Being a language person, I’m somewhat more interested in how Donald Trump says things than what he says. That is, most of what he says, the content, shows virtually no critical thinking, but how he says it, the form, reveals a lot about why he’s so goddam dangerous. Here’s an example of something he put out on social media the other day:
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed. AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!”
Lack of critical thinking? How are you going to sign bills NOT as President? As a former inmate, I will NOT sign them, too. So that flourish is there to remind us of his office. Yet, if he knew anything about the Constitution, he would know that bills become law without his signature after 10 days unless Congress had adjourned.
If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
Congress hasn’t adjourned for 10 days since 2013. Trump sounds tough, though the real question is sounds tough to whom? To himself? To people who don’t remember civics class? Go ahead, Don. Don’t sign any more legislation the entire time you are president. The Framers actually anticipated this kind of passive-aggressive bullshit. Your office is not relevant to bills becoming laws in the way you think it is.
I could burn a lot of pixels talking about the all-caps ranting and the truly bizarre use of colons and dashes, but what really got my attention is the neologism “MUTILIZATION.” What? Oh, some might claim, that’s just a typo. No, it’s not. I heard him speak the same term in a similar context the day after he put out that social media post. It’s not a malapropism because it doesn’t substitute one similar-sounding but inappropriate word for another; it goes through the mental and linguistic effort of coining a new term. The term isn’t a stumble; it’s a clear view into his psyche. It’s not an unintentional error, like a Freudian slip, but a combination of brute force, ego, and ignorance that’s especially troublesome.
Mutilization. About that new word. It’s what language nerds call a “portmanteau,” a mashup of two existing words that combines their sounds and meanings. In this case, Trump has melded “mutilation” with “utilization.” In the context of trying to deny services to transgender youth, this is cruelly accusatory, suggesting that people are being “mutilated,” that they are being deformed or diminished in a negative way. It also suggests that they are being “utilized,” that they are objects that are means to an end. That they are objects rather than people. Of course, that fits precisely with the kind of anti-transgender ideology he’s promoting. If one were charitable, one might say that it’s a genius stroke of marketing. However, I’m not charitable, so I see it as something far darker. I’m not so much underestimating Donald Trump as misunderestimating him.
Trump is ruled by linguistic tics that he confuses for truth. Why else call his social media platform “Truth Social”? In this case, one linguistic similarity that Trump makes a truth and can unhear is that “transformation” and “transgender” must be the same thing. That leads him to the conclusion that “transgender” must involve some kind of mutilation, some sort of destruction. But, seriously considered, “transgender” is the opposite of that. “Transgender” is about recognition, alignment, and confirmation, not destruction. The identity precedes any kind of medical intervention, and there may not be any medical intervention at all. There were transgender people for millennia before anybody did any kind of bodily interventions. However, the facts of the matter are buried by the ideological mischaracterization of the identity. “Mutilization” suggests that there is a group of people who are marching fellow human beings into gender confirmation surgeries and then, post-op, demanding that those who were operated upon against their wills adopt a new identity for the sake of their ideological aims. The dark and dangerous irony is that the practice being fantasized here is much closer to what Trump himself is invoking: I will tell you, regardless of how you feel and experience the world, what your gender identity is. I will define you as a problem. I will force you to conform to specific kinds of bodily and social norms. And I will use you against yourself and people like you as a political prop. I will psychically mutilate you and utilize you for my own ends. It’s neologism as psychological projection.
And while this is appalling in this particular instance, “mutilization” is in no way limited to attacks on the transgender community. In Trump’s psyche, mutilization is pattern and practice, so deeply ingrained that he can’t help but mash the concepts up. For Trump, every use is also a destruction or deformation. Feel a new skyscraper would be of use to you? Smash the historical architecture of the place you want to build. Desire vengeance against your political opponents? Transform the Department of Justice into a vendetta machine. Want to use a new ballroom? Deform the White House. Employee no longer useful? Don’t change your policy that they were faithfully carrying out; just throw them to the wolves. Here’s looking at you, Kristi Noem. We can even think of the popularity of Mar-a-Lago face as a kind of preemptive mutilization; I’ll change my appearance to curry favor and show that I’m here to be of use. It’s all the logic of extraction, and it always entails the act of destruction.