The Emperor Has No Vocabulary!

My earliest mentions of Trump, going back to the first few days of his campaign - you can find it all on this site - spoke to his utter incompetence as a communicator. I was, and I am still shocked at the seemingly intelligent people who say that while the Donald is not a good speaker, he is just  "telling it like it is."

WTF? Trump hasn't told us anything since he kicked off his campaign other than how ignorant he is of the real world. That would be the world outside real estate investing.

As I have said repeatedly here, it is Trump's followers who constantly try to translate his gibberish into intelligent English. Usually these translations have absolutely nothing to do with a word the candidate has actually said himself. And there is no reasoning with the Trump cult.

It is interesting to note that the media is finally taking Trump to task for his nonsensical and self-contradictory speech.

But perhaps a bit of accurate satire could do the trick. The problem with satire and political cartoons over the past several years is that they rarely hit home as good satire should.

Firstly, good satire, real satire, is based on a nugget of truth. You take a true statement and then register your approval or disapproval in a comedic or hard-hitting way. You rarely see that in modern satire. I'll give you an example.

One of the most popular images employed against the GOP is the elephant; fat, evil-eyed, surrounded by, or in some way catering to, bankers and Wall Street types. The images are often creative and funny, but don't rise to the level of actual satire because they are not true when talking about rank and file republican politicians. And when you are trying to direct that fire on the Four Morons[1. You can search that term on this site.] and their cadre (friends of the Chamber of Commerce), you are portraying a group that is nowhere near as adept at sucking up corrupt dollars as their Democratic counterparts. Big money interest in politics is what feeds the crony capitalist system. And the GOP is simply not good at it.

But every so often you come across satire that is right on target. In this case the satirist uses the candidate's undeniably silly words against him. And the statements on display here are vintage Trump. It captures the very nature of his entire persona, the essence of his communication skills. I am not kidding...let me tell you...believe me.

This is funny and accurate.

Trump's most lucid moment to date was his recent appearance at American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Speaking from a teleprompter (I am not knocking this like some in the press are) he still managed to sound like a second rate thinker. His speech writer(s) created a piece that they felt Trump could pull off by throwing up a standard, 30 year-old, laundry list of pro-Israeli junk all candidates in every party say at such events. In evidence, Trump offered "Let me tell you..." and "believe me" (the latter nine times before I stopped counting) along with several minutes dedicated to his heading up an Israeli Day parade.[2. No one realized his statement that many others had turned the honor down before he was even asked was not evidence of anything other than a group was desperately seeking a celebrity and had to settle for Trump.] The entire presentation was devoid of substantive, actionable pronouncements.

Contrast his AIPAC speech to those of Cruz and Kasich. (For the record, I like Kasich and he will never be president. I personally dislike Cruz and voted for him.) Theirs were cogent, concise and gave examples to convey not only where they stand, but their understanding of Israel and its challenges. They left no doubt about their intentions and abilities to carry them out.

While it is certainly within the realm of reason to disagree with anything either of them said, to put Trump's empty can of stuff on the same plain as either of the others is to take flight from reality.

There seems to be quite a few people taking that trip lately. Is it simple, intellectual laziness?

Matt Jordan is a travel writer, political commentator and author of 16 20 24. Get your SIGNED copy here!

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