Trump’s use of great grates on his opponents
Great.
That’s great. Just great.
It’s a word, great, usually used as an adjective but sometimes as an adverb or interjection.
It’s a word we hear or read often. Why? Great is easy to say, just one syllable, and easy to spell. And because the word lacks ambiguity, great is easily understood. Everyone knows what you mean if you say the Pittsburgh Penguins won a great game, or that you enjoyed a great meal or you had a great time at the party. Nothing tops great.
The use of great, though, is beginning to grate on me. Perhaps on you as well. If so, buckle up because with the calendar now flipped to 2017 we’re going to hear great a lot. We’re about to be barraged in greatness.
Great.
The reason is Donald J. Trump, soon to be the 45th President of the United States. Remember his campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.” Don’t know about you, but having visited countries in several parts of the world, America to me has been and is already great. Trump’s campaign slogan, though, was the great beginning of his recurring use of great to describe everything he does or plans to do.
Topsy is a service that analyzes social media accounts. Social media, particularly Twitter, was the great (there’s that word again) powerful tool that Trump used effectively in his defeat of 16 other wanna-bes for the Republican presidential nomination and a single Democratic nominee often proclaimed the favorite of mass, not social, media — Hillary Clinton. Going back to June 16, 2015 when Trump rode the escalator down to the lobby of Trump Tower (a great building, he’ll remind everyone) to announce his presidential bid, Topsy’s analytics revealed that great is one of Trump’s favorite words. Google Topsy for the word cloud results. Great is, well, in great big letters.
And since winning the 2016 presidential election — despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million votes according to the latest official count (how great an accomplishment was that, eh, winning by losing?) — Trump’s propensity to use great on his Twitter account hasn’t diminished. His tweets about nominees for his administration, about his plans for the defeating ISIS, about the crowds at his rallies, about his plans for the economy are often modified with the word great.
Even while writing this column, news broke that Russia President Vladimir Putin decided not to react immediately to President Obama’s retaliation for Russia’s cyber hack of our country’s election. Trump’s official comment, yep, “great.” Putin has opted to defer action until Trump, who seems to find no fault with Putin, officially becomes president later this month. President-to-be Trump is grateful.
Las Vegas odds makers should open a betting line on how many times a day, week or month Trump’s tweets will include great. Wouldn’t that be great? Something else Trump could take credit for, like his saying the late 2016 stock market surge or robust holiday retail sales were the result of consumers’ enthusiasm of his impending presidency. Too bad such a bet could not be made at several of Trump’s once great casinos because their great failure now has them shuttered. The house always wins, right? So how does a casino fail, go bankrupt? Now there’s a great story.
No one in the world gets more media coverage than the president of the United States. No surprise there because the United States is and has been the most powerful, respected and greatest country in the world, despite what Trump wants you to believe. And it’s a pretty good bet that beginning Jan.20, inauguration day, that media coverage of President Trump, when he trumpets what he does or plans, will include a quote or sound byte that includes the word great. The superlative could become so prevalent that not many days will pass in 2017 before great appears 2,017 times in news quotes attributed to our next president.
Proclaiming something great, though, does not mean it is great. Promising something will be great does not mean it will become great. Facts and circumstances have a peculiar tendency to determine what is true, what is reality. Trump, the reality TV huckster, taking credit, for example of saving jobs at Carrier or Sprint bringing jobs back to the U.S., are not the result of him being a great negotiator (darn, there’s that word again). He simply took credit for it, just as he will have a credit line as executive producer of upcoming episodes of “The Apprentice.”
This column has been wrong about Trump in the past. Trump has befuddled me as he as fooled many political pundits. He may do so again. He’ll have four, maybe eight years to do so, or at least try.
Meanwhile, the word great and Twitter remain a perfect combination for Trump. Great consumes only five of the 140 characters that Twitter, his go-to communications vehicle, limits. Get used to Trump tweeting great this year. Great may become the most over used word of the new year. Just as “so” tops the list for 2016, according those who track such things.
So, best wishes for 2017. #great