Speech

Last week I did something I very rarely do. I listened to a politician’s speech all the way through. The speech I listened to was, of course, Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Many people panned Trump’s speech as being too long and rambling. Others praised the speech as demonstrating a new, more sober Trump. I cannot help noticing that thoughts about Trump’s speech seemed closely related to the writer’s previous opinion about Trump. I suppose a neutral and unbiased view of Trump’s speech is just as unlikely as a neutral and unbiased view of the man himself.

For my part, Donald Trump’s speaking style reminded me of Seinfeld’s depiction of George Steinbrenner.

 

The discursive, rambling style that Larry David attributed to Steinbrenner could just as easily be used as an imitation of Trump’s signature style. I agree that the speech was overly long. It might have been more effective if Trump had kept the length under an hour. Perhaps someone should have reminded Trump that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was around two minutes long. In political speech, less is often more.

Donald Trump mitigated the effects of the excessive length of the speech by stating everything that needed to be said in the first half hour. This included a sober retelling of the recent assassination attempt from his point of view and a tribute to the man in the audience, Corey Comperatore, who was killed. Much of the rest of the speech was comprised of attacks on the mostly unnamed Biden administration, a defense of Trump’s first term, and promises for his second term. It was all standard political rhetoric, though better done than usual, and will be quickly forgotten.

Some of the things Trump said were not, strictly speaking, true. This is a curious thing that requires some explanation. Trump didn’t lie exactly. His untruths were more on the order of exaggerations. It is a quick of Trump’s mind that everything is either the biggest and best or the absolute worst. Inflation under the current administration is not merely bad, but the worst ever. Trump did not merely reduce the level of illegal immigration but reduced it to the lowest levels in history.

Trump’s spiel is something like the circus ringmaster who proclaims the circus’s lions are the most ferocious, the high wire act the most amazing, the clowns the most hilarious, etc. He does not really expect to be believed and no one really does believe him. Trump is essentially a showman. He is an entertainer. His exaggerations are part of the act. He is not trying to deceive his audience. He and his audience are participating in a shared vision of what could be. This is why media fact-checking is pointless. Trump’s followers do not, and should not, care if Trump gets all the details right. One might as well fact-check The Apprentice.

On the whole, I think Donald Trump did a good job with his speech. It will not be remembered as one of history’s greatest examples of rhetoric, but it got the job done. Even Trump’s rambling style worked to his advantage. He gives the curious impression of having a conversation with the listener. He does not talk to the audience, he speaks with them.

The speech was indeed a little short of the promised unity. But unity in politics is overrated. There is nothing wrong with sharply criticizing one’s political opponents. That is the whole point of having elections. It is only a problem when one begins to claim one’s political opponent is Hitler.

This brings me to the second part of this post. There have been several people fired for posting on social media their disappointment that the assassination attempt against Trump was not successful. Libs of TikTok has been racking up several scalps over the past week. This has been a cause of controversy on the right. Conservatives have deplored the cancel culture that has led to people getting fired, deplatformed, or ostracized. For some, the idea that conservatives should attempt to get people fired for expressing the view that Trump ought to have been killed is hypocritical. Conservatives, they say, ought not to sink to the left’s level. Others have suggested that the left has gotten away with cancel culture precisely because there has been no pushback. It is about time for the left to get a taste of its own medicine.

I do not agree with either position. I see the merit in both sides of the argument, but I think it is missing a critical point. The point we need to consider is that there is an essential distinction between a difference in opinions, even over a controversial matter, and wishing a person killed. We ought to defend the free speech rights of persons who disagree with us on subjects such as abortion, gun control, or even the number of genders there are. We ought not to respect the free speech rights of persons who wish another person dead.

The reason that a public pronouncement that wishing a person murdered is indefensible is that to wish a person dead is a wicked thought. It is, in its way, as wicked as actually participating in a murder. It is doubly wicked to wish the death of a public figure such as Donald Trump. Those people who have filmed themselves expressing regret have no idea of the terrible consequences that would follow the assassination of a presidential candidate. It does not occur to them that violence begets violence. They cannot imagine how the situation would escalate.

We cannot control the dark thoughts we occasionally have, but we ought not to express them. We ought not to cherish them. We ought not to broadcast such thoughts for the whole world to see. The people who post their wish that Trump had been killed either lack good judgment or self-control. They are garbage people who deserve whatever comes to them.