Are you asking yourself that question? Is your campaign asking it?
Because I find myself asking it about you almost every day now.
I’m hearing bland Wishy-Washington-words like temperamental, inappropriate, impolitic, acknowledged, and deplorable when I need to be hearing words like hothead, know-nothing, deadbeat, stooge, chump, played, phony, fake, egomaniac, half-cocked, blackballed, etc — words that peel away reachable Trump voters.
Today’s headline about the birther retraction should be:
Trump Caved On The Central Lie Of His Campaign
Instead he “acknowledged that President Obama is a US citizen.”
What — you couldn’t find a more boring way to say it?
So who are the people you most need to reach with your words — and are your words chosen to reach them or do they tune out words like yours by reflex? Do they even understand what you’re saying? Let’s look at this in more depth.
So let’s see. You have the Democrats. We’re behind you nearly 100%. That whole Bernie-or-Bust thing collapsed almost completely as the Trump fire-breathing dragon spread its wings and took to the air. There are Latinos and African-Americans, both overlapping a lot with the aforementioned Democrats. I hear those numbers are pretty solid for you this year, too. A lot of that is your own doing but you’ve had a lot of help from Trump. And sure, you need to keep feeding the base to keep us all fired up to turn out Nov 8.
You’ve got quite a few Republicans, too. How many Democratic Presidential candidates have ever racked up the kinds of Republican endorsements you’ve been getting? You go, girl. You’ve got a lot of the Romney Republicans, the Bloomberg Republicans, the Silent Majority Republicans… pretty much everybody with a discerning view of economics and foreign policy. Oh, the Republicans are still split — and that’s a good thing for Democrats this year — but the dividing line within that party is already drawn and it’s not going to move very much at this point.
And then there are the independents, who’ve always been the key to this election. Bill said so just last night to Trevor Noah. Some of them are people who’re on the fence. Now the first thing most thoughtful people would ask is “How can anybody be on the fence about this?” But they are. Quite a few. And they’re still reachable. Remember, a bunch of these people voted for Bernie. Yeah, yeah, that’s another head-scratcher, the idea that Sanders and Trump could be interchangeable, but these are among the people you need to peel away from The Donald — if not all the way over to you, then at least to the extent they’re not motivated enough to take time off of work on Nov 8.
And that brings us back to the language thing, and to who these voters are.
Honestly, when you’re using words like temperament, appropriate, impolitic, deplorable, acknowledge… in fact, look at any average day so far, and there are lots of words that sound like blah, blah, blah to many of those in the Trump camp. “Temperamentally unfit?” Really? That sounds like a quote from a high school report card or a scolding in the principal’s office — not coincidentally, the last contact many of these voters had with the education system, and not one they look back on fondly. At least not on the authority figures.
What was it you said today about Trump and the birther issue? He finally acknowledged that President Obama was born in the United States?
No. As I said above,
Trump caved on the central lie of his entire campaign.
That’s language that peels away Trump voters. Trump caved. He wimped out.
Temperamentally unfit? Nix. Trump is a dangerous hothead. He’s always flying off the handle. Hothead is a word these people know and get. They’ve seen hotheads and know the kinds of trouble they get into. They know first-hand that flying off the handle can get you fired.
Yeah, I know. This isn’t language you’re used to using. It’s not Senatorial. It’s not Washingtonian. A lot of Trump’s appeal is that he doesn’t speak Wishy-Washingtonian. He doesn’t speak The Queen’s English. Naw, he speaks something more like Queens English instead, and it’s working all too well. You need to steal this strength from him. One-up him on using the language of his voters.
So what does that look like?
Trump is an egomaniac. He’s unprepared. He’s a hothead. A US President can’t shoot from the hip or go off half-cocked.
He’s a phony. He’s a fake billionaire. He’s an empty suit, all bluff. All hat, no cattle. He’s a con artist (I’ll give you points for already using this one), a rip-off artist. His fake university was a scam (points again). People leaning for Trump love words like these. They relate to them. Donald love theses words until you use them about him. He’ll blow a gasket.
Yeah, I said he’s a fake billionaire. He’s in hock up to his neck to Putin and his cronies. People are saying he owes three-quarters-of-a-billion dollars to foreign bankers. Hey, it’s not just you, that’s what people are saying. Why is that? Because he’s been blackballed by American banks. They don’t trust him. Won’t lend to him. He’s mortgaged to the hilt. (I love to say “to the gilt” about Trump, but the people you need to peel away don’t respond to that kind of pun.) Mortgaged to the Russians, the Chinese, the Saudis. They can put the squeeze on him any time they want.
Not only is he a fake, he’s a cheat, a chiseler.
He’s a deadbeat. Call him Deadbeat Donald to his face and see how well he takes that. He stiffs his workers. He stiffs the IRS, too. He’s a tax cheat. He’s being audited because the IRS smells a rat. He’s lying about his money. Something doesn’t add up about Donald’s supposed fortune.
Or he’s lying about being audited. He’s playing his voters for chumps. Make him deny he’s lying about the audit. “No, no, I guarantee I really am in trouble about my taxes. Nobody has ever been in this much trouble about a routine audit.”
But one way or another he’s still lying about his money. Call him a fake billionaire and make him deny that. “No, no, I really am a filthy-rich, richer than Midas, richer than you can ever imagine average guy just like all my voters.”
But he gets played, too. He’s a stooge for Putin. Putin played him with an insult that Trump thought was a compliment when Putin called him flamboyant with a Russian word you would use to call a drag queen flamboyant. He wimped out with the president of Mexico, too.
Trump reaches his voters in large part because he uses their language. You’re smarter than Trump. Do it better than he does it. Eat his lunch. Take this thing away from him. For us. Don’t let him win it over something as simple as choice of words. You can trump him on that.
The press will take their cue from you. Use words like these about The Donald and it will be news. So will the tantrums he throws as a result.