The Talking Points Disease: The Sad Case of Mike Lee's Have More Babies Speech

Mike Lee's Climate Change Speech

Talking points are not debate points. Talking points harm our national dialogue. Most politicians try to win elections by targeting groups of people who hold particular attitudes. The politicians learn what their target voters believe, and then they parrot those opinions back to their target voters. Often, the politicians have no idea what the issues really are and have no clue why people care about them.

We talk about issues when we compare a policy's pros and cons. We use talking points when someone feeds us arguments that we don't understand about issues we know nothing about. Most politicians spew out talking points. Few of them know a blessed thing about issues. This is no way to run a country.


Mike Lee's GND Speech
So, let us talk some more about Arizona Senator Mike Lee’s embarrassing speech yesterday about climate change. A nonbinding Green New Deal (GND) resolution,sponsored by Senator Edward Markey, called for dramatic action to reduce the speed of climate change and reduce income inequality. Conservatives predictably responded by ridiculing the proposal rather than talking about the issues that it raises.

Lee claimed to have read the GND (I am reluctant to believe him) and said that it was ridiculous. To prove that it was ridiculous, he misstated what the GND said. He said that the GND would outlaw cows and air travel. Lee’s speech used visual aids showing Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur, Aquaman doing something, and commuters riding seahorses to Hawaii. He concluded that the solution to climate change was to have more babies. Easily amused people thought this was funny, while people with brains and judgment think that Lee made a fool of himself.

Lee didn’t attack the GND’s real points; instead, he attacked a fictional version of the GND that conservative talking points had created. FactCheck.org notes that, although draft documents suggested reducing cattle agriculture and air travel, the resolution itself does not mention cows or propose to abolish airplanes. So, Lee overstated what the draft document said while refuting points that the resolution did not mention. Lee didn't exactly lie about the GND, but he didn't exactly tell the truth, either.


The Rise of the Talking Points
When the GND came out, conservatives quickly announced their talking points, all of which were ridiculous exaggerations: the Green New Deal will abolish cows and get rid of air travel, even for overseas areas. Senator Mitch McConnell tweeted, I kid you not: “We're going to vote in the Senate and see how many Democrats want to end air travel and cow farts.”

Worse, Senator Rick Scott published an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel that said:

“If you are not familiar with it, here’s the cliff notes version: it calls for rebuilding or retrofitting every building in America in the next 10 years, eliminating all fossil fuels in 10 years, eliminating nuclear power, and working towards ending air travel (to be replaced with high-speed rail).

“There are even crazier things in this ‘Green New Deal,’ but why bother, it’s not a serious policy idea; it’s a unicorn. It’s like an idea conceived in a dorm room or the dark back room of a liberal think-tank by people who have never had a real job in their lives.”

These talking points are not serious arguments; they are hyperbolic accusations that feed people’s phobias. Once stated, however, conservatives ran with them. That’s why Mike Lee gave his absurd speech that claiming people in Hawaii would need to ride seahorses to get to the mainland. Conservative media praised Lee, probably because they were already ridiculing the GND themselves.

What about the GND? I have not yet formed an opinion about the GND. Is it a good plan or nor? I don't know. But the fact that the GND's opponents attack it only by misrepresenting it makes me think that the GND must have merit.

Do You Believe Your Own Talking Points? Oops!
Great speakers and writers love hyperbole. The problem comes when you start to believe your own talking points. If you embellish your argument by joking that the GND wants to abolish airplanes, that might be OK. Trouble comes when you start to believe your own jokes. Lee, McConnell, and Scott did not do their research. They didn’t know what the GND said; they were not funny, they did not come to grips with the proposal's points, and they were not persuasive. They were just confused.

By the way, Democrats are just as bad to spew out talking points they do not understand. I will try to write about them in the next day or two.

