Trump mocks South Korean and Japanese accents
Trump at a couple of fundraisers in the Hamptons yesterday:
Trump was feted at two big-money fundraisers — first a lunch for 60 hosted by real estate guru Stephen Ross, whose company owns Equinox and Soul Cycle. Then Trump talked for an hour to a crowd of 500 at the sprawling Bridgehampton home of developer Joe Farrell. The two events raised a total of $12 million.
After Equinox members revolted over Ross’ fundraising for the president, with many threatening to cancel memberships, Trump said he had joked with Ross about how divided the nation is.
Noting the relentless attacks on himself by the media, Trump quipped, “Steve Ross got into a little bit of trouble this week, I said, ‘Steve welcome to the world of politics!’ ”
Haw haw, hee hee. It’s all hilarious. Best joke ever.
Trump also made fun of US allies South Korea, Japan and the European Union — mimicking Japanese and Korean accents — and talked about his love of dictators Kim Jong Un and the current ruler of Saudi Arabia.
He started by saying how the EU had not paid its share to NATO and he insisted it does so.
Talking about South Korea, Trump said it makes great TVs and has a thriving economy, “So why are we paying for their defense. They’ve got to pay.” He then mimicked the accent of the leader Moon Jae-in while describing how he caved in to Trump’s tough negotiations.
On his remarkable friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, “I just got a beautiful letter from him this week. We are friends. People say he only smiles when he sees me.
“If I hadn’t been elected president we would be in a big fat juicy war with North Korea.”
Turning to Japan, Trump then put on a fake Japanese accent to recount his conversations with Shinzo Abe over their conversations over trade tariffs.
This from a guy with a broad Queens accent. I’m sure he’d love it if, say, Anderson Cooper made fun of that. And that’s speaking his own language – the only one he knows. All 300 words of it.
Holy shit. I can hardly stand hearing him talk for thirty seconds. I can’t imagine listening to that idiot for a whole fucking hour.
I’ll take Vogon poetry any day.
I don’t understand your fixation on Trump’s accent. Trump is indeed an inarticulate, grating, ineloquent, and loathsome human being, but that has exactly nothing to do with his accent.
His accent is not a mark of his poor education or of his provincialism. (Although I agree that he’s a poorly educated provincial.) It’s only a mark of where he grew up and who he grew up around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUGT30gGtiI
Is it really a fixation? I mention it now and then but I don’t know if it’s a fixation.
Anyway, there are a few reasons. There’s the reason here, for one: he’s jeering at people who, unlike him, are speaking a second (or third or whatever it may be) language. He’s jeering at an accent so I’m dishing it back to him. The other reasons are related – to do with his constant bragging about his golden shoelaces etc etc etc, his vulgar insults aimed at everyone else, and so on.
I’m not convinced that his retained Queens accent is not at all a mark of his provincialism. I think childhood accents do tend to morph over time if the adult lives other places, knows a lot of people from other places, is exposed to a lot of other accents via media, and so on.
Also, plenty of adults can retain their childhood accents, or a moderated version of them, while also being able to code-switch. Trump is incapable of any form of code-switching, which is related to his catastrophically bad theory of mind. I think that matters in a person in his job.
He has a broad Queens accent, but his pronunciation of many words is just weird. It probably has something to do with the strange way he contorts his mouth when speaking; the grimaces; the ‘O’ shape; the pouty lip; the disjointed syllable-by-syllable struggle with ‘big’ words. He really is painful to listen to.
Which is not necessarily the case with all people from Queens, so, yeah, it’s not his accent so much, it’s his way of utilizing words. But he does have that nasty habit of mocking accents in other people…
I agree completely. He’s horrible to listen to.
But he’s hardly the first modern president with a regional accent. (JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and W all had regional accents. And if Bernie becomes president, we’ll add him to the list.) Having (or retaining) a regional accent is not an indication of provincialism or rigidity or stupidity.
Trump’s accent is no more inherently make-fun-of-able than Clinton’s. Or mine. Or yours. (Whoever you are.)
I didn’t say he was the first modern president with a regional accent. I didn’t say having (or retaining) a regional accent is an indication of provincialism or rigidity or stupidity. I didn’t say Trump’s accent is more inherently make-fun-of-able than Clinton’s or yours or mine (whoever I am). I said the things I did say. I explained that in this particular post I said “This from a guy with a broad Queens accent. I’m sure he’d love it if, say, Anderson Cooper made fun of that” in response to his mocking of people who speak several languages when he himself can’t even speak one. Once in awhile I mention his accent for other reasons, or to vent my frustration at his habit of insulting people for an infinite array of irrelevant reasons.
Meanwhile, I think JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton all have or had modified regional accents – still recognizable, but not as “pure” (so to speak) as they were at age 10 or so. As for W, his accent was fake.
To be fair, the Japanese accent is quite amusing. One of the very first things you learn in a Japanese class is how to speak Engrish. From Makudonarudo to Karuforunia, it’s massive fun for the students. It’s also an absolute necessity, since the Japanese use a lot of English words, and without familiarity with the accent, there’s no way you’ll understand them.
That said, I doubt Trump can manage a Japanese accent. It probably came out as some horrible mixture of Asian stereotypes.