Rhetoric of Donald Trump

False or misleading statements made by Trump, 2017-2019

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Persons of interest

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The rhetoric of Donald Trump is deeply problematic for a number of reasons:

• Trump's poor word choice often leads to ambiguity, disagreements, and confusion on whether he actually meant whatever he said. After all, George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language has warned against bad English.^[4][5] One must always keep that essay in mind when there is confusion that arises from what Trump actually means when he says things like "they're not sending their best".
• Trump is continually pushing the Overton window to his advantage by constant personal attacks, while exhibiting an "alarming willingness to use fascist themes and styles," according to the father of fascism studies.^[6]
• Trump frequently makes use of a wide range of logical fallacies.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Analytically, Trump's rhetoric is twice as extreme as every US President from Herbert Hoover through Barack Obama.^[13] Using extreme language is a method to circumvent or overwhelm reason according to Yale philosopher Jason Stanley, who wrote How Fascism Works.^[13][14] Regardless of whether Trump's policies are fascistic, Trump's rhetoric is fascistic and is comparable to the rhetoric of Joseph Goebbels.^[13] Extreme rhetoric, including vague and incoherent language, has consequences: In general, Trump's rallies have inspired, or outright incited, an uptick in violence from his supporters all over the nation, including from his own security guards and campaign staffers. Protesters and journalists are often the intended targets.^[15][16] Even when there's no violence, he expresses disappointment at the peace.^[17][18] It's gotten so bad, Trump actually entertained political assassination of Hillary Clinton to keep her from appointing Supreme Court Justices, prompting the Secret Service to host a private meeting with him over his remarks.^[19][20]

Guys like Marco Rubio are unable to court Trump supporters, because Rubio would never come out and refuse to condemn the KKK — even though he knows that Klansmen vote Republican. Trump can somehow not condemn the KKK and condemn them in the same day and not alienate anybody in his base.

Psychologists at the University of Texas and Princeton University studied over three million texts dating back to 1789 belonging to political leaders of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus news stories, books, movie subtitles, and cable news transcript. They noticed a clear trend of politicians speaking more simply but with greater confidence. Donald Trump accelerated that trend. In fact, he ranks first on confidence but last on analytical thinking compared to all other U.S. presidents. John Quincy Adams topped the U.S. chart with just under 99 points in analytical speech while Trump scored only 16 in a 2015 debate. The average for U.S. presidents is 90, with everyone other than Trump and Barack Obama scoring above 70. In speaking with confidence, Trump's score is 89; the average for U.S. presidents is 64.^[21]

Confusion and gaslighting[edit]

You start with the little lies and work your way up to the big ones

Trump changes his mind so often that reporters — let alone the average U.S. citizen — cannot work out what he really intends. This may be his erratic personality or it may be deliberate.

You know the old adage that the Presidency ages you? In Trump's case, his presidency aged the country. His relentless barrage of doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on his statements, his constant lying, his bullying personality, his rejection of facts, his destruction of logic, and his love of spectacle, all have led to cognitive problems developing among Americans who become worn out by his extremism.^[23] Trump is — consciously or unconsciously — basically trying to gaslight whoever happens to hear him or read about him.

Illusion of expertise[edit]

No, we're not talking about comedian Irwin Corey, whose comedy routine as "The World's Foremost Authority" mocked "argument from authority" with a pompous word salad. As a rhetorical device, Trump frequently resorts to claiming to be foremost authority practically every topic imaginable despite himself being a dummkopf.^[25] Trump has claimed to be the foremost authority on many topics, probably intending the statements to be a totalitarianesque thought-terminating cliché. Trump himself or sometimes Trump referring to his underlings/sycophants has claimed to be the world's foremost authority of:^[26]

General affection for publicity[edit]

Trump's cheering crowds: probably one of the main reasons he's doing any of this

Trump has mastered the technique of False Conviction: you can get away with parodying ultra right-wing opinions if you remain absolutely committed to it. Donald will say things where it's clear he's being deliberately contrarian, but he will sell it as if it's his own full name.

