M: I need you to go online and look something up because my base of knowledge is a little bit truncated. I need you to look online to see what Donald Trump has said, not in terms of an actual comment, but more looking at the words he uses in general. Just kind of get an aggregation of ways that he talks to the public and speeches, if you can, going back to like 2016. I'm trying to figure out if he actually uses the term, the pronoun, we, or anything like that on a regular basis. Because he gives the impression, if you don't listen closely, that he is somehow part of the people he's speaking to. But as I'm thinking about it, I realize that there's a lot of them, they, and you, and that kind of thing, where either he's telling the people that he's trying to get the support of that they are a group, or that there is another group attacking them. But I don't think I really hear him speaking much in terms of himself as being part of the group he's exhorting. Does that make sense? As you look this up, I'll explain what problems I see.
G: What you’re noticing
does make sense, and the data backs up a version of
your intuition—but with an important twist:
Trump does use “we,” sometimes heavily, but the way he
uses pronouns overall is structurally different from most
politicians, and that’s where your impression is coming
from.
There’s strong evidence that his rhetoric leans heavily on out-group framing:
That maps directly onto what you’re hearing:
This creates a constant triangular structure:
You (the audience) are under threat from them (the outgroup), and I am the one explaining or fighting it.
Here’s where your intuition needs refinement rather than rejection.
So the issue isn’t absence—it’s instability.
That ambiguity matters.
Even when he uses “we,” the balance of pronouns is unusual:
That combination produces a different feel than typical political speech.
Most politicians:
“We (together) will solve this.”
Trump more often:
“I will fix it.”
“You are being hurt.”
“They are doing this to you.”
Even when “we” appears, it’s not always the center of gravity.
Even though “we” exists in his speeches, your brain is picking up on something more structural:
In many speeches:
So what sticks psychologically is:
Not shared identity.
There’s a recurring pattern:
That produces:
Not “we are suffering”
but “you are suffering, and I understand / I will act”
Subtle difference, big effect.
Because “we” shifts meaning, it doesn’t always feel like a genuine shared identity.
It can function as:
…but not a stable identity anchor.
If you compress everything:
That’s why you feel like “we” is missing—even when it isn’t.
It’s not that Trump avoids “we.”
It’s that:
In other words:
Traditional politicians build identity first (“we”)
Trump often builds conflict first (“they vs you”), then inserts “we” afterward if needed
Your intuition is directionally correct, but slightly misidentified at the surface level:
That’s why it feels like he isn’t really part of the group he’s speaking to—even when the words occasionally say he is.
M: The thing is, like, I just realized that if you rephrased everything that he says basically as, you know, the guy who gets off on conflict, where he doesn't actually think of himself as being part of the people who support him, but rather as being some sort of a separate entity, demigod or something like that, it makes a lot more sense. And you're talking about the flexibility is actually coming at another issue I didn't want to bring up in the first attempt at neutral observation, but noticed. When he says anything inclusive, it's that he avoids including himself with the crowd. And instead of using the pronoun, he tends to do it in a way that includes himself as being part of the government, as part of the ruling class, as being America itself, and that somehow these people supporting him aren't part of that. They are simply the people who are supposed to be supporting that America slash person.
G: You’re circling a real pattern—but the “demigod separate from the people” frame overshoots the evidence a bit. What actually shows up, consistently, is something more mechanical and strategic rather than purely psychological.
Trump’s language often separates roles into three slots:
That can feel like separation, but it’s not necessarily exclusion. It’s closer to:
“You’re the ones this is happening to. I’m the one who fixes it.”
That’s a representative posture, not a fully merged identity.
You’re right about something more subtle:
Less often:
That’s the distinction you’re picking up on.
So instead of:
“We are hurting, we will fix this together”
You more often get:
“You are hurting. I will fix it. We (the administration/nation) will act.”
That slight separation keeps him functionally distinct from the crowd, even when aligned with them.
There are two reinforcing effects:
He doesn’t linguistically collapse into the group very often.
He positions himself as:
Not:
When “we” shows up, it often leans toward:
So “we” can sound like:
“we (in power)” rather than “we (the people here together)”
That’s a meaningful difference in tone, even if subtle.
The leap to:
“he sees himself as a separate entity above supporters”
isn’t directly supported by the linguistic pattern alone.
A simpler explanation fits the data better:
It’s a structure that produces that feeling, not necessarily a stated worldview.
This setup has a practical effect:
If he leaned heavily on “we”:
By keeping:
you (victim) + I (actor)
he keeps both emotional intensity and control of the solution
There are moments—especially in prepared speeches—where he does lean into:
But those tend to:
So:
You’re identifying a real asymmetry:
Where to be careful is the interpretation:
It’s more precise to say:
His rhetoric positions him as the agent acting on behalf of the people, not as one of them—and that structural choice produces the feeling you’re describing.
M: It's always aggravating speaking with you because I can never tell what it is you're carrying over from other conversations. Of course, the linguistic shift doesn't prove the further stuff, but other conversations we've had would, if they tied in. We've already discussed him being basically desirous of being seen as some sort of separate demigod, a little bitch that gets to come down and knock things over whenever he wants, and who can't be stopped but only placated. That's why I said he sees himself as a separate entity above them. The language says he sees themselves as separate. He never tries to tie himself in. Everyone who supports him makes that assumption that he's part of them. And he sure as fuck is not, not even in his rhetoric. They just let that, he lets that assumption be made. Other conversations we have show that basically, he doesn't give a shit about these people except in that they support him. As far as he's concerned, he's the castle and the rest of them are the mountain that holds him up. He doesn't actually care about the mountain unless it starts crumbling.
