Trump's Regime Discourse: Constructed Lies And The Duty To Resist

Trump and his surrogates have lied many times before the inauguration. But after he was sworn in, their lies are now take on a much more significant weight. On Saturday, the day after the inauguration, Trump’s Press Secretary ― Sean Spicer ― read a prepared statement in an unscheduled meeting with members of the press. In it, he presented several lies:

It is important to note that these types of lies and attacks on the media are not off the cuff ― they’re constructed. They are exactly the tactics used in autocratic Arab states.

In the above video, the Syrian ambassador to the U.N., Bashar al-Ja’afari addresses the Security Council on U.S. allegations of Syrian regime complicity in crimes against humanity carried out by the Syrian army. He begins with quotations from Western literature about the harms of lying. At 5:45 he raises a photograph of a soldier serving as a foot stool on his hands and knees to help an elderly woman cross over a high barrier. It appears the image is not of a Syrian soldier, but rather of an Iraqi one in Iraq, not Syria. The regime’s intended message, presented verbally and visually with the use of a single photograph, is that the U.S. government is lying about the Syrian army’s involvement in the killing of civilians. Had the photograph been genuine, the notion that an allegation of crimes against humanity could be controverted by one image is quixotic. The strategy is not to convince, however. It is to foment ambiguity and provide regime supporters an escape mechanism ― no matter how flimsy the device. The other objective is to provoke an emotional reaction from the accuser and thereby shift the basis of the narrative about crimes against humanity from facts and evidence to emotions.

Trump and his regime’s ‘constructed lies’ parallel those of authoritarians like Bashar al-Assad in terms of eight key parameters:

1) the topics that are addressed in the lies are related but tangential;

2) the scope of the lie (e.g. Spicer did not just claim that the crowd may have been larger than reported, but that it was the largest ever, “period”);

3) the presence of a guilty party built into each lie who is set up as a straw man to be attacked (”crooked Hillary”, “lying Ted”, or “fake news” which targets the media);

4) the advancement of a perfect self-image (not only is Trump not guilty of the claim but he is unimpeachable in every way), and is perpetually wronged by others (the media’s claims hurt Trump personally and they should be ashamed);

5) dismissal of counterpoints by distraction or omission (images of people on grass for Trump’s inauguration, but no discussion of what more or less attendees would mean, or of urgent matters like Trump’s first executive orders);

6) repetition of the lie(s) about the topic(s) at hand with rapid upgrading (statements that Trump had large crowds are quickly upgraded into statements about his having the largest crowd ever);

7) the projection of performative aggravation within the same speech event (note Spicer’s demeanor and tone - he is perceptibly angry - this is a dramaturgical performance intended to embody Trump’s own emotions);

8) and the inclusion of a CAT, or calculated ambiguous threat (i.e. Trump’s regime will “hold the media accountable”);

Oftentimes a CAT is offered as the only support for the lie - the lie is to be believed because if one does not, then there are presumable dire consequences to be had. It is implied that this promised punishment can be meted out because the issuer of the lie holds the power of government, in this case Trump’s “movement” has the ultimate authority: the U.S. presidency.

The target(s) of the threat components of the constructed lies, and - critically - the audience the performance is constructed for, are left guessing as to whether the threat is actionable. This ambiguity is not accidental. It is generated. The purpose of calculated ambiguity in political regime discourse is to foment fear.

The takeaway is to see these lies for what they are: constructs; verbal regime tools for building a specific kind of power relationship with the public, the media, and opposition political figures. By seeing this, we’re able to stay above the fray and counteract the mounting pressure to fear the president and his regime, thus freeing them of accountability. In instances where the regime may attempt to actually realize certain threats, we, the people and our institutions, including the free press, must apply strong, organized resistance. The resistance never be violent. Violence lowers our stand to the level of the regime. It is also easily de- and re-contextualized to portray heroes as villains. Violence is the weakest of all instruments and is almost always impossible to justify. Far stronger, is disobedience - it is perhaps the most powerful tool we wield. It not only subverts many forms of governmental punishment, but also destabilizes the regime’s legitimacy. Is a president who is not heeded truly the president at all?

The trap to avoid falling into is engaging with the lies. They’re designed to be provocative and sinister. If we argue with their issuers, we elevate them to the level of intelligentsia. We can bring the facts to bear on the conversation but we mustn’t include members of the Trump regime in discussions where they can talk back and, in effect, regenerate the required ambiguity for their lies to rejuvenate when challenged and persist rather than evanesce.

Spicer occupies a key role as the president’s representative to the media. He has the opportunity to control the beginning and end of each session. He can choose who can articulate questions to the regime. He can expend more or less time on questions, comments, or tangents as he pleases. He can argue the merits of a question and the questioner. But he can only control the content and topics of the questions if the media takes the bait: the provocative element of every constructed lie. Provocation is designed into the blueprints of each constructed lie. The goal is to send the reasonable interlocutor careening into a self-effacing tizzy of feelings where facts - the only silver bullets in exchanges with an authoritarian regime - can be waylaid. Once the reasoned speaker’s most powerful instrument is rendered impotent, (s)he can be lured toward the dazzle of a heated verbal skirmish with a government potentate - especially one that is televised. The reporters themselves become the story, rather than tell it. In other words, authoritarians always aim to shoot the messengers to avoid being confronted by the messages they carry.

