Glancing at CNN/Money‘s report on Trump’s sudden desire to be part of the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), I was struck, for the umpteenth time, by his use of language:
“I would do TPP if we were able to make a substantially better deal. The deal was terrible. The way it was structured was terrible,” he said during a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
I’m reading that and thinking that this is not the way an expert, nor an expert politician, would put it. But it’s the way that much of his base might put it. He uses general-usage adjectives, rather than specific nouns and adjectives, in everything he does.
And that’s part of his appeal, I’m afraid. In all probability, he’s not familiar with either the original TPP deal nor the successor, but, because he emotionally needs to be seen as improving “the deal” for the United States, not only because it makes his base happy, but because that’s an emotional requirement for his own existence, he blasts it – and he does so in the same way they think they would. Then he keeps painting himself as a successful businessman – the guy who couldn’t even make money off of a casino! – as a way to butter up the base. He talks their way, and he’s a success – thus they must be a success, too.
Now, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s a fantastically quick study and knows TPP inside and out, and can out-think economists and foreign policy experts on the matter. (I don’t know what either batch of specialists think of the agreement.) But his language militates against such a conclusion. It’s not arrogance on my part, either. The use of specialized words makes for far more precise, and efficient, communications.
What’s better, “I WANT BOMB GOES BOOM” or “Use 2000 lb pound bombs on the bunker”? Yeah. General use words signal the amateur who doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Add in the fact that White House sources indicate he spends his time watching TV (the notorious “Executive Time” meme of last week) and can’t be troubled to do any sort of deep reading, and it’s really hard to take this latest zig as Trump realizing he’s about to look bad, and trying to backtrack by criticizing something and trying to “improve” it – probably by adding a comma to an introductory section.
