Evening Shade: The Language of tRumpism

Way back in the day, before Nixon, grammarians described four types of statements: declarative, interrogatory, exclamatory and imperative. In the intervening decades new types of statements have appeared. Grammar describes structures and semantics describe meaning. Since everything republicans have said for the last 50 years is bereft of semantic content we must update our grammars.

Dogwhistlative statement: These statements contain code words meant to incite followers to some mindless action. “Welfare mothers are stealing your guns” invokes the idea of “welfare guns” which are much coveted by low-income republicans. Abortative statement: A type of statement whose purpose is to promote the subjugation of women. “Fetuses wrote the Bible” is quite popular among the most rigid conservatives. Giulianatory statement: Possibly the most famous of the new forms, consisting of a noun, a verb and 9/11 Nativatory statement: Statements used to deny birth records to achieve political advantage of heavy ridicule depending or where the statement is uttered. Postative statement: These date from around 2014 and at one point composed the entirety of all republican statements. “But her emails” is still quite popular in Freedumb Caucus meetings.

In the last four years we’ve seen an explosion in new statement forms. Most of these forms, although in wide use by all manner of conservatives, fall under the general rubric of tRumpisms.

Grandiosative statement: Although taken seriously by KoolAid drinkers and tRump voters, these ludicrous statements are always good for a chuckle. “Only I can fix it” is the most common, cropping up in all sorts of inappropriate contexts. Projective statement: The quintessential instance of this statement type was “I’m not the puppet; you’re the puppet.” Mendacative statement: Lies, lies, lies and more lies. tRump is approaching 20,000 of these since announcing his candidacy. Derogatory statement: These are included every time tRump opens his mouth. Examples are “She’s such a nasty woman,” “Leakin’ James Comey,” “Little rocket man,” and “Sleepy Joe.” Imperious statement: The definition of imperious says it all: assuming power or authority without justification; arrogant and domineering. “I know more than the generals” fits here. Deniatory statement: There are two forms of this statement. The first is the specious evidentiary deniatory where a highly paid shill spouts poorly researched nonsensical denials of obvious facts. The second is the outright deniatory which uses questionable Biblical references as justification to say, “God says no.” Accusatory statement: Whenever tRump tries to weasel out of responsibility for something stupid he’s done, he blames someone else. If it’s a really stupid move he engages in cyclic accusatory shifting using the progression of: “Obama did it,” “Hillary did it,” “It’s fake news” (i.e. the media did it), “[one of my flunkies] did it” (aka throwing under the bus) and as a last resort “I did it, but I’m allowed to.” Mafiative statement: Used to extort foreign governments starting with the works “I need you to do me a favor, though.” Often found in secret transcripts of conversations with foreign leaders. Bigotory statement: You need to ask? It’s the signature of his entire administration. These are the statements that makes us all cringe (unless we are bigots, racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes or just plain rotten people). Gibberishative statement: The vast majority of tRump’s remarks are some sort of word salad gibberish. The whole soliloquy about windmills causing cancer falls into this category. Conspiratory statement: Everything tRump says in private that isn’t gibberishative is part of this group. We usually find out about these days or weeks after they are uttered whenever another toadie leaves the swamp. Preparatory statement: These are statements that try to rewrite history to show a perfect 10 of a response to a crisis. Suppository statement: This is a dual use statement type. It refers to tRump’s suppositions like, “Who know healthcare could be so hard?” and the place where all of tRump’s suppositions should be shoved. Nazitory statement: These are statements that glorify or normalize Nazis. “There are good people on both sides” is a prime example. Depilatory and Minidigitative statements: These statements cover all references to tRump’s hair, fingers and hands. Masturbatory statement: These statements occur regularly during tRump led COVID-19 press conferences. A recent example is, “My ratings were better than The Bachelor finale.” Excretory statement: This is a supertype. Everything that comes out of tRump’s mouth is excretory in nature.

There is also a new statement type that I am quite proud of

Snarktastic or sometimes Snarkalious statement: Cool stuff I say fits this category.

tRump has also added one new type of phrase to the group of noun, verb, gerund, infinitive, appositive, participial, prepositional and absolute phrases.

Preposterous phrase: Again, this is pretty much everything that comes dribbling out of his mouth, but broken down to the phrasal level.

Remember the battle cry of the grammarians: Librarians Uncovering New Knowledge Happens Even Among Dullards.

This Shade was inspired by a conversation with my friend Ed, who is responsible for Imperious and Excretory.

Up the Resistance!