Trump has a rhetorical device: anonymous attribution.
Examples:
A lot of people tell me it lets him get away with saying outrageous lies.
I hear people say it protects him from slander, libel, and defamation lawsuits.
Nine years ago in Rochester, New Hampshire, Trump had a rally that remains the one most cited by pundits. The crowd was hopped up with a pep-rally spirit. I was there, watching, trying to figure out if the Trump magic was real.
A man in the crowd asked this question:
We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American. We have training camps growing when they want to kill us. My question: When can we get rid of them?
My first reaction was the same as observers on every cable news show. Trump didn’t set the man straight. Candidate John McCain, in about the same circumstances, did. I felt proud to have been 10 minutes ahead of the TV pundits. Later I had a second insight, one with longer-term implications. What was important wasn’t what Trump said. What was important is what the crowd did not do. They didn’t register surprise or objection to the question. Aha, I realized. Trump didn't create a movement. He found one. They believe, or want to believe, Obama was a Muslim with training camps! I felt proud of myself to have seen the roots of MAGA so early.
But I missed something right in front of my eyes: Trump’s technique for spreading and amplifying a giant slander. It is a rhetorical device that allows him to put demonstrably false ideas into the zeitgeist.
We are going to be looking at a lot of different things. And a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We are going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.
It is clever in its craftsmanship. Attribute outrageous things to third parties. Pretend to be inquisitive, not dishonest. But put it out there for people to believe.
Then the Election Big Lie: People tell me there was massive fraud. People tell me there were suitcases of ballots.
Then the campaign: Maybe Nancy Pelosi's husband was meeting a gay lover, who knows? People in Ohio say Haitian immigrants are eating their cats and dogs.
It is a common enough device that someone created a meme-generating application to use on Twitter/X. Here is the blank template.
You can fill it in with your own words:
The government knows what is happening. Our military knows where they took off from. . . . where it came from and where it went. And for some reason they don't want to tell me. And I think they would be better off telling me what it is. Our military knows and our president knows, and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy, because if it were the enemy they would blast us, even if they were late, they would blast us. Something strange is going on and for some reason they don't want to tell the people and they should because the people -- well they happen to be over Bedminster. . . I think I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster.
Democrats appalled by Trump may need to face the idea that the U.S. may be getting exactly the government we deserve. It is government of the people and by the people. Trump amplifies our worst instincts, but they are there to exploit. Trump tells us what he hears.
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5 comments:
Right after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, he lied about the size of the crowd. He ended his term lying about winning the election. In between he made over 30,000 false or misleading statements. No matter how you cut it, he’s a pathological liar and anybody who still believes anything he says is an idiot.
I’ve read that in social psychology these are called ‘plausibility structures’. The path from ‘might be’ to ‘must be true’ is short and fast, especially if as you say, people are already predisposed to believing something. We’ve seen it in mob lynchings. People get caught up in the fog of anger, that a wrong must be righted, and verifiable truth no longer matters.
Critical thinking becomes a liability. The rules of evidence are irrelevant.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with MLK that ‘the arc of moral history bends towards justice’ in political moments like ours, where people are deceived into idolizing such a morally vacuous man.
Trump also likes the fallacious appeal to supposed general knowledge or settled authority. "Everybody knows", "everybody is saying", or "as you know" is a regular float in the hogwash parade too. The UFO quote here features similar unwarranted certitude.
I don't know if there's a decoder ring for which subject areas get the "A lot of people are saying" insinuation versus the "everybody knows" certainty, versus some other greasy rhetorical turn. I know I pity foreign leaders and their translators. Goddess help us all.
Regarding the arc of moral history, consider that Whites can no longer lynch blacks with impunity. Sad to say, but in the U.S. that's actually progress.
“Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen. Best song ever!
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