Donald Trump's 2017 Value Voters Summit Speech: Juxtaposition Replaces Proof

Pres. Trump at 2017 Value Voters Summit

In the first of two important speeches that he gave yesterday, President Donald Trump talked to the Values Voters Summit in Washington DC. This group gathers members of the Christian Right; their goal is. He has become one of the conference’s favorites; last year, Mr. Trump gave his campaign a big boost when he talked to the conference about his presidential campaign and promised to protect them against secular forces. White conservative Christian voters were instrumental in Mr. Trump’s campaign victory, giving him more than 80% of their votes. Mr. Trump’s triumphant return to the Values Voters Summit linked conservative religious and non-religious issues into a seamless whole. The key to Trump’s speech was the rhetorical method called juxtaposition. A speaker can make two different things seem related just by putting them side by side.

Mr. Trump’s speech began with a link between religion and patriotism: as Mr. Trump took the stage, the audience began to chant: “USA!  USA!  USA!” Many people, of course, equate patriotism, a word that means “love of country,” with conservative political positions. Other people believe that liberals and moderates can also love their country. Mr. Trump continued to link America and faith in his introduction: “America is a nation of believers, and together we are strengthened and sustained by the power of prayer.  (Applause.) “That was perfectly fine, and many earlier presidents would have said something similar. He expressed sympathy for the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas, which he called “an act of pure evil.” The shooting obviously was an act of evil but Mr. Trump’s phrasing would appeal to a religious audience. He also praised the courage of the people during the Las Vegas shooting: “Americans defied evil and hatred with courage and love.” He talked about the prayers lifted for the Las Vegas victims.

As Mr. Trump began to review the United States of America’s values, he mingled traditional Christian values with his own political views: “Everyone here today is brought together by the same shared and timeless values.” But which of these values were religious, and which were purely political? Some of Trump’s points praised traditional religious values, but he cleverly mixed them with political matters. Look at this passage:

We love our families.  We love our neighbors.  We love our country.  Everyone here today is brought together by the same shared and timeless values.  We cherish the sacred dignity of every human life.  (Applause.)  

Loving your families, your neighbors, and respecting human life are obviously religious values. But is love of country a religious value? That is an interesting and complex question, but the Bible nowhere clearly affirms love of country to be a major value. Yet, by mixing these values into a single paragraph, Trump gave the impression that they were all conservative religious values.

Or consider this passage:

We believe in strong families and safe communities.  We honor the dignity of work.  (Applause.)  We defend our Constitution.  We protect religious liberty.  (Applause.)  We treasure our freedom.  We are proud of our history.  We support the rule of law and the incredible men and women of law enforcement.  (Applause.)  We celebrate our heroes, and we salute every American who wears the uniform.  (Applause.) 
We respect our great American flag.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you. 

The apostle Paul does briefly affirm the dignity of work and obedience to legal authorities, so we can count those as biblical values. But saluting Americans in military service? I agree that they are to be commended, but I do not see a biblical foundation for that. Similarly, although respecting the flag is good, it is not a biblical value. Supporting law enforcement officers seems like a good thing, although Mr. Trump raised controversy when he seemed to advocate police brutality a while back. Was he hinting at that issue again? Or not? That was not very clear, was it?

Ironically, after praising the American governmental system, he then criticized it on value grounds:

For too long, politicians have tried to centralize the authority among the hands of a small few in our nation’s capital.  Bureaucrats think they can run your lives, overrule your values, meddle in your faith, and tell you how to live, what to say, and how to pray.  But we know that parents, not bureaucrats, know best how to raise their children and create a thriving society.  (Applause.)  

In that passage, Trump affirmed a libertarian philosophy of government that has no biblical foundation at all, although the phrase “meddle in your faith” makes government action sound anti-religious. This is largely, again, juxtaposition. By combining religious and non-religious matters, Trump made them sound like the same substance. (A person can, of course, support law enforcement and love the flag and also be religious – my point is that those policies are not specifically religious, and religion is not their foundation.) One cannot help but to think about parents who abuse or even murder their children. Could the government know better than the parents in those cases? What about parents who cite religious reasons when they deny medical care to their children? Do they know better than the government? Juxtaposition and platitudes enabled Mr. Trump to side-slip such difficult issues. Instead of proving his points, he tried to establish his conservative political positions simply by linking them to religion.

