Words & Phrases We Can Do Without

We've had more than our fill of Trump telling us about our “needs”

Donald Trump—who never saw anything he wouldn’t drench in gold and has acquired a fortune in questionable crypto-currency—now wants an Air Force One from Qatar that he can take with him when/if he leaves the White House. This man, who lives on multiple golf course estates and is as far removed from the realities of everyday Americans as he can be, refuses to stop telling other people what they “need.”

According to Trump, “baby” girls (which includes eleven-year-olds) do not need 30 dolls. They don’t need 250 pencils. Toy manufacturers, not to mention many children, beg to differ with his arbitrary caps on goods. He’s threatened to effectively ban Barbie dolls. The toy czar has spoken.

We have plunged far, far away from President Jimmy Carter, who was mocked for calling for the sacrifice of a couple of degrees on the thermostat. Kevin McCarthy, of all people, whined, “He told me that the best days were behind us, that as an American I had to accept less. That wasn’t how I was raised.” Instead of the party of capitalism, free markets, fiscal awareness, and abundance, the MAGA GOP has become stingy, Grinch-like commissars allocating rations to everybody who’s not a billionaire.

So much for Americans’ consumer-driven economy—and the entire retail industry. What Trump meant was: “Forget my ridiculous campaign promises. You all are going to suffer because my fixation with tariffs is going to make you poorer while I rake in billions.” Trump delights in turning victims of his unhinged policies into ingrates. That way, he can reclaim the mantle of being the victim of selfish, greedy Americans! Instead of the reality—that he is failing all of us—by his narrative, it is we who are failing the great leader.

Trump has a peculiar view of what the United States “needs.” The U.S. does not need anything from Canada (the largest purchaser of U.S. goods). Incoherently, even for him, he huffed: “We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market.” (Narrator: The United States is the world’s second-largest exporter.) Latin America? “They need us much more than we need them. We don’t need them. They need us—everybody needs us.”

Trump thinks of “need” as a sign of weakness, vulnerability, or dependence; conditions he loathes. Like all bullies and egomaniacs, he claims that “I alone can fix it,” and simply cannot grasp the concept of an interdependent world, mutually beneficial bilateral partnerships, and/or enduring alliances.

On the other hand, he invents things the U.S. “needs,” such as…Greenland (!). In March, he declared, “We need Greenland for national security and international security.” What’s more, “the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark. Denmark has to have us have Greenland.” (Narrator: Denmark says the U.S. is never getting Greenland.) To NBC’s Kristen Welker, he repeated, “We need Greenland very badly. True, Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that,” Trump said. “But we need that for international security.” Strangely, this “need” never manifested in Trump’s first term, nor has it been identified in our National Security Strategy.

And in yet another vein, Trump insists he does not need experts. He knows more about everything than anyone. He actively does not want to hear from people who know what they are talking about, nor does he want to put competent people in his Cabinet lest they contradict his bizarre impulses, hunches, conspiracy theories, and wackadoodle ideas. Forget the “best people.” He needs the worst people, i.e., the sycophantic anti-experts who would never dream of correcting or countering his blather.

Unfortunately for Trump, reporters keep asking him about things he does not know. He’s not a government-conscious human, so how could he possibly know if he is obligated to uphold the Constitution? He is not a lawyer, so how could we expect him to know if noncitizens have due process rights? He’s apparently never had to shop for groceries, so how would he know that you don’t need ID to do so? Weirdly, the guy who knows more about anything than everyone doesn’t know such basics.

Dictionary.com tells us that “need” means “a requirement, necessary duty, or obligation.” In other words, people dying of starvation or AIDS in undeveloped countries need USAID. Cancer patients need life-saving medical advances. And anyone in public office needs to follow the Constitution.

When Trump uses the word, he does not mean any of that. Instead, he deploys “need” or “don’t need” to camouflage his failures (tariffs), to shift blame (greedy kids!), to assert dominance (forget foreign purchasers), to defy expertise (no scientists required) and to translate his ridiculous whims into national imperatives (Greenland!).

In each case, his word choice conveys his inadequacies and errors. He cannot deliver on painless tariffs. He cannot force trading partners to bend to his will. He cannot match wits with experts who are competent in their fields. (It’s no wonder why dim Fox News TV hosts populate the Cabinet.) And he has yet to convince sane Americans that personal, nonsensical impulses should translate into national policy.

Since “need” in Trump’s usage has lost all meaning, we should dispense with it for the time being. Like all autocrats, he wants to tell us what we can and cannot have. We are not about to put up with that.

Instead, we need to vote his enablers out of office and begin to hold him accountable.