The Evil Alchemy of Trump’s Rhetoric

“Who would like to come up here and shake Lorraine?”

The unexpected question came from our second-grade teacher, who had just quizzed the hapless schoolgirl about why she made the periods at the end of her sentences so big. So she could see them, the girl had replied faintly. Infuriated by that, the teacher ordered Lorraine to come to the front of the classroom. Although it was a matter of just a few steps, Lorraine’s seat being in the front row because she was one of the smallest children in the class, her obedience effected an act of unmitigated pillory. Lorraine rose, came forward, and stood before us all, visibly trembling. The teacher then called for a volunteer to come forward and straighten Lorraine out.

Lorraine¹ was an unusual pupil who probably shouldn’t have been in that class or maybe that school. She was so pale we could see the delicate blue lines traced just beneath her milk-white skin; so timid she scarcely uttered a word and when she did, it was barely audible; and so shabbily dressed — even for second graders — that we, her fellow pupils, got our first uncomfortable notion of what a social class might be simply because she so conspicuously did not belong to ours. The thick lenses of her blue-and-white glasses made her eyes seem hazy. Without the glasses, one had to assume she saw poorly. With them, she may still have had trouble seeing things like periods at the ends of sentences. No one inquired about that. But offensive, disruptive, or disobedient she was not, nor was she stupid. She simply did not pay attention to the teacher, or the lessons, or any of us, distracted to the point of vacancy much of the time, as if perhaps she couldn’t hear very well either, something that was also not inquired into.

The silence in the classroom as Lorraine stood before us whimpering was awful. The rest of the episode vanishes from memory.

In response to the teacher’s most unusual and attractive request for action in the classroom, a host of hands waved from the back where the larger children, mostly boys, sat. The teacher picked out Dwayne, the tallest boy, a corpulent, friendly, jovial lad, who had no idea what he was getting into. He lumbered forward, modestly proud to be chosen, stood opposite Lorraine in front of us all and did nothing. The teacher instructed him to put his hands on Lorraine’s shoulders, which he did. The teacher told him to shake her, which he did very gently. The teacher urged him to shake her harder, which he did; then harder still, which he obediently did, at which point Lorraine began to cry. Dwayne was dismissed, and he slouched back to his seat, cheeks flushed, visibly abashed, and not sure why he was feeling the way he did. He had done as he had been told, but he felt a little sick. The silence in the classroom as Lorraine stood before us whimpering was awful. The rest of the episode vanishes from memory. 

Lorraine was not the only child abused that morning. We all were. Dwayne was singled out for a hefty burden to bear for an eight-year-old: victim and accomplice at once. A decidedly unpleasant experience for the class, there is no telling how deeply it wounded Lorraine. 

The grade school incident calls to mind how Donald Trump cajoles his legions of followers into committing aggressive acts against innocent people for reasons they remain unaware of. He grooms them to ballyhoo at rallies to cow reporters from fake news outlets. He encourages them to cruise states in highly-muscled convoys to root out antipatriotic scum destroying the country. He urges them to police Antifa demonstrations to keep the country safe from radical liberals. He incites them to punish offenders like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss who corrupt the integrity of U.S. elections. He reminds those who he knows are armed that they’re going to have to fight like hell to get their country back. He insinuates to self-appointed militias that it’s going to take guts, muscle, and their second amendment rights to keep America free. 

Trump’s defenders listen, poised to move at command. They certainly stormed the Capitol on cue, willing to risk life and limb to defend the Republic. The problem of which they remain unaware is they didn’t storm the Capitol to save the Republic. The Republic wasn’t in danger. But only Trump, who ginned them up for the assault that day on the Ellipse, knew that. His pliant rabble-rousers have as little idea why he has them prowling BLM protests, monitoring election polling stations, or sending judges threatening emails. They think they do because they believe what Trump tells them, but what Trump tells them isn’t true. Trump does not share his deeper purposes with them.

In consistently lying to his supporters, Trump has trapped them.

We second graders, forced to witness the physical assault and humiliation of a seven-year-old classmate, knew at the time something unspeakable was happening. Some violation we could not understand, a transgression of something we had not yet learned to identify, had occurred. Although we experienced a withering shame, we had no words for it. I’m not sure we told our parents about it. Certainly the teacher suffered no recriminations for her cruelty. 

None of us present in that second-grade classroom cherish the memory of that disgraceful incident. As adults, we would certainly refuse to allow ourselves to be put in that position again. It is, however, the position Trump puts his supporters in day after day, rally after rally. In consistently lying to them, Trump has trapped them. Because they are not second graders but adults, they cannot say they commit acts of intimidation and injury because Trump tells them to. To retain their dignity, they must convince themselves that the acts of aggression Trump incites them to carry out are exactly what Trump tells them they are: patriotic acts necessary to save the country.

Trump’s toxic rhetoric doesn’t just trick people into obeying his bullying orders, it makes bullies out of everyone who obeys.

It is in this transmutation — inducing his followers to turn his arbitrary falsehoods into core truths — where Trump’s true power and danger lies. It is an execrable misfortune that the man has been given a nationwide platform for nearly a decade from which to broadcast those falsehoods. It has enabled him to inflict this transformative evil on the very people who want the most to help him. Sinister aftereffects of Trump’s poison sink deep: his toxic rhetoric doesn’t just trick people into obeying his bullying orders, it makes bullies out of everyone who obeys. Further, with his lies Trump legitimizes acts of wounding slander, disruption of lives caused by murderous voice mail messages, armed intimidation.

The longer Trump’s followers absorb his rhetoric, the worse the damage will be, not to Trump, but to them. Will his foot soldiers ever be able to accept their lot as citizens of equal status with those in the neighborhood downriver? Will they be satisfied with their one vote, knowing all those other people are citizens who have one vote, too? Will they ever again be able to discuss, compromise, maybe admit they were mistaken? Will they be ready to put their shoulder to the wheel along with their fellow citizens to heal a country they themselves were instrumental in rending asunder? Will they want to participate in building a common and prosperous future for all? 

To recall the words of Liz Cheney: Trump will pass, but the dishonor of committing the grievous acts he conned his followers — mature, responsible, educated adults — into making will be theirs alone. For those lucky enough to emerge with their wits intact, that shame will sting. 

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1. The real names of the children who figure in this essay have not been used. ↩︎