So, hyperbole. It’s a legitimate technique of persuasion, and indeed of writing and speaking in general. Hyperbole and exaggeration are, I think, generally considered different from untruths, and I believe in our US truth-in-advertising laws allow for it. You can market your brand as the World’s Greatest Widgetflakions without any actual comparative evidence, and no-one will sue—and if they did, they would lose. You can even say that your company is having its biggest sale ever—you can’t say that the prices are the lowest, unless they are, but the biggest sale? Hard to measure, so it’s fine. And evidently you can say that a building is the tallest building in Manhattan even if it isn’t, not so much because of the ‘harmless puffery’ exemption as because nobody bothers to sue and why would they. It is what a certain well-known ex-developer and reality-tv star used to call truthful hyperbole, meaning just hyperbole.
Anyway.
Even in politics, I try not to get worked up over the use of hyperbole. I deprecate it, but mildly—when a politician says that we are as polarized as we have ever been, or that the state of the union is stronger than it has ever been, I mock that politician, but in my head, rather than writing a post about it. I mean, it’s wrong, but it’s the sort of wrong that I expect people to live with.
So I think people are overreacting somewhat to Justice-Nominee Kavanaugh’s statement that No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination. I mean yes, I see the point that we don’t really want nominees (or Justices) to speak quite like politicians, and I agree with that. I agree that the statement sounds like it was written by Our Only President or one of his better writers, and I agree that on the whole I would prefer that a nominee (or Justice) makes up his own anodyne pabulum (or possibly pablum) than that he repeats political talking points. I wish he hadn’t said the thing, or had found a better way to phrase it. But it’s not a particularly Big Fucking Deal, in my opinion, and the notion that his willingness to sling bullshit in a press conference indicates his standard of jurisprudence is just silly.
So I don’t know why, exactly, it struck me as so awful that Our Only President said that the US-Russia relationship has never been worse. I mean, obviously nobody was meant to actually compare the situation with the time the Polar Bear Expedition actually exchanged fire with the Red Army, or with the dozen years that the US refused to formally recognize the Soviet government, or even with 1999 during the Chechen revolt and NATO’s intervention in Serbia. Or, you know, the blockade of Berlin, the Suez crisis, or the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Congo, Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Angola, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Cuba. It was not a comparative statement at all. It was hyperbole—it simply meant that he felt that the relationship was bad. Or even less than that, as it wasn’t bad by any particular standard, it just could be and would be improved. And I don’t think anybody, including the person saying it, believed it to be literally true, or thought that anyone would interpret it as literally true and believe it. I mean, obviously people are interpreting it as literally true and disagreeing with it—I’m doing that!—but it’s obviously a deliberate misinterpretation of the intent.
So why am I so cross about it? Perhaps it’s because I loathe the man. Perhaps it’s because this is not normal political hyperbole—politicians generally tell a particular kind of untruth that is technically accurate but misleading in context, or else a prediction leavened with if such that there is a kind of implausible possibility to it. Even Dick Cheney, who outright lied on many occasions, tended to avoid making statements that sounded utterly implausible. And the sort of rhetorical hyperbole politicians tend to engage in is the the greatest generation or even the there’ll be taco trucks on every corner kind, not the measurable tallest building in Manhattan kind. I honestly think it’s bad for the country for politicians to tell different kinds of lies than they have been. I’m don’t think that politicians need to be truthful all the time, and but I think it’s better if they are carefully misleading rather than lazily wrong.
But I think, probably, more than anything, I am cross about Our Only President using this sort of hyperbole because it’s much easier to be cross about rhetorical style than to think about what is actually going on in this country, and in the world.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
In both cases, it strikes me that what is worse than the lie itself is the obsequiousness it signals in an instance where independence is critical. Kavanaugh, by telling a Trumpian lie that flatters Trump, gives every indication that he is Trump’s lackey. A Supreme Court justice should be no one’s lackey and needs to be independent even of the President that appoints them. Trump, by telling a lie that flatters V. Putin, gives every indication that he is Putin’s lackey. A President of the United States should be no one’s lackey. So it’s not the type of lie but the relationship implied by the lie that is most distressing, from my perspective.
In all of the outrage at Trump’s behavior in today’s press conference, I have not yet heard much analysis of how it benefits Putin to have Trump so publicly suck up to him, when he could take more subtle advantage of Trump’s subservience. It wouldn’t seem to strengthen his hand in getting U.S. policy advantageous to Russia to happen, and it increases the likelihood that he will lose Trump as a viable asset sooner rather than later. Does he see great diplomatic advantage in humiliating the United States on the world stage? Does he see domestic political advantage in humiliating the United States? Does he intensify the political conflicts within the U.S. by making the harm Trump is doing harder for American citizens to tolerate to the extent of patiently waiting for formal political opportunities to rein Trump in? Does he signal to the U.S. intelligence community that he is untouchable and in control — it doesn’t matter that they’ve worked so hard to unmask the whole sordid conspiracy? This is the possibility that I find worrisome — I read a number of analyses of the indictment of 12 GRU operatives on Friday as sending a message to Putin that U.S. Intelligence is onto him — if so, does Putin having Trump out himself as a Russian asset on the international stage signaling that their investigative efforts are futile? Maybe it’s just bravado and gamesmanship as he is concerned to play the strongman for the home crowd, but I wonder.
I have been thinking about this—my immediate reaction was that the Helsinki Summit wasn’t that great for Putin, either, particularly in terms of future US-Russia relations (cf Ilan Goldenberg.
My feeling, after a conversation with my Best Reader, is that for the weak states in between the West and the East, this provides a real reason to face East. If the US and the EU are unreliable, weak and vacillating, electing imbeciles and riven by internal squabbling, at least Russia and China are stable. That could have long-term benefits for Russia that are at least plausibly worth the cost. I wouldn’t think so, but I’m inclined to be a trifle risk-averse when it comes to global catastrophe.
It is also possible, of course, that Putin expected and intended a more… presidential performance, and was himself appalled by how infuckingcredibly guilty the man came off.
Thanks,
-V.