Trumpian Talk
by /u/badluckbrians
To be fair, Trump is good at talking out both sides of his ass. There are a variety of classic Trump Moves that accomplish it.
The Backwalk
Go to maximum in the beginning of the sentence, then step it back. E.g.
These Mexicans are Rapists and Murderers and some of them, I suppose, are good people
The Statistics Escalator
Always offer 3 numbers, getting increasingly crazy, and attribute the last one to nobody. E.g.
Under Biden the real unemployment rate is 8, 10, some even say as high as 15 percent
Schrödinger’s Subjunctive
Say you never said something but imply you might have, deny again, but imply you agree. E.g.
I never said that, I never said that, but even if I had, it would have been true. I never said that. I would have meant it. But I never said it
So, let’s combine these 3 moves into a powerful Trump combo about trade. Remember, he never said this, but if he did, it would sound a lot like this, and it would be exactly the type of thing he would say. But he never said it:
America is getting ripped off. For too long, ripped off. And we’re not going to get ripped off anymore. Our enemies rip us off, but our friends rip us off even worse. So we’re going to have Tariffs. Tariffs. I love that word. Tariffs. We’ll have big, beautiful tariffs. And we want trade, we want good trade with our friends, we want the best trade and the most trade, but we’ve gotta have tariffs too, we can’t keep getting ripped off. But we’ll have the best trade. And we’ll have tariffs. We’ll have rates at 10, 20 maybe even as high as 100%. And we’re gonna shut down unfair goods from being dumped on our markets. And I never said prices would go up, I never said that, but if I would say that, I think it would be a very temporary thing and soon we’ll find ourselves wealthier than ever before, but I’d never say that. I’d never say that. If I did it would be temporary. Temporary. But I’d never say that.
And there you have it. You can read whatever you want into that. You can take it the Ackman way or the Harris way or both or something in between. Because this is how Trump talks.