Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Senator Graham and the Word Mystery of Entitlement Reform

During the Fox News debate between Vermont's liberal Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and South Carolina republican Lindsey Graham, Graham repeated a common conservative talking point about "entitlement reform." Well, it wasn’t really a talking point; it was just a word game, a silly phrase that conservatives love to parrot. The trick was to use a word to mean the opposite of what people think it means. One simple word, "entitlement," creates a fog of rhetorical smoke:
“Entitlement reform is a must for us to not become Greece.”
As we’ll see, the idea is that entitlements are not entitlements. Of course, that makes no sense at all. Graham quickly slipped in that “entitlement reform” meant addressing Medicare and Social Security spending. Graham correctly pointed out that we cannot balance the federal budget merely by making cuts in so-called discretionary spending. Graham, like many conservatives, pictures entitlement reform as a good thing that will appeal to his conservative supporters.

We all the time play with political words. We're not anti-abortion, no, we're pro-life. We're not pro-abortion, we're pro-choice. Anything to hide our intent. Republicans aren't against Social Security; no, they are for entitlement reform. 

But—here is the problem. You probably couldn't find twenty republican voters who actually want to cut Medicare and Social Security. Many Republicans, however, strongly support “entitlement reform.” All the same, Graham let it slip during the debate that we need to cut Medicare and Social Security so we don't turn into Greece. Whatever. 

Comparing the United States to Greece is obviously silly. The United States is an economic powerhouse, while the United States dollar is the world's reserve currency. Greece does not even have its own currency and does not control their own monetary policy (they use the Euro).

Passing over that, however, let's look at that nasty word—"entitlement.” The word “entitlement” brings up all kinds of nasty images: self-entitled welfare moochers, self-entitled high school students who think the world owes them straight A's, lazy, self-entitled government workers who sleep on the job. Plenty of stereotypes.

Instead, however, what “entitlement” actually means is that you are legally entitled to get something. I am entitled to withdraw money from my bank account. Retired people pay into Medicare and Social Security during their working years, and they are entitled to draw on them when they are no longer working. Yet, if I talk with one of my many Republican friends about “entitlements,” they angrily explain that Social Security is not an entitlement because they paid into Social Security and they are fully entitled to withdraw the money when they retire. We have heard that a lot, don't we? It doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it? Social Security is not an entitlement because, drum roll, we are entitled to receive it? As if “entitlement” and “entitled” mean opposite things. Huh?

How did that poor word get so twisted? Well, we have heard people use “entitlement” as a dirty word for so many years that we now think it is bad to be entitled to something. It's reached the point that many people think, like my Republican friends, that they are somehow not entitled to receive entitlements. They are, however, they say, entitled to receive Social Security. Or something like that. Doesn’t make much sense, but there we are.

If we look at the federal budget, there are basically five sections: Medicare, Social Security, National Defense, Medicaid, and everything else. If we want to balance the budget by making cuts, where do we go? That’s a problem. No Republican will vote to cut National Defense. That leaves “entitlements:” especially Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those are top targets. But why? For the Republican Party's electoral support comes mostly from elderly voters who depend on Medicare and Social Security to survive. Of course, elderly voters want to cut neither Social Security or Medicare. Worse, attempts to cut Medicaid only appeal to elderly, conservative voters until they figure out that Medicaid keeps the nursing homes open. As soon as elderly voters figure out that Graham wants to balance the budget by cutting benefits for elderly voters, his political career will crash to the ground. As long as he talks about entitlement reform, however, he can pretend to be fiscally responsible. It's all about words. 

What's going on there? The Republican Party depends heavily on elderly voters. Elderly voters are not stupid. If Republicans are foolish enough to vote huge cuts in Medicare and Social Security, their political movement will disappear into the history books. Members of Congress know this. So what can they say? What is their alternative? 

That's easy. Smoke and mirrors gave Graham his only logical alternative. It all comes down to a word. Yes, the word “entitlement” is the rhetorical equivalent of the smoke and mirrors used by stage magicians. When he said “entitlement reform,” Graham stirred up all the negative images about self-entitled goof-offs and moochers. Did he have a serious policy proposal in mind? Of course not. He talked like a fiscally conservative person who wants to stop spending money on undeserving people. In real life, the numbers don't support any policy like that. “Entitlement reform,” which really means “cut Social Security and Medicare,” would be a political disaster for Republicans if they ever enact it. Which they obviously won’t.

