Words Matter

Words matter - but they should matter greatly more to a President whose every word and tweet will weave the fabric of history. A President’s words can inspire: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” 

They can miss the mark: “Mission accomplished!”

And, at a time of fear and despair such as this, words can foment anger, hatred, and disgust: “So (if) we have between 100 and 200,000 (future deaths) … we altogether (will) have done a very good job.” 

That’s President Donald Trump, giving himself a premature back pat. As for his slow response to the coronavirus? “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Just as words matter, so do numbers: On March 24, the US had 52,976 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus. By March 31, one week later, the number had increased 3-1/2 times, to more than 185,000 confirmed cases. April 1, one day later, the US had more than 200,000 confirmed cases.

Two days ago, The Washington Post reported multiple red-state governors have declined to issue stay-at-home orders. Calling a federally mandated order “pretty unlikely at this time,” Trump appears to have no difficulty with that position. This is complete and utter madness. Words and numbers matter - and so do actions.

Yesterday’s blog post referred to the growing concern that Donald Trump is mentally ill. What was once whispered is now openly stated: Trump is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. His over-use of go-to words and phrases suggests further mental decline.  

So I took a simple word count, randomly choosing the transcript of the Friday, March 27, White House briefing during which Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force responded to reporters’ questions about the virus’ progress and handling. 

Spotting Trump’s reliance on simple words and phrases was easy. He used the words “appreciate” and “appreciative” 20 times. This became a news story. If Trump feels he’s not “appreciated,” he won’t return a governor’s calls about COVID-19. Likewise, he used “nice” 5 times. He expects state officials to be “nice” - same rationale, same result.

Referred to 31 times, “world” became over-blown self-congratulation: “… in the world/more than any other country/more than anybody/largest/biggest/greatest economy in/all over the world/world was looking good/no country in the world” … etc.)

Much was “amazing” (3 times), “incredible” (28 times), “fantastic” (5 times), “great” (62 times), and “tremendous” (7 times). You’d think Trump was selling vacuum cleaners rather than addressing a runaway global pandemic. 

He mentioned the “fake news” 3 times. He called a reporter “cutie pie” in an apparent effort to humiliate him.

He spoke in loose superlatives, using “million” and “millions” a total of 12 times, as in: “It’s thousands and millions of jobs. It’s millions of jobs.” And: “… the millions and millions of pieces of equipment have been delivered successfully by us - purchased and delivered.” 

“Nobody” came up 13 times, as in: “Nobody has seen …”/(N)obody has ever seen before/Nobody has ever seen it/Nobody cares about trade, nobody cares about anything/nobody thought/nobody has any idea/nobody was prepared for this/What we’ve done, nobody can even imagine/This is a pandemic the likes of which nobody has seen before.” 

He clung to grudges: “I think we’ve done a great job for the state of Washington. And I think the governor, who’s a failed presidential candidate, as you know - he - he leveled out at zero in the polls. He’s constantly chirping and - I guess ’’ ‘complaining’ would be a nice way of saying it. We’re building hospitals.  … We’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.”

Never once did he give MI Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat the courtesy of referring to her by name:

“Michigan, all she does is — she has no idea what’s going on. And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.” And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan.” This, too, became a news story. 

And President Obama … Always President Obama. I suspect Trump’s unprovoked diminishment of Obama is Trump’s way to bolster his own sagging psyche: “We are prepared for things that nobody has any idea that we’d be prepared. And you know what? When I took this over, it was an empty box. We didn’t have testing. We didn’t have anything. We had a broken system there. We had a broken system with stockpiling. We had a lot of broken systems …”

And sometimes, Trump just made no sense at all: “The beautiful thing about our country is: $6.2 trillion, because it is 2.2 plus 4. It’s $6.2 trillion. And we can handle that easily because of who we are, what we are. It’s our - it’s our money. It’s our - we are the ones. It’s our currency. We can handle it, and we can handle -”

And finally this, spoken with a child’s wonderment as the world unfolds: “I looked - last night, I was watching, and I’m looking down Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue.  John, there were no people in the street. I mean, normally, you wouldn’t be able to see the sidewalk. There would be cars all over it. It would be like rush-hour stuff. I’m looking at it and I’m saying ‘I can’t believe it.  There are no cars.  There are no people.’  

“There wasn’t one person on Fifth Avenue walking down the street.  I’ve never seen that before.  You know, I guess, maybe at one o’clock in the morning, four o’clock in the morning, maybe.  But I’ve never seen that before.” 

©  Nicole Parton, 2020