Shifting the conversation from the realm of science and reason into the domain of emotion levels the playing field for the regime. It cannot track with experts and professionals in the fields it finds itself at odds with because of politics. Rick Perry is no nuclear physicist. The fact-based discourse is unfriendly to the regime’s promises, postures, and positions, so it works to dislodge the information that discourse is founded upon as well as the sources it draws from by mocking it. It can be unnerving to watch a government official jeer at a scientist’s findings about climate change or at the testimony of a transgender person. There is a shock value that is also intended. Indeed, ‘the shock effect’ of this stratagem is equally useful. The public is left in a state of cognitive dissonance. A person can either believe the regime’s “alternative facts” and adopt its dismissive, suspicious, and flippant attitude toward science and reason, or get caught up in frustrating circuitous pseudo-arguments that circumambulate the real issues. Thus, rather than breaking down Trump’s first executive order that takes aim at the Affordable Care Act, we’re looking at pictures of grass on Twitter.

Constructed lies are used to sidestep, distract, and frustrate, but they can also lower the level of political discourse. Any event has multiple dimensions that can be examined. Commentary and analysis will therefore always reduce an event or a topic to a narrower subset or interval. A microscope can’t function as a microscope if it’s pointed at something larger than a glass slide or a Petri dish. Authoritarian regimes, to extend the metaphor, would either twist the microscope’s scope out of focus or place an inappropriately large object on the viewing stage. We need to be aware, then, of the anatomy of political discourse so we can readjust the scope back into focus or determine when the object in the viewer simply does not belong. What this looks like in real terms can be as banal as being aware of whether we choose to read, write, and talk about how Melania Trump dressed at the inauguration, or, rather, audit what she said in her brief public remarks that day - alternatively, we can judge the entire topic of Melania’s wardrobe and speeches to be irrelevant or unimportant given the range of possible topics to investigate in a limited amount of prime time in which to report the news that matters.

Trump’s regime is shaping up to have many of the features of an authoritarian government. I’ve focused on the subset that pertains to communication because that is my field of expertise as a sociolinguist. We each can do our part to edify one another using the tools of our various trades. Trump’s regime can only succeed if we respond to its constructed lies with emotional arguments or if we silo ourselves into liberal enclaves rather than reach out, dialogue, and empower one another with powerful analytical tools. Analysis is not just the hardest part of a term paper to write - it is what give’s someone the ability to look through a facade and see the truth it is obscuring. If the emperor is parading around with no clothes on, an analysis is what tells us to stop cheering him on for his impeccable fashion sense and to instead soberly avert our gazes and call for order. In language, we can practice civil disobedience by disregarding regime narratives and continuing the higher-level fact-based discussions with appropriate deference offered only to relevant experts, scientists, and professionals. That is, Trump’s opinions about Muslims are vacuous and bigoted. So, don’t ask him about Muslims. Ask him about specific strategies to enervate ISIL and block its recruiting methods.

There are certain topics in politics that have enjoyed, albeit only temporarily, nonpartisan status. No one can say condemning slavery or the holocaust are partisan polemical issues. The public just won’t stomach their elected officials debating certain things subjectively. Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy is sacrosanct. If a politician were against the troops, that person would be shouted down and have a hard time being reelected. Under Trump, the topics under this special category should and can be increased to include important issues like climate change, health care and the civil rights and liberties of all human beings but especially minorities who are American citizens. That includes Muslims, women, LGBTQ communities, disabled people, refugees, immigrants, Mexican Americans, black people, journalists - all Americans, not just the few groups Trump hasn’t threatened and offended (yet).

Topics become nonpartisan when they go from being abstractions to becoming about real people. If Trump or his supporters bring up a Muslim registry, don’t discuss the details of whether it’s technologically possible without including specific concerns about human beings who will be adversely affected. Was Japanese Internment in the 1940s an effective domestic security policy? Of course not. That’s not the question though - that’s the reprehensible model we assume Trump’s regime to be operating upon and we probe it with aplomb and rigor. On climate change, don’t ask someone ignorant of climate science - or anyone for that matter, really - whether an observable, recorded, and empirically tested phenomenon is real. That creates the opportunity to opine about the veracity of facts - that is the space in which constructed lies are generated, deployed, and persist. Instead, bring up Pacific islands evacuating to other countries because of land submergence episodes and ask the president how the United States will help. Skip the debate and go to the action points: the laws, policies, and interventions. And if the Trump regime announces a policy of isolationism and washes its hands of climate change refugees, we can still make our country play a helpful role by donating to NGOs, volunteering, and applying for jobs in those problem areas. We are bigger than the Trump regime. There are more of us than there are of them. That’s not just a statement of fact about the results of the popular vote. That’s a truism about the fragility of tyranny. Tyrants rely on the people they oppress never realizing that they can disobey.

Trump is building his regime now and together they are producing a discourse and setting up power relations with us, the people; and the press, our constitutionally-protected accountability measure; and their political opposition - democrats and republicans - across the spectrum. Rather than passively observe and receive its production, let’s analyze it and do our constitutionally-protected duty: resist.

If we don’t, we’ll find ourselves all sounding a lot like Donald Trump and Bashar al-Assad’s mouthpieces.