See the bunny? See the flowers?
How do you negotiate with Trump, they wonder. How do you break it down into small enough bits that he’ll be able to understand? How do you get him to focus?
Maybe brightly colored cards will help?
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, came to Washington to try to persuade President Trump to stop his trade war with the European Union. Juncker’s approach, reports The Wall Street Journal, involved dumbing the material down just short of the point of using finger puppets to explain what “trade” means:
Backing up his points, Mr. Juncker flipped through more than a dozen colorful cue cards with simplified explainers, the senior EU official said. Each card had at most three figures about a specific topic, such as trade in cars or standards for medical devices.
“We knew this wasn’t an academic seminar,” the EU official said. “It had to be very simple.”
By “academic seminar” he of course means “at an adult level with someone intelligent enough to follow.” By “it had to be very simple” he of course means “had to be so basic that a child in nursery school could grasp it.”
Due no doubt to some odd brain wiring of mine, when I read your lead in, I started trying to fit it to the tune of “How Do You Solve The Problem Of Maria?” from Sound of Music. It doesn’t scan right, though. But there’s probably a filk along those lines begging to be written.
(It doesn’t help that that song is forever mixed up in my head with the Mad Magazine spoof of it).
How do you solve a problem like our Donnie?
How do you make things simple enough for him?
How do you find the words to say to Donnie?
Keep them monosyllabic and make it all about him.
Many a thing you’d like to tell him,
Many a thing he doesn’t understand.
You don’t have to change the lyrics in this stanza…
*…you know you’d like to tell him
Steve #1: I think I was writing my post while you were writing yours.
Ha! Now that’s a snap.
Randy Rainbow beat us all to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=580dYcYCneA
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/2016914981660286/?type=3&theater