Our words matter. Is Trump stable enough to understand that?

If you want to know what spurs the division in our country today, look no further than the words being used by you and me as neighbors, our leaders in business, and civic organizations, and politicians, but especially by the president.

Words make a difference. There are a lot of them, and the ones we choose to use, paint little pictures in the minds of others who hear or read those words.

Let’s take “migrant caravan” for an example. Those words conjure up thoughts of a line of gypsy wagons coming to the county fair where they will mingle amongst the weekend crowd picking the pockets of the unsuspecting, and stealing chickens from the neighborhood backyard coops as we sleep.

What if we instead used the word “refugee caravan” to describe those Hondurans trudging across Mexico right now? That paints a mind picture of people fleeing a bad situation in search of a better one.

Different words; one set raises your blood pressure, sending signals to prepare your defenses, the other tugs at your heart and signals to prepare to help. One choice of words enlists you as a soldier in Uncle Sam’s Army; the other enlists you as soldier in the Salvation Army.

Then there is the word “relief” used to describe the billions being issued to farmers in the Midwest who are hurt by the trade war with China. Money intended to make them whole? What if we called it “welfare payments” instead, government handouts to people in need? Or what if we called it “bribery” to keep the farmers vote? OMG, three entirely different mind pictures.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

The point is, words trigger thoughts, and how they are put into context with other words deeply influence our emotions. Some combinations trigger fear, others trigger confidence; some make things feel hopeless, others hopeful.

President Donald Trump rages about fake news from the mainstream media. If you look closely, his anger should not be pointed at the words written or uttered by the news reporters who honor their profession as journalists to faithfully quote the exact words spoken by the people they report on.

If the president utters something that is not factually correct or incomplete, it’s by definition “fake” and the mainstream news is obligated to point out the fallacy of the statement. That’s being truthful, and that’s what our democracy requires when reporting on the president.

If reporting exactly what he says and fact-checking bothers him, he should be careful about what he says or twitters. If he wants favorable coverage he should lie less, tell the truth and the coverage will improve. He should stop trying to deflect his poor choice of words, own them, and stop wanting to be a victim. Paranoia?

As highly educated and intelligent as he claims to be, he knows exactly what public reactions will be to his words, including inciting bomb makers and white supremacists.

You can see that he knows by comparing the difference in his enthusiasm in a press conference urging civility versus his enthusiasm in a political rally urging his mob to “lock her up.” Schizophrenia?

Trump is not innocent, he owns the division in America, and I don’t think he cares. Facts be damned! What he cares about is throwing out words that generate his name in another TV news program with a video included. Narcissism?

Repeatedly, those videos show exactly what Trump said, he complains when the fact checking shows that he lies, and then he whines about the reporting. It’s like “Groundhog Day” set to continuous loop. Insanity?

Given the when, where, and how he delivers the words he knowingly chooses to use, we should be deeply concerned about the psychological health and overall competency of our president.

This story was originally published October 29, 2018 at 11:18 AM.