In a move which had been widely anticipated, on Monday Donald Trump openly proposed the death penalty for drug dealers. What follows is an analysis of two profound nonverbal signals the President displayed in his New Hampshire speech.
President Trump (continuing at 0:49), "... Because we can have all the blue ribbon committees we want [deep inhalation], but if we don't get tough on the drug dealers, we're wasting our time - just remember that - we're wasting our time [deep inhalation]. And that toughness includes the death penalty."
As the President said the word, "death", he very briefly displayed two consecutive facial expressions (microexpressions) indicative of strong negative emotions:
Primarily Disgust (with secondary contempt): The facial expression above is indicative of almost pure disgust (with some contempt) occurred during the beginning of the word "death".
Primarily Contempt (with secondary disgust): Toward the end of the split-second took to speak this word, President Trump's facial expression morphed into primarily that of Contempt (although a secondary emotion of disgust remained).
Intriguingly, the emotion most strongly associated with perpetrating violence is Disgust - while the second most correlated is Contempt.
In order to rationalize hurting (or killing) another human being, the psyche has to look at them as less than human (e.g., Falsely believing it's not a "real" person who is being harmed - but "something" that is "other" than human).
The emotion of contempt involves thinking/believing another person (or group of people) is beneath us (or we are above them). Disgust is even more extreme, for its an emotion the healthy mind primarily reserves for nonliving things. Therefore, when we feel true disgust or contempt toward another human being, it becomes easier to rationalize our actions - and it becomes easier to hurt them. Wartime and prejudice propaganda are replete with examples of such psychological manipulation.
Summary: Human beings rationalize violence, in large part, by amplifying their negative emotions toward those who they harm. This is an extremely common tactic in war and hate propaganda. The two most common emotions associated with violent acts are disgust and contempt.
Donald Trump displayed the expressions of both disgust and contempt today as he said, "death" when proposing the Death Penalty for drug dealers.
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See also:
Body Language Analysis No. 4238: OJ Simpson - The Lost Confession (Continued, Part II)
Body Language Analysis No. 4236: Andrew McCabe, Jeff Sessions, James Comey - and Sincerity
Body Language Analysis No. 4234: Donald Trump's Reaction to Question Regarding Whether He Fired Rex Tillerson because the SOS called him a "Moron"
Body Language Analysis No. 4232: Betsy DeVos' 60 Minutes Interview
Body Language Analysis No. 4225: Sam Nunberg Interview - Part I • Roger Stone, Donald Trump, and Russia
Body Language Analysis No. 4207: Stoneman Douglas High School shooting (Parkland, Florida), Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Empathy
Body Language Analysis No. 4181: Ann Curry, Matt Lauer, "Verbal Sexual" Harassment, and NBC
Body Language Analysis No. 4100: Bryan Cranston and The Eyelid Pull
Body Language Analysis No. 4026: Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West, and Emotional Intelligence
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