Jonathan Gruber certainly has supplied a great deal of fodder for those who oppose Obamacare. It has recently come to public attention that, with respect to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, he's on record for saying, "... It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter ..." (Honors Colloquium 2012, University of Rhode Island) as well as, "... They proposed it and that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference ..." (Washington University, 2013) in addition to the similar and related quotes mentioned below.
Gruber is a MIT economist and "He was a key architect of both the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, sometimes referred to as 'Romneycare', and the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as 'Obamacare' " (Wikipedia). For his work on Obamacare, Mr. Gruber was paid $400,000.
Intertwined fingers is one example of what is known in body language terminology as a Manipulator, Adaptor or Pacifier (MAP) - a variety of self-touching. When evaluating any nonverbal signal - it is profoundly important to never interpret them in isolation - look at the whole person. Many novices will tell you that intertwined fingers are a sign of significant stress and anxiety - which is certainly true sometimes - yet Mr. Gruber shows us an exception here when we take the time to look with a wider and more objective lens.
Note that Johnathan Gruber bends one of his wrists during each of these intertwined finger configurations isolated from the above video. This body language cluster is highly significant - for it tells us that he has a very high degree of emotional comfort with his statements - he may or may not be factually correct - but he absolutely believes what he is saying here (e.g. The stupidity of the American Voter, Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage, etc.).
See also:
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3014: Vladimir Putin - Odd Man Out Down Under at the G20 Summit
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2578: Obamacare Website Apology - Sincere vs. Insincere?
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2604: Obamacare Girl "Adrianna" on GMA - Body Language Harbingers of ....
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2596: What Motivates Ted Cruz's Regarding Anti-Obamacare, Body Language Tells on Jay Leno
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2597: Chris Christie's Body Language Tell Regarding Obamacare
0:32
".... Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage ..."
0:37 - 0:38
"... call it the stupidity of the American Voter or whatever ..."
0:43
"... it's the second best argument ..."
0:46 - 0:48
"... look I wish Mark was right, we could make it all transparent - but I'd rather have this law than not ..."
0:49 - 0:52
"... like his reporter story, yeah, ya know there's thing about it I wish I could change, but I'd rather have this law than not ..."
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