Did Donald Trump Change the Subject and Set the Agenda at the RNCC Fundraiser?

Donald Trump, WH photo

Much commentary about President Donald Trump's speech at the Republican National Congressional Committee fundraiser the other day. CNN headlined a story by Chris Cillizza featuring "The 35 Most Startling Lines from Donald Trump's Speech at a Big Republican Fundraiser." That kind of negative coverage, in a story that emphasized unreasonable or exaggerated statements that Mr. Trump made during the speech, might well stimulate Mr. Trump to talk again about the mainstream media as "fake news."

You win a debate by picking your strongest points and harping on them. You lose a debate by getting excessively defensive. Mr. Trump used this speech to set the agenda.

On the one hand, Cillizza's headline is right. Mr. Trump did make some startling statements, and he surely overstated a number of points. He promised that he would never apologize: "We don't apologize," he said in the speech. Why not? If you're wrong, admit it like an adult!

He said that he hated his own catch phrase "Drain the Swamp," but said that he used it because "Every time I said it, I'd get the biggest applause." He said something he did not like because people cheered? How bizarre! It is entirely proper for journalists to point that kind of thing out to their readers and listeners.

But does Cillizza's criticism not miss the point?  He overlooks how Mr. Trump set the agenda. It wasn't how Mr. Trump talked about things, it was what he talked about. Let us imagine that politics in the United States takes the form of a gigantic debate, with thousands of debaters nationwide arguing in many different places, and that people think of this debate as having only two sides: liberal and conservative. Who is winning the debate? We will not know for sure until the next election cycle, will we? Did Mr. Trump use a good debate strategy? That depends!

OK, sure, in an ideal world, debaters would stick to the facts, prove their points, and give reasons against their opponents' points. In any case, that is what I was taught when I was in high school and college (thank you, Barbara Sue Carter, Patrick Micken, Donald McConkey, and my other debate teachers!). Would it not be nice if people used accurate facts in their debates?

The other point about winning a debate, however, is that the winner of the debate is the side that sets the agenda. The side that decides which issues will be discussed and which ones will not becomes the side that decides which points are important. That is usually the side that wins the debate. If you are always on the defensive – if you are always refuting your opponents' points – you are losing the debate. Set the ground, win the battle!

In this speech, Donald Trump was setting the agenda. That was the real point, and critics like Cillizza missed it.

What is on his opponents' agenda? No secret there: Russia, the Mueller investigation, and an impending government shutdown. Awful stuff. That is what his opponents want to talk about. If the agenda stays on those issues, Mr. Trump will be in trouble.

But Mr. Trump had a different agenda: he focused on successes. Consider this introductory point:

"Our Republican majority is one of the most successful in the history of the United States Congress.  Now, we must work to keep our majority so we can keep up the fight for American workers, American security, and the American values enshrined in our glorious Constitution and in our great American flag.  (Applause.)"

Overstated? Of course. Congress has not passed legislation anywhere near as comprehensive as, for example, the New Deal or the Great Society. Still, Mr. Trump's statement covered just about everything except Mom and chocolate chip cookies. People love a winner, and here are some specific examples of winning that Mr. Trump talked about: 

• Job creation 

"We’ve created more than 3 million new jobs since the election.  And if we would have said that number prior to the election, nobody would have believed it possible.  Jobless claims are at — think of it — jobless claims are at a nearly 50-year low.  Fifty years.  (Applause.)  That’s an amazing statistic."

Did that claim overstate the economy a bit? Well, yes. But the economy is in pretty good shape right now, and people usually credit the president for that, so he shifted the agenda away from, for example, Russia, and toward job creation. He avoided the criticisms, and focused on the positive: not defending himself, but instead asserting a positive agenda.

• Wage growth

"Wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than a decade, and I’ve been talking on the campaign trail for so long that wages have been stagnant for 18, 20, and even 21 years."


Again, that overstates things, since wage growth is still very weak, but it was a positive message and there is some truth to it.

• And on the attack about taxes!

IRS 1040

Also, Mr. Trump went on the attack against his Democratic opponents:


"Every single Democrat in Congress opposed our middle class tax cuts.  And if Democrats were to gain control of the House, the first thing they would do is raise your taxes.  They would raise your taxes.  They would take away what we’ve done and raise your taxes.  And actually, I’ve seen some of the numbers — very substantially raise your taxes."

That, again, is a little questionable, since most of the tax cuts are going to the very wealthy, but it is still a positive message, and he showed the Democrats to be against it. Since it is hard to put tax increases in a positive light, Mr. Trump's strategy here is clever. 

• Attacking some more!

According to Mr. Trump's speech, Democrats did other bad things: 

"A vote for House Democrats is truly a vote for open borders — people pouring into our country, pouring in.  We have no idea who they are.  They’re coming in — open borders.  You look at sanctuary cities, where criminals are protected."

