Get Your Worship Services Online! Part 2, Bring Online Worship to Life.

It was unsafe to attend in-person worship services when I wrote my previous blog post, and it hasn’t become any safer in the past few hours. My previous post talked about streaming and online worship with minimal equipment that is probably lying around the typical church. Now, let’s talk about making a podcast into a meaningful worship experience. The basic format that works for ordinary Sabbath worship will work just fine online, but with a few little tweaks. Suggestions: 

Music

Start with music. Well, not right away. The pastor can make a brief introduction or welcome. Keep it to two sentences – not three. (You’re not-in person. Short is good.) Then go straight to the music. If you have an organ, use it and turn up the volume. (Many church organists keep the volume down during services. But you’re online!) Monitor the feed to make sure that people can hear the organ. Contemporary worship can start with a lively vocal and band performance. If you are using a piano, get it professionally tuned. Almost any piano sounds great if it is in tune, and even a priceless Steinway is a piece of junk if it’s out of tune. Zoom in on the musicians. 

Earlier Post: Part 1, Make the Technical Stuff Work in Online Worship

At this point, homebound worshipers are going to want to hear and see a familiar experience. Include the usual prayers, reflections, and testimonies that you would usually have. Put the prayers on the computer screen to help people participate at home. Individual church members can, if you wish, record brief testimonies at home and send them to you to include in the podcast. That adds a nice touch to help people feel in contact. If your videographer is an amateur (which will almost certainly be the case), bunch testimonies and clips right at the end so you don’t have to switch back and forth too much. 

A Sermon?

Sermons and homilies: of course you should have a sermon or homily, if that is your usual practice. But that doesn’t mean you do it the same as always. For one thing, good microphone technique is essential. The microphone should be a consistent 2 inches in front of the speaker’s mouth at all times, no matter what. Remember, you don’t have your live human voice as a backup. Breathe from the abdomen. Don’t yell, but push your voice to the back of the room, even though you don’t see anyone there. 

Are any of my readers children of the 60s? Do you remember Marshall McLuhan? He said that “the medium is the message,” and media (the plural of “medium”) are either hot or cool. Television is a cool medium: speakers are calm and conversational. Radio is a hot medium: speakers are energetic and forceful. Internet streaming is a moderately hot medium. What that means is that vocal delivery should be enthusiastic, quick, and lively. The voice needs lots of variety: loud and soft (not too soft), fast and slow, and loud and quiet (not too quiet). Don’t overdo it like a 2:00 a.m. used-car commercial. Watch some of your favorite YouTube videos; you may notice that the most successful Internet speakers are lively and speak with lots of variety. Don’t speak too quickly, however, since the audience is listening on cheap speakers and you don’t want your words to blur together.
 

More Music?

Hymn singing? Great idea! However, gathering the choir for worship is unsafe these days. If the church has professionally trained singers, let them do their thing but only one or two at a time. Please practice substantial social distancing – have singers at least three times as far apart as your local health department recommends and have them wear appropriate cloth masks. Set a good example of public health and safety. No, the mask won’t hurt their singing. They will feel strange but they can still sing just fine. Put the words up on the computer screen to help people sing along at home. If your singers are not professionally trained, you can give the at-home audience a much better experience if the piano or organ (best) accompanies the singers. Amateur singers can follow the organ to get the pitch and rhythm right. That’s the main reason that churches install organs to begin with. 

Finally, people often love short YouTube videos. In addition to full-length worship services, it’s possible to post multiple short, inspirational videos. A song or two, a five-minute meditation, a 10-minute scripture lesson, whatever. Set up a YouTube channel and invite people to subscribe.
 

Involve the Online Audience

How can you help people feel they are participating?

People want to feel involved. I already mentioned having people record testimonials to post. Viewers can run online commentary on YouTube. Any teenager can show you how to do that. (When you want social media skills, the teenagers are your top experts.) People can write comments below the video. Encourage members and viewers to share the video with their friends. There’s a button on YouTube that helps you do that. You can reach past geographically close members to reach a larger congregation. 

If speakers and singers are new to the online experience, well, so are the rest of us.  Don’t worry if you feel awkward. We all feel awkward at first. Pretend that you are projecting to the entire congregation, and not just to the camera. You may think that nobody is listening, but, trust me, they are. And they will be grateful that you’re there for them.

Peace to all. 

Get Your Worship Services Online! Part 1, Make the Technical Stuff Work.

No matter what the Supreme Court says, the coronavirus pandemic makes it unsafe for people to worship together in large groups. Stay home! Please! It’s wonderful to worship in person with our friends and family, but that is not a good reason to meet our maker ahead of schedule. This is the 21^st Century, and for the time being we can worship online. 

So, religious people who want to engage in systematic worship have two safe, healthy choices. One option is to have private worship services at home. There’s plenty of precedent for this. For example, it’s not unusual for Orthodox Jewish families to hold Shabbat services at home if the nearest synagogue is beyond walking distance. Nothing wrong with that at all. 

The other option is electronic worship. Many churches, synagogues, and other religious groups are presenting their services online. If more people receive a better online worship experience, more people might want to worship safely at home, so let’s talk about how to worship online. I’ll talk about Christian churches, since that is my own religion, but several of my points probably apply to other religions well. Give online worship your best shot; offer the congregation a spiritual experience that means as much to them as worshipping in person.
 

Make a Big Effort!

With modern equipment, you don’t really need that much expertise. No one expects a typical local church, even a big one, to have the electronic expertise that television evangelists bring to their television shows. What you need is effort. An electronic worship service requires planning and execution. It’s not something to throw together at the last minute. The pastor, Dr. Jack North, who married my wife and me in 1977, spent two full days every week preparing his sermons. Likewise, expect to spend two full eight-hour days preparing for an hour-long worship service online. The more you put into it, the more the congregation will get out of it.  

Make at least a partial run-through or rehearsal to make sure that you have all the technical stuff working before the final presentation. Facebook, YouTube, and various online hosting services offer options.
 

