Donald Trump has been impeached, the third president to be impeached.
My colleagues in rhetoric, most of whom were stunned when Trump won the 2016 election, will be further disappointed when he isn’t convicted and removed from office by the Senate of the United States.
There are a lot of logical, reasonable reasons to oppose Trump. Rhetoricians place too much faith in logic and reason.
Persuasion is emotional, which rhetoricians have known since at least the Greeks. But, the inability to persuade voters or politicians to stand against Trump isn’t about emotions, either.
We evolved as tribal, loyal creatures. When our tribe is threatened, we unify. In times of war, we unify. In times of natural disaster, we unify. We come together like a family does, even if we fight amongst ourselves.
Democrats are assuming attacking Trump is about persuading people to see him for what he is. If only people receive enough evidence, then they will turn against Trump.
That’s not what’s happening.
To many Republican voters, Trump is a symbol of themselves and their communities.
This doesn’t make sense if you approach Trump through logic alone, but it makes perfect sense to Trump and his supporters.
Trump’s core is in rural, non-coastal, working-class regions with low diversity. A large percentage attend church and they want their children to be “good” people.
Trump is a New York-Florida East Coast elite. He attended an Ivy League school, he was an urban developer, and so on. Statistically, Trump should be a liberal Democrat (and for a long time, he was).
Yet, Trump is more like his supporters than his fellow New York elites.
Attacking Trump is perceived by his supporters as attacking them. Trump knows this and exploits it.
The left-leaning rhetoricians I know take a cynical view of this, assuming Trump doesn’t believe in what he says. What Trump’s supporters do realize is that Trump says what he believes, even when he’s espousing conspiracies or misstating data. Trump’s lies are, to him and his followings, merely barstool hyperbole, the language of people sitting in a bar arguing or bragging.
Counting Trump’s “lies” misses what his supporters and Trump know: their language is a code not understood or appreciated by the elites.
Trump isn’t lying when he says people flush low-flow toilets 10 times. He’s exaggerating, yes, but his followers use the same style of figurative language. They understand he is simply trying to express their shared anger and disgust, not lying. His language isn’t literal, and neither is the language of the people around whom I live and work.
There is a good chance Trump will be re-elected if Democratic politicians and their supporters don’t figure out the language and motivations of nearly half of the United States.
“I don’t want to understand people who can support Donald Trump!” More than one colleague has expressed that sentiment.
Trump is a lousy person, but he treats his supporters as equals. He talks to them, in their language.
Some Trump supporters are bigoted, hateful, scared people. But, 15 percent of his supporters also voted for Barack Obama.
If you want to persuade people, you need to understand their values and language. You also need to accept that humans are motivated by tribal loyalties. The challenge is expanding the “tribe” to include the nation.
Richard Nixon was a “common man” and won a landslide re-election. Ronald Reagan appealed to voters as a common man, too. Bill Clinton shared this appeals.
The Electoral College aside, Democrats should look back through history and notice how “one of us” wins national elections.