In general, Mr. Trump's opponents consistently underestimate him. but this was a very persuasive speech, and it touched on points that greatly interest his voters and core supporters. He did not waste time defending himself against criticisms of foreign involvement, personal corruption, or inefficient administration. Even if he made good arguments on those points, those are his opponents' points, and it could do him little good to focus on them.

Instead, Mr. Trump focused on accomplishments, attacking against his opponents and raising the key issues of taxes and immigration. The speech was an attempt to reset the agenda. Although the mainstream press, such as CNN, largely missed the point, I am sure that his supporters did not.

This speech did commit what we used to call a "straw man" fallacy. I'll talk more about that later.

Did Kamala Harris Set the Agenda When She Debated Donald Trump?

Kamala Harris

The side that sets the agenda usually wins the debate. Debating fellow presidential candidate Donald Trump on September 10, 2024, Vice-President Kamala Harris set the agenda by taking four simple steps.

First, just as the event started, she walked over to Trump’s podium to shake his hand and wish him a good debate. Trump is, of course, notoriously phobic of handshaking. By reaching forward, Harris approached Trump in his own space and established some control over the setting. By politely greeting him (“Kamala Harris. Let’s have a good debate”), Harris exhibited a collegial character. That simple greeting started the agenda. The handshake symbolized that she would take charge of the evening’s discussion. 

Second, she took a positive tone when she answered the moderators’ predictable but tricky first question. David Muir, one of the hosts, asked Harris:

“When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?”

That question invited a negative response. The question invited Harris to critique the economic record that Trump created during his presidential term and, by way of contrast, defend the current administration’s economic accomplishments. No matter how she phrased it, a direct response would place her and Trump both on the defense. Avoiding that, Harris took a different tack. Pretty much ignoring the question, Harris chose to establish her credibility by stating a vague but presumably inspiring economic policy: 

“So, I was raised as a middle-class kid. And I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America.”

Continuing, Harris talked about the:

“Ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people.”

She acknowledged a few current economic problems, commenting on housing costs. She advocated a start-up plan for small businesses, which she called “part of the backbone of America’s economy.”

Only then – after establishing her own perspective – and not a moment earlier – Harris criticized Trump’s economic ideas:

“My opponent, on the other hand, his plan is to do what he has done before, which is to provide a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations, which will result in $5 trillion to America’s deficit.”

Concluding her opening, Harris then (unfortunately) offered a confused interpretation of Trump’s tariff plan.

Third, during her rebuttal speech a few minutes later, Harris did – eventually – favorably compare the current economy with Trump’s. That was organizationally clever. Having earlier ignored the moderator’s question, Harris now answered it, but only in rebuttal. That way, no one could accuse her of ignoring the question, even though she had done exactly that. It was a matter of emphasis. Her first statement offered a positive philosophy, and only later did she contrast the current economy against Trump’s legacy:

“Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century. Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Note Harris’ tripartite use of Trump’s name: “Donald Trump left us… Donald Trump left us… Donald Trump left us….” That put the onus for economic troubles squarely on Trump. Audiences respond well to anything stated in a pattern of three! Even so, she sidestepped the moderator’s attempt to get her to talk about President Joe Biden’s economic policies. After all, Biden was not debating that night. By comparing one president’s accomplishments or failures with the other, she would have invited a back-and-forth hassle about statistics and perceptions. She might have proved her points, but she would have lost the agenda. Entirely avoiding such a discussion, she wisely avoided going on the defense.  

Since Trump is known for his divisive style, Harris concluded her rebuttal by calling for unity:

“I believe very strongly that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. And I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans.”

Thus, by taking control of the debate’s ground, Harris focused the audience’s attention on her own perspective: not Trump’s perspective, and not the moderators’ perspective.

Earlier Post: William McKinley versus Donald Trump: Does Mr. Trump Really Need to Be So Nasty?

Fourth, as the press gleefully noted, Harris dug at some of Trump’s pet peeves. For example, she needlessly criticized Trump’s famous mass rallies:

“I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”

Defensively, Trump responded by boasting:

“People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We’re a failing nation.”

After defending his rallies (a defensive move!), Trump bitterly narrated the discredited Internet rumor that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are kidnapping and cooking people’s pets:

“The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating -- they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

And, thus, Harris scooted Trump into ignoring the moderator’s question in favor of his personal grievances. She gave Trump a chance to say ridiculous things, distracting him from the moderators’ questions, and he unwisely took full advantage. The real point, however, is that she distracted Trump from the issues – which, in turn, helped her to control the agenda.