Monitor the Livestream

My wife and I have been worshiping online for several months, and – obvious though it seems – not everybody monitors their livestream. Someone who has basic technical skills needs to sit in another room and watch the entire podcast to make sure that the online audience can see and hear everything. If your feed goes blank or silent, you want to know right away so you can fix it.  It’s seriously embarrassing if you go dark and don’t realize it for 20 minutes. 

Also, the person monitoring the broadcast can keep an ear on volume levels. Sounds that seem balanced in person might be badly unbalanced over the Internet.
 

Obtain Basic Equipment

A church does not need a lot of fancy equipment to present good online worship. At a convention several years ago, I saw a professional independent film that was shot entirely with one off-the-shelf Canon DSLR camera. You can buy those at Walmart for a few hundred dollars. (I don’t care what brand the camera is; all major manufacturers make excellent cameras these days. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Panasonic, Sony, and Olympus are all just fine. Mirrorless cameras are fine. Advanced point and shoot cameras are fine.) Make sure the camera has an external microphone input – that is essential. For livestreaming, the camera also needs to have an HDMI connection. A dedicated camcorder is also a good choice; a camcorder’s zoom lens is better adapted to video.  Unless you have a professional videographer, use only one camera. Not two. Just one. For livestreaming, you’ll also want a long HDMI cable. Get a tripod. A better-quality tripod will pay for itself. Practice with the camera until you know how to use it automatically.  

Here’s a website that offers useful technical information.    

Most churches have plenty of microphones, so use them. Singers and musical instruments should be miked separately if possible. Aim microphones at a grand piano soundboard from about a foot above. Aim acoustic guitar microphones from the front at the point where the guitar’s neck joins the body. Use a specialized microphone for electric guitar cabinets; if you have contemporary worship, you already own one. Singers and speakers should hold a microphone about 2 inches in front of the mouth. That will work more smoothly if you have a sound mixing board; if you don’t, just improvise.

The standard room lighting may or may not be adequate for video. If you can afford a few hundred dollars to buy some fluorescent or LED light banks and big lighting umbrellas, well, blessings upon you. Otherwise, turn on every light you have, especially at the front of the room. Look carefully on the computer screen for shadows and control them. Good, even lighting solves most video problems. 

You also need a good computer – a laptop is more convenient – and reliable high-speed Internet.

Many churches probably already own that equipment; if not, you might borrow it from a church member. Or buy it (sorry).
 

Record Your Broadcast or Go Live?

The choice is yours. A live service brings excitement that you can’t get from a recorded worship experience. But, if you have video editing software and someone who knows how to use it, a pre-recorded worship service gives you more flexibility. 

In any case, although modern equipment makes it possible for total amateurs to put on an effective online worship experience, don’t expect it to be easy. Spend time on everything, and make sure you have every detail worked out. Practice, practice, practice! Your first online worship service is not the time to find out that you’re missing a cable or don’t know what buttons to push on the computer. 

And, finally, never get so lost in the equipment that you lose sight of your online worship service’s true purpose. Worship together, and stay healthy. 

My wife and I used to attend concerts at St. John United Methodist Church in Augusta, Georgia. I think they did a nice job at presenting a prerecorded experience. Would you like to look at the link? I got some good ideas by watching it; maybe you will, too. 

I have now posted Part 2, Bringing Online Worship to Life

 

P.S. Safety first! Do I need to say it? Tape cables securely to the floor. Other than technical staff, keep everyone a long, long distance from cables, lights, cameras, stands, and computers. Electrical equipment should be grounded. CRASH! is not a sound that enhances worship and it’s also bad for the budget. Follow all public health precautions religiously. Please go the extra mile to keep everyone healthy. 

Update, March 28, 2021: I forgot to mention that the piano lid should be raised before the service. Makes a huge difference in the instrument's projection. 

Were the Polls Wrong in 2020? And, if so, Why?

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just beat his Democratic opponent 57%-42%, when the polls gave him only a 3% advantage. Graham gave a belligerent speech on November 4 attacking the press and making fun of the polls:  

“I’ve had two calls already, one from President Trump, he’s gonna win. He’s gonna win.” 

Graham added: 

“So all the pollsters out there, you have no idea what you’re doing. And to all the liberals in California and New York, you wasted a lot of money. This is the worst return on investment in the history of American politics.”

It does sound as if the 2020 polls were wildly wrong. Well, they were wrong, but most of them were not wrong as much, or in the ways, that either Graham or media talking heads seem to think. Still, in 2020, as in 2016, political opinion polls undercounted Republican voters. This is despite the fact the pollsters were on the lookout for that problem and tried to compensate statistically. 

Poll aggregator Nate Silver’s last prediction for the 2020 presidential election posited that Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in the popular vote by about 8%. Votes are still being counted, but it seems likely that Biden will end up with about a 3% popular vote advantage over Trump, or maybe slightly less. The Blue Wave that optimistic Democrats predicted never happened. (Note that pollsters did not predict a blue wave.) As I write this, it seems probable but not certain that Biden will have more than the 270 electoral college votes that he needs to win the presidency. The Democrats will probably keep control of the House of Representatives, but will not, barring a real surprise, gain the Senate. 

Some people think that polls are a conspiracy against our republic. The truth, as always, is more complicated. National polls were less accurate than usual in two major elections in a row. Worse, they missed in the same direction, underestimating Republican turnout. Social scientists don’t like coincidences any more than TV detectives. So, let’s look more deeply. 

First, opinion polls are just estimates based on a sample. The quality of the poll depends on how good the sample is. No one is going to survey hundreds of millions of voters. Instead, a poll will survey a few thousand voters, at the most, using those results to estimate the outcome. Let’s suppose that a poll samples a thousand voters. Let’s suppose that half support Biden and half support Trump.  But do they fairly represent the population at large? Maybe yes, maybe no.