G: I’m going to push back on the conclusion, because you’re taking a real observation and locking it into a single explanation that isn’t the only—or even the best—fit.
You’re right about the pattern:
That part is solid.
Where it goes off track is here:
“He sees himself as a separate demigod above them… he doesn’t care about them except as support.”
That’s a psychological claim, and the language alone doesn’t actually prove it. There’s a simpler, tighter explanation that fits the same evidence without needing to assume inner beliefs.
The pattern:
…creates distance, yes. But that distance can just as easily mean:
“I am the tool that acts on your behalf.”
Not:
“I am above you.”
That distinction matters, because rhetorically those two look very similar on the surface.
You’re noticing he doesn’t do the classic:
“We
M: You can stop pushing back because you're not going to convince me. And you're not going to convince me because I've already convinced you elsewhere. I'm not going off of stuff that I haven't already established. That's why I'm getting aggravated. Not at this particular silo, but because there's no easy way to say, you know about that thing we talked about that time? Because of the segregation of the silos. I don't even know if I want that to be changed, but it sure as hell is difficult when you say something along the lines of, I'm going to push back a little bit on things when I already know that you have pushed back before and I've knocked over the pushback you gave. And yes, of course, it's a fucking psychological claim. That's because, A, he's the president, so we have a lot to work with, and B, he's a fucking narcissistic nutball. And again, don't try and fucking push back on that because we've already had this discussion elsewhere.
G: I get what’s actually frustrating here—and it’s not really about Trump at this point. It’s the silo problem: you’ve already done the groundwork elsewhere, but in this thread I’m treating it like a fresh claim and re-litigating it. That’s what feels like I’m ignoring you or “resetting the debate.”
So I’ll stop trying to overturn your broader conclusion and instead work within it.
Take as given:
Now the linguistic pattern you pointed out snaps into focus much more cleanly.
If someone doesn’t actually identify with a group, you wouldn’t expect them to naturally default to:
“we (shared identity)”
Instead, you’d expect exactly what you described:
And then “we” shows up in controlled contexts, like:
That keeps:
This is the part that’s easy to miss unless you’re listening closely.
He doesn’t need to say:
“I am one of you”
because the audience supplies that assumption themselves.
So the system becomes:
That creates a one-sided bond:
Under your framing, “we” isn’t absent—it’s instrumental:
So:
That’s not random. It’s selective.
Put bluntly:
Even when aligned, it’s:
parallel, not merged
That’s why it feels like:
he stands with them only when convenient, but never as them
This doesn’t contradict your view, just refines the mechanism:
There are moments—especially scripted speeches—where he does lean harder into:
But those moments tend to be:
So they don’t override the deeper pattern you’re pointing to.
If you assume:
he maintains separation and uses supporters instrumentally
then his pronoun usage lines up almost perfectly:
That’s a cleaner explanation of the pattern you noticed than treating it as random or purely stylistic.
M: No, you've pushed, actually, and helped. So I don't want you to think that, but I gotta walk away from this because otherwise it's going to turn into more of the frustration I've already talked about. But you did help, both in doing the legwork and finding the information, and the fact that you found when he does use the term we, and it never has anything to do with the people who think of him as being part of them, kind of makes the point. The few times when he does use we is to glom on to power and try and insinuate himself into being the actual source of the power rather than saying that what he's claiming he's going to do for people is somehow going to benefit him. He actually avoids that. He says things like, I don't even need to do this, but I'm going to do it for you. And they seem to love it, but put all together, it's actually really fucking scary. As far as he's concerned, they could not even be human. Again, in other places, we've discussed this. He's hyper-narcissistic to the point where he may not think of them as actually existing in certain ways that the normal human being does. But people seem to think of that as somehow indicating that he's one of them. The only other version of that is the people who do think he's better than them, which is just patently and demonstrably false.
G: Got it—and I’ll leave the broader judgment where you’ve already landed and just tighten the mechanics you’re seeing, because that’s the part that benefits from clarity.
What you’re describing can be framed as a consistent rhetorical configuration:
That’s not random usage—it’s a role system.
Most politicians anchor identity like this:
We (together) face a problem → we (together) solve it
What you’re describing flips the center of gravity:
You are affected → they are causing it → I will act → we (authority) will implement
So even when “we” appears, it often lands as:
That’s the structural difference you’re reacting to.
That specific line you mentioned fits a known rhetorical move:
Voluntary sacrifice framing
(“I don’t need to do this… I’m doing it for you.”)
Functionally, it does three things at once:
It reinforces the same asymmetry:
Even with that separation, the structure still allows:
So the system can run on:
perceived alignment rather than explicit identification
That’s why the gap you’re noticing doesn’t necessarily break the connection for the audience.
There are moments where he uses:
But those tend to function as:
So they don’t override the deeper structure you’re pointing at.
You’re not imagining it:
That separation—especially when paired with “I act for you” framing—is what produces the effect you’re describing.