Trump Speaks at Fourth-Grade Level

22 Mar, 2016 by Dave Blount

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Trump has proclaimed that he loves “the poorly educated,” and many have noticed that his campaign resonates with the cognitively disadvantaged, so this should come as no surprise:

Donald Trump connects with voters by using simple, commanding language that even a fourth-grader could understand, a report says — and the style has been so successful that his competitors are copying it.

“To his supporters, Trump’s style is refreshingly direct,” Wired magazine’s Chelsea Coe writes, noting that a commonly used formula for assessing reading skills shows the GOP front-runner consistently speaking at a fourth-grade level.

“From a linguistic point of view, it turns out, part of the trick is not to assume a high level of literacy.”

This is among the many ways in which the Donald has placed his stamp upon our political discourse.

The same Wired analysis shows the language of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio decreasing in reading level as the debates wore on.

Cruz’s language gradually decreased in complexity, starting out at almost 10th grade for the first two debates, in August and September, then falling to just above eighth grade by February and early this month.

Rubio began debating on an eighth-grade level, but dropped at the ninth debate, on Feb. 13, the first time he went on the attack against Trump.

As for the spoiler campaign of Trump-enabling liberal gadfly John Kasich,

John Kasich has hovered between a sixth- and seventh-grade level, the analysis showed.

Coming next after Trump: a candidate who whips angry mobs into a frenzy by brandishing a rattle and shouting about poo-poo.

George Washington’s farewell address featured a graduate-level degree of linguistic complexity. We have come a long way. Too bad it was in the wrong direction.