In my next post, I will talk about how this speech linked faith issues to non-religious conservative governmental policies.

Donald Trump's October 11, 2017 Taxation Speech: What Didn't He Say?

Donald Trump's October 11, 2017 speech

President Donald Trump spoke yesterday at a National Guard facility in Pennsylvania to promote his proposed tax reform. The audience consisted of about 1000 truckers, together with members of Congress. For the most part, Mr. Trump's speech repeated standard conservative talking points: tax cuts would produce growth, and the income tax needed to be simplified. Pretty much any Republican politician would have said the same things. What was important about the speech is what he did not say. Often, what a speaker does not say is as important as what the speaker does say.

Trump began with some seemingly unrelated comments about "the recent tragedies that have struck our incredible nation." He talked about the California wildfires, which were spreading incredible devastation. He talked about what a wonderful job FEMA and the first responders were doing.

Let us go to his standard taxation talking points. Mr. Trump promised to "Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent and more, all the way down to no more than 20 percent - below the average of our major competitors from other countries.  (Applause.)" He said that companies left the United States to avoid our tax rates. He promised that: "For the many American truckers who file taxes as sole-proprietors, S corporations or partnerships, we will cap your top tax rate at a maximum of 25 percent - substantially lower than what you're paying now.  (Applause.)" He promised that the small business tax rate would be cut by 40%. That sounded beneficial to independent truckers. He said that his tax plan would allow faster write-off of capital equipment purchases. Trump claimed that the tax plan "would likely give the typical American household a $4,000 pay raise.  (Applause.)  Could be a lot more than that, too.  You haven't heard this.  So about a $4,000 amount of money additional for the American family to spend.  That's very exciting." That was interesting material, possibly very persuasive to the truckers.


But now, let us look at what Trump did not talk about.

1. The press has already discussed some smoke-and-mirror reasoning in the Republican tax plan. For example, Mr. Trump's claims that it mostly helps the middle class omit the dramatic changes proposed in the estate tax, which only affects the very, very wealthiest Americans. That is a very big thing to leave out. Republicans are often accused of only favoring tax cuts for the rich. The proposed tax reform is very complex, and the details of which have not yet been published. Still, the estate tax is a major part of the proposed tax reform. Leaving it out of the speech is a big deal.

2. The Republican plan has been much criticized for leaving out details. Tax plans are always complicated, and the details make the difference. Mr. Trump's speech still provided no details. At some point, the plan must be turned into legislation, and the details will come out then. Why have they not been made public now? Even if the tax plan turns out to be a very good one, the reluctance to give details can only lead to uncertainty and suspicion.

3. Mr. Trump said nothing about the carried interest loophole, which is a very esoteric tax break that helps big-money investors pay less in taxes. During his October 9, 2017 debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump severely criticized Clinton for failing to abolish that loophole. It was a big-deal campaign issue for Mr. Trump. Yet he said nothing about that loophole, which gives very rich people a break, in his speech. Why not? Is the loophole to remain intact - when he had earlier made a big deal of how bad it was and how much it needed to be abolished?


4. He said nothing about the ongoing struggles of Puerto Rico, an American territory that was devastated recently by Hurricane Maria. Mr. Trump has been criticized for what some people think was a weak, uncaring response to Puerto Rico struggles. On October 11, much of the island remained without electricity, food, or safe water. Yet he said nothing about Puerto Rico during the speech, which could add to the impression that he still did not care about them. What made this worse is that the next morning he threatened on his Twitter account to withdraw Puerto Rico's federal assistance. Now, there is no need to talk about disaster relief during a taxation speech. But to promise help for one disaster while ignoring another can only lead to questions. Did he omit Puerto Rico because he doesn't care? Or was it just an oversight>

Chapter 7 of my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign, talks about how William McKinley deliberately failed to talk about an important issue that could not conceivably been ignored. Not talking about something can be as important as talking about it.

