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Another perspective

Face it: Hearts and roses rhetoric just doesn't cut it in American politics

Thursday, August 12, 2004

With its $500 million campaign budget, the Democratic National Election Campaign Committee would have been well advised to purchase some consultation time with a rhetorical strategist.

For its well-publicized intention to avoid negative speeches at its convention and to eschew negative advertisements on radio and TV may possibly sabotage an otherwise even chance at victory in November.

Even an undergraduate forensics team member knows that sunshiny, pie-in-the-sky optimism doesn't cut it in political debate.

Such ear candy may be fine for Hallmark cards, pop music, Rod McKuen poems and motivational pep talks at Amway soap sales conventions.

But the most memorable, most persuasive and most effective rhetoric has always been that which rails against a perceived enemy target.

Whether their target has been Satan, Hitler, communism, effete intellectual snobs, nuclear war, big government, the L word or the media, America's storied speakers — those whom audiences really listen to — have succeeded by rallying either a church congregation or a convention hall to metaphorical mob action against what's painted as fraudulent, phony or dangerous.

In Colonial times, Jonathan Edwards, the firebrand who still likely is the most influential preacher in U.S. history, manned the first bully pulpit to rail against Satan and sin, lest his flock get any ideas about the novel notion of democracy seeping into their moral behavior.

And Patrick Henry, torch bearer for the American Revolution, compelled patriots to the cause by maligning British royalty every chance he got.

So too, American presidential candidates have had more success when employing mudslinging hatchet men to help them win and determine the course of history: from LBJ's campaign manager John B. Connelly who oversaw the hysterical coloration of Barry Goldwater as nuclear hysteric, to George H. Bush's hired gun Lee Atwater, who embarrassed rival Michael Dukakis as a criminal (Willie Horton) apologist and wannabe tank driving wimp.

And who are the voices on today's airwaves with the largest listening audiences?

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Oral Roberts, Laura Ingram and Jerry Falwell are among those who consistently attract the highest numbers of listeners and viewers.

This does not mean that the overwhelming majority of people in the United States subscribe to conservative, religious, right-leaning policies and beliefs.

The popular vote count in the last presidential election clearly disputes that fact.

Indeed, Limbaugh and company make for compelling radio and TV not solely as a result of their politics, and probably not on the basis of their charm, and most assuredly not on the merits of their eloquence.

Rather, their top-tier Arbitron ratings are based on the psychological fact that human beings derive cathartic gratification, even pleasure, from hearing or witnessing a spokesperson demonize and vilify an enemy.

This oral approach of inspiration through incitement taps into the audience's collective and individual resentments.

It reminds them of their own anger, channels it, and, more importantly, it gives them permission to feel good about it.

So powerful is negative rhetoric that an audience can be inspired even if it does not subscribe to the speaker's views.

I found myself, for example, enjoying the radio program of G. Gordon Liddy, whose philosophy and violently extreme proclivities I may abhor, but in whose attitude and voice I found appeal.

By now, most media watchers are familiar with the grand experiment Air America, an attempt to counterbalance the negative clamor of conservative radio with the voice of liberal minds, featuring the likes of Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Sam Seder and rap musician Chuck D.

Unaccustomed to attack mode, they are struggling to survive (they are not available in Chicago, where they were expelled after a rent check bounced).

The fact that they're the only explicitly identified liberal media platoon in a country where 100 million people variously consider themselves liberal, is whispered (if not quite silent) testimony to the obvious strength of the negative, mudslinging language of its dominating competitors.

This is not rocket science. Even with other forms of entertainment, America has liked it rough, as with Don Rickles in comedy (surprisingly still a hit after three decades, according to a recent New Yorker profile) and Eminem in music, both of whom are fueled by vitriol.

No matter whether people consider them funny, profound, satirical or abusive, everyone would admit that they provoke more attention and interest than, say, Joey Bishop or Pat Boone.

Truly, there is virtue in Democrats wanting to take the high road—the Golden Rule and all that.

But it reminds me of the Indy race car driver who on the last lap chose not to cut in front of the rival out of caution and good sportsmanship.

At the race's end, the other competitors and all the fans held him in the highest regard for his noble gesture.

But it was his rival who got the checkered flag, the traditional glass of milk and the glory, influence and power that comes with victory.

Professor David McGrath teaches rhetoric and literature at the College of DuPage. He lives in Oak Forest.