remarks on the U.S. President’s “exporting our way to stability” New York Times Op-ed

The economy is the single most important issue to Americans—well, duh—this comes as a surprise to no one but the U.S. Democratic party and their election committees. Our beloved U.S. President, however, for two long tedious years voted “present” on the debate about jobs and the economy, and instead pursued his own agenda of health care reform, energy sector reorganization, and education reform. Now that his once national party has been reduced by sudden and decisive electoral attrition to the rump of a regional party, the President reconsiders the wisdom of his priorities, and decides that it is time to act on behalf of the U.S. economy—and act he shall, my brothers and sisters!—in India.

I mean, that’s what I would do, wouldn’t you!? Who says that the voters can’t “identify” with President Obama?

Caption: Prosperity! Stability! Because it is my will that it should be so!—imagine “stability” as a campaign slogan

Democratic National Committee ad: “Stealing Democracy”—verbose, expository, abstract, and only effective if you accept in advance that electing Republicans is a bad thing—this is what an intimidation campaign looks like

Here be my transcript with tags and annotations

the tax-cut pit and how the House Democrats fell right into it—again

[...] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday renewed her pledge to pass an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, but now she’s leaving the door open to extending the tax cuts for upper-income Americans, writes Jake Sherman of Politico.com in a story titled Pelosi hedges on tax cuts

Sherman continues:

[...] “What I believe the American people deserve is a tax cut for the middle class,” Pelosi said. “And without getting into procedure and timing and process, what we’re going to do is to say at the end of the day the extension of the Obama middle-income tax cuts will take place, and that’s what I have to say on the subject” [...]

The emphases are mine, all mine.

Thoughts:

Len Britton’s “Better bail faster, Billy” campaign ad

Caption: Visual, pointed, funny in a self-effacing sort of way, elegantly simple, compelling in its analysis of what Britton believes to be misguided U.S. policy, singular in message, and in execution—Sublimely effective

Obama’s address at Carnegie Mellon University 6.2.10, notes and commentary

Here is the much-loved U.S. President, Barack Obama’s address given at Carnegie Mellon University on June 2 2010, available at realclearpolitics.com. So, let’s perform some rhetoric, shall we?—this time in the form of a simple rhetorical analysis of an excerpt of the speech followed by my thoughts and views.

Enthymemes and paradigms, brothers and sisters—these are the stuff of persuasive discourse as we shall observe, yet again.

Speech excerpt—Obama’s concluding remarks—and analysis after the break:

a thoughtful guy mulls Massachusetts

“President Barack Obama is mulling over the results from Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts as his administration plans its next steps, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said,” as reported by the Politico’s own Carol E. Lee in a story titled Obama Reflects on Mass. Race, and subtitled Mission Can’t Change.

Lee continues, quoting Axelrod:

“The president is a thoughtful guy, and he’s reflecting on what happened and thinking through what lessons there are there and how to move forward,” Axelrod told reporters outside the West Wing on Wednesday morning, adding that he hadn’t seen Obama yet but had spoken to him Tuesday night [...]

So if I understand correctly these are not so much Obama’s reflections as Axelrod’s. And, if I read Axelrod’s remarks correctly, here is the enthymeme as Axelrod frames it:

[...] Axelrod said Obama will push on with health care and highlight how the administration is fighting for the middle class and “everyday people” a term he used numerous times.

“The bottom line has to be and continue to be the economic security of everyday people,” Axelrod said. “We need to focus the agenda of Washington on that.”

On health care, he added in the past tense: “The irony of all this, of course, is that the health care initiative of the president was really aimed at giving more security to everyday working people in this country, as is the motivation from virtually everything that we do” [...]

Paraphrase: Our intent is to fight for the middle class.

enthymeme:

We need to focus on the agenda of Washington on the security of everyday people,

BECAUSE

Our bottom line has to be, and continues to be, the economic security of everyday people.

/enthymeme

coda:

The irony [of the decision delivered in Massachussets last night] is that our now-threatened health care initiative would deliver economic security to everyday people.

/coda

Consider the master-tropes and their relations. Synecdoche is a relation of the part to the whole, e.g. “all hands on deck.” Metonymy is a relation of contiguity, this stands for that, as when you refer to the Canadian federal government as Ottawa. A metaphor is a relation of identity: this is that. Irony is its opposite, this is not that, a relation of negation, and irony can be signaled with a raised eyebrow or a subtle change in the speaker’s tone.

