Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proudly and embarrassingly declared that he only "speaks American" while in a room filled with leaders from Latin America.
There is a segment of the population that considers Trump to sound authentic, not pretentious, academic, or egg-heady. He sounds like the people they talk to.
What I’m less concerned about is Trump in particular doing it and more about it becoming the new norm. If politicians decide that it works, the world might see a lot more insults, dishonesty, and such.
My hope was “Trump leaves office, this gets toned down”. But…it might not. And it might spread to other places, if they find that it works in the US.
Democrats try a new tone: Less scripted, more cursing, Trumpier insults
Party leaders are swearing more, recording more direct-to-camera videos and trying to project an authenticity many voters have come to associate with Trump.
There are gentler forms of this. For example, I remember an interview with a senior British translator (this was pre-Brexit) working at the European Commission who said that they’d made a conscious decision not to codify an “EU English”, because they were concerned about the political impact of European Union politicians sounding different from the public — more distant, elite. “Sound like the people who you want votes from” isn’t new. But…I’d hoped that we could keep a higher bar than something like Trump’s stuff.
But, well, we live in a new era in terms of media, where social media is how a lot of people communicate. It’s gonna have effects. Fifty years from now, I suppose we’ll see what norms have been established.
Governed by high schoolers.
I mean, it’s politicking.
There is a segment of the population that considers Trump to sound authentic, not pretentious, academic, or egg-heady. He sounds like the people they talk to.
What I’m less concerned about is Trump in particular doing it and more about it becoming the new norm. If politicians decide that it works, the world might see a lot more insults, dishonesty, and such.
My hope was “Trump leaves office, this gets toned down”. But…it might not. And it might spread to other places, if they find that it works in the US.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/09/democrats-tone-cursing-casual-trump/
There are gentler forms of this. For example, I remember an interview with a senior British translator (this was pre-Brexit) working at the European Commission who said that they’d made a conscious decision not to codify an “EU English”, because they were concerned about the political impact of European Union politicians sounding different from the public — more distant, elite. “Sound like the people who you want votes from” isn’t new. But…I’d hoped that we could keep a higher bar than something like Trump’s stuff.
But, well, we live in a new era in terms of media, where social media is how a lot of people communicate. It’s gonna have effects. Fifty years from now, I suppose we’ll see what norms have been established.
That many people are working in dementia wards?
Republicans have been competing in emulating Trump since 2017.