Not a few commentators have recently suggested that Trudeau has “lost the plot” or “isn't making any sense.” Indeed, his interviews from four years ago show a very different man. Compare them to that of a month ago or his tirade on Poilievre from Hamilton two weeks ago. Something is going on..If you read and teach on non-verbal communication, you do become a bit of a geek on this stuff. Sitting at the local Tim Horton's you can't help but analyze who's out on a first date, whether someone is doing well in the job interview, or when passive aggressive Canadians are actually raging below the nicey surface. It also means that you can't watch interviews with Trudeau without being truly gobsmacked.. Trudeau and QuantumPrime Minister Trudeau explains quantum physics in 2016. .During the second iteration of our PM's tenure we have wondered: Why does he seem so vacant? One talking point after another? No wrestling with complexity or walking back any policies. But you also get these weird moments like that video clip from April 2016 when apparently out of the blue our PM is asked about quantum computing, and he reams off a textbook explanation. “Don't let me get started, we'll be here all day; trust me,” he finishes with a smile..One moment he's fully on with quantum computing. The next...off and back to surfing. What gives? Is he a renaissance man? In my sober moments, he's just practiced the questions beforehand but when I'm waxing conspiratorial, he's clearly a WEF cyborg..To spot a liar, we look for a few things: A good liar wants to help you believe the narrative you want to believe, say, that your teenager's car really did break down, or that Canadians are good people who care for each other and all follow conclusive science. When the liar can't answer a question straight-up but instead fills the air with words, he's trying to convince either himself or you. He's reaching for the grain of truth in a heap of lies, or he's spinning a narrative and waiting for your face to show that you're buying it..He'll fill the air with words until he sees it. When he does see it, watch the corners of his mouth go up, even slightly: A little smile. He can't help it. Its a type of emotional leakage called “duping delight.”.Of course, liars reveal a lot with their eyes, too. Its called 'lateral eye movement.' When asked a question (usually depending on if we are left or right-handed,) we will look to one side when accessing memory and its images; we look to the other side when we are editing and thinking about how to phrase our answer. Put on the spot, we might also look around the room for exits..The point is that when you're questioning a liar about where he was at such and such a time his eyes, looking up and to the side, should show that he's remembering — he was actually present where he says he was, and is seeing it in his own mind — not that he's reading from a pre-written script..But our “person in question” might not be lying. He might have just got the questions beforehand..We all like a speaker who seems like he's thinking while he's answering, and the mark of a bad actor is that it looks like he is repeating the lines rather than thinking about and responding to what his counterpart has just said. We want to see some psychological wheels turning. So, if I'm looking for authenticity, say, in an interview with mainstream media, like CTV's “A Conversation with the Prime Minister” I might watch for (along with the chin-nod prodding by the interviewer: “Here comes that question”), the timing of emotional responses to questions. Do they happen in the right place? When the PM starts to react emotionally to a question that is long from finished, he's probably seen the script before. (Who knows, maybe the dominance shown in how he grasps and extends his hands and uses eye gaze to intimidate have got Omar a little uneasy too.).Confident and charismatic people are always better liars, but liar or not, what is obvious here is that the wheels just aren't turning. We don't get thought. No pause. No mental action. At the very least, our PM is ready for the questions before they're asked..For some comparison on all this, watch an old Stephen Harper interview, say with Peter Mansbridge. After you've sighed and pined for the bygone days of the sober statesman, you realize that Harper takes about double the time to answer a question as does our present PM. There are significant pauses when turn-taking in this conversation; it doesn't hop along like a bouncing ball. Harper looks all around when thinking of an answer — and, most importantly, at times he seems to be looking inward — accessing pictures in his mind from memory, as well as editing his responses. Lateral eye movement all over the place. There are the natural stops and starts that we all make. He's thinking while responding..Not so with Trudeau..Ironically, the PM who had been labelled a bit stiff is actually behaving much more normally, like a real-live person. You might say, human-like?.Another comparison is worth noting. We use eye contact to emphasize a point we're making: We look away while thinking up an answer and then zero-in on our counterpart when we state it, for punctuation and emphasis. But we might also use our eyes to seek feedback and affirmation from the other person: “Are you hearing me?” we're asking. Trudeau does the latter; Harper does the former. Trudeau pleads for feedback from his interviewers. Stephen Harper does not..At the end of the day, the old PM — even the old version of this one — is far more centred. Our 2023 Justin model is downright jittery, with a speech rate that is through the roof. Everything is outside, on the surface..What's one left to think? Literal marionette or figurative? Is it as simple as his handlers pulling the strings, or is this something deeper?.It may just be the caffeine in this Tim's coffee, but perhaps Elon Musk's AI future may be on our doorstep.