Setting aside the speaker’s intention for a moment, the coda as I understand it can be read this way: The decision delivered in Massachusetts, which was based on conditions of economic insecurity, negates or flatly contradicts our now-threatened health care initiative, which would deliver economic security. Conclusion: The everyday people we profess to serve do not understand what we are trying to do for them. Axelrod frames the Massachusetts decision as either a brute failure to communicate, or a failure on the part of the voters to comprehend the intentions of the White House and its party.

We can only hope that the President, cloistered away and in deep reflection, is in the process of drawing more useful conclusions.

yours &c.
g.

UPDATE: The President really has drawn the right conclusions from Massachusetts!

frame and counter-frame: competing messages on the MA race and the awesome power of the enthymeme

In a Contentions blog blog-burst titled “Brown Gives the GOP its Message” Jennifer Rubin of Commentary Magazine comments on the Brown victory speech delivered last night:

[...] He showed some style, humor, and the ability to connect with the crowd. But he (and/or his political staff) also has a key talent: the ability to take big ideas and boil them down to their essential elements. Let’s face it, campaigns may be grounded in well-developed policy proposals, but they are conducted in punchy and memorable phrases [...]

Just so. Please allow me to editorialize for a moment: This is not politics by sound-bite as some critics allege. This is the shape and the form of argument in public life. When you hear anyone in public life lament that the issues we face resist a clear and intelligible form, allow yourself to imagine a big huge flaming ‘L’ for LOSER hovering above his or her pointy head. Everyone—you, me, everyone—is responsible for their own communication.  If you cannot articulate an idea, a concept, or a policy direction clearly, simply, and intelligibly, and in a way that engages your audience, please consider the possibility that you don’t yet understand your concept or idea yourself.

Persuasion requires messaging, and messaging requires a message (duh). The first law of communication is that the meaning of any utterance is the behavior that results. If you utter or emit and what you utter or emit is received as noise, then you don’t yet have a message. Here endeth the lesson.

Rubin continues:

[...] In addition to distilling the national-security message for conservatives, Brown provided a handy slogan for challengers in 2010:

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the agenda of a new establishment in Washington [...]

Brown’s “handy slogan” cited by Ruben is a perfect enthymeme, in this case an antithesis, the topic of opposites, in this case, establishment/independent. “Their agenda is x, mine is y” only the “mine is y” part is suppressed because Brown branded himself as an unapologetic rejectionist. Another turner of effective enthymemes that help shape perceptions as they pass into reflections is the estimable and erudite DCCC Chairman, Chris Van Hollen, who raised his handsomely coiffed head from his brandy snifter long enough to issue this elegant antithesis:

[...] President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident. President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy [...]

I cannot comment on how persuasive Van Hollen’s enthymeme may be. But it is richer than the Brown enthymeme that Rubin cites. Old/new, Bush/Obama, responsibility/irresponsibility, inflicting damage/offering repair—these are the framing oppositions that govern the new rationale emerging from progressives: Obama took the blame for the still unfolding irresponsibility and incompetence of the Bush administration. But the very richness of of the enthymeme may be its flaw among independent voters: it requires that you assume a lot more than Brown’s argument, so it would seem to be an argument that addresses partisans, not those of a more independent cast.

Here, I think, is a less effective frame for the decision delivered in Massachusetts last night. This is the DSCC’s Menendez:

[...] The truth is Democrats understand the economic anger voters feel, that’s in large part why we did well in 2006 and 2008.

“In the days ahead, we will sort through the lessons of Massachusetts: the need to redouble our efforts on the economy, the need to show that our commitment to real change is as powerful as it was in 2008, and the reality that we cannot take a single thing for granted and cannot afford even a second of complacency [...]

Here be the enthymeme as I read the argument:

Democrats did well in 2006 and 2008

hence

Democrats understand the economic anger voter’s feel

So does it follow that Democrats no longer understand voter anger given the off-year election decisions in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts? The problem with mandates is (a) they must be correctly interpreted, and (b) they must be continually renewed.

What troubles me is what follows from the enthymeme for the writer, the “need to redouble our efforts,” “show our commitment to change,” and not take anything for granted or become complacent. This immediately assumes (a) that our efforts to date were ineffective or we got distracted, (b) we lost or obscured our commitment to change, and (c) we took a lot for granted and we became complacent. If you follow Menendez’s assumptions, he seems to be scolding his own party. In any case, this is not a call for analysis or reflection because of the decision delivered in Massachusetts. For the author, the seminal events were 2006 and 2008 when “we did well.” What is required is that we recall the spirit of 2006 and 2008 and behave accordingly. Only conditions were very different in 2006 and 2008.

