Former US President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, a Republican from Ohio and Republican vice-presidential nominee, during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Monday, July 15, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In Catch-22, published in 1961, Joseph Heller wrote a paragraph that sounds all too contemporary: “It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honour, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
Reading this it is hard not to think of figures such as Donald Trump, and a good number of other right-wing populists, including some here at home.
The attempt on the life of Trump, now the Republican nominee as well as a former president and convicted felon, will almost certainly guarantee his victory in November. The assassination attempt will be a rallying call around which conservatives and Trumpists will coalesce. Many people who had been disengaged and those on the fence will be revitalised and want to defend “Americanness”.
The attempt on Trump’s life will also see a lot of justified criticism against him being muzzled. Attempts to show that he indeed is a threat to democracy will now be equated to threats on his life. Efforts to show the violence of his words will now be interpreted as calls for violence against his life.
There are politicians who know how to tap into people’s emotions, politicians who can bring out the best in us and make us believe that the best is yet to come and that change is possible. However, many of the clutch of right-wing populist politicians around the world seem to have the ability to tap into our psyche and our emotions to bring out the worst in us.
What is it about politics that makes us so emotional? When it comes to politics, it seems as though rational thought and circumspection fly out the window. People who are normally measured and thoughtful become easily angered and intolerant, and their opinions based less on facts than on their perceived view of a politician and what they believe about them.
This phenomenon can be observed in our public sphere. In the run-up to the 29 May elections, many a WhatsApp and Telegram group saw emotions rising and insults being thrown around as political issues were discussed. Callers on talk radio fought with each other and shouted at presenters. The tense period between the announcement of the election results and that of the coalition government saw this cacophony continue.
This is not restricted to citizens; our parliament, and many parliaments around the world, have seen punch-ups taking place among the benches of the “Honourable”.
As a person who loves politics, has studied politics and worked as a diplomat, I have found myself withdrawing from certain conversations, especially on social media platforms, because discussions swiftly become aggressive, personal and devoid of nuance. Trying to approach discussions from an intellectual standpoint is futile and often rubbished.
Watching documentaries showing Adolf Hitler speaking in packed stadiums you can feel the emotion emitting from him and the resounding receipt and response from crowds. We all know what Hitler was responsible for and where his actions and words led.
Contemporary figures such as Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, Marine le Pen, and many others, are not avatars of Hitler but there is some of the same desire to speak to our darkest angels in their ranting and raving.
We too have politicians who have the gift of the gab and who use it to great effect to cause, and to further, division and mistrust in each other and in our democratic institutions.
Trump is a master at tugging at the heartstrings and dredging up the worst in people. He excels at rage and victimhood. Since Trump entered the public sphere he has uttered some of the most violent rhetoric in American politics. In at least 54 cases that the media house ABC News looked at, people under oath cited Trump in their reasons for their violent behaviour.
Like France, India, Brazil, and a number of other countries, America is more divided today than it has been in a very long time. Trump has overseen a great polarisation in American political and social life with some of the vilest prejudice and racism that has been allowed to roam free and unchecked since Jim Crow.
This is not to say that Democrats have not and do not use violent language and rhetoric against Trump and Republicans, or against Palestinians and other victims of American foreign policy. The vast majority of violent rhetoric, however, has come from Trump himself and some of his adherents. In the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump, numerous Republican politicians have without any proof blamed Democrats and the “left” for the attack.
Democratic politics is supposed to engender reasoned discussion, to enable opponents to persuade, to use reason to reach consensus, and find ways to co-operate and compromise to solve problems. What American politics has become though, especially since the entrance of Trump, is a war zone, with the Democrats and Republicans regarding each other as enemies.
What the rest of the world, including us in our precious and precarious democracy, should learn from the toxic political culture in America is that words matter, language matters. What we say and how we say it has a direct effect on people’s lives and people’s lived experiences. People in positions of power have a responsibility to be civil, to be truthful and to be tolerant. They are responsible for showing their supporters that political disagreement does not make people enemies.
Political opponents can disagree on ideological principles and policy commitments and still treat each other with respect. There is a need to go back to the ideals that have driven people who wanted to serve in public office in the best times of democracies around the world, which is a desire to improve and grow their countries.
If we believe this, then as countrymen and women, we should be able to engage with each other constructively realising that we all want the best for our countries. What might be different are the ideas being brought to the table but, at the core, as countrymen and women, we should not become enemies.
When people are constantly bombarded by language that calls the other an enemy, evil, debases them and calls for their elimination, it matters. When conspiracy theories and fact-free statements are normalised, it matters.
We cannot dismiss the debased forms of political engagement that are becoming more common in many countries as mere political talk. When something is said and repeated enough times, it becomes the truth.
Words can be used for good or for bad, they can be used to unite or to divide, they can be used to build or break down. Let us hold politicians and everyone in the public sphere who spews hate and division accountable. Let us be clear that all those who really love their countries, including our own tortured but beautiful country, will speak to our better angels. Those who lie, slander, insult and generally debase our public life are opportunists, not patriots. They are people of low character.
Words matter. Let’s use our words to build.
Nontobeko Hlela is a research fellow with the Institute for Pan African Thought & Conversation and a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg.