The Scary Connection Between Donald Trump & Macbeth

As the Trump campaign’s self-implosion continues, and the candidate increasingly lashes out, many have pointed to historical parallels: Hitler in the bunker, Nixon at the height of Watergate.  But for me, the figure who comes to mind is not a politician but a literary character: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth, whose “vaulting ambition” led to murder, civil war, and his own eventual destruction. Now I’m not saying that Trump has murdered anyone (Don’t sue me, Donald!), but the parallels are there.

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What Donald Trump Has In Common With Fifth Graders And The Book of Genesis

Linguists have had a field day with Donald Trump. His speeches are geared for a fourth-grade reading level, with very few four-syllable words. He doesn’t use any complex sentence structures. His vocabulary is notoriously poor and centers around a few repetitive words such as "tremendous" and "problem." Most insidious of all, he ends his rambling nonsense with words such as "problem," "liars," and "losers"--which is what most of his viewers eventually take away from his speeches. I never thought I’d see a presidential candidate make Dubya look like an eloquent orator, but here we are.

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