s insulting. Anyone who condones it or passes it off as a joke is no better than the person who disseminated it. And, further, if it resonates with you, please look in the mirror and see someone who needs a better education in the differences between right and wrong. If you’re not sure, you’re welcome to join us on October 18 and see how people who truly love this country express themselves as we assemble to send a big message to Trump and his lackeys: NIMBY
Trump has a great sense of humor, they say. But if that were truly the case he would be able to laugh at himself.
May I just point out that the defense that Trump is “just good at trolling” is pretty damning? After all, most people complain about trolling on social platform. Trolling seems to be just bullying on steroids (the steroids being the social network themselves). So why should people find trolling wonderful just because it’s done by Trump?
Jesse Watters, a host on Fox said “You can’t be a dictator with dementia.”
First off, yes you can, and Second off, we need to thank him for admitting Trump is working on being a dictator. Of course it will be passed off as a joke, but it wasn't.
Every time they 'leak' the truth, they claim it was a joke, but we KNOW Trump has dementia (along with a lot of other psychological problems to such a serious and dangerous nature he should never been allowed to function as an adult and should have been committed long ago) and we KNOW he and his minions are working real hard to make him a dictator.
We know these things because the evidence, hard evidence both witnessed in the real world results as well as the endless statements by Trump (including an epic number of provable lies).
All the republicans are cancer and must be removed by the highest dose of chemo drugs or lasers possible.