The American Scene Part III: POLITICAL LANGUAGE
Sticks and Stones: The Power of Political Words
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Reversing the second half captures some sense of the current presidential “race,” now rapidly devolving into “adults” (hmmm?!) trading schoolyard taunts. It’s said, “the one with the best story wins.” But which one “worked” is only revealed after voters go to the polls. Till then, news feed algorithms keep delivering more of what we’ve clicked on before, and we find ourselves with a slanted echo chamber view of what’s going on.
Language-Games in Politics: Malleable Words and Shifting Narratives
English is an odd language, full of words that sound similar but have different meanings and connotations, that can be subject to misinterpretation. And campaign language/words take that to extremes, become even more malleable, like quicksilver shimmering away when we try to grasp. As the BeeGees sang, “It’s only words and words are all I have to steal your heart [vote] away. And throw in a variant on “Lies, damn lies, and statistics” (Mark Twain credited to British PM Benjamin Disraeli) substituting politics for the final word. Like numbers, words can be made to show anything you want, just need to convince enough folks to believe. And, of course, in politics there’s never just a single story. Multiple voices and POVs join in a kind of dissonant Greek chorus, and even more so in the digital age. We hear not just from candidates and their teams and surrogates. We also receive fundraising texts, and communications from cadres of pundit-provocateurs on both sides. A quote from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein strikes me as both relevant and instructive: “If we imagine the facts otherwise than as they are, certain language-games lose some of their importance, while others become important…..When language-games change, then there is a change of concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein. On Certainty in Major Works. Harper Perennial. C2009). If politics is the ultimate language-game, I wonder what he’d have made of spurious “Alternate Truths” manipulations.
Echo Chambers and Alternate Truths: Who’s Shaping the Story?
Expect political campaigns to make it up as they go and to predict dire consequences if they don’t prevail. But what we’re seeing this time seems to take that to the extremes. The ex-president has remained constant, sticking with habits established throughout his personal and political life. “He’s demonized his political opponents as ‘animals,’ ‘scum’, and ‘vermin.’ He’s [called] for jailing his opponents without cause and forcing them to stand before military tribunals.” Lock ‘em up! “He speaks of a ‘bloodbath’ that will occur if he loses the election.” (Gil Duran and George Lakoff. Donald Trump and the language of violence. Framelab. July 14, 2024). And this intersects with a history of apparently view the world from within his own echo chamber. John Bolton, his former National Security Advisor, doesn’t think the ex-president “knows when he is lying and doesn’t really care.” (David Gardner. Trump ‘Can’t Tell’ If What He Says Is True or False Says Former Advisor. Daily Beast. August 9, 2024.). “He makes up what he wants to say at any given time.” And “If it happens to comport with what everybody else sees. Well, that’s fine. And if it doesn’t comport with anybody else, he doesn’t really care, and he’s had decades of getting away with it.” So, in his mind, the truth “is whatever he wants it to be.”
The Rhetoric of Fear: Extreme Language in Campaigns
The former president also has a habit of claiming that “those who stand in his way shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to run for office. Kamala Harris has now joined the list.” (Steve Benen. Trump says Harris shouldn’t be ‘allowed to run,’ recycling weird claim. MSNBC. July 25., 2024). The list already included Hillary Clinton (2015); Ted Cruz (2016); John Kasich (2016); Joe Biden (2020). Apparently, he’s never given reasons, only making vague claims of criminal activity and corruption. And never forget Obama and birther claims. Meanwhile, since the change of candidates, the other campaign and supporters have struggled to reboot. And we’ve heard a whole lot of whining and outrage that seems to imply this is a new kind of dirty political trick. Not fair. Changing the rules. Not legal. It was a coup. Bring back Biden! Only supporting Harris because of her ethnic background. Can’t be president because she doesn’t have kids. She doesn’t speak well and doesn’t work hard. (Igor Bobic. All the Ways the Right Is Melting Down over Kamala Harris. Huffpost. July 22, 2024). And what about her gender, her mixed-race and immigrant heritage?