Overall, Harris’ stated vague, poorly articulated policy positions. For that matter, so did Trump. That’s not my point. It’s been a long, long time since American voters have heard a solidly argued presidential debate. What matters most, for the moment, is that Harris seized the agenda, asking the voters to view politics as a positive opportunity. Her agenda distinguished between her values and Trump’s. That is not enough to win the election, but it’s a good start.

Now, Trump is famous for controlling the public agenda. In this debate, he failed. He failed miserably. He utterly embarrassed himself. But, as I’ll explain in an upcoming post, he soon retook the agenda by marching onward with his most outrageous and factually challenged arguments. Indeed, it took him only a few days to spin the presidential campaign back into a swirling cloud of ether. Check this blog again in a day or two for details.

by William D. Harpine

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Earlier Post: Did Donald Trump Change the Subject and Set the Agenda at the RNCC Fundraiser?

Earlier Post: Kamala Harris: "Investing in the Potential and the Greatness”

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: Official White House photo, public domain

The Build Back Better Agenda: Will Democrats Use the Bully Pulpit? Or Not? William McKinley Shows the Way

Joe Biden

A CBS/YouGov opinion poll released yesterday (October 10, 2021) revealed that the majority of Americans have no idea, or only a vague idea, of what the Democratic Party’s Build Back Better legislative bill even contains. At this point, the bill’s passage is in doubt. If it does pass, it will probably be much-reduced.

No surprise there! Why should the public know anything about the bill? Who is telling them? Pretty much no one. If the Democrats want this legislation to pass, they need to sell it.

We’re hearing all kinds of stuff in the press, and from Democratic speakers, arguing about how big the bill should be. Should it be $3.5 trillion? Or some smaller amount? Should it be paid for by taxing the rich?

Get a clue! Voters care about none of that. They want to know what the bill is doing. They want to know what it might do for them. And, in fact, all of the bill’s provisions – and I mean all of them – are polling very well. The public likes the idea of shoring up Medicare, expanding broadband access in rural areas, improving dental and vision care, and upgrading the nation’s rotting, crumbling roads and highways. Polls show that voters even support the climate provisions. Who would have guessed?

But there is a big disconnect. The public isn’t going to support the legislation unless they realize that it contains bunches of things that they like.

Much is made of the reluctance of senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. They both come from relatively conservative states. The fact remains that their states would benefit tremendously from this legislation. So why are they stalling? Have they been bribed by big business? Are they playing both sides? Who knows? Who cares? Forget about all of that. Members of Congress are simple, uncomplicated creatures who do whatever it takes to get reelected. Convince the voters of Arizona and West Virginia that they want the Build Back Better agenda, and Sinema and Manchin will magically agree and vote accordingly. Bingo.

There is precedent for this. We know how presidents can sell an unpopular agenda. More than a century ago, when President William McKinley wanted an uncooperative Senate to ratify the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War and annexed the Philippine Islands, he did what any smart modern president would do. He went on speaking tours.

William McKinley

These were not just any speaking tours. Among other parts of the country, McKinley traveled by train to the South, where opposition to his policies was strongest, where he gave speech after speech. He traveled in the company of the ever-popular Confederate General Joseph Wheeler, who had rejoined the United States Army and was the hero of the Spanish-American War. Wheeler was a Democrat, while McKinley was a Republican, and they had fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. McKinley’s speeches were vague, carefully constructed to offend as few people as possible. He praised the South. He promised to care for the graves of Confederate soldiers. He talked about trade and prosperity. He exalted the “protecting folds” of the American flag, which would spread out to give prosperity and justice to the Filipino people. He praised soldiers and sailors of the South and North alike for the quick, popular victory over Spain. In other words, he went directly to his opponents’ territory and reached out concerning issues they cared about.

And, guess what? It worked. The Senate ratified the treaty by the required two-thirds vote. The United States quickly annexed the Philippine Islands. Now, unfortunately, the annexation didn’t go quite as well as McKinley had expected. Filipinos immediately launched a bitter war of independence in an effort to drive the Americans out of their country. The fact remains that McKinley had a policy, the policy was not attractive, and yet he convinced the public to support it. Once the public was on his side, the senators meekly dropped into place.

