Photo by Pete Linforth. https://pixabay.com/en/users/TheDigitalArtist-202249/
There’s a certain pattern to how Trump and his interlocutors engage one another. A certain pattern of rhetoric, if you like.
It works something like this. Trump makes a wild claim. Usually it’s false. An opponent, or the news media, points out how and why it’s false. Trump doesn’t blink, and Trump’s supporters don’t blink. Trump wins, or, at the very least, doesn’t lose. Trump’s opponents look very confused as they fail to gain traction.
Why does this happen?
Trump’s Rhetoric
I want to draw a basic sketch of this process.
Let’s start by distinguishing between the group Trump is talking about and the group Trump is talking to. Trump talks about Group A, but he talks to Group B.
Trump’s opponents point out that the statements about Group A are false, but Group B doesn’t notice or care. The statements aren’t about them, so they don’t have a direct stake. Group B often lacks access to the relevant facts or just the basic reality and experiences of Group A’s members.
And it’s not just that the groups Trump talks about and the groups Trump talks to are different. It’s that they’re often very different. On the topic in question, Group B may well have little or no knowledge whatsoever about what’s going on with Group A.
In terms of rhetoric, it’s an appeal to pathos, if you like, or perhaps to ethos. Rarely to logos.
Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Tariffs
Trump often laments the plight of the American worker. In the 2016 campaign, he advocated ‘fighting back.’ He pushed for a trade war, particularly against China. We can obviously speculate all day on how cynical all that was.
But after he took office, Trump did begin implementing tariffs. He spent more time talking than doing, but there was enough doing to make things interesting.
Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs is clear enough: Exploitative trade agreements hurt American workers and farmers. Particularly NAFTA, but also other trade agreements. We must turn to tariffs and trade wars to punish the countries that attack America and its workers.
Again, we’ll set aside the issue of how cynical all this is. Again, this is more a rhetoric of pathos and/or ethos than logos.
Trump’s tariffs hit a wide variety of Chinese goods and services, from electronics to nuclear motors to livestock equipment to agricultural and construction vehicles. The tariffs also hit the EU, Canada, Mexico, and others. These nations have obviously hit the US back, focusing especially on agriculture (including ‘vice’, such as booze and tobacco).
The net effect? Ultimately, not a lot. But, for one, rising steel and aluminum prices. Some increases in consumer prices, but nothing drastic. Difficulties for farmers, particularly soybean farmers. Some companies, like Harley Davidson and Ford, moved production or canceled imports to avoid tariffs.
Trump’s opponents have pointed all this out, as we’d expect. Trump’s trade policy has been heavy on sound and fury, but light on results. This is probably due to the fact that there’s no deeper plan to actually benefit American workers.
But there aren’t many compelling reasons to believe tariffs are dragging down Trump’s approval rating.
Why?
Trump is talking about American workers and farmers, but he’s talking to his base. I’ve written previously about who’s in Trump’s base. But the gist of it is that workers hurt by deindustrialization, automation, and other forces of surplus value extraction aren’t a big part of it. Trump’s base is mostly economically well off white people (mostly men), not workers and farmers.
People have this idea that millions of Iowa farmers are being hit hard by Trump’s tariffs, and that this is eroding Trump’s support here. If you think that, I’ve got news for you: Iowa only has about 88,000 farms. And that was in 2012. At the current rate of decline, that number is probably about 85,000 now. Farming is big business here, but there aren’t that many farmers. There are over 200,000 farm workers in Iowa, but most never voted for Trump in the first place. Many aren’t eligible to vote.
Trump won about 800,000 votes in Iowa in 2016. And while Democrats did well in Iowa Congressional races this month, they didn’t elect the next governor. So, no, most of his supporters aren’t farmers harmed by the tariffs.
We can do a similar exercise in other industries hit by tariffs. The point is the same: Trump’s base mostly didn’t see any negative impact. Many continue dismissing any negative impact as ‘fake news’ because they’re retired, wealthy, or residents of areas not impacted.
Jobs
In late 2016, Trump famously ‘saved’ about 1,000 jobs in Indiana. As the story goes, he prevented Carrier Corp. from moving those jobs to Mexico. Carrier retained about 700 jobs after previously announcing a plan to move production.
Did Trump actually save 700 jobs? Well, no. The president of United Steelworkers 1999 pointed out right away that Trump was full of shit. Carrier later moved around some of those 700 jobs, and eventually got around to laying off hundreds of people.
Trump’s impact? Almost entirely symbolic. He may have temporarily helped some fraction of 700 people and their families. 3 million Hoosiers voted in 2016. The Carrier workers and their families are a tiny portion of Indiana voters. And given the statements of their union president, it’s obvious that many workers weren’t buying Trump’s rhetoric.
But Trump wasn’t talking to the workers at Carrier. It’s doubtful he was even talking to workers elsewhere. He was talking to the sort of person who’s nostalgic about America’s past manufacturing might. Some of these people are retired union workers, while others are foremen or managers. Some are rich rural white dudes who love to drive around in $50,000 trucks, wear big hats, and pretend to be working class. They’re not directly impacted by any of this, and they’re not too worried about whether Trump really saved any jobs at Carrier.
We again have a firm distinction between who Trump is talking about and who he’s talking to.
Crime
Trump talked a lot about crime during the 2016 campaign. He used particularly heated rhetoric on this one. He loves the phrase ‘American carnage.’
In large part this is a story about race. I thought Jamelle Bouie very effectively drew attention to the issues in his Slate article. Trump plays on white stereotypes about black people and black neighborhoods.
Broadly, this is another case of talking about one group but talking to another group. Trump talks about disproportionately non-white American cities that have relatively high crime rates. He talks to residents of suburban and rural areas that are majority white and have relatively low crime rates.
Insofar as there’s a real ‘American carnage,’ it’s a result of the economic trends taking place over the the last 50-60 years. These trends have been exacerbated by racist policy. Automation, in particular, has harmed urban communities for decades with the nastiest impact on their black residents.
The violent crime rate, on the other hand, has declined for about 30 years. Violent crime was much worse in the late 1970s through early 1990s than anytime since. Murder, in particular, is way down. This decline in the violent crime rate probably includes declines in school shootings and mass shootings, which, like murder in general, get more public attention now than they used to.
Liberals, especially insofar as they’re keen on pursuing gun control and/or also live in lower crime areas, tend to avoid facts on violent crime rates. Endorsing or tacitly accepting Trump’s distortion of the truth serves some liberal political goals. And so, unlike the other two issues I’ve covered here, the liberal press is more likely to accept Trump’s background facts without challenging them.
Due in large part to liberal collusion and Trump’s entanglement with racism, his rhetoric on crime is especially effective.
When Trump Fails
Perhaps what I find most telling is when Trump fails. Sometimes Trump thinks his audience doesn’t understand his subject, and takes this as permission to spout some nonsense. After all, they won’t get it, right?
But it turns out they do get it, because they do understand the subject after all. When this happens, Trump looks like a buffoon.
Trump gave a speech to the UN in September. He claimed that “in less than 2 years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”
This, of course, is bullshit. But Trump made the remark for the same reason he made the other remarks I wrote about above: he had an audience of leaders from different countries. He assumed that since they were leading different countries, they were ignorant about the United States. And so he made up some nonsense to tell them.
The problem, of course, is that world leaders are very knowledgeable about internal US affairs. They have to be. Since they knew Trump was full of shit, they laughed at him.
Conclusion
I chose these three cases because they cover a wide range of issues, groups, and concerns. We could look at any number of other issues, too. In each case, Trump carefully cultivates an audience that isn’t directly impacted by the issues he’s talking about. He handpicks audiences that don’t have access to relevant information. But, more importantly, even if they did have access to relevant information they wouldn’t feel it in a direct way. They wouldn’t especially care.