Also consider how the writer embeds or frames the Democrats “understanding of voter anger”: “The truth is Democrats understand [...]” The writer frames the decision in Massachusetts as a dissociation between the sensible (what we saw in or heard from Massachusetts) and the intelligible (the real or the true story of the decision delivered in Massachusetts).

Menendez attempt to put the special election in perspective. I think he is persuasive. The special election was, after all, special, and the Democrats still enjoy commanding and historic majorities in both houses of Congress, and they hold with the White House. So I think the writer has ample justification for his “true” account of events in Massachusetts and the rest of the U.S. But another truth, a stranger truth, a counter-truth, is that the rump Republican Party, even in its richly deserved electoral exile, has up-ended the entire Obama agenda of health care, education, and energy.

It baffles me that the Republicans could transition from the least competent majority party in U.S. history to the most effective minority party in U.S. history so seamlessly, and despite their fractious in-fighting and tedious navel-gazing. The Republicans seem to be enjoying undeserved and wildly disproportionate tactical redemption in the very teeth of their massive strategic failures. The Obama agenda is dead because the Republicans now have 41 instead of 40 senators? Really!? This in itself is an index of the national mood.

Yeah, but then again, what do I know?

yours &c.
g.

commentary on Obama’s remarks titled “update on the relief efforts in Haiti”

Obama’s remarks titled “Update on the Relief Efforts in Haiti” continues the developing Obama leitmotif of consulting-with-elites. Other examples that I have commented upon here would be (a) Obama’s coming-to-know narrative of the economic crisis, and (b) Obama’s junior executive account of reviews upon reviews. In (a) Obama narrates the story of how his economic team presented their analysis and how he directed them to act in light of that analysis. In (b) Obama narrates how a crisis compelled him to initiate reviews; in the course of (b) Obama issues a defense and a justification for the law enforcement and intelligence “communities.” In both (a) and (b) Obama describes the perceptions, reflections, and operations of elites and their professional “communities.” Political community exists only as agency, an agency expressed only through elite and professional “communities.”

Obama’s “Update on the Relief Efforts in Haiti” follows point for point the organizing figure of a telephone call between himself and President Préval of Haiti. The telephone conversation as it develops in Obama’s remarks is a chronotope: Obama inscribes his entire account within the course of the telephone conversation itself. In the course of the conversation Obama (a) offers condolences to President Préval, and he expresses support. The massive and logistically sophisticated American relief effort—(b)—unfolds in the “meantime” of the conversation (“Meanwhile,” says Obama, “American resources continue to arrive in Haiti.”) It is also in the “meantime” of the conversation that Obama (c) digresses to offer his rationale for the U.S. relief effort, to (d) thank the “American people,” and to (e) announce a meeting with ex-Presidents charged with organizing further relief efforts. To conclude his remarks Obama (f) returns to the conclusion of his telephone call, an emotional exchange of thanks between the two Presidents.

The rationale that Obama offers in the bracketed “meantime” of his telephone call is this:

(a) [...] And as the international community continues to respond, I do believe that America has a continued responsibility to act. Our nation has a unique capacity to reach out quickly and broadly and to deliver assistance that can save lives.

(b) That responsibility obviously is magnified when the devastation that’s been suffered is so near to us. Haitians are our neighbors in the Americas, and for Americans they are family and friends. It’s characteristic of the American people to help others in time of such severe need. That’s the spirit that we will need to sustain this effort as it goes forward. There are going to be many difficult days ahead [...]

Paragraph (a) can be recast as a classic enthymeme:

America has a responsibility to act

BECAUSE

Our nation has a unique capacity to save lives by delivering assistance

Question: Why is this enthymeme buried in the “meantime” of a telephone conversation?

Paraphrase: We have a responsibility to act because we can act. Capacity to act passes into the responsibility to act. This is the assumption, the suppressed premise.  This is also the common rationale and the motive power for the primacy of political agency in general. Does anyone remember “yes, we can?”—where the “we,” it was thought at the time, consisted of people empowered as participants in a political community renewed from below? This would be a topic of circumstance, the possible passing into the actual precisely because it—in this case, aid and our capacity to deliver it—is possible.

Paragraph (b), which stands in a relation of elaboration to paragraph (a), can be recast into a classic paradigm that follows from the enthymeme given in paragraph (a).

Claim: The responsility that we have to the Haitians is even greater because

Reason: The U.S. is close to Haiti,

Reason: Many Haitian Americans have family and friends in Haiti

Reason: It is characteristic of the American people to help others

These examples pass into the coda: “That’s the spirit that we will need to sustain this effort as it goes forward. There are going to be many difficult days ahead.” But these reasons only “magnify” the primary reason why the U.S. should assist: it can.

