How to Trump Trump's Invective

 

The obvious answer is by telling the truth.  Unfortunately, politics is not an arena where truth is a very powerful contestant.  Logic is typically run over by emotions.   The truth about Donald Trump’s mendacity is universally known and well documented.  Trumpians are probably aware of his lying but couldn’t care less, and even celebrate his con artistry.  The majority of republicans that grovel before Trump think only about their own hides, truth a dead abstraction in what’s left of their souls.

 

It will take more than truth to remove the cancer of Donald Trump from the American body politic. Trump follows the teachings of Mein Kampf that the more you repeat a lie the more the public will believe it.  He has a vicious schoolboy’s knack for verbal put-downs—Jeb Bush was beaten when Trump tabbed him as “low energy.” “Lock her up” was not only a chant but a plan of action against Hillary Clinton.  Trump attacks opponents and anybody he doesn’t like with nasty nicknames.

 

The fact is that images (including verbal ones) can touch a person instantly and ignite powerful emotions.  The video of George Floyd being murdered by four cops horrified and roused the conscience of people all over the world.  The right moniker for Trump won’t launch a worldwide movement, but we should be more pro-active about the right rhetorical retaliation.  

 

Trump’s invective is all about being nasty, demeaning, and insulting.  He operates by innuendo, rumor, suspicion, fear, but his name-calling flops when it comes to its truth content.  It is in my opinion insane having a pathological liar for a president.

 

So how about name-calling the great name-caller?  As my offering of truth-based invective, I suggest we verbally brand Donald Trump as President Pinocchio.

 

In defense of this nickname to nail Trump, first: the feature of him it captures is not a lie, but the central truth about him.  Pinocchio is a character in a children’s story who can’t stop lying.  But everybody knows when he is lying because the more he lies the bigger his nose becomes.  Trump’s monstrously gorged nose is there for all to see in the historic records of the New York Times and the Washington Post.  That makes Trump a perfect fit for President Pinocchio.  Truth  is retained, unlike Trump’s invective, which is lie-based.  Also unlike Trump’s, the present suggestion isn’t nasty or ugly or vicious. Pinocchio as a vehicle for telling the truth about Trump’s mendacity is kind of cute and amusing.

 

The truth about President Pinocchio is all we need to ask the question of whether we want another four years of a president with openly fascist aspirations, indifferent to American lives as is starkly evident from his murderous handling of covid19, the attack on Obama care and American health care, on women’s rights, on the poor and disadvantaged everywhere, and on the environment who is the mother of all life on earth.

 

Suggestions of verbal images (truth-based invective) we can send around the internet and perhaps to Biden’s advisors?  We should make it a national contest.

 

By the way, there’s a coincidence worth noting.  Trump’s very name proclaims the truth about the man.  Take the English word trumpery—from my dictionary meaning “showy but worthless. . . delusive and shallow.” It’s a word (tromperie) from Old French and Middle English signifying ‘trickery,’ derived from the verb tromper—to deceive.  The dictionary lists the phrase “trumped-up” and provides examples of how it’s used.  To trump something up, e.g. “invent a false accusation or excuse” or, says the dictionary, “They’ve trumped up a charge against her.”  The word trump, as defined in the dictionary, is a perfect portrait of president Pinocchio himself.  Talk about meaningful coincidence!

 

Another fruitful line of incantation I hope to hear with increasing frequency: Lock Him Up! Again, nothing insulting, just a factual point about what awaits Trump once out of office.