The media blew their load too early. Trump laid the bait and they could not resist: Illegal immigrant rapists, John McCain, disabled reporter, KKK disavowal, Lewandowski, Taco bowl,^{[note 1]} John Miller, history with women, and so much more. He has systematically made the media attack him on issues which the public sees as minor or deceiving. He's built the armor himself. A great example of this was when he said more British Muslims join ISIS than the British military. The Guardian, in its rush to Stump Trump, reported^[34] that 640 Muslims joined the military but only 440 have joined ISIS (if you don't count the ones that died or came back). While they're back-slapping each other for stumping that plastic American celebrity, everyone who reads that is seeing Trump's actual point being reinforced with hard numbers from a paper that clearly hates him, "so it must be true". This is part of why voters like him and think he “speaks truth to power.”

Idiocracy and kakistocracy[edit]

According to Rolling Stone, the guy-at-the-end-of-the-bar theory of Trump is increasingly true,^[37] in that he will say whatever is the opinion of Ordinary Americans — you know, idiots — sitting in a sports bar. His followers on Facebook were rated as the least grammatical of any candidate (12.6 mistakes per 100 words), barely edging out Rick Santorum (11.5 per 100).^[38]

Everyone knows politicians speak in shorthand. Newspapers seldom print whole speeches these days, so speeches are typically anchored around vacuous sound bites. Trump goes one step further by talking at a third-grade reading level.^[39] Everything is "terrible", "terrific", "fantastic", "horrible", "loser", "yuge", i.e., pure hyperboles. This is coming from a man who literally uttered the words "I have a very good brain" and "I went to an Ivy League school, I know so many words, I have the best words." In a statement bragging about his vocabulary, he used the word "words" instead of "vocabulary". (Sarah Palin again. I read all the best newspapers!^[40]) He tends to use a particular set of words or one simple talking point which he repeats mostly unchanged multiple times during the same thought:

The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families.^[41]

I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border.^[42]

I’m a very smart guy, I went to the best college, I had good marks. I was a very smart guy, good student. [...] I was a really good student at the best school. I’m like a smart guy [...] If I were a liberal Democrat, people would say I’m the super genius of all time. The super genius of all time.^[43]

My whole life is about winning. I always win. I win at golf. I’m a club champion many times at different clubs. I win at golf. I can sink the three-footer on the 18^th hole when others can’t. My whole life is about winning. I don't lose often. I almost never lose.^[44]

This sort of stuff is outlined in Art of the Deal, not to mention they are well-known persuasive techniques (repetition persuasion, social proof persuasion, anecdotes persuasion^[45]).

Sound and fury, signifying nothing[edit]

Despite being a fantastic slogan, "Make America Great Again" can mean entirely different things for two people who agree on most issues, let alone for millions of people with much more varied views.

Trump's basically inviting you to pick your own evidence as to how it "isn't great" (tacit agreement) and then to fix your own temporal horizon as to when it was "great." Naturally, people will focus on a time in their own lives when things were great, and so someone who promises to restore them to that position generates a positive reception. Nostalgia is a powerful sales tool; look how many advertisers plug into it.

The missing puzzle piece is not more rhetoric but definite plans, something Trump does not always have.

"Drain the swamp"[edit]

"Drain the swamp" was a phrase that Trump used and a chant that Trump encouraged during his 2016 election campaign. It was ill-defined and what it meant to people was probably different. The average schmuck probably thought it was firing crooked officials; the laissez-faire fat-cat donor probably thought that it was firing 'regulatory parasites'.^[47] by 2019, it is clear that what it has actually meant is firing non-partisan experts of all kinds from government positions, and replacing them with partisan hacks beholden to Trump.^[47]