It is always possible that, by sheer bad luck, the pollsters accidentally surveyed people who are not typical of the population. After all, expecting a couple thousand people to speak for the entire nation is kind of tricky. That’s why pollsters calculate the chance that their sample was wrong. Opinion polls typically run with a 3% to 5% predicted error rate. What that means is that there is no more than a 5% chance that the poll’s findings will be within 3% to 5% of the entire population. So:

(a) A 3% to 5% error predicting the voting results isn't surprising, and

(b) There is one chance in twenty that the error will be even more than 5%.  

Since the polls predicted an 8% win for Biden, and he only won (we think) by 3%, that doesn’t prove that the polls were wrong. It might only show bad luck. Pollsters can reduce the risk of sampling error by surveying more people, but, strangely enough, that doesn’t help as much as you might think. Not unless the sample is enormous, and that causes other statistical problems. 

Second, poll aggregators like Nate Silver look at many polls, not just one. That makes up for the danger that one or two polls might be wrong. Silver gives more weight to quality polls and statewide polls. That usually helps, but there are no guarantees.  Pollsters all read the same statistics books, and they might have all made the same sampling errors.  

Third, people don’t always cooperate with polls. The election polls coincided with healthcare open enrollment, so most of us are sick and tired of harassing phone calls. I accidentally hung up on a legitimate pollster last summer, just because she called at the end of a string of robocalls. I realized my mistake a second later, but it was too late. Pollsters have massive databases that help them to compensate for uncooperative respondents, but that’s never precise.

Fourth, the exact way that a question is asked makes a big difference in how people respond. Suppose that one pollster asks, “who do you plan to vote for in the upcoming presidential election?” Another pollster asks, “do you plan to vote for Trump or Biden in the next election?” Even if they survey the same people, they won’t get exactly the same responses because they did not ask identical questions. When you hear, for example that Rasmussen tends to get more conservative results than the Washington Post poll, part of the explanation is probably slight differences in the way they ask questions. Tiny differences in the question can produce big changes in the poll’s results. 

Fifth, it matters what order questions are asked in. If a pollster asks a series of positive questions, the respondent could be in a more favorable frame of mind when asked a hard question. Again, tiny differences in the way the questions are organized can cause huge changes in poll results. Good pollsters work hard to organize their questions well, but it’s an art as much as a science. 

Sixth, people respond differently to different poll formats. In-person polls, like what Harris and Gallup used to do, are often the most accurate. But that’s an expensive way to gather information, and it would be unsafe during the pandemic. Telephone polls with a live operator are the next best, but, as I said, people often hang up on them. Robocall polls are much cheaper – and therefore can get larger sample sizes – but no one feels bad when they hang up on a computer. Again, pollsters try to compensate for that statistically, but that’s never as good as getting accurate answers. Internet polls are always suspicious. Polls that you see on Twitter or Facebook are totally useless. Polls issued by politicians are worse than useless.

Think about the obvious. Telephone polls only work if people answer their phones. Nowadays, many people screen their calls. Internet polls only work for people who have Internet access.

Seventh, people sometimes flat-out lie to pollsters. There are Internet rumors that some Trump voters are embarrassed to support him and lie to pollsters. Other rumors say some Trump voters lie to pollsters because they want to “own liberals” or “make liberals heads explode.” I don’t know whether that’s true, but pollsters have known for decades that people do not always tell them the truth. (The technical term for this is “demand characteristics,” which means that some people respond to polls socially instead of truthfully.)

Eighth, there is what statisticians call regression toward the mean. In simple terms, as election day gets close, most people shrug their shoulders and vote for the political party they’ve always voted for. No matter who the candidate is. 

Earlier Post: Trump's Polarizing Rally Was All About Getting People to Vote

Ninth, and this could be the most important problem: it’s hard to predict who is going to vote. Most polls ask whether you plan to vote, but those responses are not always right. People might feel sick or discouraged and stay home. Trump voters might get excited by a Trump boat parade and show up in force. That’s important because the #1 factor in elections is voter turnout. Few voters change their minds during the campaign. Disgruntled Republicans who switched and voted for Biden were few and far between – and vice versa. Most people choose candidates by party loyalty. But people don't always submit a ballot. Enthusiasm is hard to measure, but pollsters probably need to work harder to predict who will and will not actually vote. 

Also, voter suppression states, like Texas, where I live, or Lindsey Graham’s South Carolina, make it harder for people to vote. They make it especially hard to vote in Democratic communities. It’s possible that some people who planned to vote got discouraged and never submitted a ballot. 

Earlier Post: Kimberly Guilfoyle Tried to Drum up Enthusiasm in her 2020 RNC Speech

In decades past, presidential opinion polls rarely missed by more than 3%-4%. This year, as in 2016, they seemed to be off by 5%, or even a little more. Some statewide polls missed by more than that. Of the hundreds of polls, some came close to the mark and some missed by a country mile. 

So, overall, polltaking is not an exact science. Sampling error, errors in technique, and problems with the respondents themselves all affect the accuracy of opinion polls. Pollsters spent the last four years trying to avoid the mistakes of 2016. It appears they only partly succeeded. At the same time, the polls were – for the most part – more accurate than what many people might think. Biden and Trump mostly carried the states that the polls predicted. 

So, yes, the polls missed Graham’s landslide victory. But Graham also griped that the polls were wrong about Trump, and yet Trump is losing. In the long run, the only count that matters is the official election. 

Update: Once all the votes were counted, Biden's advantage was about 4.5%. 

Trump and the Maskless Crowd: Masks Are a Flag Issue for Conservative Voters

So, what is it with Donald Trump and wearing a mask? Trump and his supporters have made masks into a flag issue. The coronavirus is spiraling out of control, and CDC director Robert Redfield said that we could shut it down in two months if everybody would cover their mouths and noses with a facemask. More than 231,000 people have been confirmed to have died of coronavirus in the United States, more than any other nation. A Stanford University study estimates that Trump’s rallies have spread coronavirus to about 30,000 people, 700 of whom have died. Few people wear masks at Trump rallies. I wear a mask when I go in public, and, really, it’s not that big a deal.

