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?

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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. 

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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