Category Archives: Rhetorical Mastery

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The Imagery of Insurrection

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Political iconography is always interesting to read for attitudes and assumptions that are displayed rather than articulated. Visual imagery easily cuts through the limits of an individual’s level of fluency: their reluctance to “own” explicit language or express taboo thoughts. What people want to display can function as substitutes: visual analogues of fantasies and grievances.

Anyone viewing the images carried by the rioters who broke into the Capitol Building on January 6 could not help but notice that they communicated mostly through with flags and posters. Few seemed to be ready to address issues relevant to the deliberative space they occupied. And few pamphlets or tracts were left in the ransacked sections of the building: mostly flags that seemed to owe as much to shooter games and action films as any thought-out ideology. Such is the impoverished language of much of our civic culture that a person with poor eyesight could be forgiven for momentarily thinking the aggrieved monsters were just a disorderly drum and flag unit.  But we now known their deadly intent.

The image above of a “Rambo Trump” was on a flag of one of the insurrectionists staging the assault. It’s both funny and sad: comic book muscles, a lethal weapon, a look of toughness, a male color palette: all seemed to speak for some of those present and now charged with assorted crimes.

The flag can be purchased from an online dealer, and certainly invites a range of reactions to its intention to inspire: absurd, juvenile, pathetic, the detritus of a mind degraded by digital games. What could the carrier of the image have been thinking? Could he put his unintended cartoon into words?  And how does someone end up wanting to carrying around an agitprop image of a sedentary and defeated real estate developer whose rhetorical weapons are schoolyard taunts and a nasty sneer?

The Rambo image is an echo of the poster image used by Poland’s Solidarity Movement featuring Gary Cooper from the 1952 film High Noon.  Cooper’s Will Kane was a peaceful man goaded into a showdown with a crook: a strong but reluctant sheriff who could articulate his principles. Guns were not his preferred tools of persuasion.  And Cooper, who convincingly played a Quaker in Friendly Persuasion, could pull it off.  In short, Solidarity in the 1980s was saying, among other things, that character mattered, that there is nobility in a degree of quiet dignity.

What a difference with the mob looking for someone to attack in the Rotunda, all under the gaze of the landmark paintings of John Trumbull, and the striking frieze by Constantino Brumidi just above them. To be sure, Brumidi’s images of moments in the national’s past are their own kind of preferred narratives that are now out of step with more recent revisions of the historical record.  Even so, the  Rotunda was completed as Lincoln’s message that the union had a future. It was to be a visual plea for unity and a dramatic way to honor the nation’s history. It’s doubtful those breaking into the Capitol had a clue about the hallowed ground they occupied, or how to engage others in ways appropriate to it.

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The Face of Trumpism Comes into Focus

Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , ,

 In a single 24-hour period the term “Trumpism” went from being a description to a pejorative.

                                                                          USA Today

Americans increasingly learn what they know from what they see. Many still can’t seem to grasp the Covid-19 threat, partly because it is not visible and must be confirmed in a lab. The threat seems abstract, hence not quite real. A hoax, perhaps. This principle of using a simple-minded visual guide for all that matters operates in many spheres of life, and even for all of us in the vivid images of delight in the chaos that motivated the mob at the Capitol.

All were white, and clearly delighted with the mayhem created in spaces most of us think of as sacred.

He started his administration on the Capitol steps four years ago ominously invoking the theme of “American carnage.” Almost to the day it will end, his proxies gave us a representation of what that can look like. In a single 24-hour period the term “Trumpism” went from being a description to a pejorative. As its supporters violated the our grandest government building, we saw its face in ways we will never forget: some costumed as warriors, most seemingly aggrieved by a complex world they don’t understand. Others expressed the feeling that they have been pushed to the margins.  All were white, and clearly delighted with the mayhem created in spaces most of us think of as sacred.

Trump has stood for very little beyond a virulent nationalism, focusing mostly on an unflagging sense of self-regard. He built his Presidency on the sand of his carefully combed visage, as well as a constant rhetoric of grievances. And it paid off, at least for a while. As Senator Cory Booker noted in one of the best of the delayed January 6 speeches in the Senate, Trump supporters seem to be part of a cult, carrying flags emboldened with a person’s name rather than a more inclusive symbol of hopeful values.

Watching the demonstrators milling around the Capitol, I was struck by the fact they seemed to have little to say; no argument to make, no ideal to uphold. “USA! USA!” and “Take back the steal” was heard most often. I’ve noticed the same pattern in other rallies. Holding a banner or flag is the thing. There appeared to be no war to protest, no law to challenge, no congressional action to dispute. They were there mostly to simply witness for Donald J. Trump:  a real-estate speculator turned into a cult figure.