I first got interested in political communication during my years as a high school and college debater and later a college debate coach. To win a debate, you do your research. The side with better research can set the agenda and win the debate. Politicians, with their secret polls and focus groups and media consultants, have forgotten about the issues. Voters have not. Politicians use talking points; voters care about making their lives better.

To cure the talking points disease: do your research. Learn the issues in depth. Know your topic. Make real arguments that mean something. Who knows? Voters might like it.

P.S. to planners: Businesses, schools, and agencies often circulate draft copies for comment. Politicians should never circulate drafts; they are just inviting ridicule. Oops to them, too. Publishing the draft was a bad, wrong, stupid mistake. Dumb. Careless. Only publish ideas when you are ready to debate and then stand by what you said. Once it's on the Internet, it lives forever. Oops again.

Also, here are two other recent posts about speeches that ridicule ideas:

Mike Lee's speech

Trump and ridicule


Image from Mike Lee's official website.Mike Lee's speech

Mike Lee Tries to Make Fun of the Green New Deal but Only Makes Fun of Himself (P.S.: Speakers Need Research)

Mike Lee's speech

Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, gave what he thought was a humorous speech about climate change on the floor of the United States Senate today. The speech was hilarious, but not in the way he thought. Lee attacked the Green New Deal (GND) by showing posters of Aquaman and Ronald Reagan riding on a dinosaur while wielding an automatic weapon. He discussed the seahorse gap between the United States and China, ending his speech by proposing that the solution to climate change was to have babies. Many of the people I follow on social media thought that the images of this speech were Photoshopped: they couldn’t believe that a senator could really be that, well, let’s be frank, stupid. Lee, in turn, proudly posted this speech on his website (when wisdom would require him to pretend he had never delivered it).

Plenty of pundits are mocking Lee's ridiculous speech. I’m going to take a minute to show that speakers need research, which Lee didn’t have.

Attacking the draft, not the final copy
The basis of Lee's embarrassing spectacle was that the Green New Deal’s advocates made the mistake of circulating a rough draft that included some impractical and poorly phrased ideas. Conservatives have ridiculed this draft for weeks to avoid dealing with any real issues.

The draft proposal called for, among other things, “Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.” That’s obviously impractical, but to say that even this draft proposal would ban air travel overstates the text.

Satirizing the GND, Lee showed a picture of people commuting from Hawaii on seahorses (since they wouldn’t have airplanes.) I have no idea what purpose was served by picturing Reagan riding a dinosaur, and I suspect that Lee didn’t, either. Lee expressed worry that if the US banned airplanes, we would face a bio-industrial race with China, which might outbreed the US in seahorses. He claimed that the GND would abolish cows: “If they think cows smell bad, just wait until they get a whiff of the seahorses. No more milk, no more cheese, no more hamburgers.” The GND resolution does not, of course, ban cows. Following a conservative theme that liberals want to impose a new way of life, Lee warned that the GND would “restructure our very way of life.”

Tacitly admitting that he was attacking a draft, not the actual resolution, Lee criticized the GND’s advocates for sending the wrong press release. On the one hand, yes, they should have been more careful. On the other hand, he accidentally admitted that he wasn’t attacking the real proposal.

Lee's bizarre solution
Lee asserted (consistent with conservative ideology) that the federal government would not be climate change’s solution. Fine, we expected him to say that. The solution, which no one expected was, he said, apparently in all seriousness, was to be “found in churches, wedding chapels, and maternity wards.” His reasoning? To combat climate change required “technological innovation.” Innovation requires people to innovate.

“Climate change,” Lee insisted, “is an engineering problem – not social engineering, but the real kind. It’s a challenge of creativity, ingenuity, and technological invention. And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, but by more humans!”

So, if people have more babies, we will have more future innovators. This led him to conclude that “The true heroes of this story are not politicians and they are not social media activists. They are moms and dads.” He told people to solve climate change this way: “Fall in love, get married, and have kids.”

Lee read - droned - the speech slowly in an unexpressive voice. He sounded tired, nervous, and apathetic. The Senate chamber looked pretty much empty. I heard no one laugh.