Elon Musk's 2016 Mars Speech: A Speech and a Vision

SpaceX rocket ready to launch

I've intended for a while to write about Elon Musk's speech at the 67th International Astronautical Congress that was held in Guadalajara last year. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has founded several high-tech companies, including SpaceX and Tesla. In this speech, Musk talked about the technical aspects of the mission to Mars. A long-time science fiction fan – as am I – Musk took a Mars mission beyond fiction and beyond Hollywood into something that he made sound like a practical engineering goal.  No, Musk doesn't have great vocal delivery. That's fine, at least for him. As Herbert Wichelns pointed out many years ago, a good speech is not about beauty; it is about effect.

Since too many people have been so excited to talk about everything that Musk did wrong, let us talk instead about what made his speech succeed.

First, Musk began right off by stating his point: "And what I really want to try to achieve here is to make Mars seem possible, make it seem as though it's something that we can do in our lifetimes — and that you can go, and is there really a way that anyone can go if they wanted to? I think that's really the important thing." Too many inexperienced speakers wait until the speech is half over – or worse – before they tell the audience what their thesis is. You cannot convince people unless they know what you are trying to prove. Even though Musk's point must have struck many people as outlandish, he stated it right up front. Musk's unhesitating statement of vision made his speech exciting.

Second, he spoke without notes. He was obviously well-prepared, but he did not use a script or a Teleprompter. He was just one man standing on a big, lonely stage in front of a huge crowd, talking to the crowd. When you speak without notes, your speech will probably be imperfect, but you can gain audience rapport.

Third, Musk got his audience excited. He made the dangerous trip to Mars sound like a party: "It would be quite fun because you have gravity, which is about 37% that of Earth, so you'd be able to lift heavy things and bound around and have a lot of fun."

Fourth, he talked about practical issues, for example, he talked about the need to do orbital refilling: "Without refilling in orbit, you would have a half-order of magnitude impact, roughly, on the cost. By half of magnitude — I think the audience mostly knows — but what that means is, each order of magnitude is a factor of 10. So not refilling in orbit would mean a 500%, roughly, increase in the cost per ticket." That kind of detailed, practical thinking made Musk's vision seem a little more practical or, at least, a little less impractical.

Finally, it is long overdue for a famous person to give a speech that tells about a vision. We are living in an era in which politicians speak carefully-parsed messages targeted to sections of the electorate. Salespeople address precisely-targeted markets, totally ignoring the big picture. Those methods work – politicians using those methods win elections and business people using those methods make money. But they miss the big picture. They make it too easy to drift away from our vision. A world  without a positive vision is going nowhere.

Are any of Musk's ideas practical? How would I know? I would never have thought that a long-range electric car or a private space company would be practical, and yet Musk built both. To accomplish big things, people need to get excited. Musk did a terrific job of getting astronautical people excited. His dramatic speech reached the general public. Tickets to Mars, anyone?

Stay tuned — I plan to write about his 2017 follow-up speech soon.

Image: NASA

Hillary Clinton at Wellesley College Commencement: Part 2

I'm a bit late here, but I promised to say more about Hillary Clinton's commencement speech at her alma mater, Wellesley College. Clinton had, only a few months ago, lost a hotly-contested election to Donald Trump. The election left the nation quite polarized, with the Democrats feeling very distraught and mistrustful. Both sides believed in massive, extremely unlikely conspiracy theories. Furthermore, there was substantial evidence that the Russian government had interfered in the election by promulgating fabricated news stories. Clinton added unnecessarily to the controversy by using an unauthorized email server to conduct official business. She made the controversy even worse when she failed to be forthcoming about her email use.

Hillary Clinton

With that in mind, let us look at her comments about trust in government. Americans' trust in their government seems to be at an all-time low. Clinton's prevarication about her email system certainly did not enhance the public's trust.

