Most candidates use the same speaking style, starting with the
organization of their speeches into distinct sections in which they talk about
one or a few related issues. Each section will handle the issues using similar
rhetorical and syntactical devices: employing more words than are necessary;
using anecdotes instead of statistics; hedging bets with such weaselly phrases
as “anticipate” “start to address” and “return to American traditions”;
reducing issues into slogans and one-liners; using repetition to drive home
points (almost always in imitation of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”
style); taking a humble approach except in the constant use of the royal “we.”
To all current Republicans and a goodly share of Democrats, we can add using
misinformation and disproven assumptions to the mix.
Except for the arguing by anecdote and the use of
misinformation, Donald Trump’s speaking style is none of that, which may be why
he continues to build a lead in Republican polls.
First and most importantly, there is no formal structure to
the Trump stump speech. He seems to meander from one subject to another, and he
is never comprehensive the way Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush is. He talks only about
the hot button issues that have seemed to enliven his supporters: immigration,
getting tough with the rest of the world and his personal feuds with various
news media personalities. He will occasionally add an extremist version of
standard Republican cant, such as the condemnation of Planned Parenthood. Far
from humble, he goes out of his way to remind the audience that he’s right,
even when he’s wrong. He rarely completes a thought before a new topic pops
into his head or he skips back to something he mentioned earlier. Many
candidates such as both Bush presidents have cultivated changing the
grammatical subject of a sentence in mid-sentence, but Trump takes this
dislocated style a step further, changing not only the grammatical subject, but
the topic of the entire sentence as well.
But if his style seems alien to political arenas, it is
familiar and perhaps soothing to the majority of Americans who watch a lot of
TV, for his characteristic performance resembles that of a contemporary
(post-Dangerfield) comedian.
The contemporary comic for the most part doesn’t tell jokes,
but rambles from topic to topic, free form, occasionally saying something funny
or zinging a sacred cow or well-known human foible. You never have the feeling
that the contemporary comic is scripted, but rather speaking a spontaneous
stream of conscious rap. Doesn’t that sound like Trump?
The contemporary comic, be it Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock or
Ron White, often trades in stereotypes, and assumes that we do, too. Doesn’t
that sound like Trump?
The contemporary comic is self-referential, ether drawing
from her or his own life or interrupting a thought process to refer to her or
himself—how the performance is going, the personal effect of the story on the
comic or something else just as extraneous. Doesn’t that sound like Trump?
The contemporary comic relies on slang as opposed to
speaking in a formal language. Doesn’t that sound like Trump?
The contemporary comic will take a complex social issue,
reduce it to one or two points which will be inflammatory but not necessarily
salient and then melts away our anxiety about the complex issue with simplistic,
often aggressive and senseless exhortations. Doesn’t that sound like Trump?
And while there are some comics who specialize in insults,
virtually all comics will insult someone. Now we know that sounds just like
Trump.
In short, Trump’s speaking style and its easy distillation
into outrageous one-liners for the news media are something that many voters
are more used to than the more organized, if equally duplicitous, style of
other Republican candidates.
Another similarity between Trump and a standup is that
Trump’s public character is a laughable cliché. Some comics pretend to be
hicks, some pretend to be promiscuous, some affect a rage at the world, some
are “mama’s boys.” In Trump’s case, he’s a puffed-up and vain buffoon—a wealthy
fool, someone with a lot of money but no taste. The properties he built were
garish. His private life exemplified what used to be called the “nouveau
riche,” those who have money but spend it tastelessly and foolishly. His
“Apprentice” TV show was a parody version of the business world, his gruff and
insulting style a parody of a type of executive who is not all that prevalent nowadays. I thought he embarrassed himself with his
intimations that Barack Obama was not an American citizen. His “birther”
pronouncements also added racism to Trump’s reputation, already sullied by
frequent misogynistic comments.
At least Reagan played heroes and good guys, or a genial
executive for General Electric. And at least, when Al Franken went into
politics, he shed his comic persona (which in some ways parodied the parody
that is Trump) and became a policy expert.
I’m certain that some people don’t realize that Trump
started as a buffoon, or are enamored of the gaudy, materialistic,
self-aggrandizing life that was and is his public persona. While many people
share my disdain for celebrity culture, I’m sure at least 7% of American voters
buy into it—and that’s what Trump’s Republican supporters add up to right now:
28% of a party with which 25% of all voters affiliate, or 7% of all
voters. Of course, that’s still a heck
of a lot more than Jeb Bush, John Kasich or Marco Rubio.
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