Ridicule is hard to do and avoids the real issues
Ridicule can be a powerful if childish weapon if a speaker has the moxie to pull it off. Humor requires comic timing, which Lee lacked. His delivery was as stiff as it could be. Lee isn’t the first Republican to attack the Green New Deal by saying false things about its content. This weak debating tactic will convince only people who are willing to delude themselves. There are, however, many such people. The conservative Daily Caller called Lee’s speech “hilarious,” which proves, if nothing else, that the Daily Caller’s editors are easy to amuse.

In normal organizations, planners often circulate advance drafts for markup and discussion. In Congress, however, that practice invites ridicule of the type that Lee tired to express. Politicians need to perfect their ideas before they go public. The GND's sponsors are lucky that Lee botched his attack. That gives them breathing room to build their case for next time.

Lee’s speech will go down in history as one of the most senseless speeches in Senate history. Given the number of awful speeches that Senators have given in our nation’s history, that’s an impressive accomplishment. Overnight, Senator Lee sabotaged his once-stellar reputation, which is now firmly destroyed for centuries to come. I predict that “Mike Lee” will become history’s metaphor for legislative idiocy just as “Benedict Arnold” is a metaphor for treason and “Florence Nightingale” stands for mercy. This was a speech for the ages, but not in a good way.

Maybe Lee had research, but it was just bad research
Well, did Lee really have no research? He sort of did. He researched the GND's rough draft. Most of his talking points, minus Aquaman, Reagan, seahorses, and his proposed baby boom, have been circulating in conservative media. He had, indeed, researched the conservative talking points. He knew them thoroughly. He did not, unfortunately, research any current, accurate information about the proposal under debate. Not coming to grips with the real GND, he attacked a fictional version that conservative media had invented. Sexist logicians of the past once called this a straw man fallacy. Lee had informed himself about various ridiculous accusations and wild falsehoods that conservatives had circulated about the GND in recent weeks. He made no effort to find out what the resolution said or to come to grips with its arguments. His bizarre visual aids and irrational solution entertained only the most radical and uninformed conservatives, while allowing the GND advocates a chance to breathe and to recover from their slip-up while they assemble real issues supported by real arguments.

Here’s my previous post about ridicule. People make fun of other people when they can’t think of anything intelligent to say. We’re seeing more and more of this: when someone makes a proposal, it is easier to make fun of it than to debate the facts. Good satire is hard to pull off, isn't it?


Image: Senator Mike Lee's official website.

Greybull High School's Speech Team Triumphed in the Wyoming State Championship, and They Are Prepared for Wonderful Futures

Spotted this in the news: the Greybull High School speech team won first place in the 1A/2A Wyoming state championships and seventh place in the state overall. This was a wonderful result, especially for a small-town high school. Various Greybull students triumphed in such events as Oratory and Program Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Humor, Informative Speaking, and Debate. Congratulations! Much hard work went into their victory.

Many years ago, I participated in the Oakton High School debate club. My partner Ken Marton  (a future Ph.D. scientist) and I qualified for the state championship, where we finished somewhere near the middle of the pack, and four years of debate at the College of William and Mary, where John Vile and I took first place at the LaSalle University debate tournament. Debate coaches Barbara Sue Carter and the late Patrick Micken were among my major influences. Although William and Mary was and still is a first-rate school, and I learned a lot in all my classes, my experience in competitive debate became my undergraduate college highlight. Many of my debate team friends went on to various spectacular careers in business, academia and law. And, of course, my wife, Dr. Elaine Clanton Harpine, was a speech and debate team member at Southwest Texas State University (now called Texas State). Obviously we were made for one another.

