Insult Wars and the End of Politics

Trump's original offending tweets.
Click to enlarge.

If you follow Blue Facebook, or other left-leaning social media, you caught the kerfuffle last week when President Trump quoted conspiracy theorist and radio pundit Wayne Allyn Root. Trump attributed Root as saying “the Jewish people in Israel love [Trump] like he’s the King of Israel… like he is the second coming of God.” The President’s use of two explicitly messianic self-descriptions in quick sequence netted him widespread mockery in the social media universe.

One piece of mockery I shared included a front-page image from the New York Daily News, a tabloid newspaper famous for its pointed front-page illustrations. It rearranged Leonardo’s iconic painting The Last Supper with Trump as Jesus Christ, and filled the Apostles’ seats with noted hangers-on, including Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos, and Jared and Ivanka. I thought this image was pointed satire, making literal the message implied by Trump’s self-aggrandizing tweets. I thought it was spot-on.

However, my friend Kristie, whose politics run significantly more conservative than mine, described the image—and not, I noticed, Trump’s tweets—as “beyond disgusting.” Placing anybody in the role intended for Jesus Christ was a bridge too far for her. I thought, not unreasonably, that Trump’s tweets had done exactly that, since they used language copied directly from the Prophets and Gospels to describe the President. But for Kristie, only the image went too far.

This forced me to reconsider. I still believe Trump’s tweets were the inciting action in this rhetorical war, and Kristie closed her eyes to them because her politics coincide with the President. But by extension, didn’t I close my eyes to the crudeness and escalation in the Daily News image in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason? Didn’t I blind myself to the implications, so I could congratulate myself for being right?

Insults and jibes can be powerful rhetorical motivators, helping create both in-group and out-group identities. They can bring populations together in identifying what needs confronted, from opposing ideologies to national enemies. But scholars of classical rhetoric will also tell you that insults can make it impossible to win debates, because once you’ve insulted your opponent, there’s no way those opponents can extricate themselves peacefully without losing face. So apply insults as rhetorical tactics only sparingly.

The responding Daily News cartoon.
Click to enlarge.

Clearly I’d forgotten this precept. The picture ratified what I already think, so I found it easy to disregard how others, who didn’t already agree with me, would receive it. By sharing this image publicly, underneath my own name, I tied my ideological position to that opinion. But Kristie, whose conservative politics derive from her Christian beliefs, saw me appearing to mock Jesus, because she approached the image with a different preceding context than hers.

That’s the problem we face in today’s political environment. Our President sees anybody who disagrees with him as beneath his contempt. Refugee seekers are an “invasion;” cities with majority Black populations are “infested,” MS-13 are “animals.” This language means anybody who’s progressive, non-White, immigrant, or otherwise on his hit-list, cannot resolve the debate peacefully without losing face. We must hope against hope to defeat the entire federal government, which he heads, or accept political humiliation.

Every political discussion today quickly becomes an exchange of insults. It’s no longer progressives versus conservatives, it’s Communists versus Fascists. (And sometimes it is, but not as often as those words get flung about.) We even see this shift of extremes within the President’s personal language: he went from describing Kim Jong-Un as “Little Rocket Man”—and don’t forget, “little” is a racial term—to describing them as being “in love.” There’s no center path.

Don’t misunderstand me. I still think Donald Trump is the principal agitator using rhetorical cherry bombs to worsen political discourse. Given the context, it’s hard not to think that. But when we who disagree with Trump answer his insults by getting into the mud with him, we make it more likely that his supporters will double down on their support. Without our escalation, Trump would, like any schoolyard bully, find himself with few remaining allies.

Bullies, tyrants, and kleptocrats always destroy themselves eventually. From Richard Nixon and Ken Lay to Nicolau Ceausescu and Nicolás Maduro, those who gain power and wealth illegitimately always self-destruct. But engaging in insult wars actually props the bullies up, as we’re seeing with Maduro now. We need to stop matching Trump’s rhetorical awfulness, because it gives his base strength. Instead step back, watch his tantrums quietly, and give him just enough rope to hang himself.