Did Spike Lee Trick Donald Trump into Revealing a Guilty Conscience?

Filmmaker Spike Lee’s brief acceptance address at the 2019 Academy Awards gained attention from no less a luminary than Donald Trump, former TV star and now President of the United States. Trump took umbrage at Lee for “doing his racist hit on your President.” But did Lee hit at the president? Or not? What happened, as rhetorical theory can teach us, is that Lee made his point enthymematically by not stating his point outright.

Lee never mentioned Trump’s name and did not praise one political party over another.  Apparently he didn’t need to. I’ve blogged earlier about the rhetoric of silence, when people say something by not saying anything. Usually, this means that the speaker stands silently for a few moments. In this case, Spike made a point, and the audience, including Trump, drew a conclusion. But Lee said nothing about the actual point. He wasn’t literally silent. Instead, he was silent about the main point, but everyone understood it anyway. Did he trick Trump into revealing a guilty conscience?

Spike was co-winner of the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, an award that he shared with Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, and Kevin Willmott.  The key part of his speech was:

“Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there.”

(“Do the Right Thing” is, of course, Lee’s most famous film.) He didn’t mention Trump. He didn’t mention one party or the other. He was silent, in a sense, about those two points.

Trump responded on Twitter:

“Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts, etc.) than almost any other Pres!”

OK, I’ll agree that Lee’s vocal delivery wasn’t the best. However, I suspect that some historians would think that Abraham Lincoln (Emancipation Proclamation) and Lyndon Johnson (Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965) did more for African Americans than Trump. Still….

Why did Trump think that a call to choose “love versus hate” was a hit on his presidency? Why did he think that regaining “love and wisdom” was a personal attack? Did Trump realize that he was not “on the right side of history?” Those seem like universal values, not Republican or Democratic partisan values. One could propose several explanations, but, most likely, Trump drew the same conclusion the rest of us did: that his administration is based neither on love versus hate nor on wisdom, but he didn’t want anyone to say so, and he felt stung, even though Lee didn’t criticize him directly at all.

There’s an old saying, “if the shoe fits, wear it.” It looks as if Trump felt ready to wear the shoe. Sometimes, a speaker can best say something by not saying it. The point got made, didn’t it?