Are ‘Trumpisms’ a Form of Mind Control? A New York Times Contributor Raises the Alarm (Opinion)

I don’t typically write opinion articles about national topics, but a recently published New York Times opinion piece by Adam Aleksic, “The Insidious Creep of Trump’s Speaking Style,” is just chef’s kiss pure comedic gold. If it weren’t so alarmingly earnest, I’d swear it was a brilliant piece of satire worthy of The Hagerstown Report. The author seems genuinely flabbergasted, almost offended, that mere mortals are picking up on some of Donald Trump’s linguistic gems and, dare I say, using them. The sheer horror!

Aleksic marvels at how phrases like “many such cases” and “many people are saying this” have somehow wormed their way into our everyday vernacular, primarily through memes, and are now being applied to mundane things like work anxiety and real estate. It’s a real head-scratcher, isn’t it? Who knew that endlessly repetitive, grammatically questionable, and emotionally charged linguistic tics could be so… sticky? The article notes how these “Trumpisms” are outlasting typical internet humor, finding a “more permanent home in the English language.” Shocking, I tell you, absolutely shocking.

The author posits that Trump’s language is “pre-disposed to becoming ‘memeified'” and is “reshaping our reality.” Apparently, the impact goes beyond just a couple of phrases; “sad!”, “frankly,” “fake news,” and “believe me” are all casualties in this linguistic onslaught. Aleksic even borrows Trump’s signature hyperbolic structure for a sentence about Trump’s impact on the English language, which is just chef’s kiss meta-humor. He highlights how phrases like “Make X Y Again” and “Thank you X, very cool” have become adaptable templates, like a linguistic game of Mad Libs for the masses. It’s a wonder we can even form coherent sentences anymore, what with these insidious syntactic skeletons floating around.

Compared to past presidents whose catchphrases apparently vanished into the ether (sorry Obama no more hope and change for you), Trump’s linguistic legacy is apparently unparalleled. Aleksic attributes this to Trump’s high frequency of evaluative words, emotionally charged tone, and “quantifiably unique syntactic style,” which apparently stumps even AI. The extraneous language appended to sentences, like “maybe ever,” is deemed “odder” and thus more prone to virality. It’s all about the algorithms, you see. Strange sentences get more comments, which makes them spread further, creating a feedback loop where Trump’s unique language further fuels the irony.

The piece laments that while “covfefe” didn’t make the cut, other “jokes” live on because they found a “useful function” through these adaptable phrasal templates. This repurposing, Aleksic warns, “fossilizes” the memes into our language, making us talk like Trump. He draws a parallel between television and electing “attractive” candidates and social media’s penchant for electing “memeable” ones, suggesting Trump’s “outlandish style and substance” make him uniquely suited to dominate our feeds.

The author concludes with a chilling observation: as the Overton window shifts and extreme, memeable discourse is rewarded, Trump’s speech normalizes his policies. The real kicker? That by talking like Trump, we might actually be thinking like him. Seriously? We are now one small leap away from claiming that Donald Trump speeches on television or posts on social media are a form of mind control. It’s almost enough to make you want to log off and perhaps, I don’t know, read a book? Or perhaps just start saying “many such cases” about how hilarious this entire analysis is.

Maybe we just need to elect a dog as president in the future. Sure, we’ll all be chasing our own tails, but at least we’ll all learn unconditional love and compassion, and enjoy the simple things in life, like getting a snack just for shaking someone’s hand.

Anyway, thank you for your attention to this matter.

Opinion article by Ken Buckler. All opinions are his own, and do not reflect those of our clients or sponsors.

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