Woah, you say. Jesus? And Trump?

Before you wrinkle your brow in disapproval and disgust, let me agree. Yes, there are differences. Jesus was a chaste man who died a horrible death when he was thirty-three years old. Donald Trump is, to put it mildly, a rather unchaste man who is coming on seventy. Jesus was the perfect Palestinian Jew who preached of a spiritual kingdom existing in people’s hearts. Donald Trump, with a personal life very much on the wrong side of perfect, is running for the presidency of one of the world’s superpowers.

And yet, their communication style is incredibly similar. Across a vast breadth of cultures and separated by an extensive length of time, they rather fascinatingly seem to be using the same techniques of persuasion and communication.

Jesus was perhaps the greatest communicator ever. His words and sayings and riddles have burrowed themselves into the languages and consciousnesses. Donald Trump has uncannily been able to communicate over the heads of a media and elite (both secular and religious) who despise him, and seemingly discard heaps of political convention because he’s figured out a way to communicate outside the filters.

In what ways are their techniques similar? Let’s just take a look at a few.

Stories. Stories are much more powerful than arguments. They allow the speaker to incorporate emotion, which makes the points easy rememberable. Stories can be packed with buckets of meaning. No one was a better story teller than Jesus. His stories of the good samaritan, the shrewed manager who deceives his boss, the prodigal son, or the rich man begging Lazarus for a drink of water in hell have held people’s fascination for centuries.

When I first started listening to Trump’s speeches, I was struck by the stories he told. One of his favorite stories is the apocryphal story of the general in the Philippines using drastic measures to fight his terrorist enemies hundred years ago. Through the description of the graphic punishment the general metes out Trump conveys one of the most important general principles of his governing philosophy; the importance of implementing politically incorrect solutions to solve problems. Another of Trump’s favorite stories is building the ice-rink in New York city under budget and ahead of schedule.

2. Using simple words. Pundits like to deride Trump for speaking at a fourth grader level. Most of the words he uses are single syllable words. Think of Jesus’s stories for a moment. They were also about very simple, every day things, using simple words that everyone was familiar with. Pennies, cups, hills, roads, doors. Very abstract ideas about the kingdom of heaven were conveyed in language that was accessible to all.

Simple words have more emotive value. All great communicators in history have recognized this. In addition there is such a thing psychologists call cognitive fluency — a preference to accept and agree with something because it is easy to understand.

3. Insults. Contrary to the stereotype of Jesus as a mild pushover who was worried about offending anybody, it seems from the gospel that Jesus was pretty generous in his insults. One can’t think of the Pharisees without Jesus’ insult that they are ‘white-washed tombs’ coming to mind. This was a linguistic kill shot of the kind Scott Adams has analyzed. Like Trump’s insults of ‘low energy Bush’ or ‘little Marco’ Jesus’ insults focused on a very concrete and physical component, — the white robes the Pharisees wore, and their fastidiousness about physical cleanliness, to point out their spiritual dirtiness.