• Arguably, the only accomplishment of Rex Tillerson's reign as Secretary of State was to sack the State Department of expertise,^[48] since his authority was otherwise undermined by his boss.^[49]
• The Environmental Protection Agency had its enforcement staff cut, thus allowing polluters to keep polluting.^[50]
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was sacked by then-acting director Mick Mulvaney, thus allowing predatory lenders to feast upon average schmucks.^[51]
• Various advisory councils have been targeted for sacking.^[52]
• The Economic Research Service was effectively sacked because it is being moved halfway across the country on short notice, and most employees will not put up with such abuse.^[47]

This rhetoric and the accompanying fraudulent promises were not unique to the Trump administration. It is a tool of other autocrats, starting with Benito Mussolini who used the term "drain the swamps" to apply to both literal swamps near Rome, and to eliminate 'delinquents' from Italy and to replace government administrators with corrupt cronies beholden to himself.^[53]:146-147

Racism[edit]

Although Trump has claimed that Democrats will call anybody racist, he himself has frequently called people and things racist.^[54] This is a form of psychological projection because there is often no more cause for someone to be called racist by Trump other than the fact that they criticized him, particularly if they are African American or Jewish.^[55] Trump has called the following racist:^[54]

"Hispanics love me!"[edit]

During his speech in which Trump announced his bid for the presidency, Trump gained notoriety for saying (among other things):^[78]

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems ... When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Naturally, such comments produced outrage among most decent people worldwide. When asked to retract his statements following protests against him at the US-Mexico border,^{[note 2]} Trump refused, saying that "the Hispanics love me!" and that "they were chanting for me at the airport!"^[80] Like the Muslims dancing on 9/11 that Trump keeps talking about, this did not happen.

The quote directly referenced what Pat Buchanan had said in his speeches during his second campaign for president in 1996, "I'll build that security fence, and we'll close it, and we'll say, 'Listen José, you're not coming in this time!'" and, "They've [Mexicans] got no right to break our laws and break into our country and go on welfare, and some of them commit crimes."^[81]

Ivanka Trump later wrote a letter to Trump in private to "clarify" his position, claiming that "When Mexico sends its people" was referring to illegal immigration and not all Mexicans. When asked what the statement said, Ivanka said that:^[82][83]

... my father has a tremendous relationship with people of Hispanic descent. You know, this is — this is something that personally was very hard for me because I know how many friends my father has who are Hispanics, how many people work at our company who are Hispanic ... He said that, you know, how many Hispanic friends he has and how many — how fortunate we are to have so many great Hispanic people working for us.

Trump was invoked by the perpetrators of a hate crime in Boston, in which two brothers assaulted a Hispanic homeless man and urinated on him before leaving him to die. While Trump's first tweet condemned the action, he followed it up with:^[84]

I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that.

His campaign manager followed up in an interview:^[85]

We would never condone violence. If that’s what happened in Boston, by no means would that be acceptable in any nature. However, we should not be ashamed to be Americans. We should be proud of our country, proud of our heritage, and continue to be the greatest country in the world.

Remember, a Mexican guy was beaten nearly to death in Boston last year by folks who said they did it because of Trump. Trump didn't denounce that behavior, he just said his supporters were passionate.^[84] Just as he has an "out" when people question him about his comments on Mexicans (I'm just talking about the illegals!) and Muslims (I'll only ban Muslim visitors temporarily!). The general election is months away. Trump will refute these allegations for a week or so, and then people will be tired of talking about it.

"Look at my African-American over here!"[edit]

I don't know anything about what you're even talking about... Did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.^[86]

The earliest signs of Trump's racism can be found with his father Fred's management of The Trump Management Corporation (TMC), including violating the Fair Housing Act by preventing African Americans from renting at his properties; for Donald, this began at the time he took control of TMC from his father.^[87][88] When and if this discrimination ceased is a bit murky, but it lasted at least until at least 1975, and possibly as late as 1983.^[87]

Trump uses made-up statistics from an alt-right white supremacist group claiming that a disproportionately high proportion of murders are black people killing white people. Trump also cited unfounded statistics based on answers to loaded questions from "a virulently anti-Muslim organization" called the Center for Security Policy to suggest that American Muslims are more violent and more accepting of Sharia than they really are.^[89]

