Jim Thome's Hall of Fame Speech and Why We Need to Be Challenged

Congratulations to home run hitter Jim Thome on his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. All of the inductees gave interesting and heartfelt speeches. In his speech, Thome thanked his teammates, his managers, and the fans of the six cities in which he played major league ball. He noted how remarkable it was that a 13th round draft pick would even get to the big leagues, let alone to the Hall of Fame.

But all epideictic speeches (that is, all ceremonial speeches) are about values, and one value that Thome mentioned really hit home to me. He thanked his opponents for helping him rise to one challenge after another:

"To everyone I played against, a few of whom are seated behind me, God bless you for making it hard to win games. You inspired hours of workouts, endless conversations of strategy, and challenged me to dig deep to pursue the truth that we all seek to discover but never quite master. We competed for the same thing and pushed one another to bring out the best in ourselves."

"To dig deep to pursue the truth that we all seek to discover but never quite master." Isn't that what life, at its best, is really about? We often do our best when the challenges become the greatest. For every strikeout that Thome made (and he struck out plenty!) gave him a chance to learn more about the sport.

So, he had a great career, and left his fans with an inspiring thought. He gave the audience - the live audience, the television audience, and the YouTube audience - a chance to learn something.

Paul Ryan Gave a Speech about Civility, but Are We Listening?

Paul Ryan, official portrait

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan gave a speech in the United States Capitol yesterday to congressional interns. He told them that civility was important, and explained that ideas need to make a difference. He deplored the mindless anger that fills political talk. I agree. As a former high school and college debater, I prefer for us to hear both sides of every issue, and to believe the points that are best proven. I agree with few of Ryan's policies, but I am happy to hear his ideas, and think that conservatives should be willing to hear ideas that liberals and moderates express.

Ryan especially called out social media which, he said, "just amplifies all of these trends. It is an industry where you can make money feeding fear and resentment." Although Ryan did not mention President Donald Trump, we all know that Twitter is his preferred   communication channel, so we do have something to worry about. Ryan continued, "We are caught in this paradox where we are more connected than ever, but we could not feel more disconnected or more alienated.”

Ryan continued that civility was not just important because it was good to be polite. He also noted that, to discuss ideas, we need to do more than debate in "a stream of hot takes and tweets." Ryan said that, when he is attacked on social media, he tries "not to respond in kind but to respond with kindness." He pointed out that "snark sells, but it doesn't stick. It doesn't last. It doesn't unite people around a bigger idea or a greater cause."

Ryan is, of course, right about that. The Elaboration Likelihood Model, a psychological theory of persuasion, shows that attitude change is more likely to last, and more likely to change our behavior, when it is based on "central processing;" that is, on deliberative thought. Twitter is not designed for deliberative thought.

Trump Tweet about "Fake News"

I'm sure that the news media would have liked Ryan to call out President Trump more explicitly, especially since Mr. Trump uses his Twitter account to declare open war on them, and they surely feel beleaguered. In the long run, however, Ryan's more measured speech made the point well enough. If Ryan gave an angry or insulting speech, he would have contradicted his own point. We can only hope that the future leaders to whom he spoke will heed the lesson.

And we can hope that the public will stop voting for politicians who spew out mindless rage. The loudest voices are not always right. In my experience, the loudest voices are usually wrong. 

P.S. Twitter can be productive if it links readers to websites that contain accurate, in-depth information. Too often, however, my Twitter feed just links me to conspiracy theory websites, wild speculation, or obnoxious memes. So, it's hard to disagree with Ryan's speech.

See my earlier post about Elaboration Likelihood, which shows why we need to speak reasonably.


Image of Paul Ryan: Official congressional photo

Why Did Trump's Supporters Take Barack Obama's Mandela Lecture Personally?

Barack Obama, WH Photo

As I commented in several recent posts, what we don't say can be as important as what we do say. In this case, former President Barack Obama criticized liars, evil dictators, and oppressive forces, which led supporters and opponents alike to assume that he was talking about President Donald Trump. Why?

Obama gave the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture on June 17. Although it was a very good speech, Obama said nothing that was surprising or unusual. He praised Nelson Mandela and various South African leaders. He told a few self-deprecating jokes about the weather. He talked about the history of oppression, including worldwide slavery and American Jim Crow laws. He reminded the audience that, not too many years ago, "Privilege and status was rigidly bound by caste and color and ethnicity and religion. And even in my own country, even in democracies like the United States, founded on a declaration that all men are created equal, racial segregation and systemic discrimination was the law in almost half the country and the norm throughout the rest of the country." He discussed the march of human freedom during the late 20th century.

