Goals Are Not Plans: The Sad Case of Donald Trump

Some voters want their candidates to have actual plans. Others don’t seem to care.

During his infamous October 27, 2024 Madison Square Garden rally, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to excel at foreign affairs. However, he stated no plans, only goals:

“I will end the war in Ukraine, which would’ve never happened if I were president. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East and I will prevent World War III from happening.”

OK, great. We all want that.

But those are only goals. Where are the policies? How would Trump have prevented the Ukraine-Russia war? I’d love to know. How will he get peace? Will he force Russia to withdraw? Negotiate a settlement? If so, how? Will he just cut Ukraine off and let Russia massacre the survivors? If so, why?

How will he be the first leader in thousands of years to end the Middle East conflicts?

How will he stop the wars and end the chaos? What policies, what plans, could achieve those goals? Who knows? Trump has never said, not in this speech, not anywhere.

Earlier Post: Critical Thinking on the Cheap


Where are the details? Yes, the details matter.

Audiences, when you hear a campaign promise, always ask, “how?” Never, ever put blind faith in any candidate. Never assume they have actual plans. Until proven otherwise, assume that they are spouting hot air. Always ask, at least to yourself, “how will you do that?”

We all want peace. Goals, however, are not plans. Leadership lies in the details. Public speeches always come down to the audience! Audiences, it is your fault, and yours alone, if you fail to insist on details. Critical thinking can be hard, but sometimes it is as simple as asking: how? 

Vote wisely, America.

by William D. Harpine  

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P.S. Thanks to rev.com, a transcript service, for preparing a text of Trump’s speech.

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Kamala Harris Said Trump Admired Hitler. Do Voters Care?

Kamala Harris

Wise speakers adapt to their audience: their listeners’ values, goals, fears, and ambitions. Effective public speaking begins with the audience. Always. Public speaking teachers have taught that for, literally, millennia. Why don’t politicians figure it out? Why doesn’t Kamala Harris figure it out?

Unfortunately, we see Kamala Harris repeating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign mistakes. As we should recall, Clinton spent much of her campaign pointing out Trump’s association with and appeal to evil people. For example, she ran advertisements linking Trump’s agenda to the Ku Klux Klan’s agenda. That was pointless. Donald Trump’s supporters had long since made peace with the man’s deep moral flaws. After all, they had heard the Billy Bush tape, where Trump boasted about committing sexual assault: “I moved on her like a bi--h.” They knew that Trump’s crowd had chanted, “Hail, Trump” while flashing Nazi salutes. 

Clinton’s advertising campaign proved that Trump was evil. His supporters already knew that. Did they care?

Along the same lines as Hillary Clinton, at an October 24, 2024 campaign event in Clarkston, Georgia, Kamala Harris made a valid point that embodied a rhetorical mistake. She complained about Trump’s alleged admiration for Adolf Hitler. She said:

“In fact, just this week, America heard from John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, who said that, as president, Trump praised Hitler — take a moment to think about what that means — that Trump said, quote, ‘Hitler did some good things’ —

“AUDIENCE: Booo —

“THE VICE PRESIDENT: — and that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler’s, who would be loyal to Trump and not to America’s Constitution.”

Although I do not have a particularly high opinion of John Kelly, I do trust him to tell the truth on matters like this. But what political difference do his claims make? Not much. That is because conservative voters have quit agonizing about Trump’s moral flaws.

John Kelly's Speech about Frederica Wilson: How to Lose Credibility, and Fast


The social sciences help us understand why. Linguist George Lakoff explains that liberal voters gravitate toward candidates who express a “nurturing mother” metaphor, while conservative voters are looking for a “strong father.” Candidates like Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, or (although male) Joe Biden offered their supporters a nurturing mother metaphor: they offered a nation of justice, support, and goodness. Those qualities do not dominate conservative thinking.

Instead, Donald Trump offers power. He does not talk about bringing justice to immigrants: he talks about expelling them. He does not talk about fixing the immigration system; he talks about closing the border. He does not talk about reforming government; he talks about ripping it up. He calls the United States government “the Deep State.” That does not mean that all conservative voters prefer evil and disorder. That would not be true. What is true is that conservative voters want their leaders to protect them from real and imaginary dangers. That is why voters in North Dakota, more than a thousand miles from the Mexican border, treat immigration as issue number one.

So, Kamala Harris made Trump’s seeming admiration for Hitler into a central campaign point. Core Democratic voters, obviously, are offended. Conservatives, in contrast, ask, “so what?”

