Adolf Hitler's Speech in the Berlin Sportpalast: God and Power

“Providence,” said Adol Hitler, Germany’s Christian Nationalist leader, “only gave to us what we deserved in the end.” 

On January 30, 1940, the anniversary of his appointment as Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler gave a powerful defense of far-right conservative values. Those values resonate to a surprising degree in much conservative rhetoric today. Speaking in the enormous Berlin Sportpalast, Hitler ridiculed democratic ideals, while boasting that Heaven would stay on Germany’s side only if Germany remained resolute. Yet, as he spoke, World War II was already five months old, and Germany was destined to lie in ruins before Hitler’s leadership ended.

If there is a lesson in this, it is that people who follow strong, authoritarian leaders can expect to be filled with pride as they march to ruin. History has told that tale for centuries. Hitler’s spellbinding speech called his nation to glory and blamed their past failings on the enmity of others. Of course, Hitler was always the master of huge rallies. This rally speech showed every sign of careful, thoughtful preparation. Hitler laid out a value set that many people today still crave. Yet, as this speech proves, not everyone who calls on Providence is doing godly work. Likewise, when Donald Trump praised the vicious dictator Vladimir Putin for being a “strong leader,” was he saying anything much different?

Why Do Republicans Praise Vladimir Putin in Their Speeches?

Let us start with a brief bit of historical context. After losing World War I, Germany signed the oppressive Treaty of Versailles, which imposed enormous national debt and crushed the German economy. The Weimar Republic proved to be too ineffectual to cope with either the post-war calamity or the Great Depression that crushed the world-wide economy. After a free election, Hitler established a coalition government in 1933, promptly abolished all political parties except his own, and got to work. Unlike other world leaders who made a mess of the Great Depression, Hitler appointed excellent economists to government positions and got Germany back to work. Germany’s September 1939 attack on Poland set Europe ablaze with war, but also brought Hitler to the height of his popularity. This set the stage for his triumphant speech.


First, Hitler Ridiculed Democracy

In this speech, Hitler argued that democracy was weak and ineffectual. The Weimar Republic was, in the 1920s, famously unable to control inflation. The government finally imposed anti-inflation policies, which smashed the German economy just as the Great Depression swept across the world. Facing economic calamity, the German people were ready to turn to radical leaders. With that background of recent history, Hitler lost no time ridiculing democracy: 

“Today there is much talk about democratic ideals in the outside world. But not in Germany! For here in Germany we had more than enough time—fifteen years—to acquaint ourselves with these democratic ideals. And we ourselves had to pick up the legacy left behind by this democracy.”

In that brief passage, Hitler mocked “democratic ideals” that the rest of the world admired: “But not in Germany!” Germany had experimented with democracy Hitler said: “we had more than enough time—fifteen years—to acquaint ourselves with these democratic ideals.”

It is no accident that Hitler rejected, not just democratic institutions, but the very concept—the ideals—of democracy. He drew a stark contrast between the strong national socialist government, on the one hand, and the weak democratic nations on the other. Making no apologies for authoritarianism, Hitler implied that strength, not democracy, was essential for a proud, successful Germany.

Hitler's attack on democracy led him directly to the oppressive terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He complained that all 440 articles of that treaty “represented a burden, an obligation, an indictment, and an extortion of Germany. The League of Nations guaranteed this Versailles.” Indeed, Hitler said, the League of Nations “was not an association of free and equal nations.” Instead, Hitler insisted. As he ridiculed the League of Nations’ supposed democratic ideals, its true purpose was merely to force Germany to fulfill the Treaty’s oppressive terms. This, in turn, let Hitler drive a spike into democracy's heart:

“This was the age of democratic Germany! Now that foreign statesmen repeatedly act as though they could not possibly trust present-day Germany, one should remark that this cannot possibly be applied to the Germany back then. This former Germany was their own creation, their own work. They should have been able to place trust in it.”

Underlining what he called the weakness of democratic institutions, Hitler then narrated a lengthy list of the economic calamities that befell Germany after World War I. Those included inflation, unemployment, and general discouragement. That led him to call on spiritual power.


Second, Hitler Called on Providence

Hitler was a big advocate of the Lost Cause theory of warfare. In his view, foreign powers forced World War I on Germany, but Heaven blessed Germany with military victories only as long as the people remained strong:

“The year 1915 improved the situation of the Reich further still; 1916, 1917; year after year; battle after battle. At times, everything seemed on the verge of collapse when, as though by miracle, the Reich was rescued. Germany then afforded us with truly astounding proofs of its internal strength. Obviously, Providence had blessed it.”

Next, however, Hitler said that the German people “became ungrateful” and began to listen to false promises:

“In its ungratefulness, the German Volk turned against its own Reich, its own leadership. And it was then that Providence turned away from the German Volk.”

In other words, Hitler said that the German people literally deserved their World War I defeat because they became weak, because they turned down Heaven’s gift of strength. He continued:

“Since then, I have come to regard this catastrophe as something not wholly undeserved. I have never complained that Providence had somehow wronged us.

“On the contrary, I always supported this thesis: Providence only gave to us what we deserved in the end. The German nation was ungrateful. Therefore it was deprived of its recompense! This will not happen a second time in our history.” 

Hitler did not worship a god of kindness, wisdom, or mercy. He worshipped a god of strength. He called on Germany to worship a god of power. In Hitler's vision, this version of Providence had led the German people to fight during the Second World War: 

“At times, our enemies were already jubilantly hailing our destruction. Yet the Movement held its own with a heart filled with strength and joy. Time and time again, trusting in the necessity of our struggle, it leapt up once more to face the enemy and to carry the victory in the end.”

Hitler's message was clear. He had no use for the weakness of democratic values. He held the western democracies up to ridicule as hypocrites who oppressed the German people even as they proclaimed noble ideals. He told his massive audience that Heaven would be on their side only if they remained resolute. He raised the issue beyond personality—above personality—to the greatness of his nation: 

“I wish to draw attention not to my own person and my surroundings, but rather to the past and to the future. I wish to stand up in honor before the past and the future, and with me the German Volk shall honorably hold its own.”

Conclusion

Perhaps more than any other leader, Hitler understood the power of speech. So, yes, this powerful speech laid out a clash of values. Strength, not democracy. Unity in the face of opposition. Hitler worshipped a warrior God. Although not in so many words, he implicitly called Germany’s churches to support Germany's cause. It was not his cause, he said, but that of the German people who needed to regain the character that they had lost at the end of World War I.

We all know that none of that worked out. In a little more than five years, Germany’s great cities became smoking piles of rubble. Five million Germans lay dead. The Holocaust, which was one of the most horrifying events in human history, brought the German nation to disgrace. After Germany surrendered in 1945, however, the nation adopted a genuine representative democracy that soon made Germany into one of the richest and most respected nations in the world. 

Today, as right-wing movements gain power around the world, let us remember that they promise nothing new. Right-wing dictators of 2022 still call on churches to support their agendas. Certainly, Vladimir Putin often describes himself as a Christian leader. As they worship a god of strength, not one of mercy; as they attack democratic institutions; as they blame others for their mistakes; as they call power, not justice, the ultimate virtue, they are walking the same path as Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin: a path that leads only to disaster. Hitler’s compelling speech appealed to pride and strength, but he swept wisdom aside.


