Trumps ticket to survival: Ban all the words

Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, the Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-ticket-to-survival-ban-all-the-words/2017/12/18/0d9e3e66-e437-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html?utm_term=.c6b3f34c0872

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My own analysis, made in consideration with my personal wishes, finds that the administration should not give up on its word ban. In fact, a more extensive word ban — an all-out vocabulary blockade, enforced by an armada of language police — could be Trump’s ticket to survival.

Trump could benefit enormously from restricting the use of the many words, names and phrases that threaten him: Robert Mueller. Good taste. Facts. Spelling. The Geneva Conventions. Suit-jacket buttons. The Constitution. Exercise. International trade. Democrats. Intelligence briefings. Intelligence.

It would be even more effective if the administration replaced problematic words with favorable ones. The tax bill in Congress is deeply unpopular because it’s a giveaway to the rich and it keeps loopholes, such as the tax bonanza for hedge-fund billionaires, that Trump promised to abolish. But if the administration simply bans the word “rich” in favor of “deserving” and replaces “loopholes” with “incentives,” the tax bill is instantly jam-packed with incentives for the deserving.


The tax bill could become even more unpopular when people discover it’s likely that 13 million fewer Americans will have health insurance, and as a result more will get sick and die. But the situation sounds much better if the word “uninsured” is banned in favor of “treatment-unencumbered,” “sick” is replaced with “in transition” and “dead” is replaced by “inactive.”

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