At what level does Trump speak and write?

[Kaleva]

I've listened to some of his rambling speeches and read his tweets. I get the sense that he isn't highly educated .

[JI7]

1. 5 . No older than 10 years old

[Kaleva]

2. I was thinking mid elementary school level.

[JI7]

5. Maybe 2nd grade. 4th seems too high

[ProudLib72]

6. I thought there was a discussion in NYT about this

during the campaign. From what I recall, everyone else spoke at a 7th or 8th grade level except Dotard who spoke at a 4th grade level.

[JI7]

7. I remember reading about how Bill Clinton spoke at a lower level on purpose

To appeal to more people but even then it was like 7th grade.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. He didnt go to college, he didnt attend high school classes or when he did

learning was never on the menu.

He bought his college degree without having to take a single course or test. Someone else did what little work he did do.

He has not a single clue what any business term means, like a "strong dollar" because he has no idea about business and is unwilling to learn even the simplest things.

[WinkyDink]

24. Bizarre claims.

[LAS14]

26. ???? Citations ????

Let's not descend to the level of Breitbart.

[MontanaMama]

4. 10 years old...maybe.

My 12 year old can read, articulate and think critically at a level WAY above the Dotard.

[lovemydogs]

8. My oldest Granddaughter is in Second Grade.

While she may be in Gifted Second Grade I still find that she is past Trump on the maturity level.
But, I'd say Trump is at the 3rd or 4th grade level

[True Dough]

9. It's astounding (and annoying) how repetitious he is

He clings to the same trite phrases and simple words on almost every occasion.

"Like the world has never seen"
"Billions and billions"
"Weak"
"Loser"
"Huge"
"Amazing"
"Terrible"
"Bad"
"Mess"
"Out of control"

[KY_EnviroGuy]

42. You missed "beautiful" (as in wall).

That's the one that makes me want to barf. Does that kick him up from 3rd grade to 4th?

Likes to use "they" and "them" a lot, too.

[Brother Buzz]

10. His vocabulary is totally arrested at 'sports section' in the newspaper

And back in the 'day', sports hacks wrote to the fifth grade reading level.

[LAS14]

29. Oh, come on! Lots of sports commentators are WAY MORE articulate!!! nt

[Brother Buzz]

33. The operative word articulate

A good sports beat writer can be very articulate using a smaller, limited vocabulary. Trump is anything but articulate.

[misanthrope]

38. Journalists are encouraged to make their language "accessible"

That translates to a level somewhere in middle school.

[democratisphere]

11. Kindergarten Sandbox 101.

[enid602]

12. Quote

He was just quoted in another OP as saying that 'Spain is a good country.' What does that even mean?

[Kaleva]

16. It's like he's speaking with preschoolers. Spain is good!

[former9thward]

13. The speaking level of Presidents has dropped dramatically since WW II.

The average level since WW II is a 10 or a high school sophomore. The level of the Founding Fathers was 21 or a PhD level. Bush was at a 9.4 and Obama was at a 9.5.

The website Vocativ scored more than 600 presidential speeches using the Flesch-Kincaid formula. Obama's speeches received an overall 9.5 grade, versus a 9.4 for Bush, which means that both men talk at roughly the level of 9th and 10th graders.
One exception was State of the Union addresses, where Bush scored a 10 and Obama a 9.4.

The scores from the index take into account syllables, word count and sentence count to give the speeches a numerical score that relates to a specific grade level. For example, a 12 indicates the competency of a high-school level graduate, a 15 a college graduate and 21 or higher a Ph.D-level competency.

The data shows a declining level of sophistication in presidential speeches from 1789 to present. Most speeches by Founding Fathers garnered a grade of 21, while those since about World War II averaged around 10.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/220433-analysis-obama-bush-speak-at-same-grade-level

[Kaleva]

15. The founding fathers wrote their own speeches.

I believe a modern day president rarely writes his own.

[former9thward]

17. Right you are.

I would love it if that section of the WH staff was permanently eliminated.

[Pope George Ringo II]

18. We have to consider the idea Trump is deliberately dumbing down his speeches to reach his audience

He wouldn't be the first President to do so. He wouldn't even be the first this year, if you're prepared to follow me on the assumption Obama wasn't trying to deliberately confuse people But Trump just seems so genuinely stupid and ill-informed that I'm inclined to take him at his word.