Adolf Hitler’s “Christian Nationalist” Speech

President Trump at the Values Voters Summit: The Donald, Defender of the Faith?

Joe Biden Said to Get Out the Vote!

Yesterday, President Joe Biden spoke to Democratic Party state leaders by teleconference. His simple point was to get out the vote:

“Most of all, keep the faith. Remind the folks that the power is in their hands. This is not a referendum; this is a choice. And the more people we get out to vote, we win. We win.”

Biden taught two basic lessons: first that the side that gets out the vote will win, and second, that the only poll that counts is the voting on Election Day. Polls are just opinions. The election, and only the election, decides the nation’s fate: “this is not a referendum, this is a choice.” Everything else in the campaign is smokescreen. Getting out the vote is all that matters.

I wish this were not so. My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Dixon, told us to study the issues, get news from more than once source, and make informed decision. Alas! That is rarely how it works.

Instead, researchers have known ever since the 1948 Elmira, New York study that people vote by party affiliation. Opinions about issues are not the main factor; for, as it happens, people fit their beliefs to their party. They don’t choose a party because they agree with the issues. Political scientist Dan Nimmo pointed out that, to the extent issues do matter, it’s the single-issue voters. These are, this time around, the fanatics who will vote according to the abortion issue, and nothing else.

Nor are many people persuadable. For example, Democrats waste too much energy trying to convince Republicans that immigration is good. That’s a waste. Nothing will convince Republicans of that. Although the economy is at near-record low unemployment and solid economic growth, nothing will convince Republicans that the economy is doing fairly well. Even Republicans who recognize their party’s downhill slide will still vote for Republicans. Nothing will convince Democrats that they are threatened by immigrant invasions. In fact, remember that Donald Trump’s appalling speech at the Helsinki summit cost him little if any support.

Did Trump's Speech at the Helsinki Summit Lose His Supporters? Probably Not

Nor do early polls mean much. Just as was the case in Elmira in 1948, voters pretend that they are judging the issues and coming to a decision. That rarely happens in real life. On Election Day, people vote for their party. Period. In Elmira, if researchers learned a voter’s party preference, socioeconomic status, and ethnic group, they could predict how that person would vote with 90%+ accuracy.

So, the election campaign’s only real purpose is to get your own voters motivated while discouraging the other side’s voters.

Biden’s point is, really, the only campaign point that affects the election in a big way: “The more people we get out to vote, we win.” Yes, everything else is smokescreen. An election campaign’s purpose is to affect voter turnout. A political party that forgets that basic principle will face big trouble.

Today is Election Day. If you don’t vote, you don’t count. No one cares about your parades, demonstrations, protests, or riots. They only care about your vote.


Why Do Politicians Exaggerate? Nancy Pelosi's Fire-Breathing Tax Speech

Do Presidential Debates Matter? Maybe Yes, Maybe No . . .

Was Biden Divisive When He Defended Constitutional Government?

Joe Biden, official photo

The people whom “the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars,” while, in contrast, the people “they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth,” wrote H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan.

This statement was made by journalists long ago, but it has never been more obvious than it is today. Lies are being sold as truth while the actual truth is buried beneath the lies.

On November 2, 2022, President Joe Biden spoke about the future of American democracy. He directly targeted Republican falsehoods and conspiracy theories, the January 6 riots at the United States Capitol, and ongoing efforts to intimidate election officials. This totally normal speech, which could equally have been given at an American Legion speech contest, instantly became controversial. The speech is all about stories. Biden presented a narrative of Republican conspiracy theories. Republicans, in turn gave their own counter-narrative. 

Biden’s rhetorical approach was extraordinarily clever. In particular, he used stories to make his point. In fact, he wove three different stories from three different events into a single compelling narrative. Instead of proving his points with the usual boring facts and statistics, Biden told stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Speakers need to tell more stories. Yet, for every story, there can arise a counter-story.

Story #1: The Pelosi Attack

Biden's speech began with a story about the horrible attack on Paul Pelosi, when a right-wing conspiracy theorist broke into the Pelosi family home and smashed his skull with a hammer. Biden told a convincing story that had the advantage of being true. His opponents establish a counter narrative. The substance of the Republican counter-narrative is that Biden is divisive by calling out his opponents’ lies. Unfortunately, Mencken and Nathan once again turn out to be right—the people whom “…the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars….”

The attacker presumably had mental health issues. Republicans responded, for the most part, not with sympathy, but with a series of crazed conspiracy theories.

So, what about those counter-narratives? Unfortunately, days before Biden gave his excellent speech, prominent Republicans had already established a counter-narrative: a narrative that the Pelosi attack was staged as an attempt to make Republican conspiracy theorists look bad.

The Paul Pelosi Attack: Top Republican Conspiracy Theorists Shocked by a Violent Republican Conspiracy Theorist

Is There Such a Thing as a Stupid Question? The Attack against Paul Pelosi Led Conspiracy Theorists to Make Bogus Arguments 


Biden gave a simple narration of the attack:

“Just a few days ago, a little before 2:30 a.m. in the morning, a man smashed the back windows and broke into the home of the speaker of the House of Representatives, the third-highest-ranking official in America. He carried in his backpack zip ties, duct tape, rope and a hammer.

“As he told the police, he had come looking for Nancy Pelosi to take her hostage, to interrogate her, to threaten to break her kneecaps. But she wasn’t there. Her husband, my friend Paul Pelosi, was home alone. The assailant tried to take Paul hostage. He woke him up, and he wanted to tie him up. The assailant ended up using a hammer to smash Paul’s skull. Thankfully, by the grace of God, Paul survived.”

So, Biden told his own a story that had the advantage of being supported by evidence and reality, but his story cannot easily overcome the horrifying, utterly false conspiracy theories.

Story #2: The Capitol Riots

Next, however, and this was his speech's heart, Biden directly tied the attack against Paul Pelosi to the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.

“All this happened after the assault, and it just — it’s hard to even say. It’s hard to even say. After the assailant entered the home asking: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January the 6th, when they broke windows, kicked in the doors, brutally attacked law enforcement, roamed the corridors hunting for officials and erected gallows to hang the former vice president, Mike Pence.

“It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the big lie, that the election of 2020 had been stolen. It’s a lie that has fueled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years.”

That comment led Biden to his third story, when he narrated threats against honest election officials:

Story #3: Threats against Election Officials

Biden's last story told of election officials who were threatened by people who didn't want them to to their jobs:   

“Election workers, like Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, were harassed and threatened just because they had the courage to do their job and stand up for the truth, to stand up for our democracy. This institution, this intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan officials just doing their jobs, are the consequence of lies told for power and profit, lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence.”

The argument through all three stories was that a culture of hateful lies caused all three evil events. 

The Narrative Style  

Biden 's narratives have the virtue of being true. Sometimes, alas, that is not enough. 

