January 8, 2018

Trump's "enormous consensual presidency."

Trump tweeted a typo that's amusing people. Yahoo reports:
The screwup appeared in a Sunday night tweet in which Trump praised a supportive column in the New York Post. Writer Michael Goodwin lauded Trump’s “enormous consequential presidency,” but Trump referred to it in his tweet as an “enormous consensual presidency.”
We've seen Trump typos before. Last May came the delightful "covfefe." I said I found it easy to see the intended word (it was "coverage"):
And "covfefe" is comedy. I'm not going to say it was comic genius to type it, but it's pretty interestingly comical not to explain it and to run with it and encourage us to "Enjoy!" like he's serving up a big plate of tasty food....
"Consensual presidency" is funny too. Not that I think he did it on purpose. But tweeting (like blogging) includes the risk of error, and it's the free, rough-draft feeling that makes readers feel they're getting something straight from the writer's mind.

That's why we're interested in "Freudian" slips. We think we're getting a look at what's really in that head. So then what about "enormous consensual presidency." Does that leak some greater truth? If so, "consensual" sheds a kindly light on this man who's often accused of being a sexual molester. In hin secret thoughts, he's into consent.

And then there's democracy. Of course, he's our consensual President. As a country of states, we voted him in.

Now he's put out another one of his very sticky phrases. "Enormous consensual presidency." We're seeing — over and over — that his presidency is "consensual" and "enormous." "Enormous" is an especially good word from his point of view. He loves bigness, and we already associate him with at least 3 bigness words. "Huge," of course. "Big," as in "big league" (often misheard as "bigly") and "big, beautiful wall." And "great," as in "Make America Great Again." Add "enormous."

And now, this tweet is getting even more attention than his tweets usually get, and it's causing me to want to look at Michael Goodwin's column. Did he really write "enormous consequential presidency" (and not "enormously consequential presidency")? Man, it's hard to find the column, because there are so many articles about the typo!

Here it is: "We’re still better off with Trump than Clinton."
[R]eports of his imminent demise have been near-constant ever since he came down the Trump Tower escalator in June of 2015. Those predictions have been nonstop — and always wrong.

Of course, this time could be different. Or maybe the next time will. Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, his is turning out to be an enormously consequential presidency....
Oh! So it is "enormously." Doesn't it always seem to be that when you go after somebody else's typo, you make one yourself?

ADDED: Obviously, most of the news covfefe of the typo gets the typo "right." It's "enormously consensual presidency." Of all the news sites on the web, I had to walk into the one that typo'd the typo. Yahoo [passing along something by Mary Papenfuss at HuffPo]. So the sticky phrase in question, let's be clear, is "enormously consensual presidency."

So now it's not that the presidency is enormous in addition to being consensual. The thing that huge is not the presidency but the consent. What is enormous consent? Isn't consent just a yes-or-no option? No, there can be very enthusiastic consent — not just yes, but yes, yes, YES!!!

UPDATE: HuffPo and Yahoo have corrected their "enormous" typo.

43 comments:

tim in vermont said...

Doesn’t the 25th amendment have language specifically about misspellings and malapropisms in tweets? I think he should be removed immediately before the incompetent fool does any further damage to the liberal agenda!

gspencer said...

Next week's winners,
Patriots
Steelers
Falcons
NO Saints

tim in vermont said...

Plus, he is undoubtedly tweeting from an insecure phone, which means that Putin’s Russia is probably seeing the Tweets!

David Begley said...

This will be construed as a sign of pre-dementia in Trump.

rhhardin said...

yes yes yes is Molly Bloom

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish Wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Derrida cites it I think in an essay on the double yes that is always necessary. Your first yes is out there and then you have to say yes to that yes.

It was in connection with the double wedding band.

rhhardin said...

Enormous consequential is a sort of hendiadys for enormously consequential.

The subordination is up in the air.

MathMom said...

I'm going to sip a cup of nice, hot covfefe and consider this enormous, consensual presidency.

Sebastian said...

