I looked that up after seeing the Politico headline, "Trump shares cryptic ‘dictatorship’ word cloud on Truth Social/It’s not the first time Trump has called himself a dictator, but it’s the first time he’s said it via word cloud."
The word cloud was produced by The Daily Mail to visualize the results of its survey, which asked 984 American voters to summarize Trump's plan for his second term — in one word. The same question was asked about Biden, and Biden's cloud has the word "NOTHING" in the center. Trump didn't share the Biden cloud though, perhaps because the answer "nothing" probably didn't mean they thought Biden was a nothing — or had zero plans — but simply that the person polled couldn't think of anything. You can see that "nothing" appears in Trump's word cloud too.
Why do you think Trump wanted to share that cloud? Did he like the sequence of words? Does he expect us to see "dictatorship" as the word chosen by hysterical, hyperbolic antagonists? Is he into the ambiguity, which requires us to keep talking about him?
Does he believe — or like to tease — the idea that dictatorship is good? Politico bolsters that interpretation: "Trump has... lavished praise on authoritarian leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un." Lavished. Really?
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It is illustrative of the derangement of the nation’s enemies but they don’t have the uncertainty if what the Trump Presidency will look like. Trump the dictator? Hardly. Trump needed permission from Hawaiian judges to do things he had the power to do.
It is suspicious the largest word in the center of Trump’s word cloud isn’t mentioned. People who get away with stuff like to deflect…
Rocket man.
This is Trump’s way of controlling the narrative and getting his opponents to over-react and appear unreasoned. Those who are influenced by this word cloud are not Trump voters anyway.
Ambiguity is a main rhetorical device Trump uses all the time. Think J6 and Charlottesville.
Does Trump say what the source documents are that were used to create the word cloud? This particular cloud looks like something that would created from articles written about him and a potential 2025-2029 term of office by outfits like thecNew York Times, the Washington Post, and, yes, Politico. Why did he publish it? I presume to scare his opponents into doing something even more amazingly stupid than they already are doing.
If you want to see American dictatorship in action, go back to Joe Biden’s “MAGA” speech of September 2022, and ask yourself whether Leni Riefenstahl would have staged it any differently for her old boss back in the 1930s.
"No trait is more justified than revenge in the right time and place."
Meir Kahane
"If someone hurts you make the bitch pay.”
Katy Perry
"To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty."
Stieg Larsson
Trump sharing a word cloud from someone else, with "dictator" fairly prominent, is not the same as calling himself a dictator.
I see Restoration, Restore and Retribution, for those who remember that life was better during the previous administration, and who want to see the arrogant miscreants of the Biden regime held to account.
"Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!"
-- Colette Marence
I think most of it is to show what is being said about him, which rational people who observed his actual performance in office know is nonsense. The other part of it is if he does win with these things being said about him, then he has a mandate to act in such a manner. Maybe they should try a different strategy.
"Does Trump say what the source documents are that were used to create the word cloud?"
Your question is answered in the post.
He shared it because the most prominent word, which is not "dictatorship", expresses how he feels.
As far as “lavishing” praise on dictators, Trump is just using salesman/businessman tactics. It used to be called “buttering them up.” Then work on the deal you want.
Of course Politico bolsters that impression, they are one of its inventors, bolstering it is their job. Alternatively, Trump may just be showing what the opposition is trying to do. Which is which, I have no idea, but Trump never acted very dictatorial compared to Obama, or even the Biden team.
What Llyod said.
Nice try at redirecting the conversation to what Trump thinks. I expect the usual suspects will be all over it.
It's just dictatorship for a day or two.
The Daily Mail should have surveyed 1000 more people to make their intent more obvious.
This next year'll be like watching a kicked-over anthill.
Trump spends an inordinate portion of his time crafting and managing his image. He'd never post anything that doesn't confirm the image he wants to project. Best believe he is proud of and approves this ominous collection of descriptors.
BG is correct.
When you are trying to sell someone a skyscraper, one of the tactics is to tell the prospect "You know Mr. Oldmoney, it sure is a pleasure to be talking to someone who really knows New York real estate..."
Here's Trump "praising" Kim Jong-Il in 2019.
....Chairman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true. He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!
There's some flattery there. He's trying to get Kim to look at the future in new ways. In the last sentence, there is also a hint of another legendary New York deal maker, a gentleman named Corleone as I recall.
At first glance I thought the larger words were referring to Biden.
In everything I recall reading about Trump, a story of revenge is not among them.
It’s not like a flaw that would not have come up by now.
I didn't see dictatorship at all. Seems like revenge is on his mind.