The Republican conspiracy theorists continue to deflect attention from the connection between those two horrible events. This led Republican Senator Mike Braun to write that, “President Joe Biden took to the podium to give one of the most divisive and ugliest speeches I've seen given by a sitting president.” did he disagree with any of Biden’s stories? No, in fact, he ignored them, he instead complained about “fuel prices, crime, and our economy: changing the subject, resetting the agenda. Braun complained that, instead of talking about the economy or crime, “Biden shouted angrily at half the country from Washington’s Union Station.” There, we see two different agendas, two perspectives.

In a twisted sense, Braun had a point. Yes, Biden spoke out strongly against liars, and that was divisive.

Liberty Bell, Photo by William Harpine

Indeed, fully 61% of Republican voters falsely believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential election. Their belief is based entirely on lies and conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, Braun was right, in a sick sense. Biden was, indeed, divisive. He made a division between truth and falsehood. He made a division between good and evil. He gave the Republican Party a chance to rejoin the values of the American system of government. So far, I see every sign that they intend to decline. Biden's speech challenged the typical Republican voter's most cherished belief: that Trump won the election, making Biden an impostor.

From that viewpoint, Biden's stories were genuinely divisive: his stories laid out the truth, and he divided himself against people who tell lies (not that Biden always tells the truth, but...). Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans continue to live in a sea of lies. These lies translate into votes. 

Here's another way to look at it. With his speech, which reminded Americans about the rule of law and the dangers of political violence, Biden gave MAGA voters and their leaders a chance to rejoin America. It appears that they have refused.

Stories are good and Biden gave a wonderful speech, but not everyone tells the same story.

Biden on the Soul of America: Was He Unifying or Divisive? Or Both?

_______________

Technical note: For an academic look at narrative argument, see the work of the late Walter Fisher. 

In his book The Rhetoric of Motives, the great rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke wrote eloquently that all unity and identification implies a division. 

Is There Such a Thing as a Stupid Question? The Attack against Paul Pelosi Led Conspiracy Theorists to Make Bogus Arguments

A few days after the horrendous attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, conspiracy theories continue to flourish. 

Suspicion underlies all conspiracy theories. The newest version of the conspiracy theories use two basic tactics. First, the conspiracy theorists 7ask endless questions. Second, when proven wrong, they view this as proof that they were right. Both tactics are utterly bogus. 

The attack occurred when a deranged right-wing conspiracy theorist broke into Pelosi's home with a hammer. Tricking him, Pelosi surreptitiously called 911. When the police arrived, the intruder grabbed the hammer and smashed Pelosi's skull. 

The initial conspiracy theories, which I discussed in my previous post, disintegrated after the government filed charging documents against the attacker. Those conspiracy theories had falsely implied that the attacker was Pelosi's lover. Instead, it turns out that the alleged attacker, David DePape, was a right-wing conspiracy theorist, not a hippie and not Pelosi’s paramour, that he intended political violence, and that he beat Pelosi with a hammer that changed hands during the incident. Those simple facts totally defeated the conspiracy theories that had flooded the Internet. 

Never fear! Conspiracy theorists are nothing if not flexible.


Conspiracy theorists ask questions, but they rarely have answers

The conspiracy theorist's tried-and-true tactic is to ask endless questions about supposedly suspicious events. Unfortunately, questions are not proof. Questions never prove anything. Not ever. An honest question is an attempt to get information. Conspiracy theorists, however, ask questions to create a dark image while not undertaking the burden to prove anything.

That may explain why, as his initial conspiracy theory fell apart, right-wing filmmaker and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza simply started asking more questions. He focused on the seemingly innocuous issue of finding security footage of the attack:

“Did the Pelosis not have security personnel or at least an alarm system? No surveillance cameras? Those are pretty standard in nice homes. Moreover, it's a dangerous city and she's the House Speaker. So are they really stupid, or are we not getting the full story?” 

All questions! No actual claims! Nevertheless, look how clever his questions are. Yes, I'm sure we are all wondering about security system failures. Still, asking the question in that tone makes it sound as if the official story has a gigantic hole in it. Yes, like many large cities, San Francisco has crime. At the same time, I have felt perfectly safe walking around various neighborhoods in San Francisco late at night. D’Souza is no doubt playing on conservative tropes that San Francisco is a terribly dangerous place: one conspiracy theory trying to prove another.

Did D'Souza prove anything? No, all he did was ask questions. 

As it happens, D'Souza was not the only conspiracy theorist to ask a series of questions. Similarly, also dealing with the collapse of the original conspiracy theory, pundit Michael Savage of “A Savage Nation” asked more questions about the security arrangements:

“why won't the police release the Bodycam footage? How does a stranger get into a ft. knox local mansion without triggering an alarm? who at this level of gov’t does not have 24/7 security? why was the glass broken out ward not inward?” [all tweets are uncorrected, copied from the original]

It's not that these are bad questions. I am sure that it is time to reevaluate security arrangements for members of Congress. Still, we all know that this was not Savage’s point. His real point—cleverly implied by his questions--is that there is something wrong with the official account of the attack because it is implausible that a break-in could have occurred.

My real point, of course, is that questions never prove anything. Questions, unfortunately, are all these conspiracy theorists have to offer us. Like children who torment their parents with endless questions, conspiracy theorists never relent. 


When conspiracy theorists are wrong, they think this proves they are right

Questions are not the only tactic. When they turn out to be wrong, conspiracy theorists say this proves that they were right all along. Here's how the reasoning goes. Conspiracy theorists think that all the authorities are liars. They trust nothing in official statements. In this case, they are especially upset that anyone would accuse a right-wing conspiracy theorist of committing violence. After all, that makes all conspiracy theorists look bad. That’s why they tried to make DePape out to be Pelosi’s lover. Once their account was proven wrong, however, this merely proves that they were right all along. 

No, that doesn’t make sense. Still, that is how conspiracy theorists talk. Let's look at some examples of how their logic works.

Indeed, “Enigmatic America,” a social media user of no particular prominence, illustrates this rhetorical trope perfectly:

“Police said different at the scene, Pelosi said the guy was his friend, the guy took Pelosi hammer, hit him with it in front of cops according to police. I am sure the statement on video by police is missing now, somewhat on Twitter kept it. Media lies& if u differ, Conspiracy.”

There is a twist in that logic. The initial conspiracy theory, which may have been partly based on incomplete and inaccurate news reports, but which grew mostly from random speculation, turned out to be wrong. Would that slow a conspiracy theorist down? Of course not. When the initial conspiracy theory disintegrated, this proved, to Enigmatic America, that the original story (much of which conspiracy theorists had invented), was incorrect. Therefore, he concludes, the media outlets must be lying.

D’Souza used a similar tactic:

“Pelosi knew the guy. Well no, he didn't. There were 3 people there. No, two. Both guys had hammers. No, only one hammer. Both of them were in their underwear. No, just Pelosi. Is it a surprise we don't believe the narrative when the facts must be heavily edited to conform to it?”

