Just Say Know
When talking yesterday about the Alaska senatorial election, Trump said, "A lot of people don’t know what 'incumbent' means."
Perhaps this is true, although it relies on Trump's definition of "a lot of people," which often means "At least one more person than just himself." But of course what is equally true is that most people most assuredly know exactly what 'incumbent' means.
One day, when Trump says one of these things about what a lot of people don't know, I'd love to hear someone in the back shout, "Yes!! Almost everyone knows what that means!! (I'd also love someone in the front to shout that, along with a follow-up: "Why do you think a lot of people don't know it? Do you think people are that incredibly stupid? Or is that just you who didn't know?")
The one good thing about Trump's quote is that at least this time he didn't also say that "Many people don't know there's a "b" in the word "incumbent." And that's especially good and something we should be particularly grateful for because, if he went through his usual Trump convoluted analysis of etymology and described what the word would be without a "b", the result would be so crass that the clip would have be be censored.
Well, add "incumbent" to the list of words Trump seems to believe that most people don't know. Or at least I hope that's what it means, because the alternative is that Trump didn't know and only just learned it.
Trump's list of words he says that a lot of people don't know now includes the words "groceries", "affordability", and "dumb". It also includes the information that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, that reforming health care can be complicated, that "nobody knows what a magnet is" and that many people don't know the difference between the words "sea" and see."
However, what this list also includes are words and phrases that Trump says people didn't know, not because they hadn't learned them yet, but because Trump said that he himself made them up -- like the phrases "priming the pump" and "equalizing" and even his core catchphrase, "Make America Great Again." (Yes, Trump insists he made this up -- and when it was brought to his attention that Ronald Reagan used it in his 1980 presidential campaign, he said the big difference is that Reagan only said, "Let's Make America Great," with no "Again". Except that (putting the difference aside and Trump's obsessive need to claim ownership of it) "Let's Make America Great Again" was part of Reagan's campaign slogan.)
And, of course, we're leaving out the words most people didn't know because Trump actually did them make up, though not intentionally, but were symptoms of paraphasia, a condition of dementia where the person can't think of a word and makes up one in its place. This includes "Renoversh”, ““Pivobal”, “Succential”, "Chrishus", “Patri-skfjsk”, Mishuz”, “Space capiscle”, “Illegal adlinthin” and “Combat infantroopen,” among others.
And then there are his written words that no one knew before, most famously "covfefe."
But though it's hard to not put his relentless explanation of people not knowing how to spell "dumb" (which is so ethereal for its irony) and his coming up with the spelling of "Dumbocrats", I think that "Priming the pump" remains my favorite. Not because he insists he made up the phrase and said so during a campaign rally, but mainly because he had this exchange in an interview with The Economist, a publication that (as you might imagine) knows a great deal about the economy.
TRUMP: We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
ECONOMIST: Priming the pump?
TRUMP: Yeah, have you heard it?
ECONOMIST: Yes.
TRUMP: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just… I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.
Of course, in the end, we should expect all these great words from Trump that no one knew before he told us about them or made them up. Because, lest we forget, he's the same guy who told us, "I'm very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words."
By the way, many people don't know that the word "best" has a "b" in it.
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