It's all well and good that the prez provides blog fodder for Althouse, and that he has a sense of humor, and that, unlike other GOPers, he at least tries to control the framing of issues and bait the left, but doing it this way also strengthens the Trump-is-mad-and-uncouth counterframing. Among sensitive souls, especially moderate white women, it will cost him and the GOP.

Bill Harshaw said...

About 10 million more voters said "No Trump" than said "Yes Trump". (third party and write-ins)

RMc said...

Actually, only about 1 in 4 Americans consented to this guy.

tim in vermont said...

“Actually, only about 1 in 4 Americans consented to this guy.”

Wow, man. I guess that the rest of them all would have voted for Hillary then! Whoah! That’s mind bending man!

David Begley said...

On Morning Joe today Mika asked Fake Wolff why Kelly doesn’t stop Trump from tweeting.

Wolff’s answer was just more liberal spin. The actual answer is Trump can speak directly to voters without the media filter.

The larger issue is that thousands of people are daily working to remove Trump from office.

I predict that a major issue in the 2018 election will be how someone will vote on impeachment. Why makes no difference.

Unknown said...

I was going to write that the last President that seemed so comfortable in the role was Reagan.

But then, upon second thought: Obama seemed very comfortable, too. He obviously loved it, he just was a very cool-temperature sort. But a President breaking into Al Green: comfortable.

So I will say this instead: the last President that seemed to have such fun in the role was Reagan.

And maybe that is something some people are responding to. We are not seeing someone visibly being worn down in front of us by the Weight of the World.

We are not seeing someone who is a slave to the events around us.

And that makes it seem like it's okay to not have to consume politics 24/7.

The pilot is going to make a joke or two for the passengers over the intercom, then just fly the fucking plane. We don't need to think about what all of the flying entails. We can read, watch a movie. Peace out.

The idea that the Presidency must be worn like a Hair Shirt or you have Dementia is a funny thing to bring into this century.

- james james

Fabi said...

When you're an enormous consensual president, they let you do whatever you want!

traditionalguy said...

The day of testing is coming when we must become consensual, or not, to the enormously consequential truth exposing by the President.So it is fitting that we are making so much of Winston Churchill this year. He was once THE man without whom super weapon maker Germany would have been ruling the world for a thousand years.

Fortunately Trump has a few friends. And as Winston said , " Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Starting with Admiral Rogers in November 2016.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

One of the top rules of the internet.

If you are going to make fun of someone else's grammar, spelling or other verbal transgressions, you are sure to make some glaring mistake in your own post while doing so and then other people can make fun of you.

Or...what goes around comes around.

I've been caught in that rule many times, much to my embarrassment.

Anonymous said...

"Enormous consensual presidency" or "enormously consequential presidency" - either way its a win!

Trump fanboys like Scott Adams would/will say now Trump has you thinking about two good options when you think about his presidency.

Plus he has brought to your attention a pro Trump article you would have otherwise ignored.

And Trump does have a "consensual" presidency in that he became president based on the consent of the governed within our constitution republic and its requirement that the president win the majority of the electoral college.

Trump did that fair and square and no amount of emotionally unhinged conspiracy theorizing can change that.

And for the Hillary fans be prepared to acknowledge that your girl was rejected by the majority of the voters as was Trump.

But remember - "constitutional republic" NOT a democracy.

H said...

I've wondered if Trump uses voice to text when tweeting. I don't even know if that is an easy to use feature of twitter, or if it could explain how consequential becomes consensual or coverage becomes cofefe.

tim in vermont said...

It’s just possible that Trump doesn’t take these Tweets very seriously, that he’s not stressing over each one, tongue pressed against his nose, bent over his phone, as he carefully does the best he possibly can to Tweet his precise thoughts, then inevitably fucks up and turns back to the Gorilla Channel in disgust.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Trump may be doing these 'gaffes' and typos on purpose (or not).

Trump says something funny, silly, controversial or makes a typo. The left goes apeshit. 24/7 coverage of covfefe. The talking heads can't stop talking about how stooopid Trump is.

