Less Is More: President Trump's Syria Strike Speech

Yesterday, President Donald Trump gave a brief speech announcing his decision to retaliate against Syria for its chemical warfare attack, which occurred during the Syrian civil war. Now, I am no foreign policy expert and I make no statement pro or con the President's decision. Let's just look briefly at the speech.

In contrast to some of his more bombastic offerings, Trump used measured language. He did call Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a "dictator" and referred to the "innocent civilians" who were killed.  He commented that "No child of god should ever suffer such horror." He referred to the United States "vital security interest" to "deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." He expressed confidence that Syria did, in fact, use prohibited chemical weapons, and explained the illegality of their use.to further justify the retaliation, Trump explained that peaceful attempts to change Assad's behavior had failed "very dramatically." The listener will note that Trump referred to Assad's behavior, personalizing the issue, and not to the Syrian government. He called on all "civilized nations" to bring peace to Syria and to end terrorism. He ended with a brief prayer and reasserted the United States' commitment to justice and peace.

Donald Trump, WH photo

The speech's organizational pattern was quite straightforward: an evil deed was done, the guilty party was identified, a specific military action was justified, and the nations of the world should join with God to bring peace. Quite classic.

A feature of Trump's style came through strongly: Trump relies on adjectives and adverbs:

"...a slow and brutal death."
". . . beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack."
"...we face the challenge of our very troubled world."
"Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically."
"innocent civilians"
"civilized nations"
"such horror"
"vital security interest"

Most modern writers avoid adjectives and adverbs. A friend of mine, a very good writer, says that if you need an adverb, it means that you used the wrong verb. Still, the style seems to work for Trump, as he speaks this way often.

The speech's brevity was part of the point. If the cause has already made itself obvious, a long speech is unneeded. Speech students are taught that a short speech is harder to create than a long one. One must reduce the proof down to the basics in order to give a short speech. It's harder than it sounds.

N.B.: the transcript uses some British spelling. Is this an transcribing error? Or is Trump an Anglophile? We'll see.