Never a fan of Trump the man but I did like his policies and their results. I would gladly vote for him if he is the nominee. Regarding his anger. If you could in an alternate universe exchange the media Obama (or any Democrat, Hillary, Biden) with that of Trump it would be very interesting to see the effects on their public conduct. Obama was such a pissy little man when ever he was criticized. Remember the "discreet" finger he gave to Hillary in the 2008 campaign. I think his acolytes found that hilarious. But the occasion recalled her by our hostess when he was questioned about Hamas in the diner epitomized not only his ability to absorb confrontation but the extent to which he was pressed by the media. Any other politician but the Messiah would have been hounded to his political death by his invocation of the "waffle." he would have been known as waffles, lost the election and retired soon thereafter from the senate as membership in that body would not have been sufficient to satisfy his self estimate. He might have tried for Secretary General of the UN even though that position is denied to citizens of Security Council nations. In his case they might have made an exception.
Now give Donald Trump the tongue bath that has been applied to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary, the Obamas, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, and I think you have seen a kinder, gentler Trump. Hell, given the fact he was a moderate Democrat in his earlier political views the left might have been able to get more out of him than they have out of Biden.
I'm really impressed by the comments so far (8:33 AM), and will echo a few who pointed out the most prominent word, REVENGE, is not the Politico's headline, nor is it perfectly clear why people chose that word. IMO, like the highly ambiguous Mr. Trump, it could be that voters want to see Trump take revenge on the evil Deep State or that they see Trump himself as motivated by revenge. Or both. I love the multiple layers of ambiguity in the word clouds themselves and in Trump's posting of it, especially given the prominence of the terms power, economy, America, border, freedom and success. Most of those are not ambiguous and show the Make America Great Again theme is highly correlated with Trump in the group surveyed.
People are reading into it what they want to see. Just like they do with all language related to Trump. Speaking of which, The Economist has another highly interesting article today on political language and the editors came up with what, to me, looks like a fair methodology for categorizing political phrases as leftish or rightish. The purpose to which they put their survey was to catalog over time the shift in how news media use language about politics.
I find it interesting that two such obviously language-centric -- even linguaphilic -- articles are served up in one day. Does it signal anything about Media itself?
he is proud of and approves this ominous collection of descriptors
Really? The words "economy" and "America" are just as prominent in the cloud as the word "dictatorship" that the Politico chose to use as their headline. So exactly what omen is foretold by the equally prominent words, meaning they were cited at roughly the same frequency as "dictatorship," "economy" and "America" in your opinion?
I had to remove my dispute with Althouse saying "the post answers the question" because I now see in the original post the entire Truth Social post is visible as an image. I mistakenly used the "show original post" function which only shows text not images. My ooops!
Trump publishes a word cloud revealing Journolistic influence. Democracy is scalped at the publishers' choice.
Re: Lavished... Once again, none of these people who pretend to understand Trump have ever studied The Art of the Deal, or they would know smooshing when they see it. He was in the building business in a heavy union and government bureaucracy area. He learned well how to deal with petty dictators who held the reigns to permits and workers.
Because he's stupid and nuts?
"Does he believe — or like to tease — the idea that dictatorship is good?"
Seems some people need to believe he's a dictator. I guess it helps them divert their attention from the dictatorial things the people they vote for are doing.
Reality: Trump was POTUS for 4 years and wasn't an authoritarian, dictator or undemocratic. He didnt use the DOJ to Jail his opponents, or use "lawfare" to destroy the opposition or keep them off the ballot.
First the MSM censored Trump. Remember for 1 year or was it 2 years, he couldn't get an interview on TV or post anything on social media. So, shutting Trump up didn't work. So, the MSM is back to their original playbook:
attack Trump as some Putin/Dictator lover/Nazi/threat to Democracy. Oh, and a racist/bigot/homomphobe.
But we've heard that song before. And its getting tedious and boring. Most of us are changing the channel.
How often does the broken record keep repeating itself before you give up on it? All these years and Trump still uses the same excuses, the same lines, the same insults. All the while accomplishing nothing except for losing trials.
Here's a link to that Economist article (from 12/14 not today, another oops; requires registration) with the headline: American journalism sounds much more Democratic than Republican
To further entice then language-curious, there methodology was to take "all speeches in Congress" between 2009 and last year and break them down into two-word phrases that were further refined by "almost exclusive use" by one party or the other. People here can clearly see the leaning for themselves just by a sample of the 428 identifying phrases that The Economist selected: “unborn baby” versus “reproductive care” or “illegal alien” versus “undocumented immigrant”. [note: I love their choice of putting period outside the quote here, which was not the NYT stylebook we used but I find it more apt in cases like this.]
