Every public speaking textbook tells speakers
to adapt to their audience. President Donald Trump did just that in his April
28, 2017 Atlanta speech to the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum. He
used the well-known speech method of polarization, as explained by radical
organizer Saul Alinsky. This tactic has served Mr. Trump well so far. Why
should he change now?
Trump understood his audience, and addressed
their ideas, fears, and solutions directly. That is, Mr. Trump said things that
his audience loved to hear, and which were part and parcel of standard pro-gun
rights doctrine. For example, he tied all gun control efforts to tyranny and
accused gun control advocates of trying to destroy the Second Amendment:
"Every day, we are up against those who would take away our freedoms,
restrict our liberties, and even those who want to abolish the Second
Amendment. We must be vigilant." Vigilance is, of course, a standard
conservative value.
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| Donald Trump at NRA, WH video |
Trump's audience would consider his frightening
warning to be familiar and true. A 2013 Fairleigh Dickinson poll found that 44%
of Republicans felt that an armed revolution might be necessary to protect
American freedom, and that over 30% of Republicans felt the government was
hiding information about the Sandy Hook shootings. Democrats were much less
likely to hold such beliefs. Many liberals would consider these views to be
absurd. This gives the polarizing speaker an opportunity. Trump was not talking
to liberals: he was polarizing. That is, he was only talking to the believers.
His method was to unite his very friendly audience against threats that
worried them. Liberals are probably only vaguely aware that most conservatives
consider guns to be basic to liberty. To the right wing, guns are essential.
During his speech, Mr. Trump talked about the
ride of Paul Revere. He tied American Revolutionary history to gun rights:
"Since the first generation of Americans stood strong at Concord, each
generation to follow has answered the call to defend freedom in their time.
That is why we are here today: To defend freedom for our children. To defend
the liberty of all Americans. And to defend the right of a free and sovereign
people to keep and bear arms." This is absolutely standard right-wing,
pro-gun rhetoric. The audience had heard all of this before, loved it when
Trump said it, and responded enthusiastically to it. Mr. Trump's position is
debatable historically, but many NRA conventioneers would take his view as
gospel truth. The audience's pre-existing attitudes almost guaranteed that
Trump's rambling speech would be a great success with them.
Trump promised to end the "eight-year
assault on the 2nd Amendment, which many NRA members attribute to former
President Obama. For example, in 2011, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre had written
that "the Obama administration . . . hatched a political conspiracy to
deceive Americans and hide its true agenda to dismantle the Second Amendment
and our freedom." To people who agree with Mr. LaPierre--and
millions of Americans do--Mr. Trump's speech promised to end a threat and to
restore a secure social and political order.
The idea of polarization, as discussed, for
example, in John Waite Bowers, Donovan Ochs, Richard J. Jensen, and David P.
Schulz' important book, The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, is to divide
public opinion sharply. A polarizing speaker gets people out of the middle:
listeners either love the speaker's ideas or hate them. Polarizing rhetoric
offends most people and drives them away. However, the minority of people who
agree with the polarizing speaker become more active and more committed to the
cause. People who disagreed with Mr. Trump probably thought that his NRA speech
was utterly unhinged. A column in the liberal Huffington Post said that
"The truth is that Trump came to the NRA meeting, talked for 28
minutes and didn’t say anything at all" and that Trump
"babbled." This is what happens when a speaker is polarizing: the
speech mobilizes supporters, while offending everyone else. PolitiFact found
that Trump quite misrepresented Paul Revere's experience, but who cares? Facts
weren't the point.
Polarizing rhetoric appeals only to a vocal
minority. Why does it work so well for Mr. Trump, who used polarizing rhetoric
to come to power and continues to use it to pursue his agenda? How can an
appeal to the minority viewpoint gain power in a republic? It obviously did.
I'll talk more about that in the future.
P.S.: for some background info, see my article about Washington, Jefferson, and gun rights.
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