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Trump and His Base are Destroying Language
And you thought they were just destroying society, the economy, and the environment
by Mike Meyer
Have you noticed how difficult it is for Trump’s followers to write a complete sentence? This has been eating at me for the last two years. By nature I’m very reluctant to cast aspersions on a group of people by citing their literacy.
This is a result of studying literature and writing back in the days when those studies included an emphasis on Hemingway. Good, clear, simple, and declarative sentences were the ideal. You need to use the correct word but not obfuscate to show literacy. Add to that some fifty years of Buddhism filtered initially through Alan Watts and the Zen koan tradition. Profound statements can and should be made in the simplest language.
Growing up in the rural Midwest with a father who was admired as the strong silent type was also an influence. His advice was not to say anything if you didn’t have something to say. He also used to say ten dollars is a lot of money if you ain’t got ten dollars. But that is a another story.
While I’ve finally come to admit to myself the consistency of this troubling observation it was not so obvious back 2016. There were occasionally functional discussions, here in…