Paragraph (b) can also be construed as a supporting enthymeme to (a) following the topic of induction: “We are responsible for the safety and the dignity of the Haitians BECAUSE of our proximity to Haiti, our consanguinity with the Haitians, and our history of providing aid.”

In the FIG that follows I rough out the narrative of the argument in the form of a semiotic square based on the term “action” or “active” (1), which as I read the President’s argument provides the primary opposition (action or inaction).

FIG: A rough cut semiotic square that depicts my reading of the argument.

The story as I read it passes from non-passive (3) to  inactive (4) to active (1). We have a history of providing aid, says the President, so we are not passive (we are non-passive, or 3). What propels us from inactivity (4) to action or activity (1) is the motive power of our capacity. We can help, hence: we should help. The active (1) and the non-passive (3) resolve into the responsible (c), i.e. us, in this case the U.S., those who are responsible for the Haitians.

In Obama’s argument we pass from The Unmotivated (b) to The Responsible (c). A possible counter-narrative consists in (1)-(2) that resolves into (a), the active-passive opposition that is the basis of reflective action, action that is calibrated or modulated with its opposite, what in public life takes the form of policy over time. A policy of territorial integrity, for example, may require land or trade concessions. Or a policy of free trade may require boundary-spanning market regulation or coordination. Where Obama’s call to action is a responsibility premised on capacity, the counter-narrative would be a call to action based on deliberation that issues into choice, as the conclusion of any deliberative argument is a choice. This choice would require a more effective justification than brute and inarticulate capacity.

In Obama’s schema enormity—the enormity of the crisis—places a demand on our capacity. It is a rationale that admits of no conceptual limit other than itself: our brute, empirical capacity to do good. A deliberation-choice schema, on the other hand, demands justification on its face: it calls for an articulated limit.

Policy requires surer ground than mere “capacity.” Recall the maximalist policy formulae of the post-9.11 Bush presidency. The erstwhile Bush Administration failed—and for all we know still fails—to draw this lesson from its overreach in Iraq War or its Global War on Terror. It would be the Obama administration that would insist on legal and material limits, at least with respect to Bush policies. With respect to their own policies—or lack of a policy, in this case—they appear to make the same mistakes.

In sum, Obama did not deliver us from the premises of political maximalism. He gives us a different kind of maximalism.

yours &c.
g.

remarks on Obama’s Address to Joint Session of Congress delivered February 24th 2009

What follows are my remarks on President Obama’s first address to Congress. My unit of analysis is rhetorical argument. By rhetorical argument I mean what Aristotle means by rhetorical argument, enthymeme and paradigm. My method in this case is to mark up President Obama’s introduction. This is the part where he lays out his rationale.

This is my paraphrase of Present Obama’s introduction. If I understand the U.S. President correctly, he says that (a) the economy is in trouble, but (b) we will rebuild because we have the resources to rebuild. These resources are in our laboratories, among our entrepreneurs, and in our capacity for hard work. What is required (c) is for all of us to pull together. Now, (d) if we are honest with ourselves, then we will realize that these problems did not develop overnight. We will realize (e) that when times were good we allowed the few to plunder our surpluses at the expense of the many. Now (f)—and my reading of (f) is largely inferred—we must not just reverse this trend, but complete the work that justice and the historical moment demand.

For the rest of the speech President Obama lays out his proposals. At the end he puts a human face on his proposals by introducing people and telling their stories. This part interests me far less. The exigencies of the moment, the capital markets, public opinion, and an ascendant U.S. Congress have yet to have had their say. President Obama outsourced the stimulus bill to Congress. He has not indicated that he will depart from this method on future legislation. So his proposals will change. What interests me is the rationale President Obama develops in his introduction. This will probably not change as this reflects President Obama’s own analysis of the historical moment, his role within that moment, and what he believes to be the project of his presidency.

First I will lay out the excerpt of the speech. Then I will share my own conclusions.

remarks on the recent throne speech

What follows is my paraphrase of PM Harper’s Speech from the Throne, delivered 26 January 2009 in Ottawa, Ontario.

If I read the PM Harper correctly, this would be his governing enthymeme (reconstructed):

It is necessary that we work together (stand beside each other, strive for greater solidarity)

–because–

the world is threatened by a struggling economy.

The argument as Harper sets it up calls for a rationale for concerted action that spans ideological boundary. I think Harper delivers on that. In fact, if I read him correctly, he goes further than that. Harper continues with a description of the context of the occasion.

