Donald Trump has been called a “master media manipulator” by the New York Times, a “genius” tactician by Kanye West and a “master wizard” of persuasion by the creator of Dilbert. Whether or not that is the case, there are certain patterns of language and action the president-elect uses to try to dominate the media, win political debates, and intimidate enemies. Here the Guardian examines some of them.

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Empty spectacle

Trump has repeatedly trotted out props and friends to create the appearance that he has support for his claims, even though the props are often meaningless and the friends say little to bolster his case. At his long-awaited press conference last week, for instance, staff stacked manila folders next to the lectern at Trump Tower. The folders were stuffed with papers that Trump said were “some of the many documents” in which he had signed over control of his company to his sons. His aides, however, refused to let anyone see the papers.

During the campaign, Trump answered criticism of failed business ventures with a similar tactic, displaying “Trump Steaks” that were actually provided by a Florida meat company. This week, he also had a lawyer take the mic to explain how Trump would supposedly prevent conflicts of interest in his presidency, creating the appearance of ethics. Republican and Democratic ethics attorneys pilloried the plan, saying it would do almost nothing to forestall corruption and abuses.

Empty words

Trump sometimes says nothing while creating the appearance of a statement, littering sentences with inflated adjectives, muddled grammar and digressive clauses that derail whatever meaning his sentence started out with. Leaving such words open to interpretation, he can please white supremacists who hear dog whistles, insist that critics “misunderstand” him, and contradict himself endlessly.

Discredit everyone

From a civil rights hero to the parents of a war hero and the collected conclusions of the US’s intelligence leaders, Trump has yet to find a person or community he is unwilling to denigrate. His attacks are usually ad hominem and rarely have substance behind them. For instance, on Saturday he accused John Lewis, a man who was beaten and arrested in his peaceful protests for civil rights in the 1960s, of being “all talk”.

The ploy is simple: destroy the credibility of anyone or anything that might not mesh with his ideas. The effect is destructive for everyone: it casts doubt on legitimate elections (including his own), honest reporting, peaceful protests and the systems and civil rights that Americans rely on.

Credit conspiracy theories

Trump tries to give credibility to sources without any evidence. He has boosted a fictional tabloid conspiracy theory about Ted Cruz’s father and John F Kennedy’s assassination and retweeted false crime data. He claimed that an “extremely credible source” told him Barack Obama’s “birth certificate is a fraud” – a lie that Trump only recanted three months ago.

Browbeating

Last week, the president-elect of the United States indulged in shouts of “you’re fake news” at a CNN reporter who had not fabricated any news and was trying to ask a question. The president-elect’s incoming press secretary, Sean Spicer, then threatened to eject the reporter from future briefings for “rude” behavior. Crude intimidation was a daily tactic during the campaign, as the candidate blacklisted newspapers, and Trump sometimes denigrated reporters by name, resulting in steady waves of harassment, while his supporters threatened the press and sometimes attacked protesters.

Authoritarian regimes, such as those led by Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have not only threatened free press and dissenters but used their regimes to jail and beat them. This week, Erdoğan praised Trump for putting the CNN reporter “in his place”.

Attention hog

Whether or not Trump deliberately creates distractions to draw attention away from damning stories, as some journalists have alleged, newsrooms have struggled with how to cover the sheer volume of stories that he creates: about extreme, possibly unconstitutional proposals; potential conflicts of interest around the world; his boast of sexual assault and accusations of the same against him; his support from hate groups; his rejection of longstanding allies and embrace of Putin; and more.

Trump has attacked traditional news organizations at an opportune moment. Drained of advertising money by the internet, newsrooms lack staff and resources to investigate and document his actions and their reach is fractured by social media and tech giants that have replaced them. Regardless of Trump’s intentions, though, whenever he picks a fight with a celebrity, it can distract people from his administration’s actions.

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‘Gaslighting’

Trump, his vice-president elect, Mike Pence, and his adviser Kellyanne Conway all have a history of insisting that basic facts are untrue, something the writer Lauren Duca has called “gaslighting”, after the 1938 play. This week Conway argued at length, falsely, with a CNN anchor about what was in a CNN story, and Pence declared himself a lifelong supporter of an independent press, even though he once tried to use taxpayers’ money to create a state-run news organization. Trump, meanwhile, claimed that the US intelligence chief, James Clapper, had said one thing, while a statement issued by Clapper said nothing of the kind.