The dog whistle – literally worlds apart
having none of this. She typed, in perfect Trumpian Twitterese, ‘‘Border less!!! What in the World is this PM doing? Open borders??’’
‘‘Yeah what Judith said, Open borders??’’ typed sundry yes-men and women of the National Party caucus. If you were to use figurative language for this you might call it Simeon Brown-nosing.
Fancy language. Who needs it? You can be a drama queen like Sinead O’Connor and say ‘‘It’s been seven hours and fifteen days since you took your love away’’ but why would you, when you can be a straight shooter and say: ‘‘She left the week before last.’’ And if you’re also the kind of straight shooter who likes to denigrate girls who speak truth to power you might add ‘‘The bitch’’.
Should one use colourful language in politics, or should one not? Should one at least use recognisable sentences?
Of all the populists crawling the Earth today, Donald Trump is surely the only one who drags language around by its hair, stopping from time to time to club it.
It was plain to hear in his words of rage that he did not care for the turn of events this week. A woman – a woman!!! – dared to bring on his impeachment. ‘‘Nancy Pelosi, as far as I’m concerned, she’s no longer the Speaker of the House’’, he snarled.
Did he mean this literally? No. Might he be literally scrawling a sign in Sharpie reading ‘‘and your also bannd from our Gang and Tree Howse forever’’? Probably.
He brandishes the transcript of his phone conversation with the Ukraine president and calls it ‘‘a perfect call,’’ meaning: ‘‘I committed no crime’’.
He has not yet said ‘‘Show me where in the conversation I use the words ‘get me dirt on my opponent’.’’
But he wants America to accept that the absence of exact words exonerates him, when it’s plain to see the conversation follows a pattern he has used for decades to ensure plausible deniability for wrongdoing.
Rather than ‘‘I want you to’’ he will use phrasing like ‘‘it would be helpful’’, making it appear that he’s not asking.
His word soup swirls like this all the time. You may not find the literal words in his language but his dog whistle is so loud it brings all the mongrels to the yard.
When he takes his turn at the UN and uses the world ‘globalist’ his supporters nod their approval because they know he’s whistling about the so called deep state and people who might or might not be of the Jewish faith, and the people they hate.
And if that makes you feel uneasy about attitudes that are becoming freshly acceptable, join the club.
Donald Trump drags language around by its hair, stopping from time to time to club it.