Donald Trump reposted a video to his personal social media website depicting President Joe Biden with his hands and feet tied together in the back of a pickup truck. Disgusting, but what’s new? Observing Trump’s perverse rhetorics — visual and verbal — can produce Post Trump Traumatic Syndrome.
In a video posted to X last Sunday, New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whose research spans authoritarianism, fascism and propaganda, warned of the dangers of Trump’s recirculation of the image: “And so it’s continuing the coup of January 6.”
Ben-Ghiat argues the image of Biden as a hostage or kidnapping victim is showing “not a democratic transition of power, but a violent one.”
Did Trump commit a crime?
George Washington University constitutional law professor Catherine Ross noted, “What he posted about Biden is so over the top, we don’t have words for it.”
Attorney Andrew Weissman has argued Trump’s video may be a federal crime: “Well, you know what? Threatening the president of the United States is a crime. The legal question and factual one is whether what he has engaged in with respect to posting the image of Joe Biden bound and gagged with what appears to be a bullet hole in his head constitutes that kind of threat.”
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek via email: “Andrew Weissman is a cuck and suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
This has been part of the Trump portfolio from the beginning. Trump’s rise was shepherded by Steve Bannon, a man who mocks his white male critics as “cucks.” The word, derived from “cuckold,” is specifically meant to debase by fear and fantasy — the target is so weak that he would submit to the humiliation of having his white wife lie with Black men.
“The man who wants to build a wall has no boundaries in his personal life and rhetoric.”
Ironically, the man who wants to build a wall has no boundaries in his personal life and rhetoric. Trump has violated the tradition, decorum and respect of the office of president so frequently it’s hard to keep count. Outrage at his outrageousness pours forth from every corner, but something says “Déjà vu.”
No one has ever gotten away with the vile, violent, disgusting rhetoric Donald Trump employs. This is not how good people talk and act. Trump’s actions are premeditated, vicious and by now predictable.
The outrage
The outrage Trump engenders is legitimate and necessary. We can’t function in a democratic society without boundaries. Trump’s rhetoric functions like a mob-owned metroplex with all the traffic signals out of order. The demolition derby of driving to work or across town ends in collisions, injuries and deaths.
The White House, of necessity, responded to the image of President Biden. As did the Biden campaign.
“This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by,’” the Biden campaign said in a statement. “Trump is regularly inciting political violence, and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol Police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6.”
Rhetorical pornography
Trump’s rhetoric — verbal and visual — is rhetorical pornography. One could argue his rhetoric is a type of drug and his supporters are tied to him with a powerful set of affective bonds.
“Trump’s rhetoric — verbal and visual — is rhetorical pornography.”
Joshua Gunn in Political Perversion argues that “perversion” is the best word for Trump’s doubling political discourse. The rhetoric and figure of Donald J. Trump is the visible part of the dangerous iceberg of pernicious perverse rhetoric dominating our culture.
On cue, Trump’s campaign responded to those who criticized his post: “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
Notice how he turned his offensive behavior to be about him, always making himself the victim instead of the perpetrator.
The image of a hogtied president is a repost. Trump often reposts material from supporters. He has been doing this since his days as the tweet master. He claims he is not to be blamed because he is only reposting. This is the social media equivalent of “people are saying.”
Rhetorical contagion
Trump’s penchant for calling people vile names appears to be contagious with his staff and defenders. Consider one revealing interview on Fox News.
Fox Business host Stuart Varney scolded Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, for the nickname Trump has given California Gov. Gavin Newsom, “New-scum.”
Varney had a problem with the moniker. “I object to that kind of language. How about you?” he asked Leavitt.
She bemoaned the “once great state of California” under Newsom. “You see real scum, real homeless people all over the street,” she said. Leavitt does not object to Trump’s name-calling; in fact, she reinforces it: “You see real scum, real homeless people all over the street.”
Varney, not satisfied with Leavitt’s answer countered, “Are you saying it’s OK to bring that kind of language to a presidential campaign? ‘New-scum’? That’s OK?”
Leavitt replied that the “real problem” is “deranged Democrats” like Newsom and President Joe Biden. Leavitt deflected — another Trump tactic. She insisted the real problem is not Trump’s awful language, but “deranged Democrats.”
“No,” Varney snapped. “I think your campaign has a problem with language like that.”
Leavitt shifted her defense to a claim that voters have no problem with Trump’s language.
Varney then asked. “Do you win over moderates and women with language like that? Really?”
Sticking to her guns, Leavitt replied, “Trump is winning with independents and with women right now. We need to not be so afraid of using tough rhetoric.”
Varney then spoke a truth not often expressed: “Actually, it is not tough rhetoric. It is obscene.”
This captures what we face with Trump. He is a mythical trickster, and he has more tricks up his sleeve than a master magician — illusions, misdirection, images.
Moving on from outrage
Foregoing the emotional satisfaction of outrage, I believe it is important to understand Trump’s strategy. In his mind, the nation is at war. Trump’s demagoguery is textbook. Mary Stuckey notes Trump is “both a symptom and promoter” of political unrest.
No one has written more perceptively about demagogues than Patricia Roberts-Miller. She explains the demagogue’s strategy revolves around shutting down democratic deliberation and criticism of the leader. The demagogue scapegoats, oversimplifies and uses propaganda to set us an “us vs. them” battle of Armageddon — a culture of fear, hatred, violence and war.
The demagogue’s only purpose is the unmitigated quest for power.
We need to understand what Trump is doing to combat him more effectively. Something more than outrage will be required.
A cursory review of a few Trump speeches makes his propensity for perversion and violence rather clear. At a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., Trump paused to watch a protester being removed. “That’s right, get him out of here, get him out.” And then: “You got to knock the hell out of them! Boom! Boom! Boom!”
“Our anti-Trump battle, is to find all available means of making the Trump distortions of rhetoric and religion apparent.”
At another rally, Trump said, “There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. So, if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. OK?” And then, “I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much ’cause the courts agree with us too.”
In his infamous January 6 insurrection speech, Trump cried: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Echoing Kenneth Burke, our mission, then, our anti-Trump battle, is to find all available means of making the Trump distortions of rhetoric and religion apparent, in order that politicians of his kind in America be unable to perform a similar swindle.
Trump does say awful things. His rhetoric is divisive, violent, misleading, filled with lies. But his followers look into his heart and see only honesty and goodness. Liberals would do better by learning how to make positive emotional responses to Trump’s “set-up” motives. Stop taking the bait.
Our time would be better invested in offering counter examples of diversity, a shared symbolic space and the developing of democratic community. We need regeneration, not the current degeneration created by Trump’s war metaphors.
The outrage at Trump’s nasty, perverted rhetorical pornography should fall down like rain from the skies. Even more, we must speak the truth, call out Trump’s perversions and offer an alternative message to his anger, fear and violence.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 10 books, including his latest, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy.
