‘I Want My F*cking Money’
Does Criminal Language Beget Criminal Behavior?

Reuters

Obstruction of Justice. Witness tampering. Contravention of the constitution.

These are bad allegations, to be sure.

The President has been accused of many such things but — until Robert Mueller’s report is out — it all remains hearsay.

Guesswork.

If you had to guess (please answer honestly) whether or not Trump was guilty of even bigger things — treason, conspiracy, collaboration with a foreign power — would lesser infractions factor into your decision? Would they make intentional malfeasance on a grand scale more likely?

Or is that too speculative to be relevant?

We know he is, shall we say, loose with the truth. But so are many politicians.

When we decide if someone is up-to-no-good, do we rely on the authorities?

Public records? Eyewitnesses?

Or do we boil everything down to a gut feeling? A hunch? An intuition?

Researchers have a name for it — predictive processing framework.

To reach a verdict, we — as does any jurist — process the sum total of evidence presented, filtered through past experience. And, (one would hope) we generally get it right.

Here is where I am going with this:

Putting all politics aside — do you trust our president?
['Sean Backstrand']
['2016 Election', 'Donald Trump', 'Psychology', 'Language', 'Corruption']