Communication scholars John Waite Bowers and Donovan Ochs explain that a flag issue is not important in itself. Instead, radical speakers use flag issues to represent something that people care about. Similarly, people refuse to wear masks to show that they defy authority. Maskless gatherings have become symbols of partisan loyalty. Oddly, of course, Trump is head of the government and yet tells people not to wear masks. It’s not the mask that matters; it’s the defiance. People have trouble getting angry about abstract concepts, statistics, and health trends. But masks are a simple, slightly uncomfortable thing that people can understand. It’s hard to protest the pandemic. It’s easy to protest a mask.

Earlier Post: Donald Trump Made Ilhan Omar a Flag Individual

Let’s look at what Trump said in his Dubuque, Iowa rally speech yesterday. He spotted Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a loyal supporter, in the crowd wearing a mask, and promptly mocked her:

“Donald Trump: Yep, by the way, you do have a great governor, you know that right? I don’t even know. I don’t even know if she’s here. Is she here? There she is. I can’t see her under all that stuff.

“Audience: (laughs).

“Donald Trump: Well, she’s definitely wearing a mask, I will say that.”

That, remember, is what he said about his friend. What about his opponents? Later in the long speech, Trump ridiculed masks:

“I see people that come in, they’re wrapped up in masks and, how you doing? Don’t touch. Don’t get close. Seriously, think of what China has done to the world. I had a group of people, not so long ago at a place, nice place. And they said, ‘President, President, could we say hello?’ They’re wrapped in masks and it’s terrible. And they said, you couldn’t hear him because the mask. One person had the world’s thickest mask I’ve ever seen. I mean, and then the scientists were there. That one’s no good. That one’s okay.” [italics added]

Look at what’s going on in that passage, and we can see how clever Trump’s persuasive methods really are. Of course public health measures are inconvenient and irritating: as Trump said, “Don’t touch. Don’t get close.” But it was China’s fault, Trump said, and therefore not his, that people need to deal with these public health mandates: “Seriously, think of what China has done to the world.” China put us in masks! Horrors!

Some Americans are indeed wearing masks. Let’s look at Trump’s complaint: “They’re wrapped up in masks and it’s terrible.” The masks, he said, were “terrible.” Not just inconvenient or uncomfortable, but terrible. He never said that the deaths were terrible, just the masks. Why, Trump complained, people at his meeting couldn’t even communicate because they were wearing masks: “And they said, you couldn’t hear him because the mask.” (Notice how Trump diverted responsibility: he himself wasn’t saying that the mask muffled people’s speech; no, “they said” that you couldn’t hear people talk.)

Trump’s comments were ridiculous – people can communicate perfectly well wearing a cloth mask – but he was pushing the buttons that he needed to push. He appealed to the defiant attitudes of people who don’t like being told what to do.

Many years ago, one of my children’s friends decided to dye her hair bright, fire-engine red. It looked awful, of course, but the hair showed that she was defying her parents. Her mother promptly took her to the beauty parlor to have the hair dyed any other color than red. The best the stylist could do was deep black. The child was defiant; the parent was defiant right back. I hope that Republican voters are more mature than a 15-year-old.

So, it’s not that the mask itself bothers Trump voters. Of course people can wear masks. Masks are not a big problem. Physicians, nurses, welders, and metalworkers wear masks all day. Many of them are Republicans. None of that mask-wearing causes a problem. A mask only becomes a problem when it becomes a flag issue – when to wear a mask symbolizes that you are submitting to authority. And so, going out in public, breathing, sneezing, and coughing on innocent people becomes a way to defy authority.

We live in a symbolic world. We salute the flag as a symbol of our country. My wedding ring is a symbol of my marriage. My neighbor’s Barefoot Nation flag symbolizes his nonconformist attitudes. Going maskless symbolizes defiance and willfulness.

Speaking as a citizen, not as a communication specialist, I do wish that conservatives could have latched onto a flag issue that didn’t have such deadly consequences. Some of my neighbors wave Trump flags that have curse words on them. That’s irritating, but it doesn’t hurt anything. Going around without a mask spreads disease. And people die.


Research note:

I talked about flag issues in chapter 4 of my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign. I presented an earlier version of the same analysis in an article, entitled “Bryan’s ‘A Cross of Gold’: The Rhetoric of Polarization at the 1896 Democratic Convention,” that I published years ago in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. As you can see, this type of radical speech has lurked around American politics for a long time. If you click the link for “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above, you can get more information about both of those publications, including a free almost-final copy of the article.

Bowers and Ochs’ important book, The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, has been continuously revised and is still in print. It’s a good read, and anyone who thinks that Trump is not a radical should read this book. Trump uses almost every method of radical rhetoric that Bowers and Ochs describe. Radical organizer Saul Alinsky discusses similar persuasive methods in his book Rules for Radicals.

 

Image: Donald Trump, White House photo

Trump Said the Coronavirus Is "Not My Fault" in his Second 2020 Debate against Joe Biden

Coronavirus, CDC Image

During his last presidential debate against Joe Biden, President Donald Trump said that the coronavirus epidemic is “not my fault.” He did not, however, mean what his critics think he meant. Trump didn't just reject policy; he rejected analytical argument. 

As I write this post, there have been, according to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 42,343,866 cases of the 2019 coronavirus, of which 8,508,467 have been in the United States of America. That’s more than 20% of the worldwide total. Of 1,146,221 global deaths from the disease, 224,188 have been in the United States, far more than any other nation. That’s more than 19% of the worldwide total. Yet, the United States has only 4.23% of the world’s population. Coronavirus has hit us harder than any other nation. 

In the debate, Trump denied that the pandemic was his fault:

“I take full responsibility. It's not my fault that it came here. It's China's fault. You know what, it's not Joe's fault that it came here either. It's China's fault. They kept it from going into the rest of China, for the most part, but they didn't keep it from coming out to the world including Europe and ourselves.” 