Nope, not done yet. During a rally, when his supporters beat up a black protester while chanting "USA!" Trump can be heard demanding "Get him out of here!" while later insisting that the protester "should have been roughed up."^[90] True to his word, when Trump next sent his security guards to rough up another protester, one of his supporters let his excitement get the best of him and belted a “Sieg Heil!” as the uppity negro was dragged away. (You could also hear another one say "Light the motherfucker on fire!")^[91]

At another rally, the staff and local law enforcement kicked out thirty black students.^[92] According to the students, they were given no reason to leave, and they were attending the rally as a nondisruptive silent sit-in protest. Trump spokespeople denied that the Trump campaign had knowledge of the incident, and the staff ejected some of the people because of disruption, including profanities, arguing with the Trump detail when they were asked to leave, and trying to cut in line after leaving.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, revealed some racist statements made by Trump directly to him:^[93]

• That's because black people are too stupid to vote for me.
• Name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole… Name one city.
• There's no way I can let this black fucking win. [regarding Kwame Jackson, an Apprentice contender]
• …only the blacks could live like this. [regarding a rough part of Chicago]

Racists who support Trump[edit]

Excluding Neo-Nazis, who are covered in a different section.

• Trump has retweeted user @keksec_org, a white supremacist who quotes such wonderful people as Geert Wilders just as often as he does Trump, and frequently refers to "the feeble mind of the American Negro" when he is criticised on Twitter.^[94]
• KKK Grand Wizard Emeritus David Duke has praised Trump's supposed fight against "Jewish domination of the media", despite the fact that Trump is professedly pro-Israel and has no problems at all with his daughter converting to Judaism. (Trump disavowed Duke, but didn't seem to think association with an actual Brownshirt was that big a deal.)^[95]
• Representatives of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an unreconstructed segregationist outfit that helped to incite the 2015 terrorist attack in Charleston, have also endorsed Trump.^[96]
• To top off the above: On 2 November 2016, the official KKK newspaper — The Crusader — openly endorsed Trump for president.^[97]

Trickle-down[edit]

The frequent and openly-expressed racism of Trump has had the trickle-down effect of what appears to be an increase in racist bullying among children, with an average of two reported incidents in schools per week, and likely many more actual incidents because such incidents are not routinely reported.^[98] This effectively puts the lie to Melania Trump's astroturf anti-bullying "Be Best" campaign.^[98]

Islamophobia[edit]

"I love the Muslims!"[edit]

Trump repeatedly claims without much evidence that American Muslims celebrated 9/11,^[99] but what Trump advocates would be much worse. Trump argues we should ban all Muslims from heading to America, including Muslim American citizens,^[100] something even Dick Cheney ("Here's a guy who did a rotten job as Vice-President..."^[101]) would not advocate.^[102] Joe Scarborough had to cut him off on his show.^[103]

Trump supports a mandatory identification database for Muslim Americans. When asked about the parallel of requiring registration of, well, Jews, Trump's ambiguous answer/non-denial was, "What do you think?"^[104] For what it's worth, Trump's daughter has converted to Judaism, so file this one with "Dick Cheney puts votes ahead of his gay daughter."

Sexism[edit]

My demeaning comments towards women were just show business[edit]

Tear rolls down William F. Buckley's eye

In the course of the GOP debates, he openly insulted the looks of his party’s sole female contender, Carly Fiorina,^[105] the menstrual cycle of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly,^[106] and suggested Hillary Clinton got “schlonged” in her 2008 Democratic primary loss to Barack Obama.^[107] In response, voters live-tweeted their periods to him.^[108]

His followers harassed Kelly with unoriginal and sexist slurs after Trump decided not to partake in the Fox News debate.^[109] Even the media have their role to play: when Kelly cut her hair, everyone knew it was in preparation for her rematch with The Don.^[110] Bill Maher was right on the money when he said that if Republicans were smart, they would be running Megyn Kelly.^[111]

In response to an ad that slut-shamed his wife, that the Make America Awesome Super-PAC released, Trump proceeded to attack Ted Cruz's wife.^[112] Yes, Trump attacked someone who had nothing to do with the ad. Yes, he couldn't be bothered to read the fine print on the ad that clearly said "not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee."

