The Death of Politics

by Peter Wehner

  Stowe’s genius, then, wasn’t simply in the realm of imaginative literature; it was also in moving America in the direction of justice. She achieved that not through abstract demands but through direct appeals to decency and compassion. She humanized slavery through vivid, memorable figures both heroic (Uncle Tom) and sadistic (Simon Legree). She understood the power of grace in the pursuit of a principled cause. And she knew that at its best and deepest level, politics has to be understood as part of a great human drama. That is the way one shapes, in a lasting way, public sentiment and moral beliefs. And that is something only a very few political leaders today grasp.

  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was “doing a magnificent work on the public mind,” one journalist at the time said. “Wherever it goes, prejudice is disarmed, opposition is removed, and the hearts of all are touched with a new and strange feeling, to which they before were strangers.”13

  This is the force and impact words can have on the soul of a nation. Words are not simply descriptive; they can be aspirational. But even more than that, words can help us better understand ourselves. They bind us together. In politics they articulate for us what goals we are trying to reach, so that it is more than just a struggle for power. We reach higher truths through words.

  TRUMP’S WAR ON THE CULTURE OF WORDS

  But words can just as easily be misused—and so become instruments not for healing but for division, not to enlighten but to deceive, not to educate but to indoctrinate. If you believe words can ennoble, you must also believe they can debase. If they can elevate the human spirit, they can also pull it down. Which brings us back once again to the dismal, demoralizing Trump era.

  It is certainly true that plenty of politicians have pulled the human spirit down over the years. We’ve not exactly been living through a golden age of political rhetoric. There is not a Demosthenes among us. But in America today we have arrived at a low moment when it comes to the quality of words and political rhetoric. That’s true pretty much across the board; among state legislators and governors, in the House and Senate, there are no great orators, countless mediocre ones, and a few downright awful ones.

  But the debasement of words has reached a zenith with the coming of America’s forty-fifth president. In America it is the president who sets the tone for the nation, who has far and away the largest megaphone, and who creates the example, the template, that others follow.

  President Trump dominates discourse in this country in ways no other president ever has. His mastery of social media—and the media’s ravenous need to cover Trump’s every utterance—has given him the ability to invade and permeate people’s thoughts and lives in unique ways. Before we can hope to repair the damage, we need to understand what it is—precisely what it is—about Trump’s misuse of words that is so pernicious and dangerous.

  The indictment starts with the sheer banality of his words. During his presidency, Donald Trump has uttered no beautiful and memorable phrases. His inaugural address, which is a speech normally meant to inspire the citizenry, is remembered, if at all, for the phrase “American carnage” and Trump’s description of a dystopian nation, broken and shattered. In almost every case his use of words reflects his attitude toward politics: transactional, unreflective, amoral, emotive, stripped of nobility and high purpose.

  More worrisome is that Trump’s extemporaneous answers are often an incoherent word salad. Confused answers often—not always, as in the case of Dwight Eisenhower, but often—represent a confusion of thought, and that’s certainly the case with President Trump.

  If you read the transcripts of many of his interviews and extemporaneous speeches, you will find what millions of Americans witnessed during his debates during the 2016 campaign: Donald Trump is not only often unable to lay out a coherent argument; at times he’s unable to string together sentences that parse. One illustration is the speech Trump gave in South Carolina during the 2016 campaign:

  Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are—nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was thirty-five years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought? But when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.14

  Finding other examples is simply too easy. He speaks like this most every day.

  During his run for the presidency, Trump admitted that he didn’t prepare for debates or study briefing books, and it showed. (He believed such things got in the way of a good performance.) He said judges sign bills. (They don’t.) He confused the Kurds, a large ethnic group in the Middle East, and the Quds Force, a special forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. He offered contradictory views on the minimum wage (wages are too high and then too low; he was for it and then against; he favored enforcement by the federal government and then wanted states to take the lead). On abortion, he argued that women who have abortions should be “punished” even as he praised Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. He wasn’t aware of Vladimir Putin’s aggressions against Ukraine until ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pointed it out to him. In an interview with CBS’s Scott Pelley, Trump claimed in one sentence that taxes on the wealthy would be raised and in the next agreed that Republicans don’t raise taxes. He claimed his administration would deport 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants, but that “we’re rounding ’em up in a very humane way, a very nice way.”

