TRUMP SOUNDS OFF

The cool thing about human beings is that they know what they know. Stop asking how they know, they just do, okay?

Take language, for instance. Humans use words for pretty much everything except transporting knowledge from one head to another.

Donald Trump, for example, has recently made noises (or, if you prefer, said "words") that suggest he is about to soften his position on illegal immigration.

From the beginning he has said all eleven million illegals in the country would have to go, presumably launched off the top of the Wall into Mexico (thus destroying that country's evil plan to send us their criminals and rapists and so on).

Now he may be about to announce what might be called (though not by Trump) a path to citizenship.

Flip-flopping?

Not at all, says one of Trump's spokespersons. The man is merely adjusting the words being used.

Words, of course, have no intrinsic meaning, especially for politicians. Those folks can fiddle with their mouth-noises endlessly, sounding off for hours at a time, all without incurring the worst of all epithets: flip-flopper.

In politics, decisiveness is all.

Remember George H. W. Bush? "Read my lips," he said. "No new taxes." Having to raise taxes anyway might have cost him a second term, even after kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

But don't worry, Trump is sitting pretty. He still has lots of words he can twist this way and that to get to where he needs to be without actually flip-flopping on anything. (Where he needs to be is in the White House.)

Notice, Trump does not back up. He doubles-down. Maybe you heard him wrong in the first place. Maybe you didn't get that he was joking. Maybe you're the source of all his problems, you with your stupid ears.

And if the meaning of words is up for grabs, maybe the meaning of meaning will be next. When politicians are forced to answer questions, it's not precisely clear they think "meaning stuff" is even necessary.

The first casualty of any press conference is the concept of "question" itself. When you ask a politician to address a particular issue, he sees this as an opportunity to sound off about whatever is on his mind. Relevancy is an illusion when the Great Man is speaking. He says what he wants people to hear, regardless of the question asked. He's a professional; he stays on point.

Recently Trump announced Hillary Clinton was a bigot. He says she has no interest in minorities except as votes she needs to get into office.

And he knows this because...

Okay, there's really no way we'll ever find out how he came to know what he knows about Hillary. He just knows, okay? Stop pestering the man!

Yesterday, talking about the "alt-right" Internet scene, Trump assured the interviewer Hillary knew nothing about it. Where did he come by that nugget of knowledge?

Easy!

Proper human beings can see right inside the heads of other humans. As a consequence, folks know the hidden agendas of all their friends and enemies. In fact, they know you better than you know yourself.

Trump knows all of Hillary's secret plans for America (like deleting the Second Amendment). And it's his job to inform an unsuspecting people what they're in for.

Never mind how he found out.

The man knows what he knows, and he's going to sound off about it. Pay no attention to the words he uses. Properly handled, they aren't even words. Just noises of disapproval you can interpret any way want—so long as you end up voting for Trump.

That's the not-so-secret meaning of all his words.