It appears that there was only one hammer, but the two men each held it at different times. Apparently DePape held the hammer, then Pelosi dropped it, and then DePape grabbed it and hit his victim. The conspiracy theorists drew the false conclusion that there were two hammers. When it turns out there was only one hammer, they said the authorities had changed their story. Actually, of course, all that happened is that the conspiracy theorists jumped to a conclusion when they had no evidence. Similarly, when the FBI report said that someone opened the door to admit the police, they thought this this proved that three people were in the home. But that does not follow from the evidence, does it? 

How can being wrong prove that you are right? It can't, of course, but that twisted logic is how conspiracy theorists work. 

In other words, D’Souza’s original accusations turned out to be wrong. He could, of course, admit that he was wrong. Instead, he blamed his error on the authorities. He implies that he was wrong the first time because the authorities deceived him. I'm sure that's always possible (police do sometimes tell lies, as we all know), but, in this case, the conspiracy theorist has been jumping to unproven conclusions left and right and then resented being corrected.

The underlying theme: suspicion!

Once we assume that the authorities are dishonest, we also assume that everything they say is untrue.

This is, however, entirely circular. The conspiracy theorist’s only real goal is to prove that the authorities are evil. The conspiracy theorist proves this by refusing to trust them. At some point, you need real evidence. If one is to be intellectually honest, one must always be prepared to revise opinions in the face of refutation. Since they simply shift ground instead of admitting error, the conspiracy theorists utterly abandon all pretense of integrity.

Now, of course, real conspiracies occur all the time. Criminals, revolutionaries, and other nasty people do conspire with one another. The Watergate conspiracy was real. Real conspiracies are proven by evidence.  In contrast, conspiracy theories, which tend to be untrue, do not produce evidence. That is why conspiracy theorists reach into their imaginations to ask endless questions, to squirm and change their stories constantly, to hold the authorities to a high standard while holding themselves to no standard at all. 

None of this pattern of thinking is new. Over the centuries, conspiracy theorists have spread across the political spectrum.  At the moment, however, what bothers me the most is that an entire political movement--the political party of Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, and Eisenhower--has disconnected itself from reality. That cannot be good. 

_____________

Yesterday's post about conspiracy theories concerning this horrific attack: 

Harpine's Thoughts about Public Speaking: The Paul Pelosi Attack: Top Republican Conspiracy Theorists Shocked by a Violent Republican Conspiracy Theorist

The Paul Pelosi Attack: Top Republican Conspiracy Theorists Shocked by a Violent Republican Conspiracy Theorist

Just in time for Halloween, the right wing is spreading a massive, absurd conspiracy theory about the horrible attack against Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

In this first post, I establish that right-wingers are using the Internet to deny the official account of the assault and to gin up a scandal. Instead of admitting that an unhinged right-wing conspiracy theorist attacked the Pelosi home, they quickly cobbled up the idea that the attacker was Mr. Pelosi’s same-sex lover. Thus, right-wing conspiracy theorists deflect attention from the violent actions of a right-wing conspiracy theorist. Famous conspiracy theorists defended the conspiracy theorist who attacked the Pelosi home. Circling the wagons, never admitting that they could ever be wrong. Indeed, never admitting they could be wrong, even though they are wrong about almost everything connected with the case. Let’s take a look.


What Happened?

The facts as known so far are simple. In the early, dark hours of October 28, 2022, an intruder broke into the home shared by Paul Pelosi and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. He yelled, “Where’s Nancy?” Startled, still in his underwear, Mr. Pelosi outwitted the attacker to make a surreptitious 911 call, during which his coded messages led the dispatcher to send police to the home. Two minutes after the call, police found Mr. Pelosi and the intruder fighting over a hammer, which the intruder wrestled away from the elderly man. The intruder struck Mr. Pelosi in the head, sending him to the hospital with a skull fracture. The police arrested David DePape at the scene. 

The alleged attacker apparently has perpetrated several right-wing conspiracy theories. These include Q Anon conspiracy theories. He has been previously accused of public nudity. He had posted complaints that the January 6 committee was a farce and that COVID is a hoax. He had claimed that global elites “are offering you bribes in exchange for your further enslavement” and he warned of the “great reset.” One presumes that the man suffers from mental health issues. At the same time, similar conspiracy theories circulate at least to some degree in supposedly mainstream Republican sources. In other words, the man seems to have been a right-wing conspiracy theorist. It therefore stands to reason that other conspiracy theorists would want to reorganize the public narrative.

 

The Conspiracy Theorists Leap to the Fore!

Republicans, including some well-known figures, immediately started to question the official accounts in favor of scandalous conspiracy theories. These theories are quickly taking hold in the dark reaches of conservative thought. Let’s look at what various conservatives have posted on Twitter.

D'Souza. For example, documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, a convicted felon (pardoned by President Donald Trump) and notorious conspiracy theorist, put out this tweet on October 29:

“As a movie guy I like to play with weird scenarios to make sense of them. Could the Pelosi situation be a romantic tryst that went awry? Pelosi said, ‘I want you to hammer me,’ or words to that effect, and the other guy took it literally and got to work just as the cops got there.”

In other words, D’Souza asked whether the attacker and the victim were same-sex lovers whose encounter went awry. Did he offer any evidence for this? No. He offered it instead as a “weird scenario.” Notice that he did not actually say that this happened. Instead, he asked a question. Sneaky.

In another tweet, playing on the same-sex lover scenario, D’Souza asked more questions:

“Were Paul Pelosi and his attacker BOTH in their underwear? BOTH holding hammers? And the attacker didn’t strike until AFTER police were on the scene? As a movie-maker, I gotta say this script must be rejected. Nothing about the public account so far makes any sense.”

D’Souza continued to use the conspiracy theorists’ favorite tactic, which is to ask questions rather than to make provably false statements. We’ll talk more about that in later posts. Note, however, that many people are not fully dressed in the middle of the night in their own home. That’s not a basis for a conspiracy.

Williams. D’Souza was far from alone. Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian, tweeted out this little gem:

“So let’s get this straight, a man in his underwear manages to elude security cameras, Scale a wall & elude security guards and dogs, breaks into a home without setting an alarm off but was somehow captured with a hammer because of a Wellness check at 2am. Fishy Pelosi Story Right?”

Among other problems, some of which I will get to in later posts, Williams cites the often-repeated but false claim that the Pelosi house is surrounded by a security wall. (As PolitiFact notes, this claim is based on a photo of a different house entirely.) Williams’ sarcastic tone suggests that he finds the official story implausible, although, of course, he offers no evidence whatsoever to refute it.

Gorka. Jumping into the fray, Republican operative Sebastian Gorka asked on October 30:

“So who believes the “official” version of the Pelosi attack?”

On the same day, Gorka added these lovely questions:

“Seriously?

“A gay lover he knew?

“How fast is this story going to be buried??

Notice, again, that Gorka cleverly makes no actual assertions. He offers no evidence that the men knew one another. The claim that they were lovers appears to derive entirely from the fact that Mr. Pelosi doesn’t sleep fully clothed. Instead, Gorka just asks questions. He also added a terrific caveat: if the conspiracy theory is disproven, that doesn’t mean that the conspiracy is false—it only means that someone buried the story.