Biden Speaking about Build Back Better

Let us come back to 2021. If Democrats want to sell their agenda, they need to reach out. They need to reach out much more aggressively than they have so far. President Joe Biden has given some speeches about the proposal. Those speeches were fine. He has not, however, given enough speeches. He needs to tell people about his agenda every day. He needs to reach out to different audiences – every day. Leading Democrats need to do more than to offer a few mumbled comments on the Sunday morning TV shows. They need to hold town halls, one after the other, and explain the benefits that their agenda will bring to people. Instead of sniping at one another on Twitter, they need to use their social media to tell people what the bill contains and how it will help them.
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More Information: Biden and the Bully Pulpit: Biden’s Infrastructure Speech
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And that is not enough. The Democrats need to go on Fox News. Democrats today act as if Fox News is poison. Why? The Fox News audience is exactly the people they need to reach. They need to get on talk radio. If they want to talk about the United States as one unified country, they need to reach out to people who disagree with them. Remember, McKinley was a decorated combat veteran of the Civil War. (Or, as Southerners of the time sometimes said, the War of Northern Aggression.) He didn’t expect to get a lot of support from the South. He did not even expect them to like him. He did know, however, that he needed to reach out to the South to moderate their opposition to his proposals, to show that he cared about them, and to solicit unity. He spoke to a friendly audience at a southern African-American University. He spoke to the Georgia legislature. Making a appearance on Fox News can’t be as hard as what McKinley did.

Theodore Roosevelt called the presidency the “bully pulpit.” And he was right. Political scientist Jeffrey Tulis said that modern presidents routinely bypass Congress to sell their ideas directly to the public. That is what the Democrats need to do.

People often talk about how former President Donald Trump is always in the news. Pundits say that he sucks the oxygen right out of the room. They are right. Trump controls the agenda. He controls the agenda by holding rallies, making media appearances, and generally making a nuisance of himself. You might not like him, but you can’t ignore him. President Biden is getting too easy to ignore. The Democrats are too easy to ignore. They need to climb on the bully pulpit and commandeer their share of the media’s oxygen. That does not mean that they need to say stupid things like what Trump says. It means that they need to tell people about their agenda – over, over, and over. They need to tell people why the agenda is needed and how it will work. That is why we have the bully pulpit. As I have said many times, the side that sets the agenda will win the debate.

Throughout his career, McKinley emphasized unity in the face of disorder and compassion in the face of strife. I don’t see any reason that it wouldn’t work today. The way to overcome polarization is with unity.

So, are the Democrats giving good speeches? Or bad speeches? That’s not the point. The point is that they are not giving enough speeches. They need to inform the public. They need to set the agenda.

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Further Reading: Rhetoric in William McKinley's 1898-1899 Speaking Tours

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Research Note: I wrote about McKinley’s speaking tours in a chapter that I wrote for Before the Rhetorical Presidency. Copies are available in most large libraries, and, of course, it is available for sale in major bookstores. I also wrote an unpublished paper about McKinley’s speaking techniques during his tour to sell the treaty; link above. Click on William D. Harpine’s Publications above to see more of my writing about McKinley’s speeches.

Interested readers might want to look at my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page, about public speaking in the 1896 presidential campaign between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. There are chapters about McKinley’s use of such themes as identification and unity. The book is now available in paperback, and, of course, many university libraries have it on their shelves. 

Mel Laracey’s excellent book, Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public, includes an insightful discussion of McKinley and the rhetorical presidency.

P.S. If you want to bypass the politicians and read a summary of Build Back Better, here is a simple explanation. 

Image of Biden: White House photo. Image of McKinley: Library of Congress. Image of Biden's speech: White House YouTube channel. 

Biden Sold His Legislative Agenda in His Detroit Speech, but Let His Opponents Set the Agenda

Joe Biden speaking in Detroit

My wonderful high school music teacher, Mr. Matt Hines, told us that the most important parts of a performance were the beginning and the end. That’s when people are paying the most attention. The same is true when speaking. People pay the most attention at the speech’s beginning and end. No aspect of speech organization has more impact than the speech’s beginning

In his speech in Detroit yesterday, November 17, 2021, President Joe Biden said all the right things to sell his legislative agenda. Unfortunately, Biden did not organize his speech for the greatest persuasive effect. Instead, he debated on his opponents’ ground. Biden’s point was that his agenda would help people. His opponents’ point was inflation. Yet, Biden began by refuting the accusation that his legislative program would cause inflation. That was defensive. He put the issue on his opponents’ ground, not his own:

“Before I begin, I just want to mention three pieces of good news today. First, two of the leading rating agencies on Wall Street confirmed today — not a liberal think tank, two Wall Street outfits — that the economic proposals we put forward for the nation — the infrastructure law we just signed and the Build Back Better plan are being considered this week in Congress — will not add to inflationary pressures in the economy. (Applause.)

“And at one — and here’s what one of the agencies said, and I quote, ‘The bills do not add to inflation pressures.’ Let me repeat that: ‘do not add…inflation pressures.’

“The reason? Because the policies I proposed, quote, ‘help…lift long-term economic growth via stronger productivity… labor force growth,’ as well as taking ‘the edge off of inflation.’”