Do you want proof? According to recent polls, General Kelly’s revelations seem to have made little difference in this closely contested election. Some of Trump’s supporters, no doubt, think that a new Hitler would be great. The bulk of Trump’s supporters have found ways to rationalize Trump’s anti-American views, and there we are.

Trump’s voters simply rationalize his wickedness. That is why Kamala Harris cannot budge them by reminding them that Trump spreads evil ideas. They already know that. They have known that for years. “I’m not voting for a preacher,” they say, over and over, like a mantra. They complain that Kelly is a traitor, or that Democrats are big meanies. They can then swallow hard and accept that Trump admires Hitler.

What Trump’s supporters could never accept, however, would be that Trump is weak. (Do you remember when his crowd booed as Trump recommended vaccination?) If Harris wants to budge shaky Trump supporters, she needs to talk about his whining and equivocating. She needs to point out Trump’s weaknesses: his terrible presidential record on the economy, his griping about the election, his fear of electric boat batteries, and so forth. Those things show Trump to be weak. Trump’s supporters might care about those things.


Does Donald Trump Lead His Supporters, or Do His Supporters Lead Him? Oops, He Asked Them to Take a Vaccine.


People who value social justice already support Harris. People who fear Hitler’s reincarnation already support Harris. If she wants to pick up undecided voters, or to sway any of Trump’s less committed, supporters, Harris needs to focus on what they care about. What they care about is strength. And weak leaders terrify them. It is pointless for her to tell undecided voters that Trump is evil. She needs to show them that Trump is weak.

If a speaker wants to persuade people, it’s time to identify what the audience cares about. Nothing else matters.

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

Adolf Hitler’s “Christian Nationalist” Speech

by William D. Harpine

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PS: Is Trump another Hitler? Of course not. Hitler wrote his own book.

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: Official White House photo, public domain

Kamala Got Heckled and Snapped Back. Does That Make Her the Antichrist?

Kamala Harris

Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States, faced hecklers at a political rally in Wisconsin on October 16, 2024. Harris said that President Donald Trump had nominated three conservative justices to the Supreme Court for the purpose of overturning Roe v Wade. She remarked that they then voted to do precisely that, returning abortion legislation to the states. A lusty, pro-choice boo emerged from the crowd.

Still, no controversy goes unpunished. A small group of hecklers quickly shouted, rather indistinctly on the unedited video, “liar, liar,” “Christ is King,” and “Jesus is Lord.” (Indeed, on the raw video, “liar, liar” was the only heckle that I heard clearly. I never actually made out “Christ is King,” so I’m just taking pundits’ word that this was also one of the heckles.)

Anyway, Harris quipped back:

“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally. I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”

By “smaller one,” she was referring to Donald Trump’s rally, digging at her opponent’s obsession with crowd sizes.

The partisan press could not ignore this juicy incident. Some mainstream media outlets played the video, sometimes sneakily cutting or deemphasizing “Jesus is Lord.” In contrast, conservatives showed video clips that appeared to my ears to (1) cut the “liar, liar” heckle and (2) amplify “Jesus is Lord.” Since “liar, liar” was the first of several heckles, it was a trivial matter for conservatives to clip it out while leaving “Jesus is Lord” intact. 

They then highlighted the clipped video with headlines and captions to the effect of: 

“Christian students in Wisconsin speak out after Kamala Harris told them they were at the ‘wrong rally.’”

Interviewed later, one of the hecklers later commented that, “Jesus was mocked.” That was quite a heady accusation. 

Even more emphatic, literally linking Harris with the biblical figure of Anti-Christ, the EconoTimes headlined:

“Is Kamala Harris Anti-Christ? VP CLAPS BACK at Rally Heckler Who Shouted 'Jesus is Lord' — 'I Think You’re at the WRONG Rally!'”

The EconoTimes’ article prominently quoted “Jesus is Lord,” while ingeniously omitting the “liar, liar” heckle that immediately preceded it. 

Yet more pointedly, conservative pundit Lou Dobbs’ staff also quoted “Jesus is Lord” without mentioning “liar, liar.” Their accompanying headline, which accused Harris of being "evil," poked at her even more forcefully:

“EVIL: Kamala Harris and Her Supporters Mock Christian Attendee Shouting ‘Jesus is Lord’ During Abortion Speech — Kamala Coldly Responds, ‘You’re at the Wrong Rally’”

This is how conspiracy theories start.

