Rhetorical schizophrenia
By Michael Gerson
August 24 at 8:26 PM
... one day, we had an unhinged and divisive rant .. in Phoenix. Then, the next day in Reno .. a call for national unity and reconciliation. Multiple political personality disorder. Rhetorical schizophrenia.
... The normal role of a speechwriter is to find, refine and elevate the voice of a leader. The greatest .. victory comes when a president thinks: This is the way I would sound if I had more time to write and more talent with language. In these circumstances, speechwriting is not deception; it is amplification.
But what about speechwriting that is designed to give a leader a different voice? Here moral issues begin to lurk. Is it ethical to make a cynical leader appear principled? A violent leader seem pacific? A cruel leader seem compassionate? This calculation is difficult, because most of us have an incongruous mix of such traits. Or maybe a speechwriter can hope a president will eventually rise to the level of his teleprompter ...
Trump deserves a patent on the idea that political authenticity means spontaneity. So it was the real voice that we heard in Phoenix, attacking a man with brain cancer .. without any wish for his recovery. The real voice defending a supporter who had been fired by CNN for writing “Sieg Heil” on Twitter. The real voice making fun of a TV anchor’s height. The real voice again widening racial divisions by defending Confederate monuments as “our history and our heritage” ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-rhetorical-schizophrenia-is-easy-to-see-through/2017/08/24/2163ab42-88f3-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html?utm_term=.fd7ad8809abd
