Here is a non-partisan, just-the-facts-m'am truth about Donald John Trump that everyone knows & too many accept as okey-dokey ~ ~ he is a master of dehumanizing language. He swept aside the vast field of challengers by reducing them to caricatures through demeaning descriptions & a level of flagrant ridicule that we would, as a nation, have once found horrifying in anyone, let alone a man running for the Republican presidential nod. It's a trait he's carried with him into the White House. His normal language is dehumanizing, every adjective grinding opponents into sneering inadequacy while elevating him to Olympus.
No one has weaponized the English language like Donald John Trump. It was the first way he subverted the very norms that have helped us keep civil tongues in our heads. From his speech kicking off his campaign to his 01/06/18 tweet praising himself as a "stable genius," DJT has used over-the-top descriptions & jaw-dropping grandiosity to override, in both friend & foe, sense & sensibility. And it's just Donald Trump being Donald Trump, no master plan or puppetry.
A solid fact about Donald John Trump is that he achieved all he has through his ability to dehumanize, turning opponents into objects of ridicule while glorifying himself to Elysian heights. And the sad, scarier fact is that a frightening number of Americans were primed & ready to embrace him & every word out of his mouth, compounded by opponents responding with their own versions of dehumanizing destabling destructive terms & taunts.
As a nation, beginning with the man in the White House, we need to read & discuss Brene Brown's Braving the Wilderness, with its eloquent, heart-aching explanations of why we use dehumanizing language, its immediate impact & long-term corrosive effect.
We need to do it NOW, before the one solid fact that I know for sure about Donald John Trump sucks us all into a dark place no one wants to be.
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