Did West Virginia Governor Jim Justice Just Advocate Violent Revolution?

Jim Justice speaking at an earlier event

Did West Virginia Governor Jim Justice call for the violent overthrow of the American government when he talked about becoming “totally unhinged?” Or did he not?

Speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024, Justice called for Republicans to engage in violent insurrection.

Radical speakers often speak in what scholars call “multivocal communication” but which the press often calls “dog whistles.” Multivocal means “in two voices,” and a dog whistle can only be heard by some ears but not others. Diplomats call a similar technique “plausible deniability.” That is, Justice said something ambiguous that was profoundly evil, but deniable.

Now, most (not some, but most) Republicans falsely say that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump by unproven fraud. Still, one suspects that many of them also know, deep in their hearts, that the January 6, 2021 Capitol Building riot was evil and unpatriotic. How does one reconcile that moral discrepancy? Simple! Plausible deniability. Talk out of both sides of your mouth. Say something that your listeners instantly understand, but which remains ambiguous.

What Did Justice Say? 

Dressed in a stylish but ill-fitted pinstripe suit, Justice stood behind the podium, offered various folksy comments, and sent for his well-fed bulldog “Babydog.” Babydog sat quietly in a luxurious chair as Justice rambled along in his 6 ½ minute talk. About two minutes into the speech, Justice announced that he stood for truth:

“The foundation of my life is the truth. I’ve got to tell you just this and tell you this right now. I challenge the media all the time to find something that knowingly I’ve told them that’s not the truth. And they can’t do it because I’m not gonna to do that.”

But what “truth” did he speak in that moment? The absolute next thing he said was:

“Now I want you to listen to this and pay really close attention. The bottom line to why we’re here. The bottom line to every single thing that’s going on in this great country today is one thing. We become totally unhinged if Donald Trump is not elected in November.” [Attendees cheered] [Italics added]

Now, let us recall the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol, when hordes of Donald Trump’s supporters responded to Trump’s brazenly unhinged speech to march on the Capitol to overthrow the 2020 election. The crowd screamed for the deaths of various government officials and shouted “Stop the Steal” as they protested Joe Biden’s election victory. Various rioters ended up in prison.

Trump's Speech of January 6, 2021: A "Firehose of Falsehood"

Justice’s statement rested on two carefully chosen (he told us to “pay really close attention”) words: “we” and “unhinged.” Those are the words that created ambiguity. How so?


Multivocal Interpretation #1

First, given the historical context of how Republicans behaved when they lost the 2020 election, my interpretation – my reading – is this. Justice was threatening that “we” (meaning Republicans) would become “unhinged” (meaning deranged) if Trump loses the upcoming presidential election. That sounded like a threat to repeat January 6. Judging by the crowd’s enthusiastic cheers, I think that the attendees understood what Justice said exactly in that way.


Multivocal Interpretation #2

At the same time, can we prove Interpretation #1? No! This is multivocal communication. It is plausibly deniable! For, after all, “we” might mean “the entire United States,” not just Republicans. Maybe Justice was saying that the entire nation would become unhinged because of four more years of supposedly inept Democratic Party leadership. Is that what Justice really meant? Or is that what he could pretend he meant?


So, Which Is It?

Multivocal Interpretation #1 expresses a threat. I think that Justice intended to make a threat. He threatened “unhinged” violence if Trump lost. There is little doubt in my mind. I don’t think there was any doubt in the attendees’ minds. I base that interpretation on the fact that Justice preceded his statement by saying “listen to this and pay really close attention,” that he uttered the statement carefully and deliberately, and that the audience responded enthusiastically.

However, Multivocal Interpretation #2 also fits the bare facts. If, for example, somebody arrested Justice and charged him with treason or insurrection, his lawyers could say that he intended Interpretation #2, and nobody could prove otherwise.

Still, Interpretation #2 seems unlikely. If he had truly intended Interpretation #2, it is far more likely that Justice would have said something like, “if we have four more years of Democrats, the nation will fall apart.” Or, he might have said, “if we have four more years of Democrats, the nation will become unhinged.” That would be both more precise and more forceful. I don’t think he intended anything of the kind. The rest of his speech was precise and forceful, and it would be odd indeed if his most important point (the “bottom line” that he asked us to “listen to … and pay really close attention”) was ambiguous. What he intended was to make a veiled threat while leaving room to squiggle away from criticism.

