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Donald Trump’s coronavirus word choice and how it correlates with his effectiveness as a leader

Revered and adored by some, yet detested by just as many, the White House’s current resident, Mr. Donald J. Trump is notorious for his loosely censored, forthright and brash verbal skills. For this 70-something, it seems to be difficult to deliver speeches about sensitive topics without a heavy dose of blatant insensitivity (at least towards certain demographics). At this point I’m stating the obvious, but less apparent to the naked eye is how deliberate and subsequently effective “The Donald’s” speech patterns have proven to be. Our current COVID-19 dilemma is one of the many times President Trump has exemplified his brand of effective leadership through word choice. 

In a country like The United States, power is obtained through voter support. Essentially, the more people that are in favor of a candidate, the more power he/she is able to obtain. While this is a gross simplification of democracy, the sheer importance of popularity and public support cannot be downplayed. Popularity and therefore effective leadership by a president is oftentimes solely reliant on their verbal skills. Politicians are thus known for their meticulously crafted speeches, often enlisting teams of experts to help them concoct an algorithmically perfect way to address the masses. 

For Donald Trump, voter loyalty is seen in the form of a niche, yet exponentially growing proportion of conservatives; a more or less xenophobic, isolationist proportion of conservatives at that. As a leader, the current president relies [at times, solely,] on appealing to a demographic of people united by a fear of, or even overall dislike of, immigrants and globalization. Alas, in his coronavirus crisis response this past week, effective leadership for this president is seen in his verbal declaration of blame for a group of people his voters love to hate: the Chinese. As the president knows that his supporters would be pleased to hear him pin responsibility on an ethnic group separate from their own, his latest deliberately-worded speeches assign blame to the Chinese for introducing a disease to the American soil. Although it sounds like a minor phonetic change, dubbing the pandemic’s centripetal force the “Chinese Virus” or “Chinese Illness” instead of its actual name, Coronavirus, accomplishes more for Donald Trump than just saving him a syllable. The same voters that smirked at Donald Trump’s restriction of Chinese student and scholar visas just got their China-phobic egos stroked a little more, and Donald Trump just solidified a few more re-election votes. 

Just as popularity is obtained by delivering a favorable speech, a U.S. President’s words can also be the thing that decreases their popularity ratings. For President Donald Trump, gaining loyalty from a certain group of voters often results in simultaneously gaining disapproval from another. While certain demographics [that I need not profile] are often excited by what can easily be interpreted xenophobic, mild hatespeech, other demographics are deeply unsettled by it. In terms of effective leadership, a forthright individual such as Mr. Trump has mastered it from the perspective of one proportion, and failed tragically in the eyes of another. As Trump’s “Chinese Virus” verbiage circulates through U.S. news organizations, a climate of increased intolerance towards Asian-Americans makes it that much harder for a voter from this ethnic group to even consider supporting such a leader. A hatred for President Donald Trump from those who are (or know, or love,) an American of Chinese descent or origin, burns stronger and brighter than his ability to lead them.