Obama also noted, however, "the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the shortcomings and contradictions of this international order that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, a more dangerous, a more brutal way of doing business." He continued that, "It is a plain fact that racial discrimination still exists in both the United States and South Africa."

Some of those points might disturb a conservative, but it was all utterly and inarguably true.

In the wake of inequality and social disruptions, however, Obama complained that "a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move." He noted that "strongman politics" were spreading. He noted that, in the Western democracies, "you've got far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders, but also on barely hidden racial nationalism."

Not surprisingly, the press considered that the last comment was directed against President Donald Trump. An article in The New Yorker called the Obama speech an attack on Trump, although Obama never mentioned Trump's name.

While much of the right-wing media ignored Obama's speech, the conservative Weekly Standard asked, rather preposterously, whether "Could it be that the current president’s wild, fragmentary semi-coherent gibe-and-insult collections—that is, his routine campaign talks—sounded somehow refreshing after eight years of Barack Obama’s measured and rhythmic platitudes?"

In my social media feed, conservatives have complained that it was wrong for Obama to attack Trump from another nation - although, unless they felt guilty, there is no reason for them to think that Obama was talking about Trump, was there? 

But why would anybody think this was about Trump – unless they knew perfectly well that Trump's behavior has been in the wrong?

There is a long history of great speeches that attack people without ever mentioning them. Most famously, Margaret Chase Smith attacked Joseph McCarthy that way. These speeches work because everyone knows that something is morally wrong – but the only way to cast light on the problem is for someone to have the courage and ethos to stand up and protest against evil. If the shoes fits – people figure it out – and the speech is all the more powerful because the protest is veiled. Speeches like Obama's work only because everyone knows that something is wrong, while everyone was waiting for someone else to put a stop to it. 

Why Are Trump's Supporters Happy with His Conspiracy Theories at the Helsinki Summit?

Handing the ball to Mr. Trump!

At the Helsinki Summit a few days ago, President Donald Trump lambasted American intelligence officials, strongly implying that they were corrupt and politicized, while he praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and questioned the findings of American intelligence that the Russian government had interfered with the 2016 American election that put Mr. Trump in office. Bipartisan outrage followed.

But Mr. Trump's conspiracy theories won the controversy. Trump's supporters did not waver at all. His performance at the Helsinki Summit may have troubled them a little, tiny bit, but they believed Trump; they did not believe the American intelligence officials; they have contempt for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, and they think that Trump is doing just fine. Why?

Here's the issue: mainstream news reporters, most university professors, most members of Congress (when they are not pontificating for the cameras) and political authorities tend to take a rational, evidence-based approach to politics. Most people do not. As linguist George Lakoff notes, people make political decisions emotionally, not rationally.

1. The great majority of Americans believe the ridiculous "Deep State" conspiracy theory. This theory, which seems to be an offshoot of the even more ridiculous New World Order conspiracy theory, holds that a massive network of career government officials and Democratic operatives work behind the scenes, in total secrecy, cooperating with one another to overthrow Trump's administration.

A Monmouth University poll a few months ago found that fully 74% of Americans believe that a "group of unelected government and military officials . . . secretly manipulate or direct national policy." NRA members and non-whites were especially likely to believe that some such conspiracy occurs. Interestingly, few of the poll respondents have heard of the actual term "Deep State," which often appears on the Trump-sycophantic Fox News Network.

2. Most Americans, as I noted in an earlier blog post, believe in at least one unjustified conspiracy theory. So, people like college professors and news reporters, who think of themselves as serious and rational, think that unjustified conspiracy theories are stupid. They hold people in contempt when they express unproven conspiracy theories. But people who ridicule conspiracy theories are very much a minority. Conspiracy theories are as all-American as apple pie. Conspiracy theories are not fringe beliefs. Donald Trump understands that, and his critics do not.

Although both Democrats and Republicans believe in conspiracy theories, polls suggest that Trump voters tend to accept conspiracy theories and rumors about former President Barack Obama, and Republicans are especially likely to think that accusations of Russian interference are just a conspiracy against Trump. Fully 49% of Trump supporters see at least some merit in the insanely silly Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which holds that Hillary Clinton ran a child abuse ring in the basement of a tiny pizza restaurant that, well, doesn't have a basement.

So, why should Trump's supporters be unhappy? He stood up in an international forum and railed against the alleged conspirators. That's exactly what his supporters wanted to hear. A CBS poll found that, although the majority of Americans found Trump's performance at Helsinki to be wrong, 68% of Republicans approved of his performance. He reinforced a conspiracy theory they believe in, and they like Trump, so what's the problem?