In late 2016, Access Hollywood released an 11-year-old behind-the-scenes tape of Trump bragging about using his celebrity status to get away with sexually assaulting women, specifically noting that he likes to "grab 'em by the pussy." Trump and other Republicans have defended the tape's comments as "locker-room talk."

One of the women who complained that Trump groped her is suing for defamation and insists she is not a liar.^[115] As of 2016, as many as 16 women have accused Trump of sexually assaulting them.^[116][117] Some of these 16 women have corroborating evidence, Trump and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the contrary.^[118]

Antisemitism[edit]

"Beautiful Jewish Baby!"[edit]

But it's not just the crypto-fascists who love him: neo-Nazis of the swastika-waving, Jew-baiting, race war-daydreaming variety have jumped onboard, too!^[121] In a one-week analysis by Twitter analysis firm Little Bird has found out that a whopping 62% of Trump's retweets have been from accounts which believe in white genocide alone, and 58% of the top white supremacist accounts on Twitter follow Donald Trump.^[122]

Trump tweeted a picture of Hillary Clinton with what appeared to be a Star of David and a giant pile of cash, accusing Clinton of being the most corrupt politician ever. Trump decided to counter allegations of antisemitism, blaming the "dishonest media" for distortion,^[123] and describing the star used as a "basic star", a sheriff's badge,^[124] or a label from a Frozen coloring book.^[125] The fact that the image originally appeared on 8chan's version of /pol/, and contained the watermark of @FishBoneHead1—whose racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic tweets on geopolitics have been in plain sight on Twitter until recently—was just a coincidence.^[126]

Trump's final 2016 campaign ad featured a variety of antisemitic dog whistles, with Hillary Clinton and three powerful Jews (financier George Soros, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein) being the targets.^[127]

Neo-Nazis that support Trump[edit]

• The chairman of the American Nazi Party loves Trump's racist proposals, but dismisses him as a candidate because he doesn't believe Trump could actually accomplish any of them.^[128]
• (repeat) KKK Grand Wizard Emeritus David Duke has praised Trump's supposed fight against "Jewish domination of the media", even though Trump is professedly pro-Israel and has no problems at all with his daughter converting to Judaism. (Trump disavowed Duke, but didn't seem to think association with an actual Brownshirt was that big a deal.)^[95]
• According to Andrew Anglin on the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, "The Donald has once again proven ... that 'make America great again' is code word for 'race war.'"^[129] Stormfront founder Don Black has publicly credited him with reviving white nationalism in America, and pledges that the machine set in motion by Trump 2016 will outlast the businessman's candidacy even if he drops out.^[130] Thanks, asshole. The Anti-Defamation League also thinks Trump stirred up racism and made ugly types of racism more acceptable.^[131]
• Ironically, although Trump compared his rival Ben Carson to a child molester,^[132] he himself has won the coveted endorsement of neo-Nazi child molester (and erstwhile al Qaeda-supporter) August Kreis III.^[133][134]
• A segment of PBS Newshour showing first-time voter Grace Tilly and her family failed to report on some interesting tattoos on their hands: an 88 tattoo (numerical code for "Heil Hitler" in the neo-Nazi community) and Odin's Cross, a white-nationalist symbol.^[135] The Anti-Defamation League lists both symbols neo-Nazi hate symbols.^[136][137]
• Birgitt Peterson, a 69-year-old woman from Yorkville, Illinois, appeared in the Chicago Tribune doing a Nazi salute.^[138] Peterson, born in West Berlin, alleged that she took offense to counterprotestors calling her a Nazi; therefore, she said "If you want to do it right, you do it right" and did a Nazi salute. Remarkably, this stunt backfired, with the image circulating on the internet showing alleged neo-Nazis at Trump's rallies (an allegation Peterson denies).^[139] Donald Trump, Jr., decided to weigh in on the debate, retweeting an allegation that this was the work of Bernie Sanders supporter Portia Boulger (despite Peterson being identified in the original Chicago Tribune report^[138]) and alleging that this was part of a vast left wing conspiracy against Trump, Sr., deleting his tweet without apologizing or even acknowledging his mistake. This has led to the hashtag #ApologizeTrumpJr.^[140] Trump immediately apologized for his mistake... two weeks after he had posted the picture up originally.^[141]