[Kaleva]

20. He's dumbing it down from the 5th grade level to the 4th grade.

That's why he needs so many mini vacations. All that thinking hurts his head.

[Pope George Ringo II]

21. The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club

Is you do not know you are in Dunning-Kruger Club.

[jmowreader]

41. Here's the issue with that

Trump writes his own tweets, and they're as bad as his speeches.

A good speechwriter will tailor his work to the person he's writing for. In the case of Trump, the speechwriter has a tough row to hoe because Donald Trump is not especially bright.

[WinkyDink]

25. Of every American, period. Textbooks and magazines have been simplified, even juvenalized.

Compare a TIME magazine from ca. 1965 to one today. Staggering difference in article topic, length, and erudition.

[former9thward]

37. No question.

If you look at textbooks and their test questions from the 1800s modern teachers would be stumped.

[Dave Starsky]

43. Comic books have changed dramatically.

Pick up a Batman comic from the 1950s, and you will be amazed at how much TEXT there is, with offhand references to classical literature, history, etc. It's almost like they expected people to be able to read to enjoy them. Comics today are much shorter and are mostly pictures and sound effects.

[WinkyDink]

44. AND my beloved MAD! Fan from the 43-Man Squamish days (and before!), but now---soooo puerile.

http://www.madcoversite.com/quiz_olympics.html

[Dave Starsky]

46. Don't even get me started on MAD.

MAD's biggest selling point for decades is that they accepted no advertising revenue. They could (and did) make fun of advertisers and the whole consumer culture mercilessly.

Sometime during the 1990s, Bill Gaines (the editor, who held fast to their founding principles) died, Time/Warner acquired the magazine, and they started running ads. It is such a pale shadow of its former self, that I can't even call it a magazine.


There are currently NO major humor or satire magazines available in America. None. Where once there was MAD, Cracked, National Lampoon, etc., there is nothing.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. I find it hard to believe that Bush spoke at a 9th grade level.

I'd put him more like 7th grade. And he often came across as not very bright at all.

[OhioBlue]

39. His speech writers wrote at a 9th grade level.

I think his cadence and facial expressions made it seem more like 7th grade as far as prepared speeches go. But in interviews or debates, I agree with you.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

40. Hadn't thought of it that way.

And I'm inclined to lower his non-scripted speech to more like a 6th grade level.

We already know that Trump doesn't read. I suspect Bush has not voluntarily read a book since graduating college.

[VOX]

14. Sub-human.

[LuckyCharms]

19. I read something somewhere where some expert estimated 4th grade. n/t

[madokie]

22. He is a graduate of the same school as sister Sara

They both speak the same kind of shit

[CaliforniaPeggy]

23. Think? tRump? He doesn't. n/t

[marylandblue]

27. He used to speak at a higher level

So he is either losing his mind or deliberately dumbing down.

[The_Casual_Observer]

28. You have to be careful about this, he talks in a way that his voters understand

whether or not it's intentional it works for him. Hitler did the same thing.

[louis c]

36. A Dope taking to dopes

I have already built a house in another country. I am only months from vesting into my union pension and less than a year from maxing out my Social Security.

I've fought this fight since 1968. If this is the country the dopes want, they can have it.

I will not kiss anybody's ass or back off from calling someone a bigot when they talk like one and support a racist.

Fuck them and fuck him

[GP6971]

30. PreSchool n/t

[Alice11111]

31. My 4 year old granddaughter has a much larger vocabulary.

Her reasoning skills and sentence structure are superior.
So, I agree, Preschool.

Plus, DT is getting worse. I think that is why he resorts to rally or attack mode. He doesn't have to think, and he just spouts vitriolic phrases.

[Doreen]

32. I have a flippin learning disability and I could

read, write, and speak better than he does now by second grade. Sad.

[ecstatic]

35. 9 or 10. By 12 (7th/8th grade), I was pretty darn articulate

Trump is at the 4th grade level. And he's stuck in bully mode.

[lunatica]

45. Have you seen Idiocracy?

He's about at the level of President Camacho.

[Weekend Warrior]

47. About the same level as Bush.

Bush was at least smart enough to have someone else read or compose his crap before it went to the public. It was harder to hide when he had to publicly speak.

[JonLP24]

48. He may be showing signs of dementia

Ivy league psychologists compared videos from 90s, 2000s, and recently noticed a change notably his increased use of adjectives such as very or tremendous.

[Kaleva]

49. He comes across as very intelligent an even likeable in early interviews from years ago.