Donald Trump loves an adjective. He drops them in tweets like a sophomore who has just a word count standing between him and summer vacation. He uses “little” to undercut, as with Marco Rubio and Katy Tur. “Beautiful” describes things that shouldn’t be sexualized on the geopolitical stage, yet he manages to sexualize, like rockets and cake. The word “wonderful” is usually reserved for the doomed, the goners, and his children.

On Sunday he tweeted, “Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower.” He’s referring to a report by The Washington Post and others that claim when the cameras stop rolling, the president worries about the Mueller investigation’s attention on his son Don Jr.’s meeting with Russian operatives. He denies his concern because, per Trumpian logic, admitting that he’s concerned about his biggest boy would mean admitting that he has something to be concerned about. But the tweet itself is of a pattern, one that sets up an easily digestible wonderful-versus-bad dichotomy that he can apply to any and all situations.

The “wonderful” are also those who have died tragically, victims of unassailably bad things like opioid addiction and terror attacks and hurricanes. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wonderful” once, and we all know what happened to him (fired by tweet).

Ivanka is one of the few who get to be “wonderful” without any qualification, as in, “Happy birthday to my wonderful daughter, @IvankaTrump,” whereas Eric, like Don, is “wonderful” because it helps delineate the me-good/you-bad divide of whatever slight the president is nursing any given day. To wit: “My wonderful son, Eric, will no longer be allowed to raise money for children with cancer because of a possible conflict of interest with. . . .”

When Trump thinks something is wonderful, it’s because they are a victim of something bad—Puerto Rican people are wonderful and hurricanes are bad, or my sons are wonderful and ethics watchdogs are bad. “Wonderful” people are victims, per this Trumpian verbal tick. Marvelously, innocently, unambiguously wonderful. It’s a way for a man who must maintain a strong veneer to call his son powerless.