Price. We aren’t finished. Conservative commentator Greg Price laid the conspiracy theory out with less care and more precision:

“For people not paying attention, the story now is that a nudist in his underwear with a hammer snuck into the Pelosi residence, a Wellness check sent the police there, they knocked on the door, a THIRD person let them in, at which point the man began assaulting Paul Pelosi.”

Persuasive tactics that further posts will examine in more detail include the way Price invites the reader to join the ranks of people who are “paying attention.” His tweet also implies a misunderstanding of the police visit, while making the questionable inference that a third person was present. (Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco District Attorney, emphasized that “there were only two people in the home at the time that the police arrived, Mr. Pelosi and the suspect, there was no third person present.” She also said there was no evidence that the men knew one another.

Musk. Billionaire Elon Musk, who is smart enough to know better, also supported the same-sex lover conspiracy theory. He tweeted to Hillary Clinton, of all people, that:

“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

Toward that end, Musk cited a news site that is notorious for publishing conspiracy theories. The site in question has since deleted the story. Musk also quickly deleted his tweet, but the damage was done.

Posobiec. In fact, right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec soon followed up on Musk’s irresponsible tweet:

“Good morning the CEO of Twitter just told Hillary Clinton that Nancy Pelosi’s husband may have been in a drunken dispute with a male prostitute at 2am at their house have a nice day.”

Apparently, Musk needs to be careful what he writes.


Trump, Jr. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump, Jr. retweeted a picture of a hammer and a set of men’s underwear, together with the original caption, 

“Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”

Trump, Jr. added the note: 

“The internet remains undefeated… Also if you switch out the hammer for a red feather boa you could be Hunter Biden in an instant.”

None of these men are trivial figures. We are looking at Republican opinion leaders. The conspiracy theory has already taken flight. Who needs facts?


How? What in the World Is Going on Here? 

What makes all this bizarre reasoning possible? In subsequent posts, I plan to examine the rhetoric and psychology behind these conspiracy theories. We will see how the conspiracy theorists cite tiny amounts of false or irrelevant evidence to fit a predetermined narrative. The conspiracy theorists’ purpose is to prove the Democrats are bad. Unfortunately, all they prove is that they themselves lack judgment and integrity. Or are they, conspiracy theorists that they are, just trying to defend a fellow conspiracy theorist?

In subsequent posts, I will look at the rhetorical tactics that the conspiracy theorists employ to support their twisted agenda, show why the conspiracy theories are utterly fallacious, and discuss the motives behind the conspiracy theorists’ vile accusations.

What I have established so far is that several Republican thought leaders are inventing a ludicrous conspiracy theory to deflect attention from the facts while trying to make the Pelosi family look scandalous. Such conspiracy theories are incredibly dangerous. It is only a matter of time—and not a lot of time—before these bizarre accusations enter mainstream Republican discourse. These are lies, indeed, but they are not merely lies. The conspiracy theories represent a fully-developed (although obviously inconsistent), squirming, dangerous, dishonest, paranoid worldview. 

We cannot solve our problems if we lie about them. Democrats and Republicans cannot work together unless Republicans show at least some willingness to rejoin the real world. At the same time, we cannot deal with the right-wing threat unless we acknowledge it. This is not fringe stuff. This is Republican ideology. Stay tuned!


Harpine’s Thoughts about Public Speaking: Elon Musk’s 2016 Mars Speech: A Speech and a Vision

Harpine’s Thoughts about Public Speaking: Speeches about Conspiracies: How Can We Tell Whether a Conspiracy Is Real?

Harpine’s Thoughts about Public Speaking: Incredulity effects: Why don’t mainstream authorities worry about conspiracy theorists?

See my follow-up:

Harpine's Thoughts about Public Speaking: Is There Such a Thing as a Stupid Question? The Attack against Paul Pelosi Led Conspiracy Theorists to Make Bogus Arguments

George W. Bush on 9/11: A Message of Unity; Have We Forgotten?

I still remember my shock when I drove by the Pentagon, smashed on 9/11, only a few miles from my childhood home. Today, on the anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks against the United States, let us look once again, with the perspective of history, to remember the statement that President George W. Bush made at the end of his brief epideictic speech on the evening of that terrible day. The message resonates to this day. It was a message of unity. His message was that all Americans must unite to do what is right. It is a message we have forgotten. In our increasingly contentious age, this is a lesson we must remember above all others.

“This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.”

Yes, President Bush promised to hunt down the terrorists and their sponsors with all the might that he could muster. Vengeance was not, however, his closing message. The ultimate goal for which he spoke was not to destroy his enemies, but to work for “justice and peace.” His announced goal was not to destroy, but “to defend freedom.” He talked about what was “good and just in our world.”

Most important, however, was his assurance of national unity: “This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace.”

In other words, to triumph, we must work together. Yes, soon after, President Bush made terrible mistakes as he responded to 9/11 with ideological violence. The invasion of Iraq failed to uncover any trace of the supposed weapons of mass destruction. The invasion of Afghanistan ended only after seemingly endless decades of miserable failure under one president after another. More innocent people died during the War on Terror than on 9/11. Bush’s nation-building exercises in western Asia left the world as insecure as ever. Indeed, Bush’s foreign policy was a case study in impulsive decision-making. 

Pentagon after 9/11 attack

None of that belies the wisdom of what Bush said the evening of the attacks. He called for unity. He spoke for “justice and peace.” Yes, in the months and years that followed 9/11, the cold light of reality failed to illuminate Bush's subsequent ill-considered decisions. Yes, reality indeed won out. It always does. Let us not, however, ignore the vision. Some people today say they want to “make America great again.” We can only do that if we remember our values. So, as we try to learn from the mistakes of the past, let us also affirm and celebrate our values. Even if we sometimes forget those values, it is never too late to look back and recover them. We need to do so today. Justice, peace, and freedom. We cannot have one unless we have all three.

Of course, let us never forget the courageous 9/11 rescue workers who sacrificed their lives when they ran toward danger while everyone else fled. 

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President George W. Bush’s “9/11 Address to the Nation:” An Appeal for Unity

George W. Bush and the American Vision

George W. Bush and the American Vision, Part 2

George W. Bush Used His Prestige to Call Out the January 6 Terrorists

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Research note: The reader who wishes to understand the tragic failures of 9/11 and the War on Terror might start with Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, and Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq. 

Images: George W. Bush, White House photo; Pentagon, FBI photo via Wikimedia Commons

Who Was More Divisive? Biden, or Trump?

Donald Trump

Last week, President Joe Biden gave a speech about the “Soul of America.” He said that the people who he called “MAGA Republicans” were dangerous and did not respect our Constitution. He assured the nation that MAGA Republicans were only a small fraction of the entire party. The press called his speech divisive. Well, fine.

Let us, however, look at Donald Trump’s subsequent September 3, 2022 rally speech in Pennsylvania. Trump engaged in name-calling, called his opponents “crazy,” “evil” and tyrannical, and said that Democrats hate America. Was Trump’s speech as divisive as Biden’s? More divisive? And why did Biden’s seemingly milder divisiveness bother us more?

The issue is more complex than a person might think. If the history of rhetoric teaches us anything, it is that divisive speeches are not always bad. History also teaches us, however, that divisive speeches always irritate people. Nevertheless, one is struck by the observation that there is so much more anger about Biden’s moderately divisive speech than there is about Trump’s rally speech. Why is that? What happened? What did Trump say?