So, Mr. Trump ended his diatribe by saying, "And I have to say if they had it, it would have been out long ago. And if anybody watched Peter Strzok testify over the last couple of days, and I was in Brussels watching it, it was a disgrace to the FBI. It was a disgrace to our country. And you would say, ‘That was a total witch hunt.’ Thank you very much, everybody." He said what his voters believed. Why should that trouble them?

At last, Mr. Trump's supporters must have thought, at last, at long last, we have a President who will protect us against conspiracies.


Earlier posts:

• Political response to Helsinki summit driven by partisanship
• Trump's conspiracy theories at Helsinki were nothing new. 
• Why didn't Putin deny that he had compromised Trump? Rhetoric of silence...
• How to evaluate conspiracy theories (since some conspiracies are real!)

 For more information:  there is a substantial scientific literature about the psychology of conspiracy theories. Here's one especially good article (very technical). 


Official Kremlin photo, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/trips/58021/photos/54673

Did Trump's Speech at the Helsinki Summit Lose His Supporters? Probably Not

Trump and Putin at 2018 Helsinki Summit

In a brief, rambling, extemporaneous speech during the press conference at the recent Helsinki Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump talked about Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign. Mr. Trump failed to endorse the findings of American intelligence agencies, which concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Mr. Trump, mostly by spreading rumors and false accusations against Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump bluntly criticized American officials by name and blamed both sides for the problems. A political storm broke out, with charges of "treason" seeming more credible. But, as of today, Mr. Trump's voters still support him. Why?

Defying the overwhelming evidence, only 1/3 of Republican voters believe that Russia interfered at all in our election. Trump's relationship with Russia does not trouble the majority of Republican voters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken yesterday - after the Helsinki summit - found that about 70% of Republican voters felt that Mr. Trump had done nothing wrong. That's partisanship for you. Evidence means little to most voters; partisan loyalty means everything.

Your high school social studies teacher was only partly right. Voters should study campaign issues; most voters don't. People don't pick a candidate for the issues; people pick a candidate, and then agree with whatever the candidate's issues might be.

Researchers who study political communication have known ever since the 1948 Elmira, NY voting study that partisanship is the main factor in election decisions. People will change their issue beliefs willy-nilly to suit their candidate and party, not the other way around. Two years ago, Republicans thought that budget deficits were awful, but a Republican Congress passed the 2017 tax cut for the rich; now, most Republicans think that deficits are just fine (or blame them on Democrats). When President Ronald Reagan was anti-Russia, Republicans were anti-Russia. Now that President Trump is sort of pro-Russia, Republicans are, well, much less anti-Russia. For no real reason. That's politics.

People hold political opinions strongly, but flip them without losing a breath. That's partisanship.

Some Republicans spoke against Mr. Trump's appalling performance at Helsinki, and #TreasonSummit trended on Twitter. Mr. Trump later issued an obviously insincere claim that he "misspoke" in Helsinki. I don't think so. But, in the long run, although Mr. Trump's core supporters might wobble, they won't budge.

Could Mr. Trump's Helsinki speech harm him politically? Yes and no. Although his supporters will stay true and hold strong, Mr. Trump's shocking performance might motivate Democrats and Independents to show up at the polls in November. That, and pretty much only that, could make a political difference.

Also, once Congress figures out that the voters' opinions about Mr. Trump haven't changed, Republican representatives might mostly fall back into line. Their main goal is to win elections. Partisanship, not issues, not patriotism, not self-interest, not common sense, drives political opinion. Partisanship rules.

Image: By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70916463

Earlier posts: 

Trump chose the wrong audience to spread conspiracy theories 

Why didn't Putin deny that he had compromised Trump?

Trump Stated the Usual Conspiracy Theories in Helsinki. Why Does the World Suddenly Care?

Donald Trump, WH photo

Nothing new was said at the Helsinki summit, but we communication people know that public speaking is, first and always, about your audience. And Donald Trump really, really, really misanalyzed his audience this morning. Bigly 

President Donald Trump caused a firestorm at the Helsinki summit. Asked whether he accepted the charge that Russia interfered in the US 2016 election - which is now known beyond any practical doubt - Trump mostly ignored the question and instead spewed out the usual unlikely, unproven, discredited conspiracy theories that have been floating around the right-wing media for years:

1. Nonsense about missing computer servers. Mr. Trump said:

"So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?"

