Rhetoric of Silence: What You Don't Say Matters – The Minnesota Mosque Bombing

What we do not say can be as important as what we do say. If a wife tells her husband, "I love you," and the husband says nothing, the nothingness means something. What it means is unclear. But it means something. My blog is mostly about speeches, but, today, we'll look at non-speech.

A few days ago, a bomb tore apart a Minnesota mosque, the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center, causing considerable damage. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. As of this writing, the morning of August 10, 2017, the Trump White House has issued no condemnation of the bombing and has expressed no support for the Islamic Center. The silence means something. President Trump has found time to tweet about fake news, congressional leadership, and his popularity rankings, but nothing about the mosque. Why not? What does his silence mean?
 
Communication scholars have, from time to time, written about "the rhetoric of silence," which examines what it means when people are silent at times when speech seems necessary. For example, Chapter 7 of my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign, talks about future President William McKinley's speech to the Homestead workers. Homestead, Pennsylvania had, a few years earlier, been the target of extreme anti-labor-union violence. Yet, in his speech to Homestead factory workers, McKinley said not one word about the Homestead massacre. McKinley's speech ignored something that could not possibly be ignored. McKinley was not literally silent – his speech talked about many things – but he was silent about the massacre, which was Homestead's defining moment. His silence meant something, and my chapter talks about the different things that it meant.

Why is Trump silent about the mosque bombing? We can only speculate. During his 2016 election campaign, Trump made a big deal of his opposition to Islamic terrorism. The governor of Minnesota has already called the mosque bombing an act of terrorism. 

Donald Trump, WH photo

Yet, if Trump condemned the bombing, how would this play with his voting base? First, I have seen countless endorsements of the bombing on social media. It is quite surprising, and troubling, that many people think that the bombing was a good thing. Second, a conspiracy theory is spreading that Muslim terrorists actually did this to gain sympathy for themselves. I suppose that is remotely possible, but so far absolutely no evidence for that accusation has emerged. Conspiracy theories should be believed only if positive evidence establishes them. Disturbingly, a White House official appears to have endorsed the conspiracy theory. Second, one of Mr. Trump's campaign themes was to establish a registry of all Muslims in the United States. Since that would be obviously unconstitutional, he later backtracked. Did Mr. Trump believe that prejudice against or anger toward Muslims would help his election campaign? Or help him maintain his popularity today?

For Mr. Trump to condemn the bombing might damage his standing with his base voters, especially those who believe the mosque bombing was a good thing or a false flag operation. For him to support the bombing would damage his standing with the rest of the nation. Was silence his best political option? Let us keep in mind that, even if law enforcement has not determined who caused the bombing, the fact that the bombing was evil seems indisputable – no matter who did it or why it was done. Surely the president, in his role of  chief of state, could find something to say. He has not, and this may be part of a cynical political strategy of some kind. Silence, however, as always, is ambiguous. Its meaning is never totally clear. Will time clarify Mr. Trump's views?