What good is philology if it does not attune our ears to even slight distortions of language?
In accepting the Republican nomination for Senator from Ohio, J. D. Vance thanked Donald Trump for his endorsement. He referred to him as the 45th, then paused for a heartbeat before continuing, “the president of the United States.”
Note the insidious article, the. It’s not an accident. It makes Trump not just the 45th president, but the president right now. We get it. The poor guy was the victim of fraud. If the system were just he would still be president. Let’s call him that.
It’s a minimal exploitation of our language, but it recapitulates the self-prostitution Vance had to perform to get Trump’s endorsement, affirming the lie, that Trump really had won in 2020. Just a little lie; just a little prostitution.
PS Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy is terrific, funny, incisive, moving – until his grandmother dies. She was the emotional support and moral center of Vance’s early life. After her death the story spirals downward, and maybe Vance does, too.
In accepting the Republican nomination for Senator from Ohio, J. D. Vance thanked Donald Trump for his endorsement. He referred to him as the 45th, then paused for a heartbeat before continuing, “the president of the United States.”
Note the insidious article, the. It’s not an accident. It makes Trump not just the 45th president, but the president right now. We get it. The poor guy was the victim of fraud. If the system were just he would still be president. Let’s call him that.
It’s a minimal exploitation of our language, but it recapitulates the self-prostitution Vance had to perform to get Trump’s endorsement, affirming the lie, that Trump really had won in 2020. Just a little lie; just a little prostitution.
PS Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy is terrific, funny, incisive, moving – until his grandmother dies. She was the emotional support and moral center of Vance’s early life. After her death the story spirals downward, and maybe Vance does, too.