Name-Calling

My mother often told me that I can’t build myself up by running other people down. Yet, that was what Trump tried to do. Early in his speech, Trump referred to Democratic congressional leader Adam Schiff as “Shifty Schiff.” He also called him “Watermelon Head:”

“So when they lost, Hillary Clinton and her people, guys like Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, watermelon head. Watermelon Head, he’s a watermelon head, but no dummy.”

In other words, Trump used language that would not be accepted in a properly-supervised elementary school lunchroom. A simple question for my readers: was that a unifying thing for Trump to say? Or was it divisive? Did Biden, at any point in his “Soul of America” speech, engage in that kind of juvenile name-calling? Obviously not.

Trump also targeted Biden with name-calling. Echoing Stalinist language, Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state:”

“He's an enemy of the state, you know that? The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him, which is circling around him, ‘Do this. do that Joe, you’re going to do this Joe.’”

Even if Biden is in fact, an enemy of the state, isn’t that a divisive thing to call him?


Vilified Democrats

Trump wasn’t finished. He assured his audience that MAGA were good people. He contrasted them with Democrats, who Trump called evil people:

“Think of this, think how bad they are, think how evil they are. We’re all [unclear…] fathers, and your mothers and your children are great people, and all of the people are represented here—think how bad they are.”

Now, yes, Biden did say some bad things about MAGA Republicans. However, if it was divisive to say that MAGA voters do not respect the United States Constitution, is it not also divisive for Trump to say that Democrats are evil? I am not at this moment commenting about who is and is not evil. I’m just pointing out that it is divisive to call people evil. Isn’t it?

In the next breath, Trump lambasted his unnamed enemies from making unnamed false charges against him. My best guess is that Trump was complaining about reports concerning his relationship with Russia. He accused his opponents of lying:

“They make up a story that’s false. It’s now been admitted to be false. The FBI is the last one to tell us that. But it’s now admitted even in the newspapers, even by the people back there, they will not fight it. They make up now think of this or think of this.”

Now, again, regardless of whether Trump’s accusation is true or false--is that not a divisive thing to say?

Later in the speech, Trump called his opponents “unelected tyrants.” He said they were “corrupt” and complained about the “willing and very corrupt media:”

“But this battle is not about me. This is a struggle for the very fate of our republic. Our movement is fighting against a corrupt group of unelected tyrants who believe they can wield absolute power over you, with the help of a willing and very corrupt media.”

Still later in the speech, Trump debated briefly as to whether his opponents were stupid or crazy, concluding that they were crazy:

“These people are crazy, this figure. I mean, they honestly, they can’t be stupid. They must hate our country. They must hate our country. They surrendered our strength and our wisdom, our everything. They turned Afghanistan into the greatest humiliation our country has ever seen. I believe it was the most humiliating thing, time that our country’s ever gone through.”

“Crazy,” Trump said. His opponents “must hate our country.”

Again, in this post, I am not talking about whether Trump does or does not have any legitimate grievances. My point is that he was divisive. Wasn’t he?

And yet, press and public reaction has been far more hostile toward Biden’s divisive speech than toward Trump’s rally speech. Why is that?


Is There an Explanation?

All rhetoric ultimately comes down, in one way or another, to the audience’s interpretation. Sometimes the audience reacts immediately; Sometimes the reaction is delayed by a few days; sometimes the main reaction comes years later. Maybe Donald Trump was speaking to his core supporters for immediate political purposes. Maybe President Biden was speaking for history. Who knows?

First, is it a president’s main job to be unifying? Certainly, to be unifying is important. At the same time, leaders can’t always pander to the immediate crowd. It’s good to be unifying; but it is more important to be a leader.

Second, do we expect more from President Joe Biden then we do from former president Donald Trump? Perhaps we have become so used to Trump’s childish behavior that we brush it off. Yet, we expect President Biden to be stoic in the face of all adversity. Is that realistic?

Third, reporters face pressure to look at both sides of controversial issues. As the Republican Party becomes less and less hinged to reality, the press struggles to find merit to both sides. They seek out people to represent often-ridiculous opinions so they can appear unbiased. Sometimes, unfortunately, the press goes overboard, and, in this case, they are holding Biden to a standard far higher than what they expect from his opponents. Is that right? The question is not as easy to answer as one might think. Ultimately, however, the job of a free press is to report truth. That becomes difficult when much of a political party—the group that Biden called “MAGA Republicans”—disdains ordinary expertise and factual analysis. Seriously, is it presidential to call a political leader “Watermelon Head?” How do we bothsides that?

It isn’t just the press, however, that has a double standard. Former President Trump’s relentless name-calling and bursts of rage have worn us all down. The public has worn down. We are numb. We hardly notice when Donald Trump says something rude, foul, or dishonest. We have come to think that Trump’s behavior is normal. We expect him to be foul. Yet, we still expect calm perfection from President Biden.

That reaction disturbs me. It is as if everyone knows that President Biden holds himself to a high standard, but Donald Trump does not. Instead of concluding that there is something wrong with Trump, or something good about Biden, we try to weigh the two men on an equal scale. Can that be right?


Conclusion

Donald Trump's rally speech was at least as divisive as Biden's “Soul of America” speech. Nevertheless, public reaction to Biden’s speech was rather negative in comparison. That does not really tell us much about Biden versus Trump. The reaction tells us more about ourselves. Evidently, most of us recognize, at least deep inside, that Biden is the better person. Yet, we do not compare Biden against Trump. Instead, we compare our idealized vision of Biden against the real-world Biden. People excuse Trump because “he’s just being Trump.” Thinking that way is normal. It’s human nature. It is, nevertheless, a dangerous way to think. Is it not?

_____________

Earlier post about Trump's rally speech:

Harpine's Thoughts about Public Speaking: Trump Blames Immigrants for America's Problems. Well, What Else Would He Say?

Post about Biden's "Soul of America" Speech:

Harpine's Thoughts about Public Speaking: Biden on the Soul of America: Was He Unifying or Divisive? Or Both?

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Research note: Several theories of social psychology offer insight into this phenomenon. Social Judgment Theory, developed by Carolyn Sherif, Muzafer Sherif, Carl Hovland, and my University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana professor Roger Nebergall, shows us how we make judgments according to our evaluations of people’s character and experience, with reference to our own experience and judgments. We humans, unfortunately, are not always rational when we respond to persuasive messages.

With respect to audience, the rhetorical theorists Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca explain that the audience listening to a speech is not necessarily the audience that matters. Instead, the speaker might have in mind an entirely different audience—maybe future listeners who will hear about the speech, maybe a universal audience, maybe an audience that hears the speech on radio and television, or whatever. So, when I say that Biden’s real audience might not have been the group gathered to listen to his speech, the point is that he was reaching out particularly to the group that he thought of as MAGA Republicans, or, maybe, to his own core supporters who wanted him to show strength. Similarly, Trump may have been reaching out to his national audience, not just his rally crowd. 