Speech and debate contests give students far more speaking experience than any class could. Speech and debate team students gain confidence and skill. Public speaking contests teach students to prepare, to understand their audiences and relate to other people, and to express their ideas and feelings clearly and persuasively. Debate and speech contests teach students critical thinking and research skills far beyond even the best classroom opportunities. My speech and debate experience shaped my post-college career in more ways than I could have imagined. I pride myself on careful research and evaluation, and I thank my debate experience for teaching me how. Many outstanding leaders in and out of government learned about persuasion by debating in school.

In an era of tight budgets and anti-education propaganda, too many schools and colleges have cut back on these expensive, time-consuming programs. From the standpoint of education, these wonderful programs are worth every dime and all the effort. Congratulations again to the Greybull students. I expect to see you do great things in your lives. 

P.S.: Never, ever underestimate small schools.

Stephanie Flowers Showed Us a Different Way to Think About Stand Your Ground Laws

Sen. Stephanie Flowers

Democratic Arkansas Senator Stephanie Flowers spoke loudly and forcefully against stand your ground laws during a meeting of the Arkansas Senate Judiciary Committee. Stand your ground laws, found in several (mostly red) states, abolish the traditional duty to retreat from danger in public places, and instead authorize ordinary citizens to stand their ground and shoot people who make them feel threatened.

But we all need to see different viewpoints. In her short speech, Flowers pointed out two different ways to see the gun rights issue: First, that the stand your ground laws make life more dangerous for black crime victims, and, second, that, since people who are armed and ready to stand their ground pose a threat, it might be reasonable to feel anxious, shoot them, and claim a stand your ground defense. I don’t think anyone has ever put it that way before, but she had a point. Oops.

Let’s look at the first perspective that Flowers offered. Feeling that stand your ground laws discriminate against and threaten the safety of African-Americans, Flowers said: “I’ll be as quick as I can, as quick as it takes to kill someone, I guess.” She protested the limits on debate on this important issue. Noting that her children had a different experience than the children of the white legislators, Flowers asked, “How many black kids, black boys, black men are being killed by these stand your ground defenses that these people raise, and they get off?” She based her credibility on her motherhood: “I am a mother and I have a son.” She told the white members of the committee, “My son doesn’t walk the same path as yours does.” She said that she feared for her son’s life until he left Arkansas.

This led to her second new viewpoint. She told one legislator, “You don’t have to worry about your children, Will. But I have to worry about my son. And I worry about other little black boys and girls. And other people coming into my neighborhood and to my city. And they are saying they got open carry, right, walking right in front of my doggone office in front of the courthouse.” She said that anyone who did that was a “bully.” Such open-carry people were, she felt, intimidating her, but in doing so they posed a threat and she wondered whether she would be justified to kill them. So she asked: “Do I have a right to stand my ground with some crazy-ass person walking around with a doggone gun? I don’t know what . . . he intends to do.” She noted that legislators were walking around the legislature with their guns. 

She cursed a bit. She shouted. She didn’t shout any more than the Republican senators at the recent Michael Cohen hearing. That was too much shouting then, and Flowers shouted too much this time, but turnabout is fair play. Like the other members of the committee, I don’t approve of her foul language, but I heartily approve of her breaking the time rules to say what she needed to say. The Republicans on the committee were obviously trying to rush the bill through, and she insisted on making her points anyway. Her anger and passion gained her much attention. Her speech hit the national news. Internet videos of her speech attained millions of views in a short time.

So, here is what she accomplished and how she did it: she made people across the nation see the stand your ground issue in a new light. Her passion gained attention. She made the issue seem real, not theoretical, by putting stand your ground laws in personal terms. She helped people realize that stand your ground laws might endanger the pro-gun people who support them. Her speech got noticed, and more people may be thinking about the stand your ground laws. So, good for her.

Side note: the traditional legal doctrine, which is the duty to retreat in a public place if you can do so safely, developed from centuries of legal experience. Conservatives are supposed to favor tradition. So how do conservatives reconcile stand your ground laws with tradition? I don’t think they can. Do note that the legal issues are more complex than political talk would make us think. 

For my other posts about gun control speeches, click here.

Image: Arkansas legislature