Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.
In this post, which appears on Bill Moyers’ website, Gitlin analyzes Donald Trump’s unusual use of grammar, syntax, and logic, as illustrated in the recent interview in TIME magazine.
Gitlin’s lucid inquiry leads him to ask: “Is Donald Trump the heir of generations of avant-garde poetry?”
One can only imagine the dissertations that will be written in the coming years:
“The Semiotics of Donald Trump”
“The Hermeneutics of Donald Trump”
“The Epistemology of Donald Trump”
And that’s only the English Department and Department of Literature!
Just imagine the dissertations in the fields of politics, history, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, black studies, criminal justice, women’s studies, international relations, business, even art. Will there be a field of study untouched by him?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am not as prone to giving Drumpf so much academic credit but would be more inclned to entitle a dissertation….
Post Stroke, Current Dementia, Coupled with Ignorance and Greed…the Many Failings of Donald Trump.
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Also very puffy eyelids.
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I read the Moyers post last night and laughed out loud, recalling my first encounter with the poetry of Gertrude Stein and poetry without punctuation or line-breaks that made sense.
I think you are on to something about the dissertations that are sure to follow, except for the logic of your inital taxonomy of possibilities. It is too lit-centric.
Trump’s reliance on Steve Bannon for a hint of theory to support the Trump’s agenda is certain to spawn intellectual work–even if there is no one left who might appreciate it. Bannon had the audacity to assert the Trump/Bannon agenda in a speech at the Conservative Political Action conference. Trump/Bannon will pursue; (a) economic (and cultural) nationalism, (b) “deconstruction of the administrative state,” and (c) freedom FROM the press, the lying press.
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Too bad the Trump voters didn’t read the footnotes about what Trump and company really represent. I hope all the chaos and scandals will tie them up so they cannot dismantle any more functions of government.
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Knowing English Departments, I would bet that some of these dissertations have already been written.
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I think a lot of it is just a result of the referred medium of expression: Twitter.
It’s called Twitter for a reason and it is certainly not confined to Trump.
And like the birds that it mimics, it does not exactly encourage eloquent expression or even coherent thought.
Some day, if humans survive, they will undoubtedly refer to the Twitter Age (or perhaps Age of Twits) when human expression temporarily (hopefully) relapsed to the grunts and farts of cavemen sitting around their campfires shooting the breeze.
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I’d go with the “Age of Twits and Snits”.
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Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:
Every time I listen to or read about some of his interviews, all I can think of is “word salad.” It comes very close to word salad. This is often a sign of mental or neurological problems. Including dementia.
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Two quotable gems from the link within this article:
“Trump has moved the sign system of modern capitalism toward a whole new capitalist art form — the free-floating name that describes nothing. Trump has peeled language away from meaning…”
“We are expected to live in an alternative universe which is not only post-truth but altogether post-language and post-meaning. Any journalist, any talking head, any pundit, any commentator, any politician who pretends that Donald Trump makes sense has volunteered to go to work in the tailor shop where his invisible clothes are weaved.”
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Acute late-stage narcissistic logorrhea…
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