Authoritarianism[edit]

If you think this doesn't happen, then you're not paying attention.

Call to assassinate Hillary Clinton[edit]

Trump made an ambiguous statement which has been interpreted as a call to assassinate Hillary Clinton.

Another day! Another Trump gaffe! As expected, the usual cadre of Trump sycophants were on-hand to explain why a man who speaks his mind and says what every one is really thinking didn't actually mean what he said.^[145][146]

And he did it again! Mirroring a Tweet he'd made all the way back in January,^[148] Trump once more implied that Hillary Clinton's bodyguards should be disarmed and that she should see what happens to her:^[149]

The above quote is also a great example of the way Donald Trump talks.

"I will never, ever forgive [the voters]"[edit]

On August 13^th, 2016, Trump coldly stated that he would "never, ever forgive" the voters of Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio if they didn't pull the right levers for him on election day. Sensing the changing mood in the crowd, he quickly blurted out that he loved them anyways and changed the topic; a move that was met with prolonged booing.^[150]

"If I lose, the election must be rigged!"[edit]

In 2016, Trump refused to say one way or the other if he would concede the election if he lost. Rick Hasen of the University of California described Trump's comments as, “appalling and unprecedented” and feared there could be "violence in the streets from his supporters if Trump loses."^[152][153] Days before the 2016 election, Trump told the cameras "I will totally accept the results of this great and historic election, if I win," clarifying himself beyond any doubt. He went on to ramble about how maybe kinda sorta possibly he could accept the election as valid, but would reserve the right to file a lawsuit if he felt that... Essentially, "I'll accept the results if I win, and only if I win" was the position he took in 2016.

Trump has made identical statements in 2020, doing his best to allege that the election- especially if mail-in votes are used- will be rigged and rife with corruption, ignoring the fact that he said that the last one was completely rigged, and yet he somehow won anyway. In both 2016 and 2020, this was/is arguably not really something he actually believes, but a safeguard of sorts, a fallback plan. By raging that the election is rigged and everyone is out to get him, Trump sets the stage for whatever righteous shit-fit he'll inevitably want to throw if he does lose, a fallback plan he's pretty much operated on for his entire life. If you think you may not get your way, set the stage, raise hell and maybe you'll get your way after all. Given how Trump has a well-documented history of encouraging/refusing to condemn violence by his supporters against his opponents or anyone he just doesn't like, Trump could also be setting up not just for refusing to concede defeat personally, but for getting his base to somehow bail him out and keep him in power if things go south in November 2020. Both in 2016 and 2020, the irony of a man so loudly proclaimed (by himself more than anyone) to have no weakness and no fear being afraid of/preparing for losing the election is as hilarious as it is terrifying, given what the consequences could be.

Lashing out against the rule of law[edit]

Donald Trump never had a single kind word for the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III into his ties with Russia, calling it a "witch hunt," and a "total mess" that is "absolutely nuts," and accusing it of being conducted by "hardened Democrats." Trump considers Mueller to be "conflicted" and his team a "gang of Democrat thugs" who are "a disgrace to our nation."^[155] Trump called his first U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, "very weak" and "disgraceful" and ousted him for recusing himself from the Russia probe.^[156] He described the numerous charges against his former staff as "peanuts."^[157] He called former FBI director James Comey, whom he fired because of the Russia investigation, "crazy" and "a real nut job". In a meeting with senior Russian officials at the White House, he said he faced great pressure because of the investigation.^[158]

