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Politics in the English Language (Trump)

Ah. Politics. Everyone in America's favorite discussion topic. Unfortunately, more often than not, conversations about politics are less about expressing educated opinions, but about who can warp words the best into creating a message than people want to hear. Hence, our current president. Any personal opinions about him aside, which I promise will make a couple appearances here, his use of language has had a major impact on his presidential career, and is debatably the main reason he won the presidential election. While Trump may come across as uneducated and random in his word choice, that is far from true. He is “careful” with the words he uses, and while it may not have a positive effect on many liberals, that is not always his intention. Trump uses his language to set him apart from other presidents of the past, and rather than using large words and perfect grammar, speaks more like an average American would. This means randomly changing subjects during a sentence, not having the best grammer, and using less refined vocabulary in order to make the common American feel more comfortable. As a result, Trump is portrayed as a “man of the people,” rather than a large scale politician who is only concerned with personal achievements. Not only is his sentence structure important, but also the specific words he chooses to use. He uses simple, one syllable words like “good,” “bad,” “great,” and “worst” in order to draw in his audience and make reality assumptions forever. By using phrases like “worst trade deal ever” or “Make America Great Again,” Trump uses vagueness and hyperboles in order to get the attention of voters and make a lasting impression on them. There is no clarification given in terms of what it means for America to be Great again, or of how a particular trade agreement is the worst ever, rather, by using such absolute labels, voters make more snap decisions and agree with him instead of doing research and coming to their own conclusions. This is made even worse by the media, which has fallen directly into Trump’s hands. Trump knows that the more blasphemous things he says, the more air time he will get, as media circulates what he says. As a result, he gets plenty of free advertising. The media also uses his exact words in quotes and headlines, expecting the people to understand that he is lying, but instead people just read headlines and agree with them, causing Trump to gain more popularity as his message reaches more and more people. Trump knows exactly what he is doing, and if Americans as well as the media do not catch on soon, then we are in for trouble for the next election season.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/13/how-to-report-trump-media-manipulation-language


Comments

  1. Julia HeckeyApril 22, 2019 at 10:16 PM

    To agree with your points, I find Trump to be extremely intelligent. He simply does not appear like the intellectuals we are used to seeing projected on big screens and TVs. His wits appear to be masked by his limited vocabulary (and as you stated-his "carefree" grammar). America needs to think twice before lounging around telling themselves that his ignorance is harmless. To agree with Eden again, if they do not make a wake-up call for themselves the election will make it for them.

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