As a speech technique, that’s both really good and absolutely awful. It is important to preempt your opponent’s arguments. It is more important to put your own best points first. An old debate textbook by the late Robert Huber, a mentor from my younger days, suggested a better way to organize refutation. Begin by stating your own positive point. Always. Then, and only then, state your opponent’s point. Don’t explain your opponent’s point. Then state and prove why your opponent is wrong. That keeps the debate on your own ground. Always emphasize your own positive points. You don’t win debates – ever – just by proving that your opponent is wrong. You win a debate by proving that your point is right.


What Was Good?

Biden preempted his critics’ main argument. Republican members of Congress, media pundits, and even some of the Democratic caucus, complain that government spending for infrastructure and other needed projects will cause inflation. Biden needed to attack that. 

Now, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell has been insisting that inflation (a 5.6% annual rate in the most recent monthly report) will be transitory. He thinks prices are spiked by the pandemic and supply chain bottlenecks. All the same, people who want to sound serious are hysterical over a one-month inflation spike. In any case, Biden wanted to confront the issue right off.

Furthermore, Biden tackled the inflation issue exactly. He cited two Wall Street investment studies that the recent infrastructure law and the proposed Build Back Better legislation “will not add to inflationary pressures in the economy. “ He noted that neither of these reports came from “a liberal think tank.” That was important, for so many people try to politicize simple economic information. Indeed, Biden may have worried that people would reject factual news as liberal propaganda. So, that was a good way to make his point.

To drive the point home, to eliminate any possible misunderstanding, Biden directly quoted one of the Wall Street reports: “here’s what one of the agencies said, and I quote, ‘The bills do not add to inflation pressures.’ Let me repeat that: ‘do not add…inflation pressures.’” He didn’t just quote the point. He repeated it.

That was all good. If you know that something is on your listener’s mind, you need to confront it. Congress surely knows that the Build Back Better and the infrastructure bills enjoy overwhelming public support in the polls. Biden’s opponents’ only hope for stopping the much-needed legislation is to complain about inflation. Recognizing what people were thinking, and noticing his opponents’ persuasive strategy, Biden refuted their argument. That’s good. But what wasn’t good?


What Was Absolutely Awful?

The problem is that Biden let his critics set the agenda. He started his speech with the inflation issue—his opponents’ issue. As I have said many times, the side that sets the agenda wins the debate. The public loves projects like safe bridges and highways, broadband access in rural areas, safe drinking water, and childcare. When I was a child, legislation like that passed automatically. “Highway bills pass” used to be a District of Columbia proverb. However, the group that economist Paul Krugman calls “very serious people" (VSP) never cease to panic about inflation. Prices can plummet, and the VSP’s will still panic about inflation. Wishing to appear serious, I guess, Jason Furman just warned that the Federal Reserve is “behind the curve on inflation.”

Related Post: Biden's Speech Reset the Agenda on Afghanistan  

Similarly, writing for the mainstream CBS News, Aimee Picchi asked, “Could Biden’s Spending Plans Push Inflation Even Higher?” She quoted Lawrence Summers’ warning about long-term inflation. If we turn to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, we read Joshua Green’s warning that inflation is eating into people’s paychecks. And, of course, a Fox News pundit frantically shrieked that, “Inflation is running hot; rising prices are everywhere and are here to stay.” In contrast, as we’ve seen, many responsible economists still agree with the Federal Reserve that inflation is transitory. 

Still, Biden let the Very Serious People set the agenda. That is why, when Biden began his speech by talking about inflation, he was debating on his opponents’ ground – not his own. The strong point about Biden’s legislative program is not that it is inflation-free. The strong point is that it provides what many people believe are badly needed improvements to the American economic structure.

And, indeed, Biden talked about those improvements – later in his speech. About 1/3 of the way into the speech, for example, Biden zoomed in on the United States’ desperate need for infrastructure:

“The kind of conversations that take place around your kitchen tables — conversations, as profound as they are, are ordinary: ‘How am I going to get to work on time if I-75 is flooded again?’ ‘How can I be sure that my job at the auto plant is still going to be here a few years down the line?’ ‘How can I afford to get my child degree — a degree beyond high school if they don’t start with the same opportunity?’ And more broadly, ‘How do we emerge from this pandemic not just with a little breathing room but with real fighting chance to get ahead?’”

Exactly! How can the economy function if the roads are flooded? Guess what, it can’t! How can people improve their lives if education is unaffordable? They can’t! How do we recover from the pandemic and get the economy rolling again?

That was a wonderful passage. Biden focused on the lives of ordinary people and how they will be better off with his legislative agenda. It’s hard to argue with any of it. That, and not inflation, needed to be Biden’s agenda. Put your own agenda first! Put the refutation later in the speech! Every champion debater knows this.


Sell the Project!