Justice’s overall theme was love: that Babydog loved everyone, and so did Trump. Odd indeed, meaningful indeed, to throw in a seemingly random comment about becoming “totally unhinged.”

Politicians often talk out of both sides of their mouths. This speech, however, was a doozy.

When politicians tell you what they believe, we should sometimes take them seriously.

by William D. Harpine

Earlier Post: Were Trump's Tweets Racist? They Were (Sort of) Deniable Dog Whistles

Earlier Post: Mitch McConnell and the Art of Dog Whistles

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P.S. It’s just my view, but I think that Babydog was the best-behaved individual in the entire convention hall. By the way, does Jim Justice always speak the truth, as he claimed in this speech? His record on PolitiFact (which includes one “Pants on Fire” rating) isn’t as bad as Trump’s, but it is far from perfect.

Republican delegate Melinda Morris said at the same convention that, “If this election gets stolen, Trump won’t have to call for a meeting,” she added. “The Americans will be showing up on the doorsteps of Washington, D.C. themselves. This is where we draw a line in the sand. They will not do this to us again, and if they do, we’re going to have to do something about it.” That stated the same point as Justice, but without the multivocal character.

Research Note: University of Texas Professor Bethany Albertson explains her theory of multivocal communication in a highly recommended essay.

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: From Governor Jim Justice, marked as public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mitch McConnell and the Art of Dog Whistles

Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell and the racist dog whistle ride again. In political rhetoric, a dog whistle is a statement that can say something different to different audiences. That is like the way that a dog might hear a whistle that a person cannot. Asked during a recent press conference about the concerns that people of color felt about voting rights in the United States of America, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said this:

“Well, the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just [as a] high percentage as Americans. A recent survey 94% of Americans thought it was easy to vote. This is not a problem.”

Of course, “this is not a problem” is the conservative mantra. If you pretend that nothing is wrong, you can pretend that you don’t need to change. By falsely denying that voter suppression is real, McConnell could pretend to justify his anti-voting rights agenda.

Dog-Whistle Speech

Politicians speak in dog whistles so they can deny what they themselves say. In this case, McConnell could deny that there was a problem in the same breath that he helped to cause the problem. Similarly, one might recall that former President Ronald Reagan talked about “young bucks and “welfare queens.” Everyone knew that he was talking about African Americans. Still, since these were dog whistles and not explicit statements, Reagan could blithely deny any racist intent. His racist core voters got the idea. Yet, the proverbial suburban housewives could pretend they heard no racist content. Likewise, when King Henry II supposedly asked, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” it didn’t sound like a solicitation to murder. It was a deniable dog whistle.

McConnell’s dog whistle itemized a racial divide. His critics jumped on the obvious. McConnell distinguished between “Americans” and “African Americans.” Otherwise, he could have said that African Americans vote at the same rate as other Americans. That would have been untrue, as we will see in a moment, but it would acknowledge that Black people are Americans. Instead, McConnell’s words implied that African Americans aren’t Americans. A person might, in contrast, say that Polish-American voters vote at a higher (or lower) percentage than Ukrainian-American voters. That might make at least a little bit of sense. McConnell did something else. He distinguished between African-Americans and (real?) Americans.

McConnell, of course, quickly denied that he meant to do any such thing. “I’ve never been accused of this sort of thing before,” he said, “and it’s hurtful and offensive.” He then described his commitment to civil rights in the 1960s, saying that he had attended the 1963 March on Washington and that he witnessed President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He also explained that he had, over the years, hired African Americans to work in his office. This led Charles Booker to comment, “Mitch McConnell wants you to know it’s fine for him to block Voting Rights because he has Black friends.” Of course, anyone who grew up in the South in the pre-Civil Rights era – as I did – knows that “I have many Black friends” is the racist’s favorite refrain.

None of McConnell’s defensive comments about a distant past, however, explain why he opposes voting rights legislation today. So, we ask, what did McConnell really mean? To understand dog-whistle communication, we need to listen for clues as to the speaker’s real meaning. We also need to listen for what the speaker did not say. After all, what a speaker does not say can convey as much meaning as what the speaker does say.