What groups? Why would they need the server? Who knows?  Anyone can ask questions about anything.

2. More nonsense about servers. Mr. Trump added:

"What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They’re missing. Where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton’s emails? 33,000 emails gone — just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn’t be gone so easily. I think it’s a disgrace that we can’t get Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 emails."

More questions, but no evidence. Politifact has thoroughly discredited the Pakistani accusation, not that Mr. Trump seems to care about fact-checking.

3.  Then, Mr. Trump hedged with some false equivalency: maybe there's truth in both sides, he said:

"I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. But I have confidence in both parties." 

Quite bizarre, but milder than what we heard from Republicans at the Peter Strzok Congressional hearing a few days ago. Why did Helsinki cause so much more controversy? It comes down to audience and situation:

A. Mr. Trump said these ridiculous things at a major international summit, which is supposed to be a serious event. We expect Congressional hearings to be stupid. We don't expect an international summit to be stupid. Different setting. Different audience.

B. Mr. Trump had a chance to confront Mr. Putin about his misdeeds, and didn't. This made him look weak, and conservatives hate it when people look weak.

C. Face-to-face with an adversary, Mr. Trump endorsed his adversary over America's own intelligence and law enforcement services.

Trump Deep State conspiracy theory tweet

The content was, pretty much, the same silly stuff that Mr. Trump has been saying (and tweeting) for months. It was unloading the usual nonsense to a world-wide audience, in front of his adversary, that made him seem weak, tone-deaf, irrational, and morally dubious. Wrong place, wrong time - wrong audience!


RE conspiracy theories: let's remember that questions aren't proof. They're just questions.   

Why Didn’t Vladimir Putin Deny That He Had Compromising Information about President Trump?

Trump and Putin Shake Hands

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre press conference earlier today at the Helsinki summit. Even the normally sycophantic Fox News found fault with Mr. Trump’s performance, with Douglas E. Schoen writing, “President Trump’s unwillingness to stand up to Russia” about its misconduct “only serves to weaken the Western alliance and encourage further Russian incursions into the territory of sovereign nations now that Putin knows Trump will give him a pass.” Schoen also noted that Trump declined to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump instead repeated conspiracy theories about various Democrats. 

The most important thing, however is that President Putin had a chance to deny that he had compromising information about President Trump, and yet he didn't deny it.

Let’s take another look at the rhetoric of silence – what it means when someone is silent at times that call for speech. The most important event occurred when AP reporter Jonathan Lemire asked, “does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or on his family?” Putin dodged the question. Let’s look at his response. The first part of the response was:

“And now, to the compromising material. Yeah, I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Well, distinguished colleague, let me tell you this: when President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.”

This was a basic non-denial. It reminded me of the non-denials that the Nixon White House issued when accused of wrongdoing during the Watergate crisis. The fact that he didn’t know Trump personally does not mean that his intelligence agencies did not gather compromising information. As anyone who has even read spy novels should know, the Kremlin routinely gathers compromising information on distinguished foreign visitors.

Here is the second part of President Putin’s response:

“Well, let’s take St. Petersburg Economic Forum, for instance. There were over 500 American businessmen, high-ranking, high-level ones. I don’t even remember the last names of each and every one of them. Well, do you remember — do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them? Well, it’s difficult to imagine an utter nonsense of a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard these issues and don’t think about this any more again.”

Again, Putin denied nothing. He asked a question: “do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them?” He called the accusation “utter nonsense.” But he never answered even his own question. And he instructed the press to “just disregard these issues and don’t think about this any more again.” Those aren’t denials: a question, followed by a request, but no denial.

Now, does the Russian government have compromising information about Mr. Trump? Of course, I don’t know. I still have to wonder, however, why President Putin didn’t just say, “No, I don’t have such information.” Suppose, for example, that the police arrest somebody named Spike. The police ask Spike, “Did you steal the Volvo?" If Spike is innocent, Spike will say, “No, I didn’t.” If he is guilty, he might lie, but he might just dodge the question. So, . . . 

Silence can be literal, when somebody says nothing. In this case, President Putin said quite a bit, but he dodged the question. Why? This can only make people suspect that, in fact, President Putin has the goods on President Trump. Does he?

campaign speeches

 The rhetoric of silence can work in different ways. Here is my post about Emma González' literal use of silence. And here is a case of Trump being silent when he should have spoken. There's an entire literature about the rhetoric of silence; I developed some ways to think about this in my book From the Front Porch to the Front Page. 

Thanks to Time magazine for the transcript. Image from White House Flickr page.