“It’s not my fault” has become Trump’s mantra. Someone who takes “full responsibility” does not say “it’s not my fault” in the next sentence. This statement, which Trump made in the first 12 minutes of the debate, was his crucial argument. As always with Trump, however, there’s more than meets the eye. 

Responding, Biden distinguished – as he should have – between the virus arriving in the United States and what actions the government took after it arrived: 

“The fact is, when we knew it was coming, when it hit — What happened? What did the President say? He said don't worry, it's going to go away, it’s going to be gone by Easter. Don't worry, the warm weather. Don't worry, maybe inject bleach — he said he was kidding when he said that, but a lot of people thought it was serious. A whole range of things the President said. And even today, he thinks we are in control. We're about to lose 200,000 more people.”

Biden's more analytical response appealed to his own voting base, but Trump's supporters are unlikely to see his point.  

To understand what Trump said, to comprehend why so many of his supporters think he’s done a great job with the coronavirus, we need to see that Trump's supporters do not, by and large, think the same way as Trump’s opponents. They live in a different mental and social universe. Critical thinking is not part of their bargain. When Trump said “It's not my fault that it came here. It's China's fault,” his base voters did not hear weakness. Instead, they quickly understood that he was defending them from a Chinese conspiracy. 

Two different arguments!

So, we have two distinct lines of argument: conspiracy argument and analytical argument.  Conspiracy argument focuses on how the virus started.  Analytical argument discusses what we can do to stop the virus. Trump’s main line of attack – just like his mainline argument in his recent 60 Minutes interview – was to say that it wasn’t his fault. President Trump is obviously not responsible for what happened in China. He is, however, responsible for his actions after the pandemic spread to the United States. We have passed the point where Trump can say that the virus will go away without hurting anyone. He sidestepped whether his subsequent policies, like inadequate testing, failing to provide medical equipment, or not encouraging masks, were his fault. 

Earlier Post: Trump Denied that the Virus Was His Fault in His 60 Minutes Interview

Why would that persuade his supporters? To understand this, we need to understand two different kinds of audiences. One kind of audience analyzes facts and figures and studies cause and effect. If we have a problem, let’s figure out what caused it, and find a way to remove the cause. That, by the way, is how high school and college debaters are trained to think. In high school and college debate, the idea is to find a problem, identify a cause, remove the cause, and prove that the solution doesn’t cause more problems than it solves. In an article that I published about what debaters call the stock issues, I explain how this kind of  analytical thinking arises from theories of ethics and morals. Public policy should bring widespread benefit to the public without causing unnecessary harm.

Analytical argument

Here's an example of the analytical approach. An August 2020 article in Counter Punch listed five failures of Trump’s policy that spread the pandemic across the land: for example, he delayed taking decisive action, failed to encourage mask-wearing, and delayed the production of necessary medical equipment. Trump’s policy failures, they say, aggravated the crisis. 

Similarly, an article on the liberal website Vox faulted Trump for downplaying the crisis and dismantling the nation's pandemic plan. That is, they argue that he could have done more to deal with the pandemic. That, also, is an analytical approach. Biden's own response, quote above, was analytical.
 

Conspiracy argument

Many people, however, do not think that way. Many people think instead that the world is controlled by vast, impersonal forces that wish them harm. Many conservatives today fear something called “the New World Order.” They think that mysterious, malicious forces control public policy. It is only natural for them to assume that the far-away Chinese government would conspire against them.  Pew Research found that “about a third (34%) of Republicans and independents who lean to the GOP say the theory that powerful people intentionally planned the COVID-19 outbreak is probably or definitely true, compared with 18% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.” 

For example, about 50% of Trump’s supporters see merit in the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory. Or consider megachurch pastor and enthusiastic Trump supporter Rodney Howard-Browne, who told his congregation last March to ignore coronavirus restrictions because the coronavirus was really just a scare tactic of people who seek world domination: “Because the climate change narrative for global governance failed, they are using the World Health Organization to then come in and take over the control of nations and then they are going to bring in vaccines.” Howard-Browne is not an outlier: if readers wonder why white evangelical Christians support Trump so enthusiastically, Howard-Browne’s reasoning could explain that.  Trump is, they think, protecting them from conspiracies. The coronavirus is, to them, just one part of that imaginary global menace.  

Conclusion

So, whose fault is it that our nation is ravaged by a virus? Many people, including most university professors and mainstream media writers, will take an analytical approach. By an analytical approach, yes, it’s pretty much Trump’s fault.  For example, a recent study published in Nature Medicine found that universal mask-wearing could prevent more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths in the next few months. Yet Trump still fails to encourage masks. 

But if we think that the virus is only one part of a massive conspiracy created by China and other mysterious international forces, then, no, it’s not Trump’s fault. By that line of thinking, the United States does not need masks, social distancing, or quarantines. Instead, we need someone who will fight the global conspiracy.

If we think (as I do) that the pandemic’s cause is a virus spread by nature, we want to take public health measures. If we think that an enemy did it to us – China, for example – we want someone to protect us from our enemy. That protection is what Trump offers his supporters. And, to all appearances, they feel a need for nothing else.

In the meantime, reality always wins. Always. Our nation is needlessly ravaged by disease. Please, dear reader, wear a mask when you go out in public. It’s not that hard.

Technical note: If you'd like to see my publications about stock issues in debate, click the link to “William D. Harpine's Publications” above. 

Trump's 60 Minutes Interview Was a Study in How to Shut Down Debate

Not only do we have the third 2020 presidential debate tonight, but President Donald Trump posted a crudely-recorded advance video of his interview with Leslie Stahl for this weekend’s 60 Minutes episode. On his Facebook page, Trump complained : “Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse!” There’s a lot to digest there. My impression is that Trump interrupted almost every question that Stahl asked after only a few words. That does not bode well for tonight’s debate: is he going to interrupt constantly, preventing any rational discussion of ideas? We’ll soon find out.

Trump's interview seemed to serve two purposes: he denied responsibility for anything, and pictured himself as a victim of a hostile press. The mainstream media, of course, characterizes his behavior as immature and irresponsible. They are obviously correct. So why would he choose such a course of action? Let’s take a look at the alternative framework from which Trump was speaking.

