A brief history of Republican extremist rhetoric

There was a saying in Hollywood when I worked out there in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s:  to make a motion picture, first you need the written word.  It was true.  None of the moving images you’ve seen in a movie theater or on your television would have been possible unless some writer had sat down in a room, usually alone, and written the screenplay or teleplay that told the story and described the action that would eventually fill screens for you to marvel at.

I should confess my prejudice from the beginning:  as a writer, I have always believed in the power of words to inform, to entertain, to inspire, to soothe, to amaze, to stun, to motivate, to carry you away to places you’ve never been and to experience feelings you’ve never felt.  Without words, we would be lost.  We would not be able to communicate with one another.  We would be unable to engage in commerce, to give directions, to express our love for each other or for wonderful things, even to grieve and recover from grief.  Words are one of the most important things that make us human.  The animal world is without them, although some species such as whales and birds and canines like wolves can “talk” to each other by making sounds that are emitted from vocal cords not unlike our own.

The Oxford English Dictionary estimates that there are currently 171,146 words in use in the English language, not to mention some 47,000 or so that were once used but have become obsolete.  I don’t know the numbers for other languages, but with some 7,000-plus languages spoken around the world, there are probably two billion words in use by human beings on this planet.

Certain words are more powerful than others.  The word “love” is one of them.  It has been the subject of countless poems and books.  It is a word found throughout the Bible and the sacred texts of other religions.  The word “love” is as universal as the air we breathe.  It expresses something seemingly all of us feel or are capable of feeling or want to feel.

But so is the word “hate” powerful.  If words can bring us together, join us to one another individually or as a people, so can they drive us apart.  Hate is one of those words.  If you say you hate someone, you are expressing your apartness from that person.  By hating a person or a place or an idea, you are marking it as wrong, as alien, as unlike yourself, as dangerous – a thing to be scorned, even to be destroyed.

And it is here that we enter the world of rhetoric, the art – if you will – of using words to serve the purpose of persuasion.  You can persuade, or attempt to persuade, people for various reasons and in various ways.   The academy, where rhetoric is studied, will tell you there are three ways to use rhetoric to appeal to an audience:  As the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, observed, you can use “logos,” deploying reason.  You can use “ethos,” counting on your own character and credibility to carry the day.  And you can use “pathos,” appealing to the audience’s emotions and shared beliefs and values.

Political rhetoric, the use of words to persuade people, let us say, to be on your side rather than that of your opponent, can make use of all three corners of what they call the rhetorical triangle, involving reason, credibility (which we can read here as apparent truthfulness), and emotions.  And that’s the way political rhetoric has gone practically since our country’s founding.  Here are the reasons my program or policy is better than my opponent’s, and here are the reasons I’m more trustworthy than my opponent.  For example, my opponent took campaign contributions from the “X” industry, so how can you trust that he will represent you and not the industry that gave the money?  Here is a list of people with whom my opponent identifies, and these are the reasons his closeness to them is not in your interest.  Vote for me!  I will do the things I say I will do, unlike my opponent, who failed to keep his promises the last time you voted him into office.

Or politicians could decide to just sling mud and lies and hate.