What He Says
Since the first day of the Trump campaign there have been outrageous statements. From Mexican “rapists and criminals at the border” to “bleeding from whatever” to “banning Muslims,” President Trump has found a way to encourage his base and inflame his opponents. The energy, anxiety, and outrage these statements produced took a whole lot of time and resources from Trump’s opposition, such that “wiser heads” (such as Rachel Maddow on MSNBC) began to say: “Don’t listen to what he says, watch what he does.”
It was the “doing” that was changing the country: trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act; giving vast tax cuts to the wealthiest (and vastly enlarging the National Debt;) packing the Federal Courts with appointees, some of whom were rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association; tearing children from their parents at the border. Those actions required energy enough, without the constant irritation of the Tweets and the Fox interviews.
But what we have seen in the past two weeks is that what “he” says has had more impact than we realized. The old adage, “words have consequences” is ultimately being applied to Donald Trump as well. What he has said, more perhaps than what he has done, has inflamed the political and cultural divides of America. That inferno of rhetoric has pushed many Americans to the edges of their political views; and to those who are already deranged, pushed them into the abyss of violence and hate.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, the little Abolitionist lady of Cincinnati, was driven by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act to write a novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was the story of slaves in the South, beaten, killed, willing to do anything to escape their bondage. Eliza, a mother of a five-year-old boy, carries him from ice chunk to ice chunk across the near-frozen Ohio River to reach freedom. Uncle Tom, the kind elder slave of the story, is beaten to death by his master.
In the North the story inflamed passions, giving energy to the growing Abolitionist movement. While only a small minority of people in the free states were Abolitionists, they had a strong voice in newspapers read throughout the nation, and with the publication of Stowe’s book, found even greater power.
In the South the book was read as well, as an outrageous “creation” of a Northerner’s mind. It was used to convince slave owners that the Federal government would never allow slavery to continue, and was held up for ridicule by slave owners who didn’t treat their slaves with such brutality.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe. “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war” he supposedly said. He recognized the role that “what she said” had in pushing the nation to extremes, leaving no middle ground left for political compromise. The compromisers, Stephen Douglas who offered to let states vote slave or free, and John Bell who hoped to focus US attention away from slavery, both were left in electoral defeat. The extremes, Lincoln restricting slavery’s expansion, and Breckenridge calling for total slavery, were all that was left.
While I do not think America today is heading to a Civil War, the point to be made is that words in fact “do matter.” What is said contributes to forcing each side farther apart. Add that to the political forces that already encourage polarization: the huge amounts of money contributed by a few ideological billionaires, the division of our media into left and right, the divisive impact of the structural changes made in gerrymandering, and the increasing income inequality in America; and we have a divided country.
And in that division, the extremes go even farther to the edge. Whether it’s bombs in the mail, shooters at the Synagogue, or a black child shot at for knocking on the front door; the deranged find it easier to act.
Thousands of people have left their homeland looking for safety and security. They are carrying their children through a harrowing thousand-mile march in the hot Central American sun. They sleep in the street at night; they take what generosity the local townspeople can give. They are doing what many immigrants to America have done: they have decided to risk the dangers of travel, to give their families an opportunity to grow in peace. They have risked all to leave the gangs and the death and the poverty behind.
But the “words” of the President are those of hate: invasion, infection, a “horde” coming to attack. And those words are serving the purpose: Americans who normally would have sympathy for the refugee’s plight, are now convinced we are facing a siege . Troops are being sent to the border (even though they cannot, by law, actually police the border.)
Maybe it’s all just a campaign ploy, and on November 7th the words will evaporate. But the impact on our divisions will matter beyond the election regardless. We will remain divided as along as division serves Trump’s political needs, and as long as we the people allow it to polarize our minds. What he says does matter.