Image: Official White House photo  

Trump Blames Immigrants for America's Problems. Well, What Else Would He Say?

Hatred of others has long been conservative rhetoric’s essence. It worked for Hitler. It worked for George Wallace. It’s working for Donald Trump.

At yesterday’s political rally speech in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump, while rambling from one topic to the next, returned over and over to immigration. It was immigrants, he said, who cause America’s problems. It was the Democratic Party’s love of immigrants, he said, that disqualifies them for public office. Us versus them. A simple formula: immigrants are bad, while Americans are good.

Conservative speakers have long blamed their own problems and mistakes on someone else. Yes, the United States has crime. In real life, as we will see later, immigrants do not cause our crime problem. Unfortunately, if native-born Americans take responsibility for our society’s own failings, they might want to make changes. Conservatives don’t want to change. That’s what makes them conservative. That, briefly, is why Donald Trump wants to blame immigrants for the United States’ problems. His rally audience seemed happy to accept that explanation, which appealed to their bigotry. Trump’s explanation absolved his audience from accepting responsibility for their own failings. It’s a simple rhetorical trick. Let’s look at how Trump did it.


Trump Said That Immigrants Cause Crime

Indeed, Trump rambled back and forth about immigration and crime throughout his speech. Let’s start by unpacking this passage:

“The radical Democrat Congresses turned our country into one giant sanctuary for serious criminal aliens. We protect all of the criminals; we don’t protect our own people. In fact, they raid our people. And the Republican Party. We believe our country should be a sanctuary for law abiding citizens who love America. If we’re going to make America great again, our first [task] is to make America safe again. We have to have a safe country.”

Now, for an American leader to attack immigrants creates a paradox. The United States is mostly a nation of immigrants. My maternal grandparents were Eastern European immigrants. As Trump commented, many Democrats want to offer sanctuary to refugees. In Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric, however, immigrants are just criminals: “one giant sanctuary for serious criminal aliens.”

In fact, consistent with standard right-wing themes, Trump argued that immigrants—criminals, in his view—receive better treatment then citizens: as he said, “We protect all of the criminals, we don’t protect our own people.” That did not finish Trump’s attack on immigrants, as he quickly turned the tables on the concept of sanctuary cities: remember that he said that: “We believe our country should be a sanctuary for law abiding citizens who love America”—not a sanctuary for others.


Trump Said That American Values Are Anti-Immigrant

As he continued, Donald Trump made it a basic American value to despise immigrants. Let us look at that next: 

“They want to stop us from completing our mission to bring back American values. Secure America’s borders, millions and millions of people are pouring into our country. Nobody has any idea where they’re from. Last month, 129 countries were represented. They’re emptying their prisons into the United States of America.” [italics added]

Well, Trump obviously contradicted himself. If “nobody has any idea where they’re from,” how could we possibly know that they represent 129 countries? The moral issue, however, is more important. That is, immigrants, in Trump’s rhetoric, were not refugees coming for a better life, no, they were criminals who foreign countries maliciously sent us from their prisons. Trump’s speech contrasted the supposedly virtuous American citizens against the criminal immigrants. once you accept Trump’s logic, the way to solve our problems is to keep immigrants away so native-born Americans can live their lives free of foreign contamination. So much for welcoming the “huddled masses.”


Do Immigrants Really Cause Our Crime Problem? No.

Trump’s examples misled his gullible audience, for the numbers clearly show that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at, statistically, a far lower rate than native-born Americans. A major study published in the prestigious Annals of Epidemiology concluded that:

“Results from the present study—conducted with a well characterized and highly-regarded national survey—provide clear and compelling evidence that immigrants are involved in violent and nonviolent criminal behaviors at substantially lower rates than US-born Americans.”

For example, in my home state of Texas, native-born Americans are arrested for murder at twice the rate of undocumented immigrants. Native-born Americans are 2-1/2 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Let us keep in mind that the Texas border (which is not far from my home) is the poster for anti-immigrant fearmongering.

More broadly, the United States, like every nation, generates plenty of problems. Crime, income inequality, poverty, and public health all require careful solutions. However, if you want to pretend that we are not responsible for our problems, you need to blame someone else. Immigrants, who are often poor and vulnerable, make easy targets. That was Trump’s trick. The fault, as Shakespeare might have said, lies not in our stars (or our immigrants), but in ourselves.

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Earlier Trump Posts:

Donald Trump Didn't Make His Case for the Emergency Border Wall Declaration Because He Didn't Document His Facts

Divisive Rhetoric Continued in the 2018 US Midterms: The Case of Obama versus Trump

Trump, the "China Virus," and the Art of Controlling the Agenda by Misdirection


Hey! When Trump speaks well, I acknowledge it:

Trump and the NRA: Was the President Using His Business Communication Skills? 

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Research note: The idea that we can blame our problems on “the other” traces far back in human thought. Several scholars have investigated the subject. This month, I am reading essays by the communication critic Stuart Hall, highly recommended.

Image: Official White House photo

Biden on the Soul of America: Was He Unifying or Divisive? Or Both?

Independence Hall

President Joe Biden's speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia attacked “MAGA Republicans.” Biden highlighted The United States of America's divisions while appealing to our unity. He announced his topic as “The Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”

Often criticized as divisive, Biden's speech sought unity by division. Biden did not create the divisions. Instead, he acknowledged them and tried to rearrange them.

Does that sound like a paradox? The great rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke explained in The Rhetoric of Motives that identification underlies all rhetoric. (By “rhetoric,” a rhetorical theorist means “the art of persuasion.”) Yet, identification invariably implies division. Burke explains:

“Identification is affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division. If [people] were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim their unity.”

Burke’s point is that we identify ourselves, in part, by saying what we are not. If I tell people that I am an American, I imply that I am not a Canadian. If I call myself old, I separate myself from young people. Biden's Independence Hall speech divided “MAGA Republicans” from patriots, but he also divided MAGA Republicans from mainstream Republicans. So, although his speech was divisive, he did not divide the nation on party lines. Instead, he divided on the lines of patriots who respect the American system, opposed to people who do not. He tried to slice “mainstream Republicans” away from what he called the dangerous, unpatriotic MAGA movement. Since Donald Trump enjoys enormous Republican support, Biden walked on a thin line. At the same time, with hitherto respectable Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham threatening violence on the streets if Trump doesn't get his way, Biden could no longer pretend that the United States enjoys unity. Instead, Biden tried to confront the issue by manipulating the divisions within the Republican Party.

So, Biden asserted that former president Donald Trump was an extremist who threatened the United States’ Constitution. He established a division between MAGA Republicans and the rest of the United States. In the next breath, however, Biden divided MAGA Republicans from other Republicans:

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

“Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.

“I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.”

Later in the speech, Biden argued for unity among groups that might otherwise be hostile. He asked those groups to unite to divide themselves from MAGA Republicans:

“Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy.

“We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool.”

So, was Biden's speech divisive? Certainly. Did his speech equally appeal to identification and unity? Yes. As Burke noted, identification and division are counterparts. Biden appealed to a common goal with which, he hoped, most Americans could identify: to maintain the American Republic. He divided MAGA Republicans, splitting them off from people who continue to respect our American way.

