One of Donald Trump’s most fascinating qualities is the way he speaks. It’s a huge part of his appeal, and it’s why people think that this New York billionaire is some kind of “common man.” He isn’t. Just because he wears a ballcap and speaks plainly doesn’t mean that he has anything in common with you, or cares about you in the slightest. But we’ll get into all that later.
Trump’s most recent “verbal oopsie” was using the term “shylock” to refer to “greedy bankers.” The problem is that “shylock” is used almost exclusively to refer to *Jewish* bankers as a slur. Trump claimed ignorance, as he often does. When his first presidential campaign was endorsed by David Duke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump claimed he didn’t know anything about the KKK or Duke, even though he very much did.
This is a longstanding tactic by Trump, who will say or do something offensive and then suddenly go “whoa whoa, I don’t know anything about that.” Or when he is associated with victims or bad people and claims he doesn’t know them at all (I know, it’s too many links. But the point is that it happens so much and he is very obviously lying). It happens so often that it’s hard to know when it’s actually true, such as when he allegedly didn’t know that Medicaid cuts were in his “Big, Beautiful Bill.” What’s a lie and what’s incompetance?
But even though it’s interesting that he still uses this flimsy tactic, that’s not the real focus of this discussion. Nor is the focus his free-form rambling speeches, which he calls the Weave. Nor is it his barely-plausible deniability of using “many people are saying” to deflect blame for dangerous ideas or to pretend there is popular support for things that are outright lies.
What’s most troubling is Trump’s vocabulary. There are countless articles and essays that explain the appeal of Trump’s “fourth grade vocabulary” or psychoanalyze his narcissistic speech patterns or describe the psychological manipulation of using simple, positive words about himself or to pander to his voter base. But outside of all of that is the Orwellian “masking” of bad things with good marketing.
Take the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” This is a cute, folksy name used on a piece of legislation that contains so many things that are deeply damaging to the American people and to the American ideal itself. It’s arguably worse than the USA PATRIOT Act, which turned America into a complete surveillance state using a name that obviously made any opposition “un-patriotic.”
This type of “branding” is a subtle psychological trick that is taught in debate classes and leadership seminars, but it is textbook doublespeak. Left-wing media has spent weeks describing the tremendous harm of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill…” While continuing to call it the Big Beautiful Bill! This inherently makes it hard to take it too seriously, with such a cutesy, silly name.
Similarly, the administration has taken to publicly calling inhumane internment camps “Alligator Alcatraz,” undermining the fact that human beings are being rounded up WITHOUT DUE PROCESS and being sent to ramshackle prisons in an inhospitable swamp. Ghoulish profiteers are selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise on Etsy and Amazon as if it’s some fun little roadside tourist attraction rather than an shameful echo of history’s past atrocities.
Even the “Weave” itself is an obvious attempt to deflect criticism of his old age and to market incoherent rambling as some sort of brilliant, trademark technique. He talks for hours and generates “ragebait” news coverage without ever conveying any useful facts or ideas. The tactic itself would be pitiful if it weren’t so successful, but branding it is admittedly a clever move to make it seem like further proof of his “genius.”
Other attempts were less successful but equally dystopian: Trump raised the cost of living by thousands of dollars (and damaged the country’s international goodwill) and called it Liberation Day. Most people felt the pain and quickly recognized the , and so the branding was abandoned (as were the tariffs themselves, which continue to be placed “on hold” as some sort of looming threat).
Trump understands that image is everything; even as he shills embarassing product endorsements (and crypto scams) while actively being the president of the United States, his administration has worked tirelessly to weaponize language. “Woke” is some nebulous boogeyman of progressivism; “DEI” is a loud dogwhistle for racism.
Republicans recite talking points in lockstep across conservative news outlets, making them seem like established truth when “journalists” don’t push back. The White House Press Corps has been packed with friendly influencers and sycophants, removing accountability for the administration’s blatant lies and propaganda.
Whatever your political leanings are, we all must take the time to process the information that we’re fed. This isn’t an issue that we can really “both sides” because the Democrats are horrible at branding– and communication in general. Even when they do legitimately good things, they fail to generate any positive sentiment around them, and when they do bad things, they have no slick marketing to cover it up.
But this type of “word manipulation” is everywhere, from politics to corporate America to your everyday life. Apple may have perfected the art of positive word association, but all advertising is designed around the same concept… to make you feel something, regardless of what the facts actually are. Companies routinely “whitewash” or “greenwash” their products and images. Celebrities and social media “influencers” (which is a loaded word itself) carefully curate their public image to make you feel like you really know them, when of course all they’re doing is selling an image that’s not even close to reality. The narcissicists and emotional manipulators in your own life almost certainly engage in these same tactics, either deliberately or subconsciously.
It’s probably impossible to remove all bias from language, but we should demand truth and transparency from our elected officials and our news media. Words mean things.
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