“Do you want to start out?” asks Fred Hiatt, an editor at the Washington Post.
“No,” Trump replies, and then starts out. He reminds Hiatt that he’s been “treated very, very badly by the Washington Post,” but quickly moves on to talk about an upcoming press conference, or rather, the building that the conference would be held in. It’s owned by him, and after telling Hiatt about the high quality of marble that will be used once it’s finished, Trump concludes, “I know how to build. I know how to get things done.” The tone is set for the rest of the interview (“Transcript”).
Trump’s particular brand of free association has garnered a lot of attention since his bid for the presidency was first announced. Critics claim there’s no way he can say what he …show more content…
To answer this, we must first understand the relationship between politics and speech. In his essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell presents an argument that the English language is “in a bad way”, and that the “slovenliness” of our speech has an effect on our political writing (Orwell 116, 117). Modern prose, in his view, uses dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words to either mask its true meaning or mask the fact that it really has no meaning at all. If this were only the case with personal writing – diaries, correspondences, fiction – then it would primarily be a problem for writers. But the effects of writing that masks are not limited to writers, because in the world of politics, the meaning that’s being masked often has devastating consequences. War, persecution, prejudice, and invasion can all be dressed up and made to look harmless, necessary, unavoidable, or right, if only the author knows how to separate their reader from what they would normally feel upon reading about these things. What’s missing from political writing, broadly speaking, is
“No,” Trump replies, and then starts out. He reminds Hiatt that he’s been “treated very, very badly by the Washington Post,” but quickly moves on to talk about an upcoming press conference, or rather, the building that the conference would be held in. It’s owned by him, and after telling Hiatt about the high quality of marble that will be used once it’s finished, Trump concludes, “I know how to build. I know how to get things done.” The tone is set for the rest of the interview (“Transcript”).
Trump’s particular brand of free association has garnered a lot of attention since his bid for the presidency was first announced. Critics claim there’s no way he can say what he …show more content…
To answer this, we must first understand the relationship between politics and speech. In his essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell presents an argument that the English language is “in a bad way”, and that the “slovenliness” of our speech has an effect on our political writing (Orwell 116, 117). Modern prose, in his view, uses dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words to either mask its true meaning or mask the fact that it really has no meaning at all. If this were only the case with personal writing – diaries, correspondences, fiction – then it would primarily be a problem for writers. But the effects of writing that masks are not limited to writers, because in the world of politics, the meaning that’s being masked often has devastating consequences. War, persecution, prejudice, and invasion can all be dressed up and made to look harmless, necessary, unavoidable, or right, if only the author knows how to separate their reader from what they would normally feel upon reading about these things. What’s missing from political writing, broadly speaking, is