Trump Swears Off Profanity?

In a major campaign announcement from a rally in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump promised to swear off foul language.

That sounds like a satirical piece from The Onion.  Alas, that really happened. Trump has earned loads of earned media during the early primary process by making outrageous and inflammatory outbursts.Trump's military strategy was the equivalent of bombing the fecal matter out of ISIS.  Trump has also whispered the "F" bomb from center stage.

In the eve of the New Hampshire primary, when Trump was critiquing his main opponent Senator Ted Cruz's approach on enhanced interrogation, the Manhattan Mogul gleefully repeated a vile and vulgar shout out from the crowd referring to female genitalia.  This was a quintessential example of Trump employing paralepsis, in which a speaker says something with plausible deniability. Later, Trump justified his crass comments that we were just having fun. Sure.

 But if we are to believe Trump's Baton Rouge Pledge, the GOP front-runner will no longer use foul language.  Some have argued that the quip against Cruz was intended to be short for pussillanimous.  If so, why pretend to chide the shout out not to use the language with a smile?

It is a sad statement of the state of Trump's campaign that a populist politician has to shout it out to the rooftops that he will swear off foul language.  So why the sudden shift?

Much of Trump's appeal to die-hard supporters is that he can't be bought since he claims to be self-financing his campaign (but won't turn down contributions).  That being said, Trump does not hesitate to pander, to questionable effectiveness.

In several early primaries, such as Iowa, South Carolina and five of the SEC primaries, evangelicals make up a substantial proportion of the Republican electorate.  So it's no surprise that politicians hungry for evangelical support would play up faith themes on the hustings.

Well, this was not a believable ploy for Trump, especially with his "Two Corinthians" citation at Liberty University. But this voter bloc should be more than properly quoting Bible verses.  They also tend to be values voters.  And a foul mouthed, avarice animated politician is a hard sell to those seeking to walk the faith.

The Cruz campaign sought to capitalize on this crucible with a clever ad mimicking Trump themes from the mouths of babes.



The spot successfully captured the crassness of Trump with boorish behavior without putting foul words in the childrens' mouths.  But the telling shot was the parents  watching the playroom with a voice over "We wouldn't tolerate this behavior in our children--why would we want them in a President?"  Thus the commercial was more than about illustrating crony capitalism and eminent domain but about values voters, which is a bulleye in South Carolina with a 60% evangelical GOP voter base.

Let's see how long Trump can stifle his crass asides.  As the SEC primaries are on March 1st, I suspect it will be March second (sic) if we are lucky. 

The Paralepsis Politician

Radio personality Chris Plante pointed out that one of Donald Trump's favorite rhetorical tricks is to use paralepsis. That is a rhetorical device to  attributing a smear away  from himself while simultaneously trumpeting the slam. So far, it has given the Manhattan Mogul quite a bit of earned media in the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination race.

For example, Donald Trump constantly tried to cast doubts on Senator Ted Cruz's (R-TX) eligibility for running for President, by claiming that others would sue over the unlitigated "natural born citizen" question.  Eventually, Trump dropped the charade of quoting others about Cruz's eligibility and then taunted him as a "Canadian anchor baby".

Donald Trump took down Dr. Ben Carson as he was rising in the polls by seizing about Carson's autobiographic attribute of a bad childhood temper.  Trump challenged Carson's story as being unbelievable.  Trump took it further by labeling such behavior as being pathological.  Trump implied that Carson was like a child molester because they say there are no cures for pathological behaviors. So  attack by innuendo then attribute the origins to others.

Trump took this paralepsis politics to a new low on the eve of the New Hampshire Primary.  As the Manhattan Mogul critiqued his opponent's answers from the Republican Debate in Manchester, Trump touched upon Cruz's answer about enhanced interrogation of terrorists. A voice from the audience shouted out an epithet. Trump paused and asked her to repeat the sexist slur. But that was not good enough, so Donald Trump proclaimed that Ted Cruz was a "pussy" from the podium.



From a technical standpoint, Trump exploits the anger of others and repeats it, but tries not to leave his fingerprints on the verbal assault. From a cultural and common courtesy standpoint, it is incredible that a major party candidate thinks that utter such offensive insults before an audience, even attributed to others, is acceptable public discourse.  This is not being a politically incorrect iconoclast but being a boorish buffoon who does not display the internal fortitude to own what he intends to say.

It is widely expected, based upon the polling and potential for crossover votes, that Donald Trump will win the New Hampshire primary.  Being an insult celebrity candidate in a crowded field can garner a rabid core of supporters.  As a television personality who made his mark in reality television, he should know that ultimately to win, Trump  needs the support from those who have been vanquished earlier.  While Jeb Bush may not be the beneficiary, he is quite right that "You can't insult your way to the nomination."

There is a school of thought that many low information voters decide who to vote for President based upon who they would like to have in their living rooms every day for four years. Will it be the  paralepsis politician  who sounds like he has Tourette's Syndrome?