A WAY WITH THE WORD, A WAY WITH THE WORLD

ONALD Trump and Narendra Modi are not mere communicators; they are architects of the language of power.

- C P SURENDRAN

ONALD Trump and Narendra Modi are not mere communicators; they are architects of the language of power. A key ingredient in the construction of their personae is words they use. Or the words they don't use.

This column attempts to dissect their linguistic strategies—Trump's chaotic but breathless bluster and Modi's paused and polished control—revealing how they shape perceptions, consolidate authority, and evade accountability.

Trump's language is an assault on nuances, coherence, and truth. The world is binary, black and white. His is all white. The words he uses the most in the articulation of that world, according to Grok, are "great", "tremendous", "fake", "beautiful", "smart", and "deal".

For Trump, there are only two kinds of humans: winners and losers. The very limited edition of the Trump thesaurus implies these few words are magical in the sense that they are some kind of password to a treasure—if you stick with Trump, you will enter heaven. A heaven with a big border wall, big cars and bars, somewhat resembling Mar-a-Lago.

And indeed, if you stick with Trump, then all the negatives the Democrats associate with him become "fake news". In fact, it becomes positive. Please recall that in the social media-ised world, truth is what everybody is fighting for: their truth. Truth is no longer founded on facts. Truth is now a feeling.

Indeed, this age has granted so much leave to the idea of feeling that diversity, equity, and inclusion are now antithetical to the development of Trump's universe.