I came across Charles Blow’s column this morning via a group I am part of called “Duty to Warn”. I know teacherken posted he would be taking a break from politics for work and he usually follows his columns so I thought I would try and cover the column today as I think it is important that people understand Trump’s use of language.
Charles Blow’s column "Trump Savagely Mauls the Language" begins by acknowledging there are probably more pressing matters than Trump’s diction but that as a writer he felt the need to point out that it is not merely Trump being stupid which is something I and others have been trying to explain as well.
His usage isn’t only idiosyncratic or some act of bungling idiocy, although it is surely both. But his usage is also a way of reducing language to the point that it is meaningless because the use of it is mindless, and in that compromised state, language becomes nearly worthless. As a consequence, truth becomes relative, if not altogether removed.
You see, Trump’s abuse of language isn’t simply a thing to blithely mock.
It is something with which we must all take great umbrage, because it has the power to degrade truth itself.
The bolding is mine but it is a key to how malignant narcissists/psychopaths create their own reality. In a psychopath’s world, reality is something that is constructed not something that “is”. It can change quickly (sometimes hourly) so lying is a must for them and they are very good at it. I’ve called what Trump does “gaslighting the planet 140 characters at a time” and that is what we see in his statements as well.
Gaslighting is a particularly insidious device NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) and ASPD (anti-social personality disorder aka sociopath/psychopath) individuals use to control their victims. It causes the victims to question their own realities, even about things they absolutely know to be true.
He goes further to describe the two types of lies Trump tells
Trying to draw the truth out of these people is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip — impossible.
I would submit that the Trumps lie in two ways: first, by directly and intentionally saying things they know well aren’t true, and second, by obfuscating with linguistic obtuseness, by overusing a nebulous relativism and by spouting an excess of superlatives to stand in for meaningful description and disclosure.
He goes into detail with examples of his use of superlatives (beautiful is a favorite) and explains they are no longer descriptors but instead devices. And that is exactly how a psychopath uses language. Language is a device to control and confuse their victim.
I don’t want to share too much of the article but it is a good read and worth a few minutes of your time to try and understand that Trump is not stupid. He is a predator and he is using the language of a predator. Blow even touches on his use of projection, another top ten favorite of psychopaths and narcissists everywhere.
At one point, Trump exclaimed: “France is America’s first and oldest ally. A lot of people don’t know that.” Actually, everyone who was awake in history class and reads books knows that. Alas, “a lot” is a relative term. More importantly, this is, I believe, projection, one of Trump’s compulsive traits. What he is guilty of is exactly what he accuses others of being guilty of. I would wager that Trump didn’t know that France was our oldest ally until preparing for this trip.
Again, it is a good read and it makes some important points that we need to keep in mind. Try to understand what he is doing is not just him being dumb. It is him willfully deceiving and confusing the masses to cover his tracks so he can continue to gain fuel from his victims (us) and continue to profit and retain power.