All along, Republicans have done a terrific job of branding their ideas. Most of their ideas are, in my opinion, utterly silly. They are, nonetheless, clear and precise. They scare people about socialism and inflation. They put up pictures of poverty-stricken migrants trying to come to the USA to work. Everybody knows what the Republicans stand for. What do the Democrats stand for?

Yet, what Biden stood for is that he was not making inflation worse. That’s because he began his speech with a piece of good news – but it was good news relevant to the Republican’s agenda. Biden began by telling people that the Republicans and their allies were wrong. He said that his plan would not cause inflation. He was probably right. So what? Nobody is going to vote for a plan if its selling point is that it doesn’t cause inflation. People will support a plan if they see its positive benefits. Unfortunately, Biden waited several minutes before he told people about the benefits.

My friend, college classmate, future big-time business professor, and one-time college debate partner Kathy Micken once told me how important it was to emphasize my key points. One of the best ways to emphasize a point is to put it first in the speech. Mr. Hines was ever so right about that. People pay attention at the beginning. No one pays attention to the middle of the speech. Dear reader, you know this.


Conclusion

Biden actually said all the right things in this speech. He gave positive points for his ideas. He proved those points. He put his points in simple, human terms. He related to people. He showed why inflation fears were wrong. In fact, he proved that inflation fears were wrong.

The only problem is, he said things in the wrong order. Organization is one of the five classical parts of public speaking theory – dating back to ancient times. We often forget how important it is. Biden said all the right things, and he said them wonderfully. But he didn’t put his own point first.

This was, otherwise, a fine speech. Nevertheless, Biden’s opponents are using up too much media oxygen. Biden’s opponents use up the oxygen by saying ridiculous things. I’d love to see Biden take consistent command of the public agenda on his own ground.  

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Related Post: President Biden and the Bully Pulpit

Related Post: Joe Biden's Juneteenth Speech Used Values to Support Policies

Related Post: Biden's Speech at the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center: Working Together for Progress

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Research Note: my colleagues who study rhetoric and communication often stress deep-seated ideas. They like to talk about historical and cultural contexts and intellectual history. That’s excellent and I’m glad they do it. I’ve done that kind of research myself. Sometimes, however, we overlook the basics. Audiences respond according to what speakers emphasize. The simplest way to emphasize something is to put it first.

Ancient Greek and Roman writers divided the study of public speaking in the five parts (canons), which all had fancy Latin names. In contemporary English, those five parts would be (1) ideas and proof, (2) organization, (3) language, (4) delivery, and (5) memorization. We don’t worry much about #5 today. The other four are as important as ever. Yes, the content is what we should care about – but speakers need people to understand and believe the content. That’s where, among other things, organization becomes vital. For more information, click on the button above to see my brief essay about the canons.

Image: from White House YouTube Channel

Copyright Ó 2021, William D. Harpine

Did Trump Reset the Agenda When He Accused Haitians of Eating Pets?

Donald Trump

During his September 10, 2024 debate with Kamala Harris, brimming with indignation at the latest nonsensical conspiracy theory, Donald Trump complained about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio:

“They're eating the cats. They're eating - they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

This debate was otherwise a failure for Trump, according to the polls, even in the minds of many Republicans. That is because Harris appeared to be stronger, better prepared, and more articulate. She seized the political agenda. Nevertheless, Trump re-seized the political agenda by lying about cats (and dogs). It was a delayed effect. So, in that twisted way, Trump turned the worst part of an embarrassing debate loss into a remarkable political advantage.

Of all the ridiculous things that Trump said during the debate, his comment about cats and dogs was the silliest – the most absurd – the most easily discredited. But for days after, the press could hardly talk about anything else. Thus, by lying through his teeth, Trump retook control of the agenda. People quickly forgot about what a terrible impression he had made while debating, and they forgot how much better Harris did than he did. None of that mattered any more. That is what “seizing the agenda” means. No, it all came down to the pets. Was anyone actually eating the pets? No, of course not. How silly. That wasn’t the point.

As one of her debating techniques, Harris cleverly provoked Trump into spewing out his conspiracy theories. Never one to overlook an opportunity, Trump immediately launched into a diatribe that may well be the lowest point in recent American politics. He argued that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio had been stealing and eating people’s pets. (The fact that his diatribe succeeded makes one tremble in horror):

“And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora [Colorado] or Springfield [Ohio]. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame.”

This was, of course, like Trump’s other conspiracy theories, not true. The rumor, which apparently originated in right-wing social media posts, arose entirely from a real case in which a woman who is not an immigrant, who lives in an entirely different part of the state, and is said to have frequent run-ins with the authorities, was found cooking a cat. Now, I like cats, and I am against people eating them. However, the Haitian immigrants in Springfield were not eating cats.

Earlier Post: Did Kamala Harris Set the Agenda When She Debated Donald Trump?

