What does "There is no there there" mean?

Yes, when someone says that there is nothing at a location. Like most of Kansas.

It means the place is desolate.

I don’t know if it is a legitimate use, but I have used the phrase to refer to a person who is lacking any core values, like Trump.

I heard it yesterday in passing from someone who could have been talking politics.

@LostInParadise I wouldn’t use it in that way. I would, however, use it to describe a stupid person.

As the link said, it is a quote of Gertrude Stein. It meant her childhood home was no longer.

It has been appropriated to mean there is no substance in a person, place, or thing.

@Hawaii_Jake Stupid in whose eyes though? The Trump people think that the anti Trump ones are stupid and vise versa.

@flo That’s up to each individual. I have ideas of what stupid means to me, and other people have their own definitions. We each get to decide.

@zenvelo has added something important. This quote is used to describe a lack of substance. That can be determined in many ways. It is possible for a very rich person to have little substance intellectually. It is also possible for someone to be very rich in personality but very poor monetarily.

@Hawaii_Jake That’s my point.

@flo Of course it’s a statement of personal opinion and highly subjective. I don’t see what you are finding so hard to understand once it’s been defined quite well by the wiki article and others here.

Sounds a bit like what the definition if “is” is.

It may be legit but sounds bit strange.

Sheesh. I was working on something with There, they’re and their.

It’s a beautiful poetic summary of a sad realization.
You can never go back to there.
There is an ephemeral thing that only exists for a moment.

@LuckyGuy They’re there. It’s their there.

I’m sure I don’t know know.

I like @Blueroses’ definition

The first time I encountered the phrase, it was on a postcard of a guy standing up to his ankles in ocean water at the beach looking at a map of Los Angeles. The point of that was that LA is incoherent and there is no definable center.

There’s an error. “They’re” should be “their.”

@Blueroses i like yours better.

@Blueroses I think you nailed it. Reminds me of a Beatles song: Golden Slumbers lyric “Once there was a way to get back home again…...” Ephemeral, poetic…

KANSAS IS THERE!!!

Sounds to me like they may have been discussing sentence structure.