  He has been no better on this front as president. On illegal immigration, he promised to remove “really bad dudes” in the country through the use of a “military operation,” forcing his then secretary of homeland security to declare, “There will be no use of military forces in immigration. None.” At a press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared his ambivalence about a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians, forcing his UN ambassador to correct the statement. He declared NATO “obsolete” and threatened that the United States would not fulfill key elements of its obligations, forcing his secretary of defense to reaffirm our support for NATO. The president declared he “absolutely” believes waterboarding is an effective interrogation technique, forcing his CIA director to state that the agency would “absolutely not” bring back waterboarding as an enhanced interrogation technique.

  Things got so bad that during the 2018 Munich Security Conference, and amid global anxiety about President Trump’s approach to world affairs, US officials communicated a message to a gathering of Europe’s foreign policy elite: “Pay no attention to the man tweeting behind the curtain.”15

  Early in his term, Trump gave an interview in which he said his administration would quickly put out its own health proposal, which would cover everyone now insured and cost much less. One problem: there was no Trump proposal at the time. It was the creation of his own imagination. Republicans on Capitol Hill and Mr. Trump’s ow
n team were utterly perplexed by what Mr. Trump said.

  The president wrongly stated that stock market gains are helping to pay down the national debt. During a meeting in the Roosevelt Room he embraced a Democratic plan, with no provisions attached, to provide amnesty to undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children—before then House majority leader Kevin McCarthy was forced to intervene and explain to the president that he did not support the plan just embraced. And Trump wasn’t aware that the Social Security Disability Insurance program is part of Social Security.

  No president has ever been quite as disdainful of knowledge, as indifferent to facts, as untroubled by his benightedness. And through his words, the president is not only spreading ignorance; he is glorifying it.

  At the same time as he enjoys winging it in terms of American policies, on some matters he uses words strategically and with forethought. When it comes to dealing with those who oppose him, he consistently uses words to demean, belittle, bully, and dehumanize.

  He has described his adversaries as “crazy,” “psycho,” a “maniac,” a “monster,” and a “nut job.” He refers to the press as “the enemy of the people.” He mocked a New York Times journalist with a physical disability, ridiculed Senator John McCain for being a POW, made a reference to “blood” intended to degrade a female journalist (Megyn Kelly), and compared one of his Republican opponents to a child molester. He linked Ted Cruz’s father to the assassination of JFK and suggested that a former White House advisor to Bill Clinton, Vince Foster, had been murdered (despite five separate investigations that found this claim to be utterly false). As president he insulted MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, calling her “crazy” and accusing her of “bleeding badly from a facelift” (just one in a long list of instances where Trump ridiculed women based on appearance). He has attacked gold star parents and widows.

  The number of targets is inexhaustible because Trump’s brutishness is inexhaustible. America’s most visible public figure possesses a streak of cruelty that he won’t control, which he promiscuously and proudly displays, and which is amplified by social media. But Trump’s attacks aren’t simply directed toward individuals he is upset with and dislikes. He also uses words to divide America along racial and ethnic fault lines.

  It’s hardly a coincidence that Mr. Trump burst onto the national political scene in 2011 by claiming that Barack Obama, our first black president, was not a natural-born American citizen but rather was born in Kenya. (He later implied that Obama was a secret Muslim and dubbed him the “founder of ISIS.”) And since the first day he stepped onto the presidential stage, he has stoked grievances, resentments, and fear of the Other, including Mexicans, Muslims, and Syrian refugees.

  Mr. Trump engaged in a racially tinged attack on Gonzalo Curiel, a district court judge presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University, calling Curiel a “hater” who was being unfair to him because the judge is “Hispanic,” because he is “Mexican,” and because Trump said he would build a wall on the southern border. (Judge Curiel was born in Indiana.) Trump also expressed doubt that a Muslim judge could remain neutral in the case. As president, Trump claimed “some very fine people” were marching in a Charlottesville, Virginia, march that included neo-Nazis and white supremacists, an event that turned violent and led to the death of a young woman. He has attacked the intelligence of black athletes (LeBron James), black journalists (Don Lemon and Abby Phillip), and black members of Congress (Maxine Waters), and referred to his former White House advisor and reality television colleague Omarosa Manigault Newman, who is black, as a “crazed, crying lowlife” and a “dog.”

  This is not the conservatism of the British statesman Edmund Burke and the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott or former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and President Ronald Reagan. It is blood-and-soil conservatism primarily aimed at alienated white voters who believe they have lost the country they once knew. No president in living memory, no major political figure since George Wallace, has said things that stir the hearts of white supremacists as Donald Trump does. (It is hardly an accident that David Duke has repeatedly praised Trump.)

