[microcolonel]

> Trump has mastered the art of saying word salads that convey what he wants but do not syntactically say what he communicated.

"It's the President's fault that I ignored what he was saying so that I could interpret it uncharitably, and share that interpretation without a second thought."

> he thinks many immigrants are rapists

You got this from... What? A speech talking up the border wall, a measure that by definition only pertains to a subset of illegal aliens, not "immigrants" broadly.

You are responsible for your own ludicrous interpretations of plain language. It is not anyone else's fault that you choose to believe something is meant that isn't said.

When the President continues to say things like “I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally”, you can't credibly interpret that as an indictment of immigrants.

[resters]

I didn't downvote your comment, by the way. It's a fair point.

Many politicians have tried to rally support for border security by describing illegal immigration as a source of violent crime. Trump mentioned "rapists" in his remarks as a way of communicating that same narrative, albeit a bit more colorfully.

The word salads are very ingenious, as they are essentially two messages in one. The message "immigrants are rapists" gets through to some of his supporters (who are happy to hear it) and the more nuanced message gets through to those who read the transcript or who parse the words more carefully.

It's an added benefit that when the opposing party's media jumps all over the comment, some portion of Trump's supporters believe that they intentionally ignored the intent of Trump's statement and are unfairly characterizing him as racist. Yet to many of his supporters, the racism is a welcome change and a sign of honesty and courage.

Whether you personally agree with Trump or not, you must acknowledge the mechanism I'm describing. It's brilliant, and it is why Trump has been so successful. He's able to break through the wall of fake-sounding language that holds back much political speech and reap the benefits of a more raw and hostile form of speech, while still being viewed as having expressed a reasonable view by his more sophisticated supporters.

If you don't view them as deliberate word salad bombs, then they are gaffes, but there have now been way too many of them for it to be accidental. Trump understands how to speak both in text and subtext for maximum emotional impact.

So while I personally find Trump to be one of the most reprehensible characters ever to hold high office in the US (and also a big embarrassment), I do give him credit for being skilled at political rhetoric.

[microcolonel]

> Many politicians have tried to rally support for border security by describing illegal immigration as a source of violent crime. Trump mentioned "rapists" in his remarks as a way of communicating that same narrative, albeit a bit more colorfully.

It is true that the subset of illegal aliens entering over the border (rather than overstaying visas) is very high in criminals. This subset is desperate, motivated, willing to break the law by definition; and most importantly, a large proportion of them enter this way because they don't qualify even to enter as tourists, because they have a criminal record of relevant offenses.

> If you don't view them as deliberate word salad bombs, then they are gaffes, but there have now been way too many of them for it to be accidental. Trump understands how to speak both in text and subtext for maximum emotional impact.

I agree that they are designed to be misinterpreted by some people, but the interpretation that manifests in the President's actions seems to be more the plain language one, rather than the "nefarious subtext" one. If the nefarious subtext were intended to be read by supporters rather than opposition, then it probably would be.

Because the nefarious subtext seems designed to enrage the opposition, or especially because some of it seems designed to make the President look bad, I sorta assume it was meant to be read by opposition, to enhance the team sport aspect of politics and give supporters a sense of camaraderie against the people who are controlled by the President's reverse-psychology.

[resters]

I think we generally agree. As you point out, all illegal immigrants are criminals by definition, so there is a lot of sloppy rhetoric and innuendo that is possible based on that technicality. Trump exploits it to the max.

I think Trump intends for the subtext aspect of his word salads to be consumed both by his opposition and by a small (but important) subset of his base. There are a lot of people in key voting districts who deeply resent immigrants because of competition for jobs, etc. For those voters, hearing politicians focus on things like latinx identity politics makes them feel alienated and resentful. In that context, Trump coming across as a bit biased against immigrants (if not outright racist) provides emotional proof that Trump is on their side, and lends credibility to his claims about returning America to its heyday when blue collar work offered a significantly higher standard of living than it does today.

Many modern politicians have done this. Some of Sanders' rhetoric from a few decades ago evokes xenophobic themes to underscore support for the working man, and nearly all serious presidential candidates from the Democratic party have found nationalistic language to communicate that rust belt workers will not be abandoned. Lots of this has been anti-trade, border security oriented, etc.

Worldwide, reductions in free trade are typically accompanied by nationalistic sentiments and political rhetoric. So it's all quite normal and to be expected.

But what I think sets Trump apart from the normal (and frankly already ugly) way that politicians try to do this is that his rhetoric is even more direct and the subtext hits on an even more direct emotional level. There are many ways to explain how someone from the GOP won over a lot of working class voters who had been loyal Democrats for years. It took this kind of extreme messaging.

Tangentially, Trumps tactic works because of how social media news feed algorithms work, since even old school media uses analytics that are heavily influenced by what spreads on social media. So all the efforts to police content and deplatform fringe voices are not going to make any difference in Trump's ability to use this technique, since the articles are written by the NYT and are seen by the target voters because one of their friends or family members in a blue state/district got riled up and shared it on social media.

Anyway, I find it very interesting and I appreciate your engagement with this discussion.