Trump speaks in Haiku

[gollygee]

Trump goes to interview. Reporter takes notes. Reporter notes that it doesn't take much work to turn everything Trump says into Haiku.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-haiku-donald-trump-perspec-0702-20150701-story.html

The border

The border's a mess.

Trump has turned out to be right.

Rough hombres. Rough stuff.

*

Jobs

I'd take back our jobs.

I'd take back things nobody

is talking about.

*

Iran

On the Iran threat:

I'm 99 percent sure

I can make a deal.

*

Crime (in four parts)

You have to take care

of the crime situation.

These are tough, tough kids.

-

You've got to be tough.

What would I do about it?

You need tough cookies.

-

When I was 18,

in Brooklyn, at White Castle,

The cops, they had sticks.

-

You'd have no problem.

Gang members were petrified.

I would be so tough.

*

[tonyt53]

1. Can we call it "Trumpese" from now on?

[gollygee]

3. Some are calling it "Trump's Idiolect"

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/06/donald_trumps_insult_haiku_scholars_are_having_a_field_day_parsing_the_poetics_of_trumps_idiolect/

How to explain the “idiolect” of Donald Trump? An “idiolect,” explains sociolinguist Jennifer Sclafani, is “not the language of idiots, but an idiosyncratic form of language that is unique to an individual.” Trump’s use of words, of which he has many and only the best, is easily imitated yet utterly unique. Whether his manner of speaking helps or hurts him politically is beside the point: what matters is that it shines through own tweets and non-speeches with consistency. He has a big, voice-y voice, the kind that literary agents say they are looking for in new, exciting manuscripts. It cries out for intellectual analysis. Academia has risen to the challenge. Predictably, the Internet School of Trumpology instantaneously split into two scholarly sub-specialties: Trump Tweet; and Trump Speak. The iPhone versions of what semioticians call langue (language) and parole (word).

“Trump doesn’t just tweet,” Josh Marshall observed. “He’s developed a sort of twitter-based, 140 character, insult haiku literary form.” As with haiku, there are three minimalist lines. The pattern, Marshall explains, is “deceptively simple: Single clause declarative sentence, single clause declarative sentence, primary adjective/term of derision.” The example below adheres to that model precisely.

[gollygee]

2. Others have noticed the same

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/metrical-analysis-of-trump-insult-haiku


This has been crystallizing in my mind without my realizing it. And when I went back to Donald Trump's Twitter feed it was more true than I realized. Trump doesn't just tweet. He's developed a sort of twitter-based, 140 character, insult haiku literary form. Not every one of his tweets follows the exact metrical progression. But most of them do. And those that don't appear to be permutations or attempts at the model.

The metrical pattern is deceptively simple: Single clause declarative sentence, single clause declarative sentence, primary adjective/term of derision.

Example:

Ted Cruz does not have the right "temperment" to be President. Look at the way he totally panicked in firing his director of comm. BAD!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016