Embrace of Trump persona degrades nation

Why is President Donald Trump’s manner of speech — distinguished by its lack of tact, refinement, and civility — still defended by Republicans? His supporters claim that it is a “breath of fresh air.” That it rejects the paradigm of censorship or political correctness or sensitivity that has supposedly devolved our nation over the past few decades. That it reinstates a sense of power, pride, and strength in America.

Here are three reasons why that argument is inherently flawed.

First, it assumes that words which are eloquent or graceful in their construction cannot also be revolutionary or scandalous. While this attack on the articulate most obviously responds to President Barack Obama’s well-spokenness, it would also suggest that Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” are incapable of greatness or innovation because they are artfully crafted. While I am confident that no reasonable Trump supporter would dismiss Jefferson’s words as such, I worry that this is merely because they are the words of Jefferson and not of an articulate politician in 2018. I worry that Trump has set a precedent for many Americans to equate articulation alone with crookedness, corruption, or malicious intent.

Second, the argument supposes that Trump’s lack of tact is a symptom of his humility — that he does not waste his breath on superfluous words because he is a champion of the common, unrefined man. It is entirely true that great words do not require eloquence to be stirring or poignant. Indeed, in times of adversity it can be found that the most basic and accessible of assertions are needed to bind a nation or people. But Trump’s manner of speech is neither binding nor can it claim to be a symptom of his “common” roots.

Furthermore, his crassness should not be mistaken as evidence for the president’s uniquely “raw,” “pure,” or “unadulterated” character. Interviews that predate Mr. Trump’s campaign and presidency exhibit that his persona is a fabrication — that his crassness, his witlessness, his inanity are not a rejection of political mendacity but rather the epitome of it. In a 1980 interview for NBC News, searchable on Youtube, the future president displays a certain calmness and relatively expansive vocabulary that is foreign to the Donald Trump of 2018. He is the worst kind of buffoon because he is one that is entirely artificial and contrived.

Third, the argument devastatingly confuses incivility for bluntness. It likes to pretend that his speech is returning to some status quo before political correctness or oversensitivity, but I cannot believe that in any past era of our nation’s

history, reputability was marked by such juvenile statements as the ones Trump produces. This is referring not only to his remarks that have abused women, immigrants, war heroes

and the disabled but also to the daily batch of comments that exhibit a gross lack of discretion. Even now I recognize that I have become desensitized to the fact that my president’s tweets possess as much acuity as those of my former middle school peers.

Ultimately, Trump has paved the road for an age of anti-intellectualism:

where eloquence is made synonymous with corruption and bullying is mistaken for candor. I have seen those on the right who would previously have spurned this movement now defend it with vehement spirit. I do not know if this is merely the consequence of the twoparty system or evidence of some

larger deficiency in our society, but it has surely set a precedent of ignorance that devastates America as a people, as a polity, as a nation, and as an idea.

Abigail Meyer of Clifton Park is a graduate student studying linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.