A Loss for Words

Can we prosecute Trump for crimes against eloquence?

Bill Mauldin/Chicago Sun-Times

Where is Ted Sorensen when you need him? Watching Donald Trump try to wax eloquent at his second inaugural was like watching John Gotti recite Shakespeare. Some things just don’t pair.

“We will not forget our country, we will not forget our constitution, and we will not forget our god. Can’t do that,” said Trump today. Evidently he was channeling Lincoln’s “With malice toward none; with charity for all. Gotta have that charity.”

If there’s anything to be said for today’s address, it’s that it nicely distilled the crude, unlettered governance about to unfold. It also displayed Trump’s worst personality defects and what we might politely call his cognitive biases. A few examples:

“The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
Experts call this “projection,” which Psychology Today defines as “the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another.”

“For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”
Ditto.

“Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Malignant narcissism and rank hypocrisy, from the least godly person ever to hold public office.

“…by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.”
Cognitive dissonance. “Full and immense power” sounds a whole lot like the Deep State that he claims to disdain — unless maybe he’s “evolved,” like earlier presidents.

“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Learning disorder, possibly dyscalculia. The overwhelming view of economists is that this is not how tariffs work, something Trump should have learned from Economics 101. Oh, wait.

“The Panama Canal … has foolishly been given to the country of Panama after the United States … spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal… China is operating the Panama canal.”
Selective memory and cognitive distortion. The U.S. didn’t just surrender all control over the canal; the treaty governing its return allows the U.S. to defend it. Deaths during the American period of construction totaled about 6,000, of whom perhaps 300 were Americans, says Matthew Parker, author of “Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal.” And while Hong Kong-controlled companies operate ports at the canal, so do American and Taiwanese companies.

Trump displays these tendencies whenever he attempts to discuss historical events, as in a rambling, incoherent description of the Battle of Gettysburg that appears to confuse Robert E. Lee with Cap’n Crunch.

One could go on and on about the fire hose of incoherence that is Donald Trump’s mouth, but at some point you just throw up your hands. We should all know by now to expect nothing higher. If public life were a dinner party, Trump would be the boorish drunk you thought had left — until suddenly he’s cornered you again with a slurry lecture about the good side of the Holocaust no one ever talks about. If you were thinking about leaving, now’s a good time.

Correction: This column originally attributed the editorial cartoon to the Washington Post’s Herblock. The actual artist was Bill Mauldin of the Chicago Sun-Times.