At one point, when Stahl tried to ask him a question, Trump interrupted, said that she was being unfair, and claimed: “We have a great record. I mean, we got hit by a pandemic. Wasn’t my fault. It’s China’s fault.”

When she tried to get in a word to finish her line of questioning, Trump interrupted again: “But Lesley, we’re in the White House. The press is biased, very, very biased.” Was he trying to discredit the press? Trump's prompt response was, “You discredit yourself.”

Most professors and mainstream news media, and, for that matter, many college-educated people probably find that astonishing. When he does answer the questions? Every question that Leslie Stahl asked was entirely predictable. Could he not have canned answers ready for them? To understand that, we need to look at an alternative perspective. The conservative media do not just deal in what Kellyanne Conway calls “alternative facts.” They also live in an alternative value universe. It isn't just about facts; the conservative media depict a universe in which liberals, immigrants, and minorities are enemies, and that Trump is protecting his people from these evil forces. 


Earlier Post: Franklin Graham Used Debate-Stoppers to Attack Trump's "Enemies"

First, when I was younger, conservatives liked to say that their three values were “limited government, liberty, and personal responsibility.” Let's think about "personal responsibility." When they say “personal responsibility,” what conservatives mean is that they want poor people to fend for themselves and not to expect government handouts. But isn’t it fair to ask conservatives to be responsible for their own mistakes? Apparently not.

The United States has done poorly during the coronavirus epidemic, with approximately 19% of the known coronavirus deaths. The United States' unemployment rate is about 7.9%, far higher than when Trump took office. Does Trump take responsibility? No, he blamed it on China: “wasn’t my fault.”

Second, anyone who follows conservative media has been warned for years – decades – not to trust the mainstream media. Such outlets as Fox News, the Christian Broadcasting Network, talk radio shows, and Breitbart routinely tell people that the mainstream media are not to be trusted. An article in the conservative The Hill by Bernard Goldberg commented that, “A lot of us figured out a long time ago that many journalists had a political ax to grind — and it was a bias that usually went in just one direction.”

So, when Trump pictured himself as a helpless victim of the news media – carefully not letting Leslie Stahl explain her points or even finish her questions – he was not accepting responsibility for his own mistakes or opinions. He was, however, fitting into a preconceived narrative that tens of millions of Americans, including, presumably, pretty much his entire base, take for granted.

And so, many people live in a world of alternative facts. For some of us, reality takes second place to political agendas. Trump’s seemingly immature rejection of responsibility or truth, like his eagerness to blame his problems on China, the media, and any other convenient target, fits right into that alternative reality.

Yes, the mainstream media made fun of Trump’s ridiculous interview. That does not, however, mean that it hurt him politically. If anything, it is quite possible that his voters will be especially motivated to turn out and vote to resist what Trump called the biased and unfair media.

Think of it in religious terms. Many Trump voters do! Conservative Pastor David Barton called Donald Trump “God’s Guy.”  For voters who think that any criticism of Trump borders on sacrilege and blasphemy (and many voters think just that!), questioning details about his policies and ideas makes no sense at all. During his 60 Minutes interview, Trump pictured himself as a warrior for good who is failing only because evil people and wicked, unnamed forces stood in his way.


Earlier Post: Pastor Paula White Used Religion to Shut Down Political Debate

Trump was not trying to have a dialogue. He was trying to shut down debate. He claimed that the discussion was unfair, and therefore he did not need to participate. There are many ways to stop a debate, and debate-stoppers have a long history in the conservative media. The argument is not, "I'm right and you are wrong, and here's why." The argument is, "How dare you criticize me!"

Thus, Trump's theme is that it “wasn’t my fault.” His theme is not what he's done; his boast is that the problems aren't his responsibility. The buck stops everywhere except on his desk. 

 

P.S. I wrote about debate-stoppers a few years ago in an article entitled "Spurious Quotations and the Gun Control Debate: The Manufacturing of an Argument from Tradition.” Click on “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above and scroll down. Most large libraries have the article’s text on their databases.

P.P.S. Not all Christians support Trump. A Christian group recently formed a political action committee to oppose Trump and his policies. 

Image: Donald Trump, White House photo

The First Trump-Biden Debate: Do Coronavirus Masks Show Weakness?

I guess President Donald Trump showed that he is a tough guy, participating in a televised debate while seriously ill. I also guess that he also showed that he is foolish and irresponsible enough to participate while he was contagious. Trump ended up in the hospital yesterday. It turns out that he and his staff have known for 3 days that he had the coronavirus. He has had symptoms even longer.

During their first (and, given his illness, probably only) 2020 debate, Trump mocked former Vice President Joe Biden for routinely wearing masks to protect against coronavirus transmission. Well, let us all hope that Trump recovers. Let us also hope that this terrible pandemic quickly gets under control. Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said just last month that a mask prevents coronavirus transmission even better than a potential vaccine. Yet, Trump rarely wears one. It has become a badge of pride among Republicans to go around maskless. And yet, the White House repeatedly ignores basic public health measures. Recent reports show that the White House staff members have not been wearing masks, screening visitors, or practicing social distance. The Atlantic’s White House reporter Peter Nicholas documents that this carelessness continues even as the President rests in his hospital bed. 

Earlier Post: Trump Interrupted Biden during Their Debate to Keep Him from Making His Points 

Project Strength, Not Wisdom?

George Lakoff, a top linguist, says that conservative voters want leaders who are strong and powerful. Strong leaders make them feel safer. He calls this the “strong father” metaphor. In contrast, liberal voters more often prefer nurturing leaders. Lakoff calls this the “nurturing mother” metaphor. Let us, just for the moment, overlook his gender stereotypes and think about what this means for last Tuesday’s Trump-Biden debate. Press commentary focused on Trump’s extremely aggressive behavior and repeated interruptions, which I blogged about earlier. (This does not, as has been pointed out to me, mean that Biden was a model of good manners.)

