American prof in Paris blasts Trump for 'rambling incoherence'

A professor at the American University of Paris claims President Trump is “inaudible” and “impossible to understand,” and argues that people should not bother to listen.

“Listening to Donald Trump” was written by Steven Ekovich and published in the March issue of the journal of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, an academic journal headquartered at the University of Connecticut. 

Ekovich alleges that Trump is “inaudible” except when reading prepared remarks, declaring that “when he is not reading from a teleprompter his frequent rambling incoherence and lexical miasma, built on a limited and predictable repertoire of beginner’s English, renders comprehension difficult, even impossible.”

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Ekovich does not offer any strategies for better comprehending the president’s elocution, instead encouraging his readers to ignore Trump completely, saying “it is now generally recognized [as] necessary to wait for truly official restatements in order to divine actual policy,” rather than trying to interpret Trump’s pronouncements.

“Consequently, even when Donald Trump emerges from his verbal hash he is still inaudible. The translation rule becomes: Do not listen to the president, listen to his cabinet and his advisors,” Ekovich writes, going on to call Trump a “a flawed character with questionable values.” 

He also argues that Trump is “empty” of all the characteristics that have—up until now, at least—defined “all other U.S. presidents.” 

“When the president’s voice is inaudible, or at least muffled, the desk in the Oval Office is essentially empty,” Ekovich says, elaborating that Trump “has demonstrated that longstanding democratic institutions and an administrative state dedicated to good governance can function quite well with an empty center.” 

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The article was published in a special issue of the journal dedicated to “Translating Trump,” which also featured articles such as “On the Perils of Translating Men in Power,” “Humpty-Trumpty,” “Translating Cats and Cowards” and “American Nightmare.” 

When reached for comment by Campus Reform, Ekovich asserted that the article was prompted by a request from one of the editors at the journal of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. 

“The biggest takeaway is that any president is hemmed in by institutions, whether governmental or social/cultural,” he noted. “Even a president who may want to engage in a radical shakeup bumps up against these institutions and can go only so far. The American Founders planned it this way.”

When asked for examples that could substantiate his claims regarding Trump’s incomprehensibility, however, Ekovich did not respond.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Toni_Airaksinen