First, as a simple fact, the conservative complaints arise from real evidence. Out of context, one heckler among others did, indeed, shout “Jesus is Lord.” Harris did, indeed, tell the hecklers that they were at the wrong rally. Thus, the attacks on Harris did have some fuel.

Second, however, “Jesus is Lord” quickly followed the secular heckle, “liar, liar.” Thus, “Jesus is Lord” was only one of several heckles. To be frank, judging only from the video (which seems to be all the conservative pundits judge from), I’m not convinced that I heard and understood all of the heckles. The heckles barely stood out from the background noise. How many of the rapid-fire heckles did Harris discern on the spot? Did she even hear, “Jesus is Lord?” I have no idea.

Third, the hecklers had made their political views entirely clear, and I do not think that Harris was unjustified to remark that the Trump rally would make them feel more welcome.

Fourth, the hecklers did their damage. Now, yes, the hecklers were, indeed, obnoxious, and yes, the conservative pundits did, in fact, jump to a poorly supported conclusion. The fact remains that the hecklers set Harris up, and the setup worked. “Liar, liar” was enough to trigger Harris’ response, with “Jesus is Lord” thrown in a moment later, more quietly to my ears. If “Jesus is Lord” was less audible, did Harris simply overlook it? Conservative pundits could take the entire exchange out of context and run with it. The hecklers played a dirty trick, and it worked. Frankly, if I were speaking, the trick would probably fool me, too.

As a personal aside, the Christian Right continues to befuddle me. The Holy Bible does not advise me to starve the poor, ignore the sick, and expel the immigrants. Indeed, on my plain reading, the Bible commands the opposite. Nor does the Bible say a thing about abortion. Other moral codes of ancient times did forbid or restrict abortion (e.g., the Hippocratic oath), and therefore I find the Bible’s silence on the issue to be salient. It is for those reasons that I cannot reconcile my own Christian beliefs with the Republican Party’s teachings.

Earlier Post: Mike Pence Heckled by the Christian Right Because He Didn't Bow to Trump

All the same, millions of single-issue voters choose their political candidates entirely because of their abortion policies. Proudly fervent, they ignore all other moral or political issues. They have grown so keen that abortion alone directs their judgment that a particular candidate is, or is not, a Christian. Thus, in context, “Jesus is Lord” became a partisan political statement. With that political context established, Harris’ counter-heckle seemed on point. Nevertheless, the hecklers accomplished their goal. Still, I would think that, if the entire exchange showed Harris to be anti-Christian, why did conservatives need to crop and enhance it?

Interestingly, the next Sunday, Kamala Harris attended church, and Donald Trump did not. Does that matter to the Christian Right? Evidently not.

I’ve written several times about the fine art of heckling. Sometimes heckling pays off well for the hecklers. Other times, speakers counter-heckle with great effect. More often, heckling just embarrasses everyone. Let’s call this incident a tossup.

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Earlier Posts:

The Lost Art of Heckling: How to Heckle and Not Sound Like an Idiot

If You Want to Heckle, Do It Right!

"OK, Boomer:" Chlöe Swarbrick Teaches Us How to Put a Heckler Down Flat

by William D. Harpine  

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Research Note: Much persuasion research arises from a psychological concept called Attribution Theory. Attribution Theory examines the psychological processes listeners use to perceive and interpret other people’s behavior. For example, suppose that Pat bumps into someone. Do we attribute that to Pat’s bad manners? Or do we attribute it to Pat’s clumsiness? Or to a gust of wind that shoved Pat around? The Fundamental Attribution Error occurs when we falsely believe that someone’s behavior is intentional and motivated, when it is, in fact, not.

Psychologist Sam McLeod explains the Fundamental Attribution Error:

“People have a cognitive bias to assume that a person’s actions depend on what ‘kind’ of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.”

In this case, conservative pundits attributed Harris’ quip to her supposedly anti-Christian attitudes. Does the evidence support that attribution? Or does the attribution result from their pre-existing bias against Harris? When conservatives edited the video to cut one heckle and highlight another, were they emphasizing their point, or did they commit mere chicanery? Feel free to post your response in a comment below, or on my X.com feed. 

Image: Official White House photo, public domain

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

McKinley's Unifying Speech to a Campaign Delegation

McKinley Campaign Poster

A lesson from the past: yes, a politician can win elections without preaching hate. During his 1896 Front Porch Campaign against William J. Bryan, future President William McKinley told a crowd:

“I do not teach the doctrine of hate. I prefer the doctrine of hope.”

