Gonna miss President Trump, when he's gone — a genius for memorable phrasing

© 2020 Peter Free

 

23 October 2020

 

 

For story-enjoyers — there is nothing quite as appealing as a perfect villain

 

I'm "gonna" miss Toddling Donny, when he's gone.

 

He combines personal despicability with an impressive genius for clever interpersonal manipulation.

 

 

Take last night's presidential debate

 

Admittedly, the debate interminably showed two "old, white, draft-dodging m[e]n linked to corruption" trying to outdo each other on their self-perceived innocence scales.

 

From one perspective, this "blame you, not me" performance was laughable. At least so, for those of us who know history.

 

On the other hand, both men demonstrated the public-manipulating ability to lie with sterling quality aplomb. Millions and millions of Americans remain completely fooled. I suppose that's our System's own evil genius on parade.

 

Related to that idea — but more specifically to today's point — Trump, bless his heart (an Oklahoma code phrase), displayed his golden gift for spitting out subliminally stick-in-the-mind descriptive phrases.

 

It is this respect-worthy ability that I focus on.

 

 

Trump's talent for finding scare points and busting them open

 

President Trump has an unequalled gift for crafting short descriptions that ineradicably linger in hearers' memories.

 

These Trumpian phrases operate almost subliminally.

 

Toddling Donny intends them to winnow recalcitrant complexity into simplified and, therefore, easily drownable subject dismissiveness.

 

 

One of Trump's gleefully memorable phrases popped up last night

 

I use it to demonstrate two things:

 

 

First, that "liberal" pundits were afterward correct in saying that President Trump uses Fox News code words that much of the public will not understand.

 

Second, that these same pundits are missing the ultimate public-manipulation point. Not understanding Trump's referents and code phrases does not unsharpen his descriptions' mental and emotional hooks.

 

 

"tiny little windows"

 

I had not been paying much attention to the two men, as they nauseatingly competed to see who could tell the biggest lie in defense of their ethically indefensible political records.

 

Then, I heard the President ranting about "tiny little windows".

 

How, I wondered, did small windows make it into a presidential debate?

 

Those oddly inserted descriptive words caught my lapsing attention.

 

Point to Trump.

 

 

Given that "tiny little windows" is a memorable concept . . .

 

. . . I looked it up today.

 

Having to research the matter, tended toward demonstrating liberal pundits' post-debate point. Lots of us do not know what Trump is talking about, much of the time.

 

Here is what I found:

 

 

"So they want to take a building, and they want to make the windows from nice windows to little windows,” President Trump’s mind coughed out on Fox News this week.

 

"Let’s take your windows out and make them tiny little windows because you’re going to save two cents on energy.”

 

If what Trump said this week about the Green New Deal mandating buildings with “tiny windows” sounds familiar, it’s because he said almost the exact same thing at a campaign event in Georgia on October 16:

 

“They want to rip down buildings and build new buildings in their place with tiny little windows.”

 

And again to Fox News host Sean Hannity on October 8:

 

“I mean, they literally want to take buildings down and rebuild them with tiny little windows, okay? Little windows so you can’t see out, you can’t see the light.”

 

And a slight variation in a Rose Garden address on July 14:

 

“Mandate net-zero carbon emissions for homes, offices, and all new buildings by 2030? That basically means no windows, no nothing. It’s very hard to do."

 

© 2020 Alissa Walker, Trump Keeps Talking About ‘Tiny Windows,’ And No One Knows What He Means, Curbed (22 October 2020) (reformatted)

 

 

Examine the hidden genius underlying Trump's arcane form of skill combined with stupidity

 

He comes up with a memorable phrase to de-gonad-ify — meaning emasculate or defeminate (my made-up word) — a complicated topic.

 

His phrase's memorability sticks in our minds.

 

Some of us then go to the trouble of researching what he means.

 

The search effort hooks the concept deeper into our gray matter.

 

Thereafter, we're caught. Whenever the topic that the phrase is associated with comes up — we remember Trump's memorably dismissive attitude regarding it.

 

Someone will announce the Democrat's Green New Deal, and I will involuntarily be thinking "tiny little windows".

 

In my case, I will make the effort to recognize that Trump's description is not true. But many people will not. Trump, thereby, will have netted a probably substantial number of fish.

 

 

The moral? — Will you miss President Trump's gift for manipulation by memorable phrase?

 

If you like simple, sticky language — usually combined with piercing insult — Trump's your boy.

 

Talent is talent. And President Trump's got the Goebbels Quotient in spades. He's a slyly quipping moron cartoon.

 

What are we going to do for amusement, when he's gone?