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President Donald Trump
Trump Speak
It really bothers me that Donald Trump speaks and writes so badly.
Posted August 15, 2016
“The American people deserve a president who can speak grammatical English."
--Bret Stephens on Fareed Zakaria’s August 7 GPS program on CNN
I’m aware that English Professors are perceived as relentless grammarians. On meeting me, many highly accomplished adults recall a scary English teacher from their past. They are likely to say: ‘I was never good in English. I guess I’ll have to watch my what I say.’
I learned to write in grade school where we competed in spelling bees and diagrammed sentences, but I do not teach these subjects. Instead, I teach literature. I present authors from the “canon,” e.g. Shakespeare, as well as ones from the global range of writers in English today. Although I began my career as a specialist in Renaissance English Literature, I now teach mostly creative writing—in the fields of memoir and poetry, with an emphasis on writers from different genders, races and ethnicities.
So I’m not your schoolmarm embodiment of grammatical authority, rapping your knuckles for making an error of composition or humiliating you for not speaking or writing correctly.
But it really bothers me that Donald Trump speaks and writes so badly. Which brings me to the subject of composition and why it matters.
At first, I regarded Mr. Trump as the master of Tweet—a pithy and effective means of mass communication. Tweet, due to its succinctness, has a poetic quality, achieving, at its best, the precision of Haiku. It also has a downside. It allows Mr. Trump to make bold statements on the spur of the moment, which he can (and often does) retract—as in ‘I never said that; I meant something else; you have misunderstood me; why are you attacking me.’ Tweet allows him to say anything, gauge the public reaction, then deny what he said (if it appears impolitic) later. As a result, he contradicts himself often and with impunity. ‘Throw that baby out?’ ‘I was just kidding.’
Many of these statements can be viewed side by side, on split-screen TV. So what? Logical contradiction does not matter. Would I have gotten away with this in grade school? Absolutely not.
Is this ‘who cares’ attitude a by-product of the shortened attention spans of today’s social media attuned society? We click and move on. Click and move on. At the end of the day, what do we recall of our activities, much less whom we have texted or messaged over the course of the past 24 hours? Mmmm.
More importantly, if Mr. Trump cannot remember what he said yesterday, or two weeks ago or even while he is speaking, how can we be expected to create a consistent portrait of him, much less his policies?
Is he (as many have asserted by now) grandiose, narcissistic, sociopathic, or simply a person who has no core beliefs or identity, so he can veer this way or that according to the perceived advantage or grievance of the day?
Here’s my take. At the heart of Donald Trump there is a man who is acutely sensitive to feelings of being wronged, made to appear weak or small (think of his obsession with his hands), or victimized. He sees the United States as being invaded by drug dealers and murderers from Mexico, describes open trade agreements as ‘raping’ the US economy and portrays internal and external terrorists (think Muslims) as running unchecked through our society.
Mr. Trump, I would argue, does not feel big, powerful, or in control. His appeal to a certain segment of the US voting population seems based on his identification with them in their self-perceived weakness and vulnerability, masked by an authoritarian promise that he alone can fix things—by consulting the “shows,” holding “meetings,” trusting the advice of his adult children (all of whom work for him and are hence beholden to him) and himself.
But here’s my real beef. It’s how badly he speaks. As a fascinated viewer of his early rallies, I noticed how often he repeats himself. He uses key words or phrases at least three times before moving on to the next thought segment. His pronouncements are assertions, rather than arguments, masked by the habit of repetition. In conventional politics, leaders attempt to explain their positions by persuading their listeners. Mr. Trump does not attempt to persuade. Rather he moves from one emotionally charged assertion to another—with no evident process of reasoning.
Filler lines run like this: ‘You won’t believe this.’ ‘It’s terrible.’ “I have to tell you.’ His thoughts follow the path of free association. He moves from one statement to another without connection, and ends more often than not, where he began.
Here’s an extended quote from a recent rally:
"In many respects you know they [ISIS] honor President Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama! He is the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS, O.K? He’s the founder, he founded ISIS and I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hilary Clinton. Co-founder, crooked Hillary Clinton. And that’s what it’s about." (Quoted from NYT editorial August 11, 2016)
If this were a paragraph in English composition, it would earn an F.
Why?
One reason that we learn to communicate in sentences, paragraphs, essays, articles and books is so that we can reveal our thinking processes to others and hope to persuade them to our point of view. This is as true of scientists as humanists. Once we learn the rules of grammar and composition (however many ways we may wish to violate them), we can speak a common language.
Professors of English know that if our students want to find jobs where they will need to be able to communicate effectively with their diverse co-workers they will also need to master basic skills in speaking, writing and critical thinking. Saying the same thing over and over again, without offering a rationale or factual basis for your position, will get you nowhere. Computer Science (a highly touted field today) requires proficiency in logical thinking. You can’t just flail your arms and arrive at new Apple software product.
Mr. Trump’s habits of repetition coupled with strategic imprecision (witness all of the interpretations offered for the single word “founded”) allow him to rally his supporters to a high pitch of emotion--while providing him with an easy exit, should he feel the need.
Trump supporters say that his critics are “parsing words,” as if it doesn’t matter what he says. Yet they themselves speak clearly and rationally, offering plausible interpretations of what he might have meant. Since his recorded speech is so ambiguous and/or easily denied, it’s impossible to pin him down. As Duncan Hunter wearily acknowledged this week on CNN: “He misspeaks a lot.”
At a time when a misspoken word or phrase might plunge us into nuclear war (think Kim Jong-Un), this might be a good time to embrace your inner grammarian.
