To call this "word salad" is a gift. It's actually a word and another beginning with "s"

You have probably read Trump's 369-word  "answer" to an Economic Club member's 27-word question about childcare. I suppose I'm being unkind by putting answer in quotes, since he did, in fact, answer. I further suppose an exclamation mark would be just as appropriate, considering its striking incoherence. It was so unintelligibly innovative, Trump's "answer"! may have achieved the Platonic apotheosis of all gibbersome occasions.

I give you The Answer, annotated. His triumph of extraordinary mental disharmony came on Thursday, when the club member asked, "If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable? And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?" 

TRUMP: Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down. You know, I was somebody — we had, Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka, was so impactful on that issue. It's a very important issue.

ME: The best way to begin explaining a policy proposal is to grab everyone's attention with a sharp observation. Trump does so with "we're sitting down." Next, "I was somebody" suggests an even sharper acknowledgement of his present status. Overlooking his subject-verb disagreement, we then see that he grasps that taking care of children is "very important." But he omits an acknowledgment of the question by providing no answer.

TRUMP: But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about — that, because look, childcare is childcare, couldn't — you know, there's something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to. But they'll get used to it very quickly. And it's not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

ME: Here we begin steeling ourselves for the brain-defying gibberish still to come. Three times Trump speaks of "numbers," zero times does he offer one. To further bedevil us, he speaks mysteriously of unvoiced numbers he's "talking about," as well as unknown numbers that we're talking about, which is quite a trick. Adding to the enigma is his assertion that "foreign nations" will very quickly "get used to" vastly unwarranted harm to their economies. He did clarify one item, however: "childcare is childcare."        

TRUMP: Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including childcare, that it's going to take care. We're going to have, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country.

Because I have to stay with childcare. I want to stay with childcare. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I'm talking about, including growth.

ME: Again with unidentified numbers, this time, four times — before and after childcare "is going to take care," a phrase that profoundly caught the eyes of the judges who rank such in their annual publication, "The Best Gibberish." As for the numbers he's "[not] talking about" — a balanced budget by impossibly eliminating a trillion-dollars+ annually on specific "other things" and the nickels and dimes in waste and fraud — are the fiscal numbers derived from much higher and universal tariffs. Trump still cannot comprehend that foreign nations do not pay the "tax." Here's a man who once set its rates, while being oblivious to the Americans who pay the tax. (Technically, that's ignorance, not incoherence.)      

TRUMP: But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just — that I just told you about. We're going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it's, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we will be taking in.

We're going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people. And then we'll worry about the rest of the world. Let's help other people. But we're going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It's about make America great again. We have to do it because right now, we're a failing nation. So we'll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question."

Back to ME again, and ME's closing. Here we have incoherence followed by risible ambiguities. Trump possesses both in unequaled abundance. But to him they're necessities: He hasn't a clue as to what he's talking about and he knows it. President Eisenhower's occasional incoherence and ambiguity were intentional and purposeful for national security reasons. Trump's ubiquitous kind are only to conceal his prodigious ignorance. And lucky for him, olympic gibberish comes naturally. 

Comments

[Anne J]

And then the audience applauded when his incoherent rant concluded.

[Pablo]

Maybe MAGAts speak a different language from the rest of us English speakers