The word considerable does not mean what most people think it does. It means “needing or deserving of consideration” , not “big” or “a lot” . It means what everything Donald Trump says is not, and tonight’s speech (and the post-speech tweets and flailing about by flacks and shills that will follow) will be more proof: Trump’s discourse is not considerable and should just be ignored as such.
One significance of the Jewish ceremony of Bar Mitzvah is that the principal is now responsible for what he says: when an adult says he will do something, the odds that he will should go up, and in general people can depend on that and make corresponding commitments. What Trump says he will do has no such significance: his statements of intent are vacuous and ephemeral, as Mitch McConnell and the dozens people he has stiffed in business can attest.
When grownups assert facts about the world, the assertion has some bearing on what you should believe, though of course some are better informed than others or smarter. When Trump says practically anything, his relentless, terrier-like, purposeful ignorance means it has no informative value whatever, whether he’s noodling about climate, Iran, the border, or trade data.
A third kind of discourse enlightens us about the speaker’s values: “I’m a Christian” is shorthand for a bunch of actions in the world one can expect the speaker to try to perform or not. Trump’s value statements are as vacuous, and as labile—whether odious or decent-as his fact discourse.
It’s not just a matter of mendacity, though his endless, insouciant lying about big things and small have a lot to do with this. He doesn’t misrepresent his values; he just doesn’t have any (except his own ego). If there were money to made from it, and he had permission from Laura Ingraham and Putin, he would as readily get on a climate alarm jag as he does about immigrants.
All of which has been a paralyzing problem for all of us and especially for the press. Deference to his office, and long journalistic tradition, seems to require that when the president says “A is B”, the fact that he said it requires reporting, perhaps with a quote from another source who says “no, it’s not!” But when this president says absolutely anything, the event is not like any other president, or any other important public official saying something. It has no bearing on anyone’s belief, on what he will do in the future, or on our views of him: it’s not considerable. It’s like a horserace prediction based on a dice roll. We’ve had two years of our press trying to treat Trump’s discourse as the utterances of a responsible, more-or-less-informed, responsible adult: it’s time to stop. The word lie is, thankfully, starting to be used to characterize his mendacities, but why tell us about something that will be inoperative or a passing fancy by the next news cycle? We need a completely new convention, recognizing that the presidential utterance process has been replaced with an inconsequential-not considerable—model, and treating it like the “speech” of a parrot or random artificial speech generator.
Not considerable: how to listen to tonight’s speech, or why you can just ignore it.
Jarndyce says
I wish that the Democrats had boycotted the SOTU, not just because his utterances are not considerable, but because he is a monster. He has kidnapped thousands of children and, despite a court order, will not return them to their parents! How can we pretend that he is a person worthy of treating with respect?
I’m also thinking about the presidential debates in 2020. If he has not been removed from office by then (I can’t bring myself to type his name), then how can the Democratic nominee agree to debate him? Doesn’t a debate require a minimal commitment to truth and reason and good faith, all of which he utterly lacks?
Jarndyce says
Pardon me for continuing this rant, but, if Pelosi could say “No SOTU until you reopen the government,” then wouldn’t it have been even more important to say, “No SOTU until you return the children you kidnapped”? And why hasn’t Congress appropriated funds to hire hundreds of people to search for the children and their parents? I cannot contemplate the suffering that Trump is inflicting at this very moment. Doesn’t Congress care?
James Wimberley says
Agreed that nobody can have a real debate with Trump. If he is the GOP candidate (I put the odds at less than evens; bookies are more generous) the Democratic nominee can, after an opening statement, ignore him in the so-called debates and speak directly to the moderators, the studio audience, and the TV audience.
Jarndyce says
The problem with ignoring Trump is that Trump should not be allowed to get away with his lies as the debate proceeds; viewers should not have to wait until the post-debate commentators point them out, as many viewers will not watch them. The Democratic candidate should not have to waste his or her assigned time pointing out the lies, and, even if he or she did, Trump could reply, “No, you’re lying,” and we’d get nowhere. There should be a panel of independent historians and journalists sitting on stage, who would hold up a sign saying “False,” whenever a speaker utters a clear falsehood. Let Trump debate with them if he wishes. Or maybe have the panel offstage and press a buzzer, as in Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life,” whenever a falsehood is uttered, with no opportunity for the liar to debate them. The Democratic candidate should not agree to debate without the presence of a neutral panel.
Jarndyce says
For those too young to have watched Groucho’s show, the buzzer would go off when a contestant said the secret word chosen for each show.
lcoleman6 says
In 2014, Bill Nye debated young-earth creationist Ken Ham. A great many people on the pro-science side urged Nye not to take the challenge, figuring that Ham would simply do the “Gish gallop,” i.e., lie and keep moving on to the next lie, making it impossible for the opponent to address all the creationist’s claims and leaving the impression that the creationist was controlling the debate. Nye actually did very well by focusing on a few strong points and continually redirecting the debate to those points, and the debate is generally considered a win for Nye.
I suspect the Democratic candidate will be spending at least some time studying Nye’s techniques in that debate.
Jarndyce says
How does one “win” in a debate with Trump? The idea is not to win in an intellectual sense, but to gain votes. The Democratic candidate cannot win over the people in Trump’s base, and he or she has won over anyone with a brain before the debate starts. That leaves the undecideds, who must be people with half a brain. How does one appeal to them? I don’t know.
RonWarrick says
I value my time and my happiness too much to listen to any speech by Donald Trump.