Who’s Allowed to Run? The Battle Over Political Legitimacy
But the Democrats have surprised by deftly managing to reboot. The often-fractious party has pulled together behind the V-P and changed tactics too. Long known for trying to shrug off attacks and not respond. Slogan: “When they go low, we go high.” But this time we’ve seen a segue to “When they go low, we go with the flow.” Democratic pundit James Carville said, “One of the things you hear from folks is that Democrats are not known to fight, they do not project strength.” He was optimistic that Harris and Walz could “project strength and style and substance.” Democratic strategies Antjuan Seawright, “We saw what happened when we let them define us. Now, we define their messaging about us.” She thinks this reflects a generational shift, less focused on civility and more on mixing it up. Carville said there’s been “no discussion among anybody about going high. That’s a luxury we may have some time in the future, but we certainly don’t have now.” (Irie Sentner. ‘When they go low, we go with the flow’: Dems ramp up attacks on Trump. Politico. August 17, 2024). Pushback has often come in the form of ridicule and humor, labeling the opposition “weird” and “creepy.” This approach is sparking memes on social media. But while it’s probably an effective short-term strategy, I wonder if general lowering of the tone is good for the country in the long run.
Talking Back: The Democrats’ New Strategy
So, how’s the campaign going at this point? Non-partisan The Hill website published a pointed and cutting opinion critique of the ex-President’s “lack of discipline” and “continuing to run as a reality TV candidate.” Winning elections requires “focus on a few winning issues and attack lines.” The reality TV mindset, in contrast, [needs] “new [and different] content to keep people tuning in. And “[This] plays out in his rallies, where he gets huge applause for his insult comic routine. But reality TV is not real life…cannot win with just the rally vote. It’s worth noting, the best audience his [show] did was 12 million viewers in Season One, which diminished every year after. Kind of sounds like [his] political career.” (Keith Naughton, opinion contributor. 10 Ways Trump Is Throwing Away The Election. The Hill. August 16, 2024.)
Dissecting Campaigns: The Reality TV Candidate vs. the Real World
The Lincoln Project (lincolnproject.us) represents the most prominent example of non-Trump Republicans. Slogan: “We’re here to stop Trump, break MAGA, and save America. Are you in?” While iconic GOP pollster Frank Luntz may not have quite defected, he’s all over the media expressing his dissatisfaction. He’s suggested a change in strategy: “Ask the V-P one thing she has accomplished in that role.” But he doesn’t believe the ex-president is capable of making that his core case. (William Vaillaincourt. Pollster Gives Donald Trump 10-Word Question to Beat Kamala Harris. Newsweek. August 3, 2024; updated August 5, 2024.). Luntz also sees gender-based attacks as a mistake driving a gender gap in the election. (Filip Timotija. GOP pollster Frank Luntz: Trump driving gender gap among voters with insults. The Hill. August 17, 2024). He sees the V-P “riding a surge of enthusiasm…and bringing in people uninterested in supporting…either [of the other candidates]….has changed the pool of voters who will decide the election. If trends continue…they may not only win the presidency and retake the House, but also cling on to the Senate…” (Nicholas Liu. ‘I haven’t seen anything like this: GOP pollster says Harris took massive ‘advantage’ from Trump. Yahoo! News. August 15, 2024.)
Can We Break the Name-Calling Habit? A Vision for the Future
Speaking of visions for the future, I like to hope we can do better. That the majority of Americans have grown weary of overwrought and mean-spirited politics. Perhaps this election might help desensitize us, as in reduce the effects of allergies. That we can become more mindful of impacts our words can have. “For so long, the free speech debate has been built upon an incoherent premise: that speech is powerful enough to solve social ills but can’t inflict as much damage as a fist.” (Kevin Litman-Lavaro. Wittgenstein on Whether Speech is Violence. JSTOR. August 30, 2017). But “when people say they do experience language as violence, it’s not because they’ve confused speech with physical assault; it’s because the language-game in which the speech-act takes place is different.” And perhaps together we might just start to change and elevate/improve the ways we talk to and about each other.