In summary, there are graphs to illustrate how the language has gone from mostly neutral to mostly Democrat-leaning over time if you care to see. As I said in my first post above, I find their methodology fair for the task the set for themselves, and IMO the conclusions that follow are sound as well. I would have liked to see the full list of 428 terms, but given the clarity of the two examples they shared it isn't really necessary to trust their results.
In reference to Trump, the topic of the word cloud at issue, words mused in articles about him shifted left quite a bit over time, looks like the fourth largest shift in their chart right behind "race" and "school shootings" (in that order).
They way to erode the seemingly successful push by Democrats and their fellow anti-Trump travelers in pushing the "dictator" meme is to turn into the torpedo and close the distance before it arms. The more they write, the more people are pushed to think and thinking by the voters is bad for the Democratic party cause.
When Trump snatches the word from them, they must make even more ridiculous claims and that exposes them.
Maybe he'll explain himself. Hard for him.
Perhaps authoritarian leaders are the norm when it comes to achieving useful and difficult things. It's beginning to look like self-government has about run it's course. Our brilliant founders saw it coming.
It's been a tough 250 years but much of value has been accomplished. Now, "The times, they are a-changing." The real question is, will our Strong Man put the people's interests above his own. Chavez or Pinochet?
Is it possible to guarantee individual rights and limit individual powers?
How about we start by removing the tax-free status of NGOs, Non-Profits and religions?
How about we insist that some government activities be self-supporting?
How about crime and punishment be defined by the offense instead of the identity of the accused or the victim?
Maybe, head back in the direction of Lukenback, Texas...
Trump is busy hyping so many unreliable polls showing him with these huge leads really sets him up to look bad if he doesn’t actually win big in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s been telling his followers every day for months that he has massive leads. Now all the sudden he’s saying he might get cheated. Well it’s not like he could ever admit to losing…..
The first thing that struck me was that the top half of the cloud appears to be mostly positive connotation words, the bottom half negative or "scare" words (like "maga"). Maybe this is how word clouds always work - but it seems to me to have a subtle visual effect.
And can anyone doubt that people who voted for Trump in 2020 - myself included - might enjoy a bit of revenge for everything that's been said about us, done to us and our country, done to the candidate we supported, and visited on the electoral system that we grew up trusting and now cannot? I don't want physical revenge, and I'm sure I'm in the vast majority on my side there, but I would dearly love to see election integrity returned, lawfare vigorously curbed, and a public acknowledgement that political conservatism is not the same as chinless cretinism.
It's not ambiguous.
REVENGE.
You bet your ass I want revenge. I consider the FBI a Stasi secret-police in the making, the single greatest threat to American freedom that exists on the planet, and I want him to make them suffer. Trump can assign any or all of them to mail-fraud duty in Idaho Falls with the stroke of a pen, and I hope he uses it freely.
he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!
Isn't that just another perhaps politer way of saying "nice country you've got here, President Kim. It would be a real shame if something happened to it."
Like another "Rod from God"? It sure got his attention the first time back in '17.
John Henry
I can only hope that he would be a dictator for four years and then leave.
The dems have perfected the executive order, and if elected, Trump needs to turn that up to 11...
Far be it from me to try and read Trumps mind. This comes not from Trumps own words, or even those of his campaign, but from the results of a survey. So, take it with the grain of salt needed with all polling. I doubt that a word cloud produced from the "news" columns of the MSM would look any different. So, it may just show that the MSM propaganda machine is working.
REVENGE
Let's pretend we don't really understand his message. Yeah, let's ignore the obvious and focus on dictatorship because that's the current, approved narrative about Trump.
On the other hand, maybe some people really don't get it. There are those who think it's clever to ignore the obvious, which, in turn, can make them ignorant.
Trump is tapping into the anger of the electorate. Many ordinary working people will get the message.
What do I think Trump means by posting it? He means to say, "You should see this."
The rest is up to whomever does the seeing. Some like Beth see an ominous group of words. Some like Rich can't comprehend it so they just repeat stale old beefs against Trump. Some like rehajm see the obvious: Politico ignored the largest word in the very center, so the one that had the most mentions, revenge. Some like me see his message of America First has penetrated the news blackout to make an impression on America, even the tiny select sample Politico used.
And I think Trump's voters want REVENGE, which is why it the center of the cloud, revenge on the cheaters of 2020 as well as all the lawfare-waging corrupticrats in both parties who have done so much scheming to try, try without success, to kill his campaign to Make America Great Again Again. (It worked the first time, which is his best selling point.)
"Perhaps authoritarian leaders are the norm when it comes to achieving useful and difficult things."
Blame diversity. A society that shares a common culture doesn't require a dictator to get the things it wants done.
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