McKinley mostly stayed at home during his campaign, while hundreds of delegations organized themselves and traveled to Canton, Ohio by train to hear him speak. He addressed them outdoors, often standing on the front porch of his modest two-story frame house. Indeed, for months on end, he spoke to several delegations every day.

Receiving one of those groups, a delegation from Cambridge, Ohio on October 24, 1896, McKinley projected a warm style and greeted his audience with a personal message. He began by establishing a personal connection:

“I believe in the many visits I have made to the tin-mill men of Cambridge, you will acquit me to-day of ever having undertaken to deceive, or mislead you.”

McKinley then launched into his signature issue, which was the protective tariff. Like Donald Trump after him (and many politicians before and since), McKinley felt that American industry needed to be protected from overseas, low-wage competition:

“I have always proclaimed the doctrine of a protective tariff. I do not abate one bit of faith in that great principle.”

He then briefly gave his (vague) reasons:

“I believe in self-preservation, for this Government of ours; in a tariff that protects our product; that maintains the American scale of wages, that gives steady and constant employment to labor, and that provides enough money for the Government without the necessity of its going constantly in debt.”

Now, McKinley spoke before the modern research about international trade, which shows the drawbacks of the protective tariff. Modern economists generally believe that the tariff drives up prices and invites retaliation from other nations. Still, the protective tariff has been one of the most constant issues, pro and con, in the history of American politics. McKinley’s plea, arguing that the tariff was pro-American and protective, carried even more appeal then, than it does today.

From an economic standpoint, McKinley’s campaign was based on fundamental absurdities. It was his attitude, not the issues, that gained him his overwhelming electoral victory. Dignified, not angry; hopeful, not pessimistic; personable, not divisive, he projected a solid presidential image.

Emphasizing his theme of hope in unity, McKinley then asserted that all Americans were equal:

“I said to you then that the workingmen had an opportunity to show that there was no such thing as class or caste in the United States, and that any man from the mine or from the mill, might aspire to the highest place in the gift of this people as freely as anybody else.”

And, concluding his brief speech, he rejected political division on principle:

“I do not teach the doctrine of hate. I prefer the doctrine of hope. Never give up hope as long as you have the ballot.”

McKinley’s positive tone was that image’s focal point. Instead of giving a set speech to every audience, McKinley tailored his presentation to the small group that had come to see him. Yes, McKinley repeated the same themes, in similar but not identical words, in one speech after the other. However, instead of giving a single canned campaign speech to one audience after the other, McKinley gave his campaign a personal touch without ever straying from his central message. Thus, every speech was potentially newsworthy. Shorthand reporters transcribed his speeches as he gave them. Wire services transmitted the texts to newspapers across the nation. Thus, McKinley conducted one of the first mass-media campaigns.

McKinley’s attack against his opponent was general and tasteful. He never mentioned Bryan by name. He never accused Bryan of preaching hate. Instead, he elected to let the audience draw their own conclusion. He emphasized that the ballot, not hate, gave them the solution to their needs.

Earlier Post: The Trump Trade War? Back to Henry Clay! 

Not only did he reject hate, but McKinley also denied classism and national divisions. One has to think that McKinley’s unifying approach must have made it easier for him to govern the nation after his election. During his campaign, he went out of his way to avoid making enemies. He tried to gather all of the American public into a sense of unity. Not only did his hundreds of brief campaign speeches, of which this was only one, win him the White House, but they also established him as a leader.

A personal touch. Positive arguments. A conclusion of hope and unity. Why can’t politicians today speak like that? And if a politician took a solid, dignified approach – would the American public of today even listen?

by William D. Harpine  

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Research Note: if you click on “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above, you will find links to my publications about McKinley’s speeches. (Note that my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Campaign, is now in paperback!) 

My former professor, Charles Urban Larson, has written insightfully about the unifying style of persuasion. 

A transcript of McKinley's speech to the Cambridge, Ohio delegation is on page 6 of the Canton Repository, October 25, 1896. That excellent newspaper was, as it continued to be long after, a significant Republican-oriented publication. Large research libraries should be able to find the article in an Internet database under its title, “Doctrine of Hate Not Taught.”

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Trump and Vance Spread Lies about the Haitian Immigrants. But Here Is My Family's Story.

Immigrants at Ellis Island

If you live in the United States, unless you are 100% Native American, you are an immigrant or the descendent of immigrants.

