One-trick phony
by Tom Sullivan
(with apologies to Oompa Loompas and their lyricists.)
Trumpster bluster bully and bray
Tweet til the WITCH HUNT withers away
One-trick phony Pepé Le Pew
Ga-ga, MAGA, Putin, lock her up too
Trumpster bluster bully and bray,
Nothing is true, whatever you say
Trumpster bluster build a hotel
Plenty of suckers left you can sell
What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of three
Why don’t you try simply reading a book?
Are you too busy being … a … crook?
Calling into Fox and Friends
Trumpster bluster charity fraud
Wannabe tyrant isn’t that odd?
Trumpster bluster Nuremberg hate
Better hope Mueller isn’t too late
Who do you blame when your pres is a brat
Pampered and spoiled like a siamese cat
Nobody dares risk a Twitter tirade
Give him his military parade
And another Playmate
Trumpster bluster bully and bray
Snatch mothers’ little children away
Lies and spies and cell with a view
Ga-ga, MAGA, Putin, lock him up too
When Donald Trump said Kim Jong-un was talented, loved by his people, with a “great personality and very smart,” you didn’t think he was talking about Kim, did you? He was projecting himself onto Kim.
“Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough. I don’t say he was nice or say anything about it. He ran it, few people at that age — you could take one out of 10,000 could not do it.”
That was Trump talking about himself, another kid who inherited his position in the world from his father. He is anything but self-made. He is a virtual tyrant who aspires to be a real one, but doesn’t have the talent for it.
Brian Karem’s outburst aside, the problem, writes Lili Loofbourow at Slate, is a Trump-weary press has begun adopting Trumpian language in covering him. Using “cracking down,” “hard line”, “hard bargains,” etc. gives him just what he wants:
So: Infectious though his formulations can be, it’s time to break the habit. Don’t use his language outside quotation marks. Take particular care to avoid words that confuse cruelty with strength. Avoid warlike metaphors. No taking aim, no battles, no doubling down. No punching metaphors. No deals. Deny him the framing he wants. There are, after all, other words.
Arbitrary. Confused. Crabby. Ignorant.
That’s not going to happen, of course, but she makes a larger point:
A president’s lack of basic competence is worth accurately reporting on. And it must be reported on when there is nothing else of value worth reporting.
His every utterance, I’d add, is not news. “Simply repeating his fantastical claims makes them seem less fantastical,” Loofbourow warns. Don’t wait for the seventh paragraph to correct his factual mistakes.
Me? I like messaging that includes strong visuals as much as strong language. Visual imagery is sticky.
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