Still, she made admirable comments about the importance of trust between government and citizens. This is obviously a two-way issue: the government must be worthy of trust, while the public must recognize goodwill from the government when they receive it. Both seem to have been lacking. Notice how she discussed the development of mistrust during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights era:

"We didn’t trust government, authority figures, or really anyone over 30, in large part thanks to years of heavy casualties and dishonest official statements about Vietnam, and deep differences over civil rights and poverty here at home. We were asking urgent questions about whether women, people of color, religious minorities, immigrants, would ever be treated with dignity and respect."

Clinton also noted that President Nixon earned great mistrust during the Watergate inquiries: 

"And by the way, we were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice after firing the person running the investigation into him at the Department of Justice."

Still, Clinton ended with a message of hope. She reminded the audience that the nation survived the tumultuous 1960s, and that the nation was better because of it. The nation became more prosperous, and once-disparaged people were able to enter into full citizenship:

"But here’s what I want you to know. We got through that tumultuous time, and once again began to thrive as our society changed laws and opened the circle of opportunity and rights wider and wider for more Americans. We revved up the engines of innovation and imagination. We turned back a tide of intolerance and embraced inclusion. The “we” who did those things were more than those in power who wanted to change course. It was millions of ordinary citizens, especially young people, who voted, marched, and organized."

The message that she implied was this: the nation survived the traumas of the 1960s, and the nation would be able to survive the polarization of today. One lesson for us to learn from the past is that the United States has great resilience. It is also worthwhile for all of us to remember that the nation is stronger together than separate. Let us also put some faith in the nation's young people. 

Department of State photo

Here's my earlier post about this speech. 

Free Speech on Campus: It Happened Again, at William and Mary!

College of William and Mary (William Harpine)

This makes me very sad. A group of protestors, who identified themselves with Black Lives Matter, protested a speech by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s Claire Guthrie Gastañaga at my alma mater, The College of William and Mary in Virginia. The protestors were upset because the ACLU had defended the free speech rights of extreme right-wing groups like the KKK and the Nazi Party. The ACLU has, of course, long defended all free speech rights. Reports said that the protests were so loud that the speaker was not only unable to make her presentation, but unable even to converse with students one-on-one. Apparently the protestors will face a disciplinary board. As they should.

When I studied at William and Mary (1969-1973), the school's very conservative administration routinely brought in controversial speakers who represented many perspectives. I heard from Julian Bond, Alan Ginsburg (who, to my disappointment, did not speak, but merely meditated loudly while playing the zither), and numerous anti-Vietnam War speakers. The college believed, and I agree, that students needed to hear different points of view.

Comments:

1. If you disagree with a speaker, listen first. Maybe a controversial speaker will persuade you. Maybe you will learn something.

2. If you still disagree, the answer is to give a better speech in response.

3. If you want to protest a speaker, do so in a way that does not obstruct the presentation. 

4. If you don't want to hear the speaker at all, then go to the movies instead. 

There have been cases of liberal and conservative speakers alike being obstructed on college campuses by people who disagree. This is wrong; it is un-American, and it needs to stop.

Free speech rights in general are under attack. I disagree with the NFL players taking a knee during the National Anthem, but support their right to do so against the President's threats. It's free expression! Let them express themselves! I object to the Trump administration's recent threats to investigate or intimidate news agencies that fail to flatter them. That is very wrong.

Thomas Jefferson

Let's finish by quoting William and Mary alumnus Thomas Jefferson, who, in his First Inaugural Address, explained why even radical and dangerous opinions can be tolerated:

"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

Free speech is our nation's founding principle.


Note: Ambitious readers might look at an excellent journal, First Amendment Studies. Articles are behind a paywall, but many libraries can provide access for their patrons.  

P.S. Also see my earlier posts about free speech on campus.

Trump's Not-So-Good Speech in Puerto Rico

Donald Trump at Puerto Rico Briefing

Commentators often note that there seem to be two Donald Trumps: the presidential, effective Donald Trump who delivers carefully-scripted speeches on important subjects, and the wild Donald Trump, who speaks off-the-cuff, often giving a bad impression. Readers of this blog have seen several posts about the effective, presidential Donald Trump. However, the off-the-cuff Donald Trump spoke at the Luis Muñiz Air National Guard Base in Puerto Rico on October 3, 2017 during a briefing about Hurricane Maria relief efforts, several days after Maria had devastated the island. President Trump had been criticized, rightly or wrongly, for making a weak response to Puerto Rico's disaster. Mr. Trump's rambling presentation expressed little sympathy for the millions of hurricane victims; instead, Mr. Trump praised himself and various federal government officials. This speech received much criticism. Was this very defensive speech a failure of audience adaptation? That depends on what audience Trump was addressing.

The speaker's true audience is not always the group standing in front of the speaker. In their book The New Rhetoric, the Belgian philosophers Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca explain that the audience exists in the mind of the speaker. Although that seems a little exotic, their idea is that the speaker may intend to reach a larger, smaller, or different audience than the people who are in front of him or her at the moment. A speaker might intend to reach only a fraction of the people in the room. A visionary speaker might be speaking in the present, but with an eye toward the future. In the case of Mr. Trump's Puerto Rico speech, Mr. Trump may have had in mind a group of future voters, which would not include Puerto Rico's residents, who cannot vote in national elections and probably would not support him anyway.

So, let us look at what Mr. Trump said, and compared it against different audiences. Let us keep in mind that much of Mr. Trump's support in the 2016 election came from White voters who were concerned about immigration. Let us also note that many Americans were not aware that Puerto Rico is American territory and that Puerto Ricans are United States citizens. Therefore, he may not have felt that gaining support from Puerto Rico was important in terms of his own political base.

Brock Long, FEMA

Mr. Trump began by saying that, "It was a great trip and a beautiful place. I've been to Puerto Rico many times as, I think, most of you have known. And I've always loved it." That sounded complementary, although talking about "a great trip" in the wake of a major storm seemed a bit off-topic. His very next point was to praise FEMA Administrator Brock Long, who was in charge of the relief effort. He awarded Mr. Long an "A+" for his earlier work, and said that his work in Puerto Rico was "unbelievable." He also complimented Elaine Duke, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, and White House Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert. He continued to praise General Jeffrey Buchanan, who oversaw the military's relief efforts. He also praised Congressional Representative Jenniffer González-Colón– not for her work, but because "she was saying such nice things about all of the people that have worked so hard." He did not praise or mention San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, with whom he has been having a media conflict about the relief effort's slow pace.

After praising various other relief officials, Trump complained (jokingly? Or not?) that you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico, and that's fine. We've saved a lot of lives." He compared Hurricane Maria to "a real catastrophe like Katrina" and said – almost reassuringly – that only 16 people had died so far. Maria wasn't a "real disaster?" He then praised the Navy and Air Force. He stopped for a minute to talk about the F-35 fighter bomber, and asked an Air Force representative about the F-35. He bragged about negotiating a lower price for the F-35. How did that get into a speech about Hurricane Maria? He praised the Coast Guard, and, after being prompted, also praised Customs and Border Protection. Representatives of those groups interspersed brief talks during the President's presentation.

One obvious criticism of Mr. Trump's speech is that he said very little to comfort the people of Puerto Rico. Complaining about the expense, however, jokingly, surely gave Puerto Ricans a bad impression. He said nothing to offer improved relief efforts. To promise improvement would be to admit that something was wrong, and this speech's purpose was to prove that nothing was wrong.

At the same time, the speech may have played well to Mr. Trump's base voters. If Mr. Trump's main supporters cared less about Puerto Rico than they did about Texas and Florida, a weak relief effort might bother them less. Thus, if Mr. Trump's audience – his real audience – consisted of the people of Puerto Rico – this speech failed. If Mr. Trump's real audience consisted of his supporters back home, who do not seem to enjoy hearing Mr. Trump being criticized, then the speech, which responded to criticism, was right on target – a bit defensive, but right on target.