Springfield’s mayor, Rob Rue, and local police quickly denied that they had any believable reports that Haitian immigrants were stealing people’s pets, much less eating them. Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, urged for calm. He explained that the Haitian migrants had been in Springfield for years, that they were good residents and hard workers, and that they had helped to revitalize a struggling town. He emphasized that they were legal immigrants:

“What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies. What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there. And, frankly, that’s helped the economy.”

Unfortunately, DeWine’s fact-based talk collapsed in the face of anti-immigrant anger. DeWine reported that Springfield has received 33 or more bomb threats, many (but not all!) from overseas. It has become necessary to scour the schools for bombs every morning before classes begin. A cultural event was canceled to prevent anti-immigrant violence.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, the son of immigrants, held a town hall in Springfield, where he told a packed audience full of Trump hats that he wasn’t going to talk about cats (apparently realizing that the falsehood was too silly for words), but that he was troubled that so many immigrants had come to the city. Sidestepping the issue further, he said that the big problem was “illegal immigration,” neatly sidestepping the fact that the Haitian immigrants had arrived legally:

“What is the right legal immigration policy in this country? I’m guessing it’s illegal immigration. If you are first act of entering this country breaks the law, you should not be able to enter this country.”

Quickly seeing a way to gain readers and viewers, the press gave abundant attention to Ramaswamy’s slippery comments. Sensing a golden opportunity, Trump himself plans to visit Springfield, much to the mayor’s anxiety, presumably to spread more anti-immigrant ideas.

Even worse, vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance got on television and admitted that he had been lying about the Haitian refugees. Indeed, Vance repeated false claims about the refugees even after his staff determined that the claims were false.

He said:

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” [italics added]

So, let’s summarize:

During the debate, Trump made an utterly false and unreasonable complaint about Haitian immigrants who are, first, legally present, second, not eating cats, and, third, making an economic contribution to what had been a dying community.

 
Trump and his supporters quickly generalized the issue. Did it really matter whether the immigrants were legal or not? No, it turns out that they were immigrants, and this was enough to anger many conservatives. For years, I have heard Republicans declare that they support legal immigration, but not illegal immigration. That similarly noble position has, apparently, puffed into the ether.

 
Trump, Vance, and other Republicans are spreading a story that they know to be false. Doing so, they displaced the public agenda for several days, obliterating complaints about Trump’s poor debate performance.

What does it mean that Trump and his supporters have reset the agenda? It now becomes harder to talk about Springfield’s real issues, or the real issues of immigration. Trump and his supporters have filled the discourse with outrageous, easily disproven lies. Sheer malice. Having reset the agenda to immigration, not Trump’s debate performance, they now skitter and scamp to a variety of inconsistent positions. Instead of admitting they were wrong, they switch from one complaint to the other. No, it’s not really the cats that are the real issue, the complaint is that the hospitals are packed. No, it is not really about cats and dogs either; instead, it is that some of the Haitians are bad drivers. No, Trump is not really concerned about cats or dogs. The issue, they say, is that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have opened the border and invited families to come to the U.S. and work.

Trump started the issue by flat-out lying about the immigrants. Caught out, Trump and his supporters simply squirm from one point, to the next, to the next, never settling on one argument, and thus never leaving themselves open to basic dialectic. Arguing with them is like wrestling with a huge ball of half-chilled Jell-O.

On a more complex level, however: by resetting the agenda, Trump has refocused the campaign. We were no longer talking about his confused, awkward debate performance. We, instead, started talking about the issue that made Trump famous: opposition to immigrants. Or, put it this way: Trump lost the debate on September 10, but, within a few days, he and his supporters gleefully rewrote the scoresheet and claimed victory.

Much of the press was hostile to Trump’s arguments. That is not the point at all. No, the point is that for about a week, the press and the pundits talked about Haitian immigrants and cats, to the exclusion of almost anything else in the political realm. Inflation, the economy, the coronavirus – and everything else – almost vanished from public discourse. The (mythical) cats ruled. Trump’s terrible debating was forgotten, and we forgot about his terrible debate because everyone was busy hassling over the most absurd thing he had said during the debate.

Such is American politics.

The cat-eating immigrants were not the only false conspiracy that Trump brought up during the debate. Wishing to be complete, Trump also ranted that FBI crime statistics were fudged, accused former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of being complicit in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol building, accused Harris of “weaponizing” the government against him, and falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Those are old-hat conspiracy theories. No one much cares about them anymore. No, it was the cats that captured people’s attention. Now, the cat conspiracy theory was the silliest of the bunch, since no speck of evidence supported it, but it was new. It got people’s attention. People like cats. People like cats more than they like people. Trump and his supporters latched onto the accusation and refused to let it go.