Earlier Post: Let the Pushiest Candidate Win the Debate? Is That Any Way to Pick a President?  

Masks Show Weakness? Really?

So, yes, Trump interrupted and overwhelmed Biden to show that he was tough. The most important thing he did, however, was to mock Biden for mask-wearing. Let’s look at this exchange when moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump about masks:   

WALLACE

Gentlemen, we’re going to go on to another subject. You have begun to increasingly question the effectiveness of masks as a disease preventer, and in fact recently you have cited the, the issue of waiters touching their masks and touching plates. Are you questioning the effectiveness of masks? 

TRUMP

No, you have to understand -- if you look, I mean, I have a mask right here. [The mask rested in Trump’s pocket, where it didn’t do much good.] I put the mask on it, you know what I think I need it. As an example, everybody’s had a test, and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to, but I wear a mask, when needed -- when needed, I wear masks. I don’t—I don’t wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen. 

Note Trump’s key point, making Biden seem fearful: “I don’t—I don’t wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”  The idea was that Trump was tough and Biden wasn’t.

 

When Wallace later asked Biden about masks, Trump retorted that not everyone agreed about them:

 

WALLACE

I was asking, sir, about masks. 

BIDEN

Oh. Masks -- masks make a big difference. His own head of the CDC said if we just wore masks between now -- if everybody wore masks and social distancing between now and January, we’d probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters, 

TRUMP

And they’ve also said the opposite. They’ve also said the --

BIDEN

No serious person has said the opposite --

TRUMP

What about Dr. Fauci? Dr. Fauci said the opposite. 

BIDEN

He did not say the opposite. 

 

And so forth. Trump interrupted repeatedly; again, his purpose was to cast doubt on masks

 

Now, although there was some disagreement about masks early in the pandemic, that controversy has ended except for the shouting and the conspiracy theories. The CDC's current guidance says: 

"Masks are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the mask coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice. This is called source control."

However, debating while he was (as we have since learned) already ill from coronavirus, Trump continued to rant that masks showed weakness. 

 

Final Thought: Can’t We Be Wise and Strong?

 

One White House employee and Republican politician after another is being diagnosed with coronavirus. As of this writing, the most recent are North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Social media bots are now telling us that the Republicans are getting sick because Democratic operatives and Chinese spies are spreading the disease to them. A more likely explanation is that the Republicans foolishly refused to wear masks.

 

Republican politicians and conservative media pundits have ridiculed mask-wearers as weak and fearful. Trump continued that pattern during Tuesday’s debate when he made fun of Biden for wearing a big mask. And yet, Trump is now ill. Reality invades Republicans’ specious rhetoric as they catch the coronavirus. It seems that wearing a mask shows intelligence and good judgment. The false bravado of not wearing a mask merely spreads disease. Yes, a leader must be strong. But one can be compassionate and wise at the same time. It’s not either/or.

 

 

P.S.: I contributed a chapter, “It Was Not About the Issues: Ethos in the 2004 Presidential Debates,” to Ed Hinck’s volumes about presidential debating. George W. Bush’s thesis was that a president must be “resolute.” John Kerry, in contrast, responded that a president needs to be “smart.” Neither noticed that a president must be both. As the Bible says, there is nothing new under the sun. Click on “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above for more information. 

Thanks to the Tennessean for promptly posting an excellent debate transcript. 

Image: CDC

The First Trump-Biden Debate: Interruptions for a (Non) Cause

Last night, Donald Trump and Joe Biden participated in the most bizarre excuse for a debate in American political history.

The polling website FiveThirtyEight's headline about the debate said, “Trump Interrupts to Point of Chaos in First Debate.” No kidding. Let's be clear: a debate is an organized exchange of ideas following rules. Trump ignored the rules, interrupting Biden while dodging obvious questions for which he should have been prepared. Biden broke the rules a few times himself, mostly when he tried to get in a word edgewise. 

Earlier Post: You Need a Good Debate Format

I was on my high school and college debate teams for six years, and was a debate coach at four universities. Three points about last night’s debate: 

(1) Trump interrupted Biden to prevent Biden from making his points.

(2) Trump interrupted Biden to show that he is forceful.

(3) Trump was appealing to voters who do not care about policy.

In this post, I'll talk about (1), and plan to write about the other two points in days to come.

Why Did Trump Interrupt so Often? 

Here’s a hypothesis: Trump’s policies are basically failures: he has never presented the comprehensive health care overhaul he promised, even though the nation is overrun by a pandemic, while unemployment is sky-high and the economy is collapsing. He hasn't built the wall, and Mexico hasn't paid for it. Let us further suppose that Trump was unprepared, failed to do his homework, and lacked awareness of even the most basic policy issues. Further, Biden was prepared and does understand basic policy issues. 

Now, if Biden got a chance to speak at length, for the full time that the debate rules allowed, without interruptions or distraction, he would have conclusively demonstrated that his policies were superior. Trump would be unable to respond in kind since he has no policy expertise or successes to offer. 

So, during the debate, Trump interrupted, quickly and loudly, to make bizarre, off-the-point comments to draw Biden away from substantive issue discussions. 

Trump's Healthcare Interruptions

Here’s a gloriously awful example from early in the debate. Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, who was far more effective four years ago when he moderated one of the Trump-Clinton debates, asked Biden to talk about a public option under the Affordable Care Act. The public option is, of course, a conservative bugbear that leads to constant ranting on Fox News and talk radio. Wallace asked: 

“I am asking the question. That it will, it will end private insurance and create a government takeover of health care.” 

Trying to correct this common misunderstanding, Biden said: 

“It does not. It's only for those people who are so poor they qualify for Medicaid, they can get that free. In most states, except governors who want to deny people are poor, Medicaid. Anyone who qualifies for Medicare -- excuse me, Medicaid -- would automatically be enrolled in the public option. The vast majority of the American people would still not be in that option. Number one –” 

So far, that sounded like a precise, well-rehearsed answer in the making. Of course, Trump couldn’t allow that. Biden would make him look like a fool. So, he interrupted: 

“So you agree with Bernie Sanders, who’s left on the manifesto we call it, that gives you socialized medicine.” 

