gender, language, other topics, politics

Going Negative

 

The media savants love numbers – it makes their work look like science. Among their favorites, often repeated, are the “negatives” of the leading presidential candidates. Commentators love to point out that this year, the two front-runners score higher negatives than their equivalents at any time in the past. For Trump, the stats are: positive 24%, negative 57%, for a total score of -33; for Clinton, positive 31%, negative 52%, overall -21.

 

Because the stats are reported side by side, it is easy to get the impression that the negative scores for the two candidates mean the same thing and were in response to the same kinds of behavior. Curiously, the media analysts never address that question – the negs simply are what they are: they show how unlikeable Trump and Clinton are, period.

 

But the two negativities are in fact very different in origin and meaning, and should be differently understood. Continue reading

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language, politics

Donald Trump, the Poet

 

Opinion is divided on Donald Trump’s talk. His supporters are enthusiastic: “He tells it like it is.” “He’s tough.” “He speaks my language.” They like the Trump they think they see and hear: a man whose linguistic roughness is a promise of nonverbal toughness in our next President. For them, the harshness and cruelty that characterize so much of Trump’s speaking style signal that the man is no “political correctness”-hugging sissy.

 

Intellectuals, the commentariat, and media personalities have another view. To them, Trump is your basic vulgarian: no topic is too low, no slander too gross, no prejudice too retrograde for him to exploit; and even when he isn’t spouting off offensively, his language lacks grammar, and his arguments lack cohesion, trickling off without a point, other than the incessant one about the speaker’s greatness, largeness, and hugeness. They sneer openly about the common man (or woman) who is taken in. But even as they inveigh against him, the amount of attention they devote to criticizing him suggests that they are just as captivated by The Donald as everyone else – they just can’t admit it.

 

These Trumpian perspectives would seem to have little in common It’s hard to think of a candidate about whose speaking style public opinion differs so sharply. Why do Americans find it so hard to understand what the man is up to? Continue reading

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gender, language, other topics, politics

Trump vs. Trump: Logician vs. Politician

(I realize that this topic has been discussed ad nauseam by just about everyone, e.g. NYT op-eds 4/2, one by Gail Collins and one by Katha Pollitt, both excellent, but since I wrote it I thought I’d send it anyway.)

Pity the poor Donald. He just can’t win for losing.

 

He has been criticized repeatedly by the media and the pundits for not making sense. And there does seem to be something to that.

 

But then he makes a set of statements that are as rigorously logical as a paper by Bertrand Russell. And still…and still…he gets attacked from every side. People just won’t treat him nicely. Continue reading

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