The Golden Trump at CPAC 2021: Why Is the Christian Right Silent?

Politicians often use dog whistles to sneak in their true meanings. For example, predating McConnell’s outrageous statement, former President Donald Trump once said that “MAGA loves black people. ” That implied that Black people were not part of Trump’s MAGA crowd. Pretty much the same thing that McConnell implied.

Donald Trump Says That the MAGA Crowd Loves Black People, Except When They Don’t


Why Speak in Dog Whistles? 

Dog-whistle communication gave McConnell a clever way to speak out of both sides of his mouth. Did McConnell respond to the uproar by supporting any kind of voting rights legislation, however moderate? No. Did he specifically assert that “Yes, African-Americans are real Americans?” Not that I have heard. He defended himself, but that is not the same as denying his dog-whistle meaning. His core supporters can come away confident that McConnell sides with their opposition to civil rights. More moderate Republican voters can pretend that he was misunderstood. The dog whistle helped McConnell appeal to a bigger audience than what he could reach if he spoke clearly.

Was McConnell’s statement undeniably racist? Well, no. He did not use the N-word. He did not accuse Black people of being lazy or ignorant. His statement was obvious but deniable, which is the whole point of a dog whistle. We all know that Mitch McConnell pretends to support voting rights when he does not. Unfortunately, because of his tricky way of speaking, it’s hard to prove. Yet, how can we solve our nation’s problems if we can’t even acknowledge them?

Scholars sometimes call dog-whistle speech “multivocal communication.” What that means is that a single statement can mean different things to different audiences. In this case, “African American voters are voting in just as high a high percentage as Americans” carries at least two meanings. It can mean that African-American voters and American voters are two different groups. It also could mean that McConnell found a statistical equivalence between the voting rates of White Americans and Black Americans. The first implication is much more racist then the second – not that either is defensible. 

Fact Check: Was McConnell Right? No.

By the way, did McConnell have his facts right? Of course not. The United States Census Bureau found that 71% of qualified white voters voted in the 2020 election. This is substantially more than the 63% voter turnout rate of African-Americans.

What about my own experience? I have lived in the voter suppression states of South Carolina and Texas since 2005. The most recent scandal results from Texas’ new voter suppression law, which restricts mail-in ballots. When you fill in the mail-in ballot application, you need to write down your driver’s license number, your voter ID number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. However, what if you originally registered to vote, maybe years ago, using your voter ID number, and yet put your driver’s license number on the application?  Or vice versa? The application will likely be rejected. Rejected applications need to be refiled. There is no guarantee of success, since the state’s voter records are a mess. Or, when I lived in South Carolina, voting locations changed willy-nilly, often with no notice to voters. These are just two of the 19 states that have proposed or adopted aggressive voter suppression laws. Yes, contrary to Mitch McConnell, some states pull nasty tricks to suppress voter turnout.

And, since voter suppression is patently unjust, politicians like McConnell speak in dog whistles to conceal or distract. It did not work this time. Often enough, however, it does.   
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Other examples of dog whistle speech:

Were Trump’s Tweets Racist? They Were (Sort of) Deniable Dog Whistles

“And This Is Their New Hoax:” Donald Trump’s Six Deadly Words Still Ravage Our Nation
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Research note: Interested readers will want to look at Bethany Albertson’s important article to learn more about multivocal communication.

Image: Congressional photo, via Wikimedia  

Donald Trump Says That the MAGA Crowd Loves Black People, Except When They Don't

Donald Trump, White House photo

President Donald Trump can win votes by dividing Americans, but can he govern the country that way? I don’t see how.

My former professor, Charles Urban Larson, a noted authority on persuasive communication, explains that persuaders can use a unifying style or a pragmatic style. The unifying style tries to unite us, while the pragmatic (or polarizing) style polarizes the audience.

In an extemporaneous briefing before the Marine One helicopter departure for Cape Kennedy yesterday, Trump said, "MAGA loves black people." He spoke in a warm, welcoming, inclusive style, making loving, generous comments that aggravated the nation’s divisions. That is, his style was unifying, but his content was harsh, divisive, and racial. Kind and hateful. Uniting and divisive. Generous words placing a thin cover over hostile thoughts.