After Mueller and his team concluded their investigation and made recommendations, Trump predictably screamed from the rooftops that he had been vindicated and cleared of all wrongdoing, which is in no way what the actual report said. It was essentially rinse-and-repeat during the impeachment proceedings against him, right up to the Republican-held Senate refusing to follow up on the House voting for impeachment. Claiming victory and vindication after coming out on top one way or another (or at least not completely losing) is a major Trump favorite, as is endlessly demeaning and degrading anything he doesn't like. The consequences of a sitting President of the United States raging that the entire judicial and political process in his own country is monstrously corrupt regardless of any facts or evidence are not especially important to Trump, who just wants to get his way and will do whatever it takes for that to happen.

Trump has displayed plenty of willingness to directly go after the judiciary. He has had some strong words for federal judges who ruled against his immigration policies, calling them biased. In late 2018, Trump called a judge from the 9th Circuit^{[note 3]} who rejected his migrant asylum policy an "Obama judge." This prompted a response from United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges." Chief Justice Roberts then added one day before Thanksgiving the statement quoted above.^[154] Such a dispute between the heads of the executive and judiciary branches is exceedingly rare, but not unprecedented. President Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court in his 2010 State of the Union Address. When asked about it, Roberts said the criticisms were very troubling.^[159] However, Roberts has generally avoided dipping his toes into political discourse. Nevertheless, in light of the controversial appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Roberts and some of his colleagues have taken steps to combat the perception that the Supreme Court is politically divided between conservatives and liberals and that judges are loyal to the Presidents who appointed them.^[154]

Trump has suggested sending the military after those who oppose his 2024 US presidential election candidacy (specifically labeling the Democrats as "the enemy within").^[160]

Ad hominem, tyranny and dehumanization[edit]

Trump has frequently resorted to name calling against his perceived enemies,^[161][162] a form of bullying and of the ad hominem fallacious argument style. Particularly concerning is his use the dehumanizing term "human scum" (against 'never Trumpers'), a term that has been associated with various tyrants and would-be tyrants:^[163]

• Jair Bolsonaro against refugees
• Adolf Hitler
• Kim Jong Un against John Bolton, and against the uncle that Kim had executed
• Vladimir Putin against Sergei Skripal, whom he attempted to have assassinated
• Joseph Stalin

Desensitization to violence[edit]

Amidst Trump's increasingly shambolic speeches,^[164] he has been infusing his speeches with code words that reference prior speeches and in some cases are intended to desensitize his followers to forthcoming violence:^[165]

• "The snake", references alleged violence by undocumented immigrants in the US,^[166] and clearly has resonance with the snake in the Garden of Eden story of the Bible.
• "The Woman with Two Beautiful Children" and "the Beautiful Woman with a Good Family" reference the false claim that Trump previously made about immigrants, "You’ll get rid of 10 really bad ones and one beautiful mother." What Trump is claiming by this is that many 'bad' people will be deported but the media will only report about the 'good' mother.

The desensitization that Trump is trying to create with these code words is for his desire to create a massive deportation of undocumented immigrants (or just immigrants), essentially repeating two stains on American history, the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II, and the deportation of over a million Mexican Americans by the Eisenhower administration in 1954.^[165][167]

These obscurantist encodings blur the line between Trump's documented dementia,^[168][169] and his intended desensitization of his base.

Argument by gibberish[edit]

As Trump began campaigning for president again in 2023, it became increasingly apparent that his public statements were often even more deranged than before. The mainstream media have often polished up his actual statements, rather than report them verbatim,^[170] what has been called "sane-washing".^[171][172] Below is Trump's response to an impromptu response to a softball question at the Economic Club of New York ("If you win in November can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?") at the Economic Club of New York in 2024.^[170]

The apple-polishing New York Times took this text from Trump and polished it into this headline, "Trump Praises Tariffs, and William McKinley, to Power Brokers".^[173] CNN came up with the slightly better headline, "Trump Claims Boosting Tariffs Will Pay For Child Care But Doesn’t Explain How."^[174][175] NBC News however hit the target with this headline, "'Incoherent word salad': Trump stumbles when asked how he'd tackle child care".^[176]

Other cases[edit]

John McCain[edit]

You can trust Cadet Bone Spur to give military advice! Yeah, right.

