Thoughts on the Trump Word Cloud

 

The story has been in the news quite a bit.  Someone did a survey on what words readers most associated with Donald Trump and created a word cloud.  The lead word was Revenge.  Economy, Power, Dictatorship and America were next.  Donald Trump liked the survey enough to post the cloud on his own social media.

But I think at least as important as economy, power, revenge, dictatorship, and America are the smaller words associated.  Freedom, peace, nothing, success, border, dictator and corruption come next, although it is unclear whether "corruption" is an accusation that he is corrupt, or a promise to fight a corrupt system.  

Furthermore although the cloud above is not sharp enough to show all the words, the still smaller ones are even more significant -- and disturbing.  Destruction, vengeance, safety, greatness, wealth, respect, glory, rebuild, status, restoration, legacy, justice, borders, secure, fame, retribution, success, security, immigration, restore, autocrat, reset, win, American, win, wall, fix, unity, strong, mucho, control, people, king, patriotism, USA, redemption, pride, restore, prosperity, stability, winning, autocracy, country, change, popularity, inflation, gaining.

Those sound, on the whole, like favorable words.  At the very least, they are power words.  There are a few exceptions.  Chaos, unsure, and crazy are also in there, but they are not dominant.  

Quite simply, Trump is being associated with strength, power, success, restoration, and the like.  I think we may assume a Biden word cloud would be more associated with words like senile, dementia, old, inflation, and crime.  Not good.  We will know Trump is failing if he comes to be associated with words like bankruptcy, failure, loser, crazy, toddler, whiner, man-baby, clown, tantrum, unhinged, deranged, and ketchup.  

And this poses a real dilemma for how to oppose him.  On the one hand, if we paint him as a dictator that will have the advantage of pointing to the real danger.  And if he ends up winning, at least we will know what they are getting into and there will be no doubt that they really were intentionally turning away from democracy.  

But at the same time, it is clear that one reason people like Trump is that they perceive him as strong and decisive and what can be stronger and more decisive than a dictator.  Portraying him as a weak man, a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum might actually undermine his popularity.  It is also true.  But if his image of strength proves too well established to unseat, then the people may vote against democracy without knowing the worst.