Now, first, it was not Trump’s turn to speak. Second, Bernie Sanders isn’t running for president. Third, Trump’s interruption stopped Biden before he could explain why his policy was not socialized medicine. Trump’s diversion worked just fine, for the next thing Biden said was: 

“Look. The fact of the matter is, I beat Bernie Sanders--”

Maybe Biden was trying to explain that his policy and Sanders policy differed. He never got the chance, for Trump broke in again: 

“You got very lucky.” 

That, of course, had nothing to do with healthcare. Unfortunately, Biden took the bait: 

“I got very lucky, I’m going to get very lucky tonight as well. And tonight I'm going to -- here's the deal, here’s the deal. The fact is that everything he’s saying so far it's simply a lie. I'm not here to call out his lies; everybody knows he’s a liar. I want to make sure --  I want to make the President--” 

That wasn’t a bad answer. Biden expressed confidence and criticized Trump for speaking falsely. But did you notice what he didn’t talk about? He didn’t talk any more about healthcare or the public option. I’ve written before the Trump is a master of misdirection, just like a stage magician. Yes, Trump was rude, and irrational, and incoherent. But he put a dead stop to Biden’s answer, tricking him into wasting his time. 

Earlier Post: Trump, the "China Virus," and the Art of Misdirection

It got worse. Trump next said: 

“You just lost the left. You just lost the left. You agreed with Bernie Sanders on a plan.” 

That didn’t make much sense, but Trump got Biden to stop talking about healthcare and diverted him to talking about political strategy. Biden then scored the zinger of the night: 

“Folks, do we have any idea what this clown is doing?” 

Okay, sure, fight fire with fire. Trump had it coming. But, going back to Wallace’s question, this was Biden’s chance to talk about healthcare policy. Instead, he let Trump continue to bait him. Yes, Biden got the better of the exchange. No question about it. All the same, his well-rehearsed discussion of the healthcare public option had screeched to a smoking halt. 

Realizing that he’d been diverted, Biden turned back to the topic: 

“Let me tell you what. He is not for any help for people needing health care because he in fact already cost 10 million people their health care that they had from their employers, because of his recession, number one. Number two, there are 20 million people getting health care through Obamacare now he wants to take it away. He won't ever look in your eye and say that's what he wants to do. Take it away.” 

Okay, that was back on track. Good. Biden stated some numbers and contrasted his policy with Trump’s. Not for long, however. Trump interrupted again, blurting out this incoherent nonsense: 

“No, I want to give them better health care at a much, much lower price because he has no, he doesn't know how to read fixed he has never already played it to an extent he has now.”

I’m not sure that’s even English. Of course, we all know that neither Trump nor any of the other Republicans have ever actually proposed an Obamacare alternative. Get better healthcare at a much lower price? Trump has been promising that for years, without ever giving the actual plan to make it happen. That’s not the point. The point is that, once again, Trump stopped Biden from giving his policy. By this point, moderator Chris Wallace, who was just as bamboozled as Biden, actually turned the discussion over to Trump. With that ill-considered transition, Wallace bypassed what was supposed to be Biden’s opportunity to speak: 

“I know you’ll realize you’re both speaking at the same time. Let the President’ s -- go ahead sir.” 

A moment later, Wallace did try to give the exasperated Biden a chance to explain his policy, but by that point he had lost his train of thought – as any other debater would have by this point. No, Trump never gave a healthcare policy. No, he never said anything remotely coherent or intelligent about Biden’s policy. 

By interrupting, bullying, and ranting, Trump prevented Biden from giving the two-minute explanation of his healthcare plan that the rules entitled him to present. 

Anyway, that’s just one example. This kind of thing went on throughout the debate. 

So, back to my hypothesis. Biden was well-prepared with policy proposals. He had done his homework. Trump, in contrast, had no idea what he was talking about. Instead of talking about policy, which was beyond his ability, Trump spewed out conspiracy theories and nonsense that he must have picked up from conservative cable news and talk radio shows. What Trump did, with supreme success, was to short-circuit the debate to stop Biden from making himself look good. Deep inside, I think that Trump knew that Biden was better prepared and felt that his only chance was to direct attention away from Biden’s policy. The interruptions and crosstalk served that purpose brilliantly. 

So, yes, Trump looked and sounded very bad during this debate. No, he did not act like a grown-up. Yes, he was incoherent. No, he didn’t say a single thing about how he would make healthcare better. 

What he accomplished was to stop Biden from explaining how he would make healthcare better. So, the debate was a disaster for Trump, but it was, to some extent, also a disaster for Biden. Trump was not trying to win the debate. He was trying to make Biden lose. 

Earlier Post: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Suffered from Talking Points Disease in the Third 2016 Presidential Debate

Suggestions from a Former Debate Coach

How to prevent this? Every high school and college debate coach has judged dozens if not hundreds of academic debates with unruly debaters. Any experienced debate coach could have handled this better than Wallace. Here are some suggestions: 

(1) When a speaker’s time is up, the moderator should stand up, and, if necessary, walk up to the podium and stand directly in front of the speaker until the ranting stops. Obnoxious, but effective. The moderator is not trying to win a popularity contest.

(2) Any time a speaker interrupts, even just one word, the opponent should get an extra minute added to the speaking time. This should be done electronically, preferably with a flashing interruption light.

(3) The speaking time should be put in a huge, bright display directly behind the speakers so the television audience can see whose turn it is and how much time is left.

(4) If all else fails, mute the microphone - right away. 

Conclusion

Yes, unscrupulous people will break the rules. We need rules because people do not always behave themselves. And, although Biden could have confronted Trump more effectively, it’s not his job. It’s the moderator’s obligation to control the debate. What a shame that Wallace, with all his experience, didn't know how to do that.