I'll admit to
slightly enjoying these stories about which politicians, during each election year, are using the biggest words and the littlest words to
convey their carefully-crafted aspirational visions to the electorate talk gud to voters.
[W]ith his own choice of words and his short, simple sentences, Trump’s speech could have been comprehended by a fourth-grader. Yes, a fourth-grader.
That puts him at the bottom of the pack. Actual brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson smarts things up a bit to a 6th-grade level, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush both jump to 8th grade, and Bernie Sanders' perspicacity is best suited to a high school crowd. All of this is based on things like word choice and word count, and the part that I always find comforting are the accompanying meant-to-be-positive-sounding explanations of how your average American is sick and tired of having to think about what the candidates say! They're busy people and if it can't be expressed in two burps and a grunt then they'll take their votes elsewhere, damn it.
Simpler language resonates with a broader swath of voters in an era of 140-character Twitter tweets and 10-second television sound bites, say specialists on political speech.
“There’s no time to explain in modern politics,’’ said Elvin T. Lim, a professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
We're tired of talking about the ramifications of things, says the American electorate. Don't give us crap about the carbon cycle, an accurate history of the "Confederate" flag or a long list of the sociopolitical groups currently in conflict in the Middle East—just tell us who we should be bombing, who we should be putting on trains to the border, and when we should start. In emoji form, if possible.
“Trump is talking about things that are emotional, simple, and angry,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican consultant. “He’s not talking about the complexity of international affairs. It’s, ‘Let’s take their oil!’ It doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out exegesis of American foreign policy. It’s Trump. It’s simple.”
Hoo boy. More below.
Anyhoo, the long and short of it is that Donald Trump is "winning." He dun talk real good, fer a moneyhaver.
“I haven’t seen a fourth-grade one before,” [professor Eric Ostermeier] said of Trump. “But if he was speaking more like politicians, would he be doing as well in the polls? I don’t think so.”
There's a lot of other good quotes in that article. Here's a thought: Everyone take a look and pick the one part that makes you most feel like downing an entire bottle of hard liquor. We'll make it a game!