Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Constants and variables 87, Trump Jump edition
I stopped listening to SOTU sideshows a long time ago. Several clips of Trump's SOTU have accidentally reached my ears, and my ears have made a quick and strong judgment.
This dude is SERIOUSLY DEPRESSED. Trump sounds the same way I sounded 35 years ago when I was broken and useless and ready to stop breathing. Each sentence seems to use up all the remaining soul and spirit.
Maybe he considers this to be a dignified speaking style. No matter what he considers, it's exactly the wrong intonation and prosody for a president who wants to ENCOURAGE and STRENGTHEN a nation.
Compare with FDR's second fireside chat. It's a good comparison because both men are New Yorkers and both are speaking about infrastructure projects. FDR was a clumsy writer and unaccustomed to radio, but his voice carries a resonant ring of CONFIDENCE, and his sentence intonations push us UPWARD instead of DOWNWARD.
Trump's intonation says "The only thing we have to fear is missing the bridge railing."
Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Constants and Variables
¶ 4:52 PM