Let’s look at how it happened, why it worked rhetorically, and  how Trump twisted rhetorical kindness to his own dubious purposes. In an act of what was either supreme tone-deafness or astute political divisiveness, he excluded African Americans at the same time he welcomed them.

“MAGA,” a Trump campaign slogan that has festooned countless homemade signs and red caps, means “Make America Great Again.” Some of us wonder whether it really means “Make America White Again,” which would transform the acronym to “MAWA.” Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Of course, conservatives piously deny that MAGA carries racist overtones. Until yesterday, they could say that with a straight face.

What Trump Said

With thousands of people rallying against police violence all over the country, sometimes violently, here’s what a reporter asked President Trump yesterday at the Marine One departure briefing:

"Q    Mr. President, are you — with your tweets today, are you concerned that you might be stoking more racial violence or more racial discord"

And here is how the President responded: 

“Not at all.  MAGA says ‘Make America Great Again.’  These are people that love our country.  I have no idea if they’re going to be here.  I was just asking.  But I have no idea if they’re going to be here.  But MAGA is ‘Make America Great Again.’  By the way, they love African American people.  They love black people.  MAGA loves black people.

“I heard that MAGA wanted to be there; a lot of MAGA was going to be there.  I have no idea if that’s true or not.  But they love our country.  Remember that: MAGA is just an expression, but MAGA loves our country.”

Here’s Trump's Positive Message

Trump's surface message was positive and welcoming, after all, “By the way, they love African American people.  They love black people.  MAGA loves black people.” That sounds positive because to love people is such a good thing.

So, isn’t that wonderful? “They love African-American people,” said Trump. It is so good to love people. Trump continued in a positive tone: “they love black people. MAGA loves black people.”

Related Link: Trump's Unifying Speech in South Korea

Well, again, yes, it’s great to love people. How, a Trump supporter could ask, can you call the President and his supporters racists when they love Black people so much? But…

Alas, Here Are Trump’s Divisive Undertones

ProPublica reporter Jessica Huseman explained what was wrong with Trump’s attitude in one quick tweet: “‘MAGA loves black people’ suggests black people aren’t a part of ‘MAGA.’ That they are outside of it. And that’s the point.”

To me, making America great should mean making all of America great. But, since I suspect that there are people who think that no diverse nation can be a great nation, we hear an undertone that making America great means undoing an African American’s presidency and restoring racial boundaries.

What else? Trump also said, “I heard that MAGA wanted to be there; a lot of MAGA was going to be there." So, to Trump, there were people who protested police brutality, and there was MAGA, and "a lot of MAGA" was going to show up. Again, two distinct groups.

So, what Trump's quick statement told us – between the lines – is that the people who Make America Great love Black people, but that MAGA supporters and Black people form two different communities. Political psychologist Bethany Albertson offers a theory that helps us understand this. She talks about what she calls “multivocal communication.” This is communication that uses the same words to send different messages to different audiences, thus multivocal. We hear a surface meaning, which, in this case, is that Trump and his supporters love Black people. But people who are tuned in will hear the underlying message that Black people do not belong to the MAGA crowd. I assure you, dear readers, that no one, and I mean no one, tunes into multivocal meanings more attentively than the typical Trump supporter. If liberals didn't get the message, most Republicans caught Trump's drift right away.

The way the United States' political situation is structured, a candidate can win reelection by taking just over 50% of the vote. In fact, the Electoral College system lets a candidate win, as Trump did in 2016, with slightly less than 50%. But if governance requires consent of the governed, what happens when a leader excludes huge chunks of the population from consideration? That can only lead to bedlam, which is, of course, what is happening on the streets today.

Trump's multivocal comment accomplished two purposes. He pretended, for just a moment, to support racial harmony. He also set up a racial divide. Tricky, isn’t it? It’s awkward for liberals to complain that Trump and his supporters love Black people. It is, however, unlikely that his supporters will overlook that he endorses them over Black people. Some voters are equal, George Orwell might have said, but some are more equal than others.