Meanwhile, Trump appoints some more conservative judges, eliminates a bunch of regulations, kicks butt in foreign policy, pushes his agenda forward. The stock market goes up. Unemployment and food stamp use goes down. Businesses are booming and the future is looking like there might BE a future for a change as opposed to the gloom and doom Obama era.

It is one giant or perhaps enormous...."Look, SQUIRREL!!!!" routine. They all run after the squirrel and ignore the real story. The media pratfalls for it every time.

If he isn't doing it on purpose....keep it up anyway. It seems to be working and it is amusing (to me anyway)

Sharc 65 said...

"In hin secret thoughts, he's into consent."

"Hin"? Ann, is that a Freudian slip suggesting he's aligned with the Jews?

bgates said...

Obama seemed very comfortable, too.

It's difficult to imagine a situation in which the President of the United States is not the most important person in the room - but not as difficult as imagining a point in Obama's life at which he didn't think of himself that way.

The stock market goes up. Unemployment and food stamp use goes down.

On the one hand he didn't win the popular vote; on the other hand, he won the Electoral College and the Mandate of Heaven.

I've wondered if Trump uses voice to text when tweeting.

He must - it would be impossible to use one of those tiny little phone keyboards with hands his size.

rhhardin said...

eecummings would have trump as our unpresident.

Susan said...

Maybe he was going for Constitutional Presidency. As apposed to the fantasy presidency of those who are With Her.

According to the Constitution, he won fair and square and and retains all rights of the office. She gets to be as good a sport about it as she is able.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

He should have left it. The Presidency is consensual, and the connotation is hilarious.

People who mock typos on the internet tend to be assholes and no one likes them. It's OK to point them out in finished pieces that are supposed to be edited, but for things like Twitter or comments sections would-be copy editors come off as jerks.

rehajm said...

Trump's presidency is consensual. Removing him from office because you find him objectionable is rapey.

MacMacConnell said...

Trump accomplished two things with this Tweet. He drew attention to the positive article and trolled the Golden Globes with the word consensual.

MAGA! Team America - FUCK YEAH!

dreams said...

Trump and the media, one is an adult and the other is juvenile and the media thinks Trump is the juvenile but the joke is on the media.

bleh said...

Both “enormous” and “consensual” make people think of sex. Women says yes to his large penis. The voters asked for this, there’s no backing out now.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

How can the collective fascist left get M. Goodwin to shut up? Can the left arrest him? or deliver a Corrupt Wisconsin democrat-type midnight raid?

Hagar said...

Interesting article by James Taranto interviewing a professor who says the voters are not any more polarized than usual, but the party organizations are, and so as soon as they win an election they pass legislation that offends parts of their own base, who then proceed to vote for the opposing party in the next election, which causes the legislatures to stagger from one extreme to the other in alternate election cycles.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“Both “enormous” and “consensual” make people think of sex.”

First thing I thought of when I read AA’s take. It’s entirely possible to be deliberately blatantly comical and persuasively subliminal at the same time. In fact, it seems to be a Trump specialty.

Meade said...

I reckon we can't say "ginormous" anymore because it's too easily typo'd into vaginormous. At least not in the workplace we can't. Words have consequencesensuals.

tim in vermont said...

How's about 'gynormous'?

Bob Boyd said...

How about gynaecologically enormous?

Wince said...

"Of all the news sites on the web, I had to walk into the one that typo'd the typo."

Here's lookin' at you, kid.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

How about gynaecologically enormous?

That would be Hillary in being a gaping.......nevermind.

Meade said...

And that will bring us back to O... oh... O[prah...]

Rob said...

I got your enormous consequential presidency right HERE.

Yancey Ward said...

The only thing that makes that tweet (accidental most likely) better is if Trump could have worked the word "like" into it again.

chuck said...

"eecummings would have trump as our unpresident."

A good complement to the unmen populating the progressive community.

Jim at said...

About 10 million more voters said "No Trump" than said "Yes Trump". (third party and write-ins)

And 57 percent of voters chose someone other than Bill Clinton in 1992.

What's your point?

The Godfather said...

I have a liberal friend who quite seriously argues on Facebook that Trump's "failure" to understand the difference between "consequential" and "consensual" is a reason to remove him from office.