Let us keep in mind that division is not always bad. Donald Trump’s presidential rhetoric consistently pitted Americans against one another, often in harmful ways. In contrast, Biden’s speech tried to re-sort the ways in which Americans identify with one another. Indeed, Biden’s expression “MAGA Republicans” divided the Republican Party into opposing groups: those that support Donald Trump, and those who do not.

Indeed, just as identification lies at rhetoric’s center, so does division. The United States faces two possible paths. We know that most Americans favor the path that Biden laid out in his Independence Hall speech. Unfortunately, we also know that Biden's hope that MAGA Republicans make up a tiny minority was speculative at best.

The press pretty much overlooked Biden's most unifying statement, in which he identified with all Americans, even his opponents: 

But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.

We identify with some people by dividing ourselves from others. Throughout its history, the United States of America has faced a conflict between conservatives and progressives. That conflict has represented itself in a slavery-based economic system, the struggle for civil rights, and the current debate about voting rights. That conflict tore us apart in the Civil War, and nearly tore us apart again during the 20th Century’s civil rights movement. In both of those cases, conservative extremists threatened to destroy the country rather than to accept human equality. The United States’ fracture line threatens to split again. Can we find unity and common cause? Or would the Republican Party prefer to destroy America simply because their ideas were not popular enough to win an election?

President Joe Biden's Independence Hall speech did not create divisions; he acknowledged them. He gave the Republican Party one last chance to identify with the rest of the country. Are they willing to take that opportunity? Or, as too many of them threaten, do they want to create another Civil War, fighting for an evil cause that will surely fail?

___________

Adolf Hitler’s “Christian Nationalist” Speech

Donald Trump Says That the MAGA Crowd Loves Black People, Except When They Don't

John Kennedy Spoke for World-Wide Freedom and Independence in his 1962 Fourth of July Speech

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Research note: Kenneth Burke's monumental book The Rhetoric of Motives makes for heavy reading, but it is worth the effort 

Photo: William D. Harpine

How Did "I Have a Dream" Matter to My Neighbors in 1963?

Lincoln Memorial

On this date in history, August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his immortal speech, “I Have a Dream,” from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. So many people have written and said so many things about this great speech. The speech was not really about a dream. King’s powerful images shook people’s hearts, but metaphors were not his point. His point was freedom. Let me back up and tell a story.

On August 29, 1963, the morning after the speech, I was an 11 (almost 12) year old boy waiting for the school bus on the corner a half-block from my house. The Lincoln Memorial was less than 20 miles from my parents’ almost new split-level. I was excited to start seventh grade at Sidney Lanier Intermediate. My biggest fear was to wonder how I would navigate the seemingly huge school.

The neighborhood was buzzing with commentary, not only about King’s speech, which disturbed and frightened almost everyone I knew, but also the massive demonstration on the Washington Mall. At the time, the crowd’s size and impatience dominated my neighbors’ thinking. Folks shook their heads at what they perceived to be a chaotic mess. And, indeed, my young friends at the bus stop shared in the excitement—and the concern. It is no secret that King terrified many white people. As should surprise no one, my neighborhood was (like almost all Virginia neighborhoods at the time) strictly segregated.

For the most part, my friends and their parents were not racists in any of the usual senses, at least not as white people understood racism in 1963. My schoolmates were nice kids who grew up in loving homes. They did not seethe with ill will. They were not angry.

Yet, one of my bus-stop companions asked, with disgust in his voice, “What do they want?” My best friend, Duncan, calmly replied, “They want their freedom.” I was never so proud to know him. Duncan grew up in a conservative home, much more conservative than my own, but he understood human dignity with a wisdom that belied his youth, his crewcut, and his traditional Oxford shirt. Somehow, I had never before understood civil rights with such simplicity, such clarity.

No one responded. Not even me. Awkward silence continued until the bus showed up a few minutes later. It was a learning moment for me, maybe for all of us. Yes, the clips of King’s speech on the news the night before thrilled the ears. In the long run, however, it is the audience, not the speaker, that makes a speech successful. What message did the audience need to hear? “They want their freedom.”

Dreaming was King’s metaphor, but it was not his main point. No, instead, his point was freedom. His thrilling conclusion talked about the centuries-long struggle for freedom:

“And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

“Free at last! Free at last!

“Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Did the struggle for freedom end in victory? On the one hand, yes. Congress soon passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. On the other hand, no. It seems that every few weeks in 2022 we hear about a police officer shooting an unarmed Black person. Mistakenly thinking that the struggle for civil rights was over, the United States Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Even the freest nation is never more than one election from tyranny. King’s message: People want their freedom.


Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Made Biblical Morality a Public Imperative

Three Warnings about Political Action From Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech”


P.S. Of course, as times change, we notice that King didn’t mention freedom for women: “black men and white men.”

Image: National Park Service

Biden Turned the Tables on the Topic of Student Loan Forgiveness. A Clever Debating Tactic.

Biden answers a reporter's question

Turning the tables on your opponent is often a clever debating strategy. Use your opponent’s own argument against them. President Joe Biden recently announced a program of partial forgiveness for student loan debt. Republicans immediately held that this was unfair to people who had already paid off their student loans.

In his White House speech announcing his student loan forgiveness program, Biden listed the expected facts and figures. He reviewed the personal problems that Americans face due to crushing student debt. That was all fine. His speech was calm, drama-free, and thoughtful. Ho-hum. The zinger came at the end, when he answered a few questions. Let’s look at what happened.

As Biden was walking out of the room, a reporter asked whether forgiving current student loans was fair to people who had already paid off previous student loans. Biden turned the tables on the questioner. Unable to say that his policy was equitable for everyone, which it obviously was not, Biden pointed out that conservative economic policies also lacked equity. Here’s how the exchange went:

“Q Mr. President, is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans?

“THE PRESIDENT: Is it fair to people who in fact do not own a multi-billion-dollar business if they see one of these guys give them all a tax break? Is that fair? What do you think?”

Why was that such a clever debating tactic? First, Biden’s response was short and crisp. A long answer would invite a convoluted response, which Biden had no interest in dealing with. Second, Biden shifted the burden of proof to his questioner: “What do you think?” Third, shifting the burden of proof, he broadened the issue to overall policy instead of just the one specific issue.

Biden’s point was that the same argument that Republicans were making against his student debt forgiveness plan could equally be made against programs favored by Republicans. Both policies lacked equity.

If, however, Biden’s opponents opposed loan forgiveness, Biden pressed them to reject their own previous positions. The challenger is then led either to defend loan forgiveness or to condemn the Republican’s previous policies. By broadening the concept, Biden challenged the questioner's assumption that policies must be equitable. 

Turning the tables often tames a debate opponent because the speaker uses the other side’s argument against them. They cannot very well refute their own argument, can they? Chalk up a point for Biden. 

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How Did David Hogg Turn the Tables on President Trump to Advocate Gun Control?

AOC Turned the Tables on Republicans in Less Than a Minute During the Coronavirus Relief Bill Debate

How Does Tucker Carlson Use Personal Attacks Instead of Proof about Climate Change?

Image: White House YouTube channel