Anatomy of a Trump Speech
Donald Trump and the Nature of American Culture
Part I: Introduction
The success of the Trump campaign thus far is a perfect manifestation of the monster lurking in the back of the minds of the members of the Second Constitutional Congress rearing its ugly hairdo. Most Americans are under no illusion that the authors of the Constitution were much more comfortable giving them a bayonet than a ballot, and the result was the electoral college system which places guards at the gates of the political Bastille. What is not well known is the nature of the debate.
The electoral college system is generally assumed to be a compromise between the cynical elitists who didn’t trust the average man with the vote and the grand philosophers of popular sovereignty. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a compromise between the cynical elitists who didn’t trust the average man with the vote and the nodding pragmatists who were equally cynical, but reluctantly admitted that, while he was an ignorant, capricious peasant by nature, he wasn’t dumb enough to believe that being denied the vote fulfilled the promise of a republic.
The pragmatists were correct insofar as the problem of the democratic process is not one of intelligence; willful ignorance requires at least enough brains to identify the holes in your argument so they can be filled with bullshit toothpaste like nail holes in the wall of a rental apartment. It is the problem pointed out by Spinoza in his Ethics, that common sense is far too easily overridden by adrenaline glands and pictures of furry kittens. To be fair, without this charming psychological feature the huddled masses of the colonial countryside could never have been whipped into the huddled rabble of the revolutionary army, so it is not without irony that the Founding Fathers found themselves with the tip of a pen at their throat after sending the British back to Old Blighty at the point of the bayonet.
It is therefore no more surprising that a billionaire with a background in reality television could bluster his way into the presidential spotlight than it is that the colonial public swallowed a pamphlet entitled Common Sense, in which Thomas Paine—the most well-known atheist in the Western Hemisphere—suggested the revolution was part of God’s plan. Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but fatuity is its cocaine. The success of the Trump campaign speech is not so much one of turning it into crack as it is discovering that it can be melted down in a spoon and injected directly into the public’s femoral artery.
It is noteworthy however, that Trump is not selling his campaign through the media or the debates. His hay is made at his rallies, which are carefully orchestrated pieces of stagecraft thrust upon a gullible audience that has been brought up on reality television as if “reality” had anything to do with the editing and production of what they were watching. Indeed, it is the soporific simplicity that Youtube videos, high-impact media and Trump’s all-time favorite from of communication Twitter, with its 140 character mortar rounds of triviality lobbed out into the no-man’s-land of contextless digital public opinion, that have shaped the very fabric of the rhetorical speech techniques used to achieve that mythical blend of fervor and ideological intransigence that is electability.
The particular speech we will explore was given on the U.S.S. Yorktown—the 1950‘s aircraft carrier moored in Charleston, SC—on December 7th, 2015. It was an odd choice for both a day and location for a Trump rally. On July 18th, coincidentally the 90th anniversary of the publication of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Trump criticized John McCain’s status as a war hero, stating “I like people who weren’t captured.” He was now facing a throng of rabid supporters on Pearl Harbor Day in the belly of a warship that replaced the only American aircraft carrier sunk at the Battle of Midway. The air was electric, although that might have had something to do with the static charge produced by his combover in a confined space.
The delivery itself is a masterpiece of stagecraft, suspension of disbelief, and the ability to use hypnotic babble as transitional material between talking points. At first reading, it seems almost incoherent, or at the very least an unscripted, unedited stream of consciousness. In fact, it is both highly organized and completely disorganized. He is following notes; that much is obvious on camera, and there is a temptation for the casual critic to write him off as a blithering idiot appealing to ignorant masses. However, this is a dangerous assumption. A billionaire investing his own money in a presidential campaign can be assumed to have hired some excellent speechwriters, and without a doubt would not have achieved his success without being extremely intelligent and highly discerning of the value of those around him. Even the best speechwriters would have to find a way to blend together Trump the mannerism, Trump the platform, and Trump the overall candidate.
Against all odds, this has been accomplished, and done by using the most simplistic speechwriting techniques in a manner so obvious that they are at once patronizing and courageous in the confidence with which they are delivered to the public.
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech Pt. I
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech Pt. II, Rule of Three
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech pt. III - "Remember This..."
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech pt. IV - Gross Anatomy
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech pt. V - The Skeleton
Politics, Current Events: Anatomy of a Trump Speech pt. VI—The Organs
Politics, Current Events: Transcription of Trump's Yorktown Speech