  Past presidents have had varying degrees of success when it comes to uniting the nation, and at times their words and actions have exacerbated our divides. And of course being a polarizing figure is not a problem per se. Many of the most impressive and consequential individuals in American history—Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King Jr., and Reagan—were viewed as divisive figures. The difference is that Trump takes great delight in provoking acrimony, malice, and bitterness for their own sake; in turning Americans against each other in order to turn them against each other. As one source close to the Trump White House told Axios’s Mike Allen, the president, in order to stir up his base, looks for “unexpected cultural flashpoints.”16

  One example: in September 2017, after Trump was criticized by some of his base for being too sympathetic to children of illegal immigrants who had been brought to America, he went to Huntsville, Alabama, and gave a speech for a senate candidate, Luther Strange. What was notable about the speech isn’t that Trump praised Strange but that Trump weighed in, apropos of nothing, on the issue of NFL players not kneeling for the national anthem in order to protest incidents of police brutality. (Seventy percent of NFL players are black.) “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired,’” Trump said.17

  The previous week only a handful of players—a half dozen—had refused to stand for the national anthem, and it had no policy implications. Yet Trump weighed in, knowing his words would both reconnect him to his base and provoke a passionate, emotional response and catalyze a racially charged debate that would further rend American society. (The week after Trump attacked NFL players, in a show of defiance, hundreds of them refused to stand for the national anthem, a response Trump had to be thrilled by.)

  What we have, then, is a president who, in ways we have never quite seen before, uses words to divide and embitter, to appeal to our basest and ugliest instincts. The effect is like throwing grains of sand into the eyes of others: it causes aggravation, irritation, and pain, and can damage delicate tissue. The only way to stop the damaging effects is to remove the sand from the eyes.

  KILLING TRUTH

  The banality and weaponization of Trump’s words are bad enough, but perhaps the greatest cause for concern is his nonstop, dawn-to-midnight assault on facts, on truth, on reality. That places Trump in a sinister category all his own.

  You often hear from Trump supporters that all politicians lie, and Trump is no worse than the rest. But that is nothing but a clumsy effort to defend a man who is habitually dishonest.

  Here’s the reality: many politicians are guilty of not telling the full truth about events. A significant number shade the truth from time to time. A few fall into the category of consistent, outright liars. But only very few—and only the most dangerous ones—are committed to destroying the very idea of truth itself. That is what we have in Donald Trump, along with many of his top aides and courtiers. And it started in the opening hours of his presidency.

  During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press shortly after Donald Trump took office, host Chuck Todd asked White House counselor Kellyanne Conway why the White House had sent Press Secretary Sean Spicer to the briefing podium to falsely claim that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”

  “You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving—Sean Spicer, our press secretary—gave alternative facts,” she said. To which Todd responded, “Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods.”

  Later in the interview, Todd pressed Conway again on why the White House sent Spicer out to make false claims about crowd size, asking: “What was the motive to have this ridiculous litigation of crowd size?”

  “Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secr
etary and our president. That’s not your job,” Conway said.

  Todd followed up: “Can you please answer the question? Why did he do this? You have not answered it—it’s only one question.”

  Conway said: “I’ll answer it this way: Think about what you just said to your viewers. That’s why we feel compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there.”18

  In one sense, of course, Spicer’s lie, which was done at the behest of Trump, was trivial. Did it really matter if Obama had a larger crowd at his inauguration than Trump did? Who cares? But in another sense, the lie was significant because it was a lie about a demonstrable fact.

  It was a lie everyone knew was a lie.

  There was photographic evidence that Obama’s inaugural crowd was much larger than Trump’s. What Trump instinctively understood was the disorienting effect this type of lie, compounded by countless other lies, has on people. It overwhelms the brain, which can’t process all the false information. The result is that we tire of counteracting every lie and begin to absorb some of them. And Conway, in saying that the White House felt “compelled” to put out “alternative facts,” was giving the green light to Trump supporters to construct their own reality. They were off to the races, and how: Sean Spicer’s successor as press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, sent out on Twitter a doctored video produced by an editor at the conspiracy website Infowars intended to show CNN’s Jim Acosta inappropriately placing his hands on a White House intern during a contentious press conference. This qualifies as the textbook definition of propaganda, and it perfectly fit with the Trump presidency. (The White House revoked Acosta’s press pass but it was later restored by a federal judge.)

  After 773 days in office, Trump made more than 9,000 false or misleading claims, which averages out to more than 11 per day.19 In 2018, Trump averaged 15 false claims a day.20 (In the 7 weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, he averaged nearly 30 a day.)21 That is a staggering, unprecedented achievement.