>
>A Nation of Victims
>by RENANA BROOKS
>
>[From the June 30, 2003 issue The Nation] George W. Bush is generally
> regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is
> his mastery of emotional language--especially negatively charged
> emotional language--as a political tool. Take a closer look at his
> speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to
> be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of
> language to dominate others.
>
>President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses
>dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and
> intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration.
> While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in
> fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive
> language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on
> marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and
> theologians, such as Josef Pieper. But little has been said about the
> key role it has come to play in political discourse, and in such "hot
> media" as talk radio and television.
>
>Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender
> to his will. The first is empty language. This term refers to broad
> statements that are so abstract and mean so little that they are
> virtually impossible to oppose. Empty language is the emotional
> equivalent of empty calories. Just as we seldom question the content
> of potato chips while enjoying their pleasurable taste, recipients of
> empty language are usually distracted from examining the content of
> what they are hearing. Dominators use empty language to conceal faulty
> generalizations; to ridicule viable
>alternatives; to attribute negative motivations to others, thus making
> them appear contemptible; and to rename and "reframe" opposing
> viewpoints.
>
>Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech contained thirty-nine examples of
> empty language. He used it to reduce complex problems to images that
> left the listener relieved that George W. Bush was in charge. Rather
> than explaining the relationship between malpractice insurance and
> skyrocketing healthcare costs, Bush summed up: "No one has ever been
> healed by a frivolous lawsuit." The multiple fiscal and monetary
> policy tools that can be used to stimulate an economy were downsized
> to: "The best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money
> is not to tax it away in the first place." The controversial plan to
> wage another war on Iraq was simplified to: "We will answer every
> danger and every enemy that threatens the American people." In an
> earlier study, I found that in the 2000 presidential debates Bush used
> at least four times as many phrases containing empty language as
> Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Senior or Gore had used in their
> debates.
>
>Another of Bush's dominant-language techniques is personalization. By
> personalization I mean localizing the attention of the listener on the
> speaker's personality. Bush projects himself as the only person capable
> of producing results. In his post-9/11 speech to Congress he said, "I
> will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I
> will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this
> struggle for freedom and security for the American people." He
> substitutes his determination for that of the nation's. In the 2003
> State of the Union speech he vowed, "I will defend the freedom and
> security of the American people." Contrast Bush's "I will not yield"
> etc. with John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you,
> ask what you can do for your country."
>
>The word "you" rarely appears in Bush's speeches. Instead, there are
> numerous statements referring to himself or his personal
>characteristics--folksiness, confidence, righteous anger or
>determination--as the answer to the problems of the country. Even when
> Bush uses "we," as he did many times in the State of the Union speech,
> he does it in a way that focuses attention on himself. For example, he
> stated: "Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people,
> and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility."
>
>In an article in the January 16 New York Review of Books, Joan Didion
> highlighted Bush's high degree of personalization and contempt for
> argumentation in presenting his case for going to war in Iraq. As
> Didion writes: "'I made up my mind,' he had said in April, 'that
> Saddam needs to go.' This was one of many curious, almost petulant
> statements offered in lieu of actually presenting a case. I've made up
> my mind, I've said in speech after speech, I've made myself clear. The
> repeated statements became their own reason."
>
>Poll after poll demonstrates that Bush's political agenda is out of
> step with most Americans' core beliefs. Yet the public, their
> electoral resistance broken down by empty language and persuaded by
> personalization, is susceptible to Bush's most frequently used
> linguistic technique: negative framework. A negative framework is a
> pessimistic image of the world. Bush creates and maintains negative
> frameworks in his listeners' minds with a number of linguistic
> techniques borrowed from advertising and hypnosis to instill the image
> of a dark and evil world around us. Catastrophic words and phrases are
> repeatedly drilled into the listener's head until the opposition feels
> such a high level of anxiety that it appears pointless to do anything
> other than cower.