Instead of producing actual policy proposals, Graham, like many other Republicans, simply reversed the meaning of the word “entitlement” to create a fog of non-existent public policy. Are we really entitled to receive Social Security because it’s not an entitlement? Honestly, how can anyone twist language into a knot like that? And how can voters fail to see through it? For conservatives make no secret of their wish to cut Social Security and Medicare. 

Anyway, Republicans have been fearmongering about Social Security’s supposed impending collapse ever since I took my first summer job in 1970. They’ve been wrong for more than 50 years, and silly word games don’t help. 


Words Matter: Trump's Announcement Speech Promised Not to Cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security

Monday, June 13, 2022

Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the January 6, 2021, Committee, Spoke from Tradition

January 6 hearing
As conservative fundraisers Richard Viguerie and David Franke pointed out, the idea of being a conservative is to preserve what is best from the past. That was the point that Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the January 6, 2021, Committee, made in his opening statement on June 9, 2022. speaking in a calm, quiet voice, Thompson reminded the United States that we had a long-standing history of peaceful transfer of power—until 2016, when Republican President Donald Trump cited transparently bogus claims that the election had been stolen, leading to a riot in the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes. Thompson did not merely make good arguments: he used the conservative movement's top moral premise against them. He showed that Donald Trump had broken with tradition. This was not merely a factual speech: Thompson drove a stake through the heart of the Republican Party’s central value system.

Yes, tradition should be a conservative’s strong point. Ironically, it was the liberal Representative Thompson who cited tradition. He especially emphasized the tradition set by Abraham Lincoln. Thompson reminded us that the first Republican president insisted on a peaceful transition, even in the dire circumstances of the Civil War. Indeed, Thompson literally turned the Republican Party's entire history against them. Nevertheless, we all needed to hear it.

First, Thompson reminded us that, although Lincoln expected to lose the 1864 election, Thompson's speech insisted on respecting the voters’ judgment. Thompson explained:
“Thinking back again to the Civil War, in the summer of 1864, the President of the United States believed he would be a doomed bid for reelection. He believed his opponent, General George McClellan, would wave the white flag when it came to preserving the Union. But even with that grim fate hanging in the balance, President Lincoln was ready to accept the will of the voters, come what may.”
Next, Thompson explained that Lincoln considered that it was his duty, his solemn responsibility, to turn the White House over to the next president and to cooperate with the next president during the transition:
“He made a quiet pledge.

“He wrote down the words, ‘This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. And it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect.’ ‘It will be my duty.’”
Thompson’s story did not stop there. He showed that Lincoln made no empty promise to accept the election. Instead, Thompson explained, Lincoln asked his top advisors to make the same pledge:
“Lincoln sealed that memo and asked his cabinet secretaries to sign it, sight unseen. He asked them to make the same commitment he did. To accept defeat if indeed defeat was the will of the people. To uphold the rule of law. To do what every President who came before him did… and what every President who followed him would do. Until Donald Trump.”
“Until Donald Trump:” an unbroken line of presidents willingly accepted the people’s will, until Donald Trump came along with his transparent lies and nonsensical conspiracy theories to inspire a revolt against the constitutional process.

With that, Thompson had come full circle. He had reminded his audience that tradition required presidents to follow the constitutional and legal processes. He demonstrated, beyond any possible dispute, that it was a Republican president who broke the tradition. He used the Republicans’ premise against them: the principal contention of republican politicians and voters is that they, and they alone, stand for the nation's traditions. Thompson demonstrated that, in contrast, it was the Republican Party who had abandoned tradition. They and the former president refused to follow Lincoln's example.

This was the debate technique called “turning the tables.” That is, Thompson took the Republicans’ own premise, which was the importance of tradition, and use it to condemn President Trump's actions. What were the Republicans going to do? Were they going to tell Thompson that he was wrong, and the tradition should be ignored? Of course not! How could any conservative say that tradition is bad? To argue with Thompson, a Republican would need to repudiate the very idea of conservativism.

To date, Republicans have protested that the hearings are a distraction from pressing issues like gasoline prices or that it is a witch hunt. what they cannot do—what they cannot possibly do—is to argue with Chairman Thompson’s argument from tradition. He did not merely show that they were wrong. He quietly ripped away their entire philosophical foundation. Thompson’s speech was not flashy, but it was devastating.


PS: Was it absurd for Trump to say the election was stolen? Absolutely. As I finish this post, I am also watching the hearing’s second day, with Trump’s own advisors saying that they repeatedly told Trump that the claims were false and unsupported.

Monday, June 6, 2022

Joe Biden's Emotional Gun Control Plea: "Enough!"

Joe Biden Speaking from Cross Hall 
In the wake of the horrible school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which took the lives of nineteen children and two teachers, President Joe Biden made an emotional plea for gun control: “Enough!” Over and over, he said “enough.” Biden's rhetorical tactic was to repeat: “enough,” “enough,” “enough.” This was a trope of language, not of logic. The speech was not so much a rational argument as an emotional pounding.

So, speaking from Cross Hall, the White House’s entrance hallway, Biden said less about the cold, hard data that Democrats adore, and instead appealed to people’s hearts:
“For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say “enough”? Enough.”
Although Biden offered arguments to support his position, the linguistic trope - “enough” - drove his speech. “Enough” conveyed his frustration and impatience. For, how can we persuade people who resist persuasion? By calling “enough” Biden moved away from his usual tactic of reason and compromise toward a rhetoric of pleading. “Enough” is what we say to a child who won’t stop misbehaving. It usually works. “Enough is what we say when we are tired of giving reasons and try to appeal to people's conscience. That might work—if people have a conscience. But Biden’s trope evolved during the speech: enough gun violence. Enough bad pro-gun arguments. Enough delay. Enough waiting for people to vote for gun control. One step led to the next.

After memorializing the Uvalde massacre and commemorating the victims, President Biden reminded us how far we have traveled as the nation transitions from a peaceful state to a coast-to-coast armed camp:
“A few years ago, the family of the inventor of the AR-15 said he would have been horrified to know that its design was being used to slaughter children and other innocent lives instead of being used as a military weapon on the battlefields, as it was designed — that’s what it was designed for.

“Enough. Enough.”
Biden then pointed out what he saw as the absurdity that ordinary people would need to carry powerful rifles with large-capacity magazines:
“The damage was so devastating in Uvalde, parents had to do DNA swabs to identify the remains of their children — 9- and 10-year-old children.

“Enough.”
Biden continued the trope of “enough” as he refuted a common pro-gun argument:
“Look, I know some folks will say, “18-year-olds can serve in the military and fire those weapons.” But that’s with training and supervision by the best-trained experts in the world. Don’t tell me raising the age won’t make a difference.

“Enough.”
A basic principle of persuasion teaches that people will only act if they think the problem has a solution. Biden's solution was the ballot box. Since polls frequently show that most Americans favor some degree of gun control, Biden recommends the ballot box as the solution to the mass killings:
“I’ve been in this fight for a long time. I know how hard it is, but I’ll never give up. And if Congress fails, I believe this time a majority of the American people won’t give up either. I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote.

“Enough. Enough. Enough.”
With that in mind, “enough” no longer only meant that we have tolerated the violence too long. “Enough” meant that Biden has tired of the gun lobby's unwillingness to compromise. It means more than that, as well. “Enough,” at the end of Biden's speech, also said that it was time for every voter to stand up and vote for candidates who will address the gun problem. it meant that we have waited too long:
“My fellow Americans, enough. Enough. It’s time for each of us to do our part. It’s time to act.”
Biden said “enough” more than a dozen times during the short speech. Yes, he also presented evidence and reasoning. However, cold, hard facts don't always persuade people. Every parent learns that sometimes you need to pound a point home. Likewise, sometimes a speaker needs to pound a point home. One word, “enough,” repeated, to drive home the enormity of mass murder, the horror of school shootings, and the need to act. Biden uttered a rhetorical pounding. Did we listen?

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Earlier Posts about Gun Control Rhetoric: