Rhetorical Violence and Leadership Failure

Garbage.

Piggy.

Stupid.

Ugly.

Animals.

Retarded.

Vicious schoolyard taunts usually land the child in detention if not suspended or expelled.  At Trinity, a student using ugly slurs against someone else would quickly be in a disciplinary proceeding for violating our harassment policy.  Disparaging words used by employees in the workplace against co-workers can get them fired.

But when the president of the nation uses such despicable rhetoric against people he does not like, what’s a country to do?

The current president used all of those words in just the last week or two when speaking about immigrants, female reporters and the governor of Minnesota.  But such words are not a departure from the norm for this president.  A simple online search reveals that he has used contemptuous, degrading language against other people for years.  What’s worse, sadly, he gets away with this behavior repeatedly with his supporters proudly saying he “tells it like it is” and that he is “frank and open” and “transparent.”

Where are the media leaders whose reporters are being trashed daily?  Why doesn’t the press pool get up and depart en masse when the president publicly denigrates people with the most shameful vocabulary?

The Oval Office is not a schoolyard, and the president is not 10 years old.  His juvenile vocabulary is not merely offensive, it is utterly inappropriate and extremely dangerous.  He is disgracing the Office of the President and the people he is supposed to serve — We, the People — with the rhetorical refuse that he spews toward any and all people he does not like.  His rhetoric toward Somali immigrants is shockingly racist and nativist; his rhetoric toward women reporters is deeply misogynistic.  His use of the “r” word is beyond the pale for anyone in public life (or private life, for that matter).

His vicious, violent rhetoric rubs off on others and encourages his subordinates to engage in violent, immoral actions.  The outrageous behavior of ICE agents — dragging people out of cars, forcefully separating parents and children, beating people down on the street — is encouraged by presidential rhetoric against immigrants using words like “garbage” and “animals.”  The same kind of rhetoric lights the fire of an immature and inexperienced Defense Secretary who revels in blowing people up on the open seas with scant reference to law or any moral code.  Immoral language opens the door for immoral conduct.

The president’s rhetoric maliciously seeks to demean and humiliate his targets, and aims to get other people to join his curdled view of other human beings.  His rhetoric is an offense against human life and dignity, a sin against social justice.  Anyone who claims to be seriously “pro-life” should be appalled by this rhetoric, and should raise their voices to oppose it.  But the silence from those who usually claim “pro-life” credentials is quite deafening.

The late John Gardner, founder of Common Cause, once wrote that, “Leaders have a significant role to play in creating the state of mind that is the society.  They can serve as symbols of the moral unity of the society.”  (No Easy Victories) Leaders should inspire and raise up hope for all in the community.

Bullying, demeaning, taunting language reveals someone who clearly does not understand the most fundamental principles of leadership.  A real leader does not secure and sustain influence and authority by demeaning others.  Rather, a real leader elevates all others, responds generously even to those who disagree (especially those with whom the leader disagrees!), and celebrates the grand diversity of the human community that the leader is privileged to guide for a finite period of time.

The latter point is important:  no leader is forever.  But the works of the leader live on for generations, for good or for ill.  Every leader has to decide on their legacy — will it be a legacy of community-building for the common good?  Or will the legacy be one of counting up enemies, diminishing others in a vain attempt to make the leader seem powerful.

In the end, rhetorical garbage does not make the leader look powerful at all, but rather, sad, petty, powerless save for the cruel schoolyard games.  What’s dangerous, however, is that some of the bully’s cronies and admirers might use that rhetoric as a basis for actions that bring real harm to the people the leader is mocking and seeking to humiliate.

Clearly, his own staff and members of his party lack the courage right now to call him out on his ugly language.  But so long as We the People have ears to hear the words, eyes to read them and voices to raise in protest, we must call out the vicious words and demand a more mature and measured rhetoric of real public leadership.  We need to demand the restoration of thoughtful, respectful, morally sound rhetoric to the highest office in the land.