How Trump is actually making America smart again
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Donald Trump’s approach to domestic and foreign policy has made Americans more interested in politics and citizens are searching for popular policy terms online saying that they need to better understand politicians.
Donald Trump could actually make America more politically smart since a recent study commissioned by Dictionary.com shows that users think they should better understand the words politicians use in their discourses. According to USA Today, 33% of respondents said that since election, their vocabulary has expanded.
Also 58% of both Democrats and Republicans agree they are more informed now about current events compared with November, the poll suggests.
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“It’s fascinating to see a direct connection between words used by and about politicians and the words that resonate with our users in response to newsworthy events,” said Dictionary.com CEO Liz McMillan. “These findings are indicative of the impact that the current political discourse has on every day Americans – and in a positive way, as Americans now appear to be more critical of language used and are expanding their vocabularies.”
The poll suggests that Millennials and Democrats are leading the way when it comes to learning more.
The words that got the most traction form online users that were trying to get better informed were: alt-right, bigly, executive order, xenophobic, misogynist, fascism, filibuster, populist and schadenfreude.
The same spike in researching words said by politicians has been observed during the campaign and also, during President Trump’s inauguration. According to Dictionary.com, users started search for the meaning of carnage, ravage, eradicate and solidarity. Also, inauguration and inaugurate were the top lookups throughout the morning, and chorale made it into the top ten as the Missouri State University Chorale was performing.
When Ivanka Trump’s interview with “CBS This Morning” aired, people started looking up the meaning for the word “complicit”.
The fact that Americans are starting to research key political terms and even historic events has not escaped late night talk show hosts. When Trump accepted a phone call form Taiwan’s president, the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah suggested, in a comedy bit, that Americans are reading up on the country’s complicated relationship with China.
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