I am a lifelong Democrat and a fervent critic of President Donald Trump, remaining convinced that he has been the most dangerous president of the United States. Nevertheless, as a scholar and teacher of communication for over 40 years, I am flabbergasted by and worried about the frequent examples of Democratic leaders engaging in counterproductive and self-defeating rhetoric.
The two most recent examples of this are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tearing up the president’s State of the Union address and Wednesday’s verbal attacks on Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (March 5, “Supreme Court Divided on Abortion Case”).
While in both cases I understand—and even sympathize with—the motivation for these behaviors, they underscore a persistent rhetorical miscalculation that results in potentially disastrous political consequences. If there is one thing we have learned since Mr. Trump became president, it is that using tactics out of his playbook inherently won’t work and, in fact, backfire. As tempting as it may be to employ Trump-like discourse, all this succeeds in doing is to add grist to his and the Republican rhetorical mill.
It was hardly surprising, for instance, that following Ms. Pelosi’s and Mr. Schumer’s actions, a disingenuous but arguably persuasive outrage was expressed by the president and his minions, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer afforded the perfect rhetorical opportunity to contend that Democrats are guilty of the very things for which they correctly accuse Mr. Trump.
It’s time for Democrats to be more communicatively astute, avoiding discourse that undermines their own cause, credibility and capacity to persuade others. After all, character will be on the ballot in 2020; so why weaken its persuasive impact?
RICHARD CHERWITZ, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
Note from KBJ: Do you know how to write like a normal person, Richard? Evidently not.
