In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect. Litotes is a form of understatement and is always deliberate with the intention of emphasis. Wikipedia
In the past two days I’ve seen replays of Trump saying that he doesn’t believe the Mueller report and the FBI saying that Russia did, and is currently, making serious efforts to effect the results of American elections. Exclaiming in anger and utter frustration “WTF!!??” doesn’t come close to doing justice to this latest example of how Trump perceives the world and how his mind works and how he sucks up to Putin.
Then I see Mike Pompeo and the State Department have announced that the United States is pulling out of the cold-war Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia.
From what I am hearing from commentators Putin will like this because it throws another monkey wrench in our relationship with NATO.
Again, WTF doesn’t do this justice. To put it mildly, really really mildly, this apparent deviation from the Trumpian pleasing Putin policy is a wee bit baffling.
Having run through the thesaurus and trying to come up with colorful turns of phrase to express what I see, think, and feel about Trump and what he is doing I will try out using litotes, or ironic understatement.
When Trump tells four female-of-color members of Congress to go back where they came from I could say this was a tad insensitive.
When he tells residents of Baltimore they are living in a rat infested city I could say this was a itsy-bitsy insulting.
When he gins up his crowd, as he did yesterday when he brought up Hillary Clinton, to start shouting “lock her up” I could say he was engaging in heart-warming nostalgia.
When he comes up with a new schoolyard taunt to use to insult someone I could say he was merely using a piddling put-down.
Every day I talk with like-minded friends at the coffee shop or meals about how we feel about Trump’s most recent mind-boggling behavior. Often at night I talk with friends on the phone who are also watching MSNBC at the same time. We find ourselves at a loss for words. We feel like screaming. Sometimes we do.
Using expressive language when you talk is a good way to vent anger and frustration. However using the same words over and over when you write can become tiresome and in the case of Trump is beyond redundant. That’s why I am going to give litotes a try.
After this perhaps I’ll try sarcasm although Dan Coats is a hard act to follow. He had a perfect response when Andrea Mitchell told him Trump was going to invite Putin to the White House. He leaned toward Mitchell and with an incredulous look then laughed and said: “Okay,” he that’s gonna be special.” Of course sarcasm is best served spontaneously and in person with raised eyebrows.
Who ever thought a president could exhaust the thesaurus and challenge our most creative writers and commentators to find new words to describe his otherworldly outrages.
The huckster in chief who my clinical psychologist friend who is an expert in IQ testing estimates Trump’s to be smack dab in the center of average (100). Still, he has a flair for coming up with crowd pleasing turns of phrase and insults. My sense is that most or all really good comedians are quite intelligent. The late great king of insult humor Don Rickles was said to be highly intelligent.
Trump’s attempts at humor are lame and vicious and not a sign of high intelligence, they are yet another example of his malignant narcissism. His latest attempt a humor followed the news that Rep. Elijah Cummings house was broken into is an example:
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Click above to read comments to this tweet including: “Something a sociopath would say.”
Update:
A commenter prompted me to put this together: