While we await the Super Tuesday results, it’s time to discuss the way Trump speaks. Just as people wanting to appear highbrow use language as a signaling device, Donald Trump’s simple manner of speaking seems to endear him to the masses.
I must confess that his rhetorical style strikes me as inherently discordant, primarily because it violates so many of the “rules” that every journalist must internalize. When he says (as he so often does) that “many, many people believe …” I immediately begin to self-edit. “Which people?” I want to know.
You can’t get away with this sort of anecdotal statement…. And yet, he does.
When he promises something will be “very, very good—the best!” I want to see proof. I want to know how good? I want numbers…
Trump’s communication style plays well with average Americans, while simultaneously sounding grating to others–especially elites.
I noticed the same phenomenon with Sarah Palin–before she totally jumped the shark.
The irony here is that it’s easier for a person of privilege, who’s already part of the club, to get away with this than it is for someone who is striving to better themselves.
People from humble beginnings—people who want to make something of themselves—tend to conform. Just as we dress not for the job we have, but for the job we want, we also talk aspirationally. This creates an ironic circumstance where average kids who aspire to something greater grow up to sound like elites, while some elites grow up to sound average.
I’m reminded of a 2012 David Brooks column that makes this point:
Occasionally you get a candidate, like Tim Pawlenty, who grew up working class. But he gets sucked up by the consultants, the donors and the professional party members and he ends up sounding like every other Republican. Other times a candidate will emerge who taps into a working-class vibe — Pat Buchanan, Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin. But, so far, these have been flawed candidates who get buried under an avalanche of negative ads and brutal coverage.
Donald Trump, it seems, is on track to become the man who can do what Pat Buchanan, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin could not.