Donald Trump, now in his glorious second term as President of the United States, has always had a way with words. Or perhaps just one word: Beautiful.
It is the adjective that keeps on giving. When he met Pakistan’s Army chief General (now Field Marshal) Asim Munir at the White House called him ‘a beautiful man’. When he bumped elbows with Narendra Modi, he declared him ‘a beautiful person’. And then there was his touching tribute to a new supporter in Congress: ‘Mega Beautiful Bill’. We presume that is mega as in Make English Great Again.
A big, fat, beautiful wall
It is not the first time President Trump’s affection for the word has blossomed like a rose garden press conference. He has used ‘beautiful’ for everything from North Korean missiles (‘They’re big, they’re powerful, and frankly, very beautiful’) to his border wall (‘It will be a big, fat, beautiful wall’). He even used it to describe ventilators during the pandemic. Medical-grade respirators, mind you. Not sunsets.
His vocabulary has range, just not in the way a dictionary might define it. Some have accused him of linguistic minimalism. Others believe he is leading a one-man war against the thesaurus. If George W. Bush mangled syntax and Joe Biden meandered through ellipses, President Trump has boiled the English language down to a single, shimmering adjective.
Can men be beautiful?
It begs the question: Can men be beautiful? In India, the age-old ‘Fair & Lovely’ face cream faced a masculinity crisis and was rebranded ‘Fair & Handsome’ – lest anyone confuse glowing skin with, well, unmanliness. But Trump is smashing gendered beauty norms one compliment at a time. A man’s man, calling other men beautiful – from generals to prime ministers – without a trace of irony. Or maybe with all of it.
It is hard to tell what he means. Is ‘beautiful’ a term of endearment? A placeholder for ‘I forgot your name’? A euphemism for ‘someone I might need soon’? When he calls someone ‘beautiful’, does it mean they will be indicted or knighted by Mar-a-Lago standards? The record is… beautiful in its inconsistency.
And yet, here we are, parsing the poetry of a man who once said, ‘I have the best words’. And in fairness, he does have one. If you ask him, that is more than enough. The Gettysburg Address had 272 words; President Trump’s vocabulary has one that counts.
Beautiful has a new definition
Perhaps, someday, the Oxford English Dictionary will define ‘beautiful’ simply as: ‘adj. Used by Donald Trump, 47th President of the United States, to describe any person, object, or concept he momentarily favours – duration of favour not guaranteed.
Until then, Modi, Munir, Mega Beautiful Bill – enjoy your moment in the beautiful sun. Tomorrow, he might be calling Kim Jong-un a gorgeous genius. Ah, the beautiful simplicity of it all.