All the Republican talk (and when I say “talk,” I mean “lies”) about the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio got me to think about my maternal grandparents. I am thinking about them because their lives were so like those of the Haitian immigrants, and the challenges they faced were so similar. 

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

My grandfather Michael and grandmother Anna left Ukraine in the early 20th Century to escape a terrible potato famine. The Ukrainian economy having long been oppressed by Russian, Austrian, and Polish overlords, the people began to starve when the potato crops failed. The Ukrainian diet consisted of little bits of cheese, wheat pastries stuffed with potatoes, lots of other potatoes, and meat once a year for Easter.  They had small gardens. The Easter meal featured a slice of bologna-like meat. It was not unlike the diet that hundreds of millions of European poor people ate at that time. Opportunities to advance, to gain an education, or even to find productive employment, simply did not exist. A person’s ambition, ability, and dedication were irrelevant.

Desperate, and unable to feed their children, Ukrainians sent many of them to America, the land of

Statue of Liberty

opportunity, where the Statue of Liberty would greet them with the promise of freedom and justice: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

So it was with Michael and Anna. Sixteen years old, Anna stepped off the boat, with minimal paperwork, with few marketable skills, and knowing no English. She made her case to the authorities and walked into the United States. Knowing no Ukrainian, the clerk at Ellis Island misspelled Michael’s last name (doing the best he could) and off to the piers Michael went.

Local charities helped them. They learned that western Pennsylvania’s steel mills were hiring. Michael and Anna each moved there, with nothing to their names. Michael and Anna married. A skilled carpenter, Michael took a mill job. His country fiddling talent made him popular but didn’t really help economically. Anna sold eggs. They never really mastered English (their family and friends could understand their patois just fine). They worshiped at the Ukrainian church. They never had much money until their older children grew up and built them a two-story country home with a huge kitchen, on a lot with generous garden space. Michael made much of the house’s cabinetry.

Michael and Anna raised twelve children. The older children, who were shuffled to the back of the classroom and received little special help, learned English in school and taught it to their brothers and sisters. My mother, one of the younger children, never really learned Ukrainian (she could understand it but not speak it). She was still placed in the back of the classroom, simply as an act of ethnic bigotry. She joined the choir and the debate team. Graduating at the top of her high school class, she was denied the valedictory scholarship, which instead went to a boy. She moved to Washington (like many children of immigrants, seeking work where she could find it) and became an office worker in the Pentagon. Like everyone in my family, she read voraciously.

Others of Michael and Ann’s children included engineers, a nurse, loving homemakers, and two American Army war heroes. My Uncle Peter died in the Ardennes, nineteen years old, fighting against Nazis. Michael and Anna’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, now scattered across the land, include people dedicated to the law, medicine, and many other professions. Yes, at least one of us became a university professor and author.

Michael and Anna’s story is not unique. It is nothing special. It is repeated, literally millions of times, across this great land. It is the same story that the Haitians in Springfield are writing today.

If you want to make America great, that is how it is done. And, trust me, Trump (himself the grandson of immigrants and husband of an immigrant) has no clue. That same cluelessness, of course, explains why Vance specifically and shamelessly admitted that he was lying about the Haitian immigrants:

“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]

His eager voters do not seem to care that Vance was lying. That is because facts and reality do not create their resentment. No, to understand the hostility toward immigrants, we look only to the dark forces of fear and suspicion.

The moral of this story? Yes, receiving immigrants, people who speak an unfamiliar language, sing their own songs, and worship in their own way, does affect the receiving communities. It always does. It is, nevertheless, the American way. Employed immigrants also strengthen our economy and make the US a stronger nation. As a recent article in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy notes, tax-paying immigrants can have an indirect helpful effect on the nation’s fiscal health.

Emigration is even harder than immigration. People leave their native lands, almost always because they are fleeing a nightmare. Immigrants often face suspicion, hostility, injustice, and anger. My mother, her brothers, sisters, and parents certainly did. Yet, they contributed their own small part to making America great.

And, in contrast, as Trump and Vance give their loathsome speeches, they are not just lying about the Haitian immigrants. They are lying about America.

As I have often said, speakers can make their point by telling a story. This is my family's story.

by William D. Harpine

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Earlier Posts About Immigration Speeches:

Romans 13, Jeff Sessions, and the Cultural Heritage of Conservative Immigration Policy

How Did Donald Trump's Story about Police Heroes Help Him Make a Point about Immigration?

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image of Ellis Island: Library of Congress, public domain

Image of Statue of Liberty: National Park Service, public domain

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

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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

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