>
>Psychologist Martin Seligman, in his extensive studies of "learned
> helplessness," showed that people's motivation to respond to outside
> threats and problems is undermined by a belief that they have no
> control over their environment. Learned helplessness is exacerbated by
> beliefs that problems caused by negative events are permanent; and
> when the underlying causes are perceived to apply to many other
> events, the condition becomes pervasive and paralyzing.
>
>Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He
> uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from
> feeling they can solve their problems. In his September 20, 2001,
> speech to Congress on the 9/11 attacks, he chose to increase people's
> sense of vulnerability: "Americans should not expect one battle, but a
> lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.... I ask you to
> live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have
> fears tonight.... Be calm and resolute, even in the face of a
> continuing threat." (Subsequent terror alerts by the FBI, CIA and
> Department of Homeland Security have maintained and expanded this fear
> of unknown, sinister enemies.)
>
>Contrast this rhetoric with Franklin Roosevelt's speech delivered the
> day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He said: "No matter how
> long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the
> American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute
> victory.... There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our
> territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in
> our armed forces--with the unbounding determination of our people--we
> will gain the inevitable triumph--so help us God." Roosevelt focuses
> on an optimistic future rather than an ongoing threat to Americans'
> personal survival.
>
>All political leaders must define the present threats and problems
> faced by the country before describing their approach to a solution,
> but the ratio of negative to optimistic statements in Bush's speeches
> and policy declarations is much higher, more pervasive and more
> long-lasting than that of any other President. Let's compare "crisis"
> speeches by Bush and Ronald Reagan, the President with whom he most
> identifies himself. In Reagan's October 27, 1983, televised address to
> the nation on the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, he used
> nineteen images of crisis and twenty-one images of optimism, evenly
> balancing optimistic and negative depictions. He limited his
> evaluation of the problems to the past and present tense, saying only
> that "with patience and firmness we can bring peace to that
> strife-torn region--and make our own lives more secure." George W.
> Bush's October 7, 2002, major policy speech on Iraq, on the other
> hand, began with forty-four consecutive statements referring to the
> crisis and citing a multitude of possible catastrophic repercussions.
> The vast majority of these statements (for example: "Some ask how
> urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already
> significant, and it only grows worse with time"; "Iraq could decide on
> any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a
> terrorist group or individual terrorists") imply that the crisis will
> last into the indeterminate future. There is also no specific plan of
> action. The absence of plans is typical of a negative framework, and
> leaves the listener without hope that the crisis will ever end.
> Contrast this with Reagan, who, a third of the way into his
> explanation of the crisis in Lebanon, asked the following: "Where do
> we go from here? What can we do now to help Lebanon gain greater
> stability so that our Marines can come home? Well, I believe we can
> take three steps now that will make a difference."
>
>To create a dependency dynamic between him and the electorate, Bush
> describes the nation as being in a perpetual state of crisis and then
> attempts to convince the electorate that it is powerless and that he is
> the only one with the strength to deal with it. He attempts to
> persuade people they must transfer power to him, thus crushing the
> power of the citizen, the Congress, the Democratic Party, even
> constitutional liberties, to concentrate all power in the imperial
> presidency and the Republican Party.
>
>Bush's political opponents are caught in a fantasy that they can win
> against him simply by proving the superiority of their ideas. However,
> people do not support Bush for the power of his ideas, but out of the
> despair and desperation in their hearts. Whenever people are in the
> grip of a desperate dependency, they won't respond to rational
> criticisms of the people they are dependent on. They will respond to
> plausible and forceful statements and alternatives that put the
> American electorate back in touch with their core optimism. Bush's
> opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American
> vigor and optimism in the coming years. They should heed the example
> of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter and the "national
> malaise"; Franklin Roosevelt, who used it against Hoover and the
> pessimism induced by the Depression ("the only thing we have to fear is
> fear itself"); and Clinton (the "Man from Hope"), who used positive
> language against the senior Bush's lack of vision. This is the
> linguistic prescription for those who wish to retire Bush in 2004.
>
>© Copyright 2003 The Nation
>
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