The Atlantic

Why Trump Uses Mock Spanish

The real reason the president says words such as <em>loco</em> and<em> hombres</em>
Source: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

When Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that Democrats “have gone absolutely ‘Loco,’” the most surprising thing about it was that he had never called anyone loco on Twitter before.

There was a time last fall when Trump couldn’t using the Spanish loanword for in speeches and interviews. As the database of presidential statements reveals, from late September to early November, Trump used at no fewer than 10 different events. Most of the time it appeared in his rambling stump speeches supporting Republicans in the midterm elections. He

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Most Consequential Recent First Lady
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The most consequential first lady of modern times was Melania Trump. I know, I know. We are supposed to believe it was Hillary Clinton, with her unbaked cookies
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related Books & Audiobooks