Must Trump Say What He Means?

I’ve written twice (here and here) on the curious case where “political correctness” has become a politically correct thing to invoke pejoratively on the right. Today I examine a different aspect of Donald Trump. We might call this Trump’s Big Mouth Paradox. Here it is: Trump is famous for “telling it like it is” and not being “politically correct” yet he and his supporters continually have to clarify what he says and deny the things he seems to be saying.

In other words, for someone who is beloved for being direct and blunt and speaking his mind, Trump’s rhetoric is in continuous need of explanation. How could it be the case that Trump is both a straight talker and someone who frequently does not mean to say what he seems to say.

The question is simple: Must Trump mean what he says?

For instance, when Trump said that his supporters wouldn’t care if he shot someone in the middle of the street, his meaning was fairly clear and it cost him nothing. Same when he insulted John McCain’s military service. This would suggest that Trump is reckless, but consistently so.

Today when he implied that “2nd amendment folks” could intervene in Hillary’s appointment of supreme court justices, however, Trump and his followers are insisting that his comments are not as they seem to some. Perhaps this is an exception to the rule? Fair enough.

But what about when he insinuated that a female journalist was menstruating? Or when he implied that he is well endowed at a national debate? And what about when he appeared to openly mock a disabled person? We might also wonder about his remarks about Carly Fiorina’s appearance and I suppose we might also wonder about what he meant when he said that he always wanted a Purple Heart? Can we be perplexed about what he meant when he said that Belgium was a wonderful city?

All of these remarks raise questions about what it is that Trump really means and in each and every case Trump maintains that he did not mean what many people took him to mean. This is sleazy evasive talk by a slick politician like Hillary Clinton who is not known for her honesty. But for a man who is said to speak truth to power in terms that are direct and unvarnished, Trump seems to speak in riddles and tongues as often as he repeats his childish mantras and generalities.

The evidence is overwhelmingly obvious. To Trump’s devoted voters he always says what he means, even when he has to publicly retract or amend it for the media. Since this philistine horde thinks that the media is universally corrupt and incapable of honesty, Trump’s dishonest apologias have no effect–the media deserves any lies it gets–or actually convince them.

There is some honor in taking Trump as his every word, warts and all. What is not honorable is the feeble, low-bar gymnastics where Trump is allowed to both speak his mind bluntly and at the same time not mean what he says.

Here we see the inverted intellect of Trump ideology: It rejects “political correctness” while simultaneously never allowing anything truly offensive to be interpreted or implied as such. Trump’s is a politically incorrectness with training wheels.

Trump is the ultimate expression of a septic infection of hot mouthed conservatism today, turning an already sickly political theatre into a preschool talent show: He wants to transgress but never wants to get caught–and will lie, contradict, and evade the point to get away with it.