So, people who think that Trump lost the debate because he lost on the issues are missing the point. For example, analyzing the debate right after, Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrongly speculated that Trump’s ranting about the cats and dogs while failing to discuss real issues would cost him dearly:

“The conversations about people eating dogs and cats, calling the leader of Hungary one of the greatest world leaders, repeatedly missing the opportunity to focus on inflation and affordability and the complete inability to present his point of view without completely tearing into her, into Joe Biden, into whomever was in his sights.”

I wish that I believed that Luntz was right. However, Trump recognizes, like no politician before him, that huge segments of the population could not care less about what is, and is not, true. It is not clear that Trump’s tirade about people stealing and eating pets helped him. What is clear is that he regained control of the agenda. We are talking about the issues that he wants us to talk about.

Heaven help us.

by William D. Harpine

______________________

Earlier Posts:

Biden Versus Trump, the June 27, 2024 Presidential Debate

Did Donald Trump Change the Subject and Set the Agenda at the RNCC Fundraiser?

Copyright ©  2024 by William D. Harpine

Official White House photo, public domain

William Barr Deceptively Reset the Agenda on the Collusion Narrative

Attorney General Barr, DoJ photo

In my previous post, I noted that Attorney General William Barr cherry-picked selections from the Mueller Report about Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign to emphasize information that was favorable to President Trump. Barr truthfully noted that Mueller did not prove a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and that Mueller did not indict Trump for obstruction of justice. Barr omitted, however, that Mueller found many unsavory links between Russia and the Trump campaign that fell short of conspiracy and that Mueller referred the question of obstruction to Congress.

Barr knew perfectly well that he would shortly release a somewhat complete version of the report. Barr knew that the report would demonstrate beyond question that he had been deceptive and that there was much more wrongdoing than what his initial memo indicated. Nevertheless, Barr repeated many of the same questionable conclusions in a speech he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the report was released. Barr is no fool and surely knew that he was being deceptive. Barr knew that the public would soon learn that he had been dishonest. This didn’t discourage him. In fact, what Barr did was to set the agenda about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. I have said previously, many times, that the side that sets the agenda wins the debate. The side that debates on its own ground usually triumphs.

Let’s look at how conservatives played out Barr’s agenda.

First, Trump’s long-standing drumbeat was: “no collusion!” In a narrow sense, Trump was right Mueller didn’t prove collusion. All he proved was that Russia and the Trump campaign interacted many times in ways that were favorable to both parties. Those were evil things to do and we all know that Trump and his campaign should not have done them. All the same, since a criminal conspiracy was not proven, Trump could claim to be exonerated:

Trump "No Collusion" tweet

Similarly, writing in the once-great National Review, conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote: “Democrats have grown infuriated by Attorney General William Barr’s indifference to their hysteria over the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.” An article in The Nation argues that “Mueller’s report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister or collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.” 

Now, as I wrote in my last post, all of that is true in a very narrow, very literal sense. Contrary to many Democrats’ expectations, a full-scale criminal conspiracy was not established. Much of what was in the Mueller report made President Trump and his aides look very, very, very bad, but that now matters less than it would have. Barr set the agenda when his initial memo laid out only the extent to which Trump had been exonerated, omitting the many dubious activities that he and his campaign engaged in. Although Barr’s memo was literally true, it was deceptive to the extreme. Its dishonesty lay in lack of context. Emboldened to continue to ignore context, conservative media can now re-emphasize the “no collusion” narrative.

Seeing the Mueller report's harmful nature, Barr saw that his only option was to strike first. He set the agenda. The Democrats are now reduced to refuting Barr, which distracts them from attacking Trump. But you don’t win a debate just by defeating your opponent: you need to have a positive argument in your favor, which Barr help to preempt.

Comments:

One, Democrats had for years spewed out a lot of overheated rhetoric calling Trump a traitor who was a Russian asset engaged in a conspiracy against the United States. If these accusations were true, Mueller was unable to prove them. The Democrats would have been smarter to under-promise and over-deliver. They did the opposite. What was found against Trump was awful, but it was not as bad as what the Democrats had predicted. In other words, the Democrats did an overstated job of agenda-setting.

Two, to win a debate, it is important to stand on your own ground. It is important to emphasize your own issues more than your opponents’ issues. Yes, a debater needs to refute what the opponent says, but simple refutation is, as any debate coach will tell you, a weak strategy. Barr reset the debate on his own ground. On the facts, the Democrats are still far ahead on the Russia investigation. As persuaders, however, they are, thanks to Barr’s clever deception, playing catch-up.

Three, we all know that Barr was willing to sacrifice his reputation to defend President Trump. Why? Was this a matter of principle for him? Is he simply a loyalist? Did he find himself trapped in some sort of political intrigue? I’m sure that historians will eventually sort out those questions, but for now, we can only guess.