In July 2015, Trump set the tone for the race with an attack on John McCain's military record, declaring:

Trump's Vietnam-era record was one of a series of draft deferments (including studying real estate at the University of Pennsylvania). This was parallelled by a seemingly unusual conversion of his fitness to serve from 1-A (available to serve) before college to 1-Y (only in time of emergency) to 4-F (unfit to serve) after college, citing a bone spur in the foot, though he no longer recalls which foot.^[178][179] Trump doubled down on his comments,^[180] causing Rupert Murdoch to disavow him, although Roger Ailes hadn't let up (until he was fired). McCain eventually had to apologize to Trump (!) for calling his supporters crazies, which provoked this entire exchange.^[181]

He also made other factually inaccurate statements about the late Senator from Arizona. It is not true that McCain graduated last in his class from the United States Naval Academy; he graduated 894 out of 899, at an institution where barely 1 in every 100 applicants get accepted and still less manage to graduate at all. While Trump did sign off a military transport for McCain's body, he did not "give" McCain's funeral, nor was he in attendance at all, in part because McCain's family made it clear Trump was not welcomed. Trump claimed credit for a healthcare reform bill that enabled military veterans to receive private healthcare at public expense that was actually authored by John McCain and Bernie Sanders and signed into law by President Barack Obama. However, it was Trump who signed into law an extension that McCain created in the last months of his life. When Trump signed into law a bill that increased the U.S. military budget, which included the higher salaries for service members that McCain fought for, he avoided mentioning its formal name, the John S. McCain National Authorization Act. Nor did he credit McCain.^[182]

American healthcare[edit]

Donald Trump is well aware that American patients are subsidizing the affordable healthcare enjoy by the citizens of many other countries, calling it "global freeloading". With this in mind, many Congressional representatives dared him to support their legislative proposal to cut prescription drug prices in the United States by (1) encouraging competition between generic drugs and brand-name drugs, (2) allowing Medicare to negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, and (3) enabling patients to import drugs from Canada, where prices are lower. Prices are deemed "excessive" if they are higher than the median in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan. There was no immediate response from the White House.^[183]

American involvement in the Middle East[edit]

Bernie Sanders[edit]

COVID-19 pandemic[edit]

Among Trump's initial responses in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was the accusation it was a Democratic hoax and that he accused them of politicizing the pandemic. Once again, his ambiguous, incoherent language as well as a history of such language led to confusion over what is being referred to as a hoax.^[186] Was the coronavirus itself a hoax? Or did the Democratic Party overplay the coronavirus's severity? He appeared to do a little bit of both causing Snopes to say that he technically didn't call the germ a hoax, but what he actually meant is really up to interpretation.

Courtroom antics[edit]

While facing 91 criminal charges and several civil lawsuits in several cases during 2023, Trump has resorted to attacking the judges, prosecutors and witnesses in these cases while he is outside the courtroom. The tactics follow a fairly fixed pattern:^[187]

Several of these rhetorical tactics could be considered psychological projection: accusation of racism, fascism, bias, election interference, and crimes.

Cracked pots for sale[edit]

Trump has promoted at least 23 different conspiracy theories in various attempts to smear his opponents or incite his base, not even counting all of the conspiracies he spread about the 2020 U.S. presidential election:^[188]

See also[edit]

• Policies of Donald Trump — rhetoric begets action.
• Trump-Russia connection — the tie that binds.
• Fun:Trump synonym generator
• Fun:Trump Insult Generator
• Fun:Trump Tweet Generator

External link[edit]

• Here is Trump's speech on race — word for word, alas by Dana Milbank (June 10, 2020 at 4:15 p.m. PDT) The Washington Post.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]