Bernie is a good study in facial reading.

Chinese facial reading presupposes that faces are handed, just as people are. That is, people naturally exhibit better conscious control of their facial expression on one side of their face, just as people have better dexterity in one hand compared to another.

What this means for facial reading is that one side of a face will represent what the person wants people to see, while the other side of the face will be more representative of their deeper psychological state. The Chinese say that the left side is the less consciously controlled, and thus it is the “true face,” but I suspect that just as people are usually right-handed, but not always, the handedness of the face is not absolute either. So some people may have the left side be the presented face, and the right is more true. Although I will look at the left side first, I would usually look at the side which seems less social or likable as the true face.

Whenever I see an exaggerated two-face, I immediately go on guard, because I assume there is something they are trying to hide from me. and because I see it so clearly, what they are hiding must be quite different from what they are presenting to me.

The first time I saw Bernie I was blown away by how much his upper lip curls under and presses against his teeth. That is generally a sign of anger with frustration. Make the expression in a mirror, curling your upper lip under, as you lift it slightly, exposing your teeth somewhat. You want to act, but you can’t, so you smolder. I can almost feel myself saying, “You son of a bitch!” I see it a lot on crime shows, usually with men who kill their wives. That is their baseline mental state, when their brain is at rest. You usually get that through pretty extensive conditioning as a child.

I would bet that this is a guy who has spent his whole life looking up at his betters, raging at their success and feeling helpless to stop them. If he gets into office, I suspect he will be all hell on anybody who is riding high due to ability effort or determination – a huge selling point to r-strategists.

To better demonstrate Bernie’s facial characteristics, I’ve taken two photos of Bernie, split them into left sides and right sides, and mirrored them. Each photo array consists of the original, the right side of his face mirrored (which he makes look more harmless), and the left side, which he apparently has less conscious control over, and which looks more angry. So basically the middle picture is who he is showing you, while the far right is who he really is underneath.

Look at the line extending down from the nose to the corner of the mouth in the first pic, far right. That line, and the muscular contraction producing it, is usually associated with contempt/disgust. It would contract forcefully if you suddenly smelled a strong odor of rotting flesh. Compared to the middle pic, it almost looks as if he is smelling something bad. Also note the angry squinty eyes in the far right pic.

In the second mirror array, note the extent of the muscular tone and development in the corner of the mouth on the left. That is part of the muscle structure which curls the lip under and presses it against the teeth. Look how curled under and pressed against his teeth his upper lip is. “You son of a bitch! I may have to smile, but by God I will get you!”

Also note how middle Bernie is more warm, while far right Bernie looks like an angry guy faking a smile. He has less control over that left side of his face.

Also of interest is the slightly opened mouth in the both shots. When people get angry, their voices take on a different tone, as the muscles at the top of their throat contract and pull to the back. To imitate this, go “Aaaaarrrrgghhhh,” and feel how the upper part of the back of your throat lifts and contracts. That is an integral, unconscious muscular contraction which occurs in response to anger.

In the type of pathological anger which can’t be turned off, just as the anger is persistent, so is that muscular contraction of the back of the throat. Now contract those back of your throat muscles as you snarl your lips, close your mouth, and try to breathe in quickly through your nose. It obstructs nasal breathing, and forces mouth-breathing. You can almost hear this in Bernie’s voice – he always sounds kind of like he has a cold.

If you break your arm, and put it in a cast, the muscles become frozen, and when the cast is removed the arm is frozen in one position and doesn’t move as well until you re-stretch and condition the muscles. In these characters with perpetual anger, those muscles in the throat seem to get frozen in that position, more permanently obstructing nasal breathing. What you end up with is a mouth-breather. My narcissist Bob was a hard core mouth-breather who always had his mouth open, often with his lower lip jutting forward and his upper lip curled under like Bernie’s. When you see it that exaggerated, you begin to see its more milder forms.

Finally, one more unaltered pic of Bernie which shows some element of the two-faced quality, and highlights his anger.