Canadians expect their elected representatives to work in the interests of Canada.

Once again we are here to consider our legislative priorities.

We have suffered other crises, overcome other challenges.

Today our challenge is economic uncertainty. The crisis is global.

Here my reading becomes speculative. Here is the text.

[...] The Government’s agenda and the priorities of Parliament must adapt in response to the deepening crisis. Old assumptions must be tested and old decisions must be rethought. The global economy has weakened since Canadians voted in the last general election. In fact, it has weakened further since Parliament met last month [...]

The emphasis is mine. Here would be the argument as I understand it:

The Government’s agenda must adapt

—because—

since Canadians went to the polls the crisis has deepened

Every political office-seeker proposes a theory of representation whether explicitly or otherwise, i.e. an account of not just how the candidate as an elected official will advance the issues of his or her constituencies, but an explanation of why he or she would want to do so consonant with the candidate’s values, biography etc.—e.g. I am one of you, I believe as you believe. If we read PM Harper correctly, what he suggests is that the electoral mandate delivered in the general election may no longer hold. Conditions have changed. The contract between Government and people renewed this last election requires further revision.

Harper continues (as we paraphrase him):

Hence, our Government has listened to Canadians. We have consulted widely.

We approached the process of dialogue in a spirit of open and non-partisan cooperation.

We will submit a stimulus plan based on what we have learned.

We will act in a way that is targeted and will provide immediate stimulus or relief without returning to permanent deficits.

Consistent with the call for a new contract between Harper’s Government and the Canadian people is the call for new grounds for the legitimacy of Tory rule. It is no longer the election that confers that legitimacy, it is rather the Government’s post-election consensus making activity: We have listened to a broad base of Canadians. And we continue to listen. This would be the rationale Harper’s concessions to the opposition.

Only weeks ago this Government had to stare down the rise of a progressive coalition. It did. But it’s hold—and the hold of center-right governments on the European Peninsula—remains precarious. The minority Tory government rules only because fragmentation on the left, the same fragmentation on the left that has largely doomed the Social Democratic movement on the European peninsula. In an article titled Does European Social Democracy have a Future? Robert Taylor explains:

[...] Electoral setbacks for social democrats in Europe cannot be dismissed as the temporary result of fickle and volatile voters who will return to the fold in due course. The truth is that social democrats are now very much on the ideological defensive. This does not mean, however, that the axis of political advantage has tilted inexorably rightward in any dramatic way. On the contrary, what should concern social democrats is the unexpected emergence of what looks like a serious threat from new forces to their left.

In Germany Die Linke, or the Left Party, as it is known in English, has become the third-largest political party in the country after the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. It is the result of a strategic alliance between the old Communists from East Germany and breakaways from the left wing of the Social Democrats, under the charismatic leadership of Oskar Lafontaine, the former finance minister. Der Linke polled around 15 percent in the spring regional elections and has become a pivotal force in cities like Berlin and Hamburg and regions such as Hesse.

A similar left surge at the expense of social democrats has occurred in Denmark. In the 2007 general election the Left Socialists secured 13 percent of the total Danish vote. The electoral shift to a left beyond social democracy has been even more dramatic in the Netherlands. In the last general election in 2006, the Left Socialists won a sixth of the vote, not far behind the Dutch Labour Party, which lost a quarter of its core support and finished with only just over 20 percent [...]

The emphasis is mine. In the U.S. where the electoral mechanics force blocs and interest groups to filter their interests through 2 national parties, the resurgence on the left takes the form of e.g. of the anti-DNC Web Democrats, neoprogressives, and the victory of Obama and his activist base over Clinton. In Canada’s mixed parliamentary system the result has been minority center right that rules on on the basis of its internal coherence and cohesion against a left that remains vibrant, active, but divided.

Any movement toward consolidation on the left would doom the right. That any division on the right would likewise bring it down is less remarked upon.

Back to Harper (whether quoted or as we paraphrase him):

“These actions will protect the jobs of today while readying our economy to create the jobs of tomorrow.”

We face a difficult year.

The government will focus its efforts on the economy.

“The present crisis is new, but the imperative of concerted action is a challenge to which we have risen before.”

The emphasis is mine. The bolded line is redolent of Obama’s inaugural address where he says:

[...] Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old [...]

This theme of continuity-in-crisis, of new challenges met with historically grounded communal values, is the theme of the day in capitals across North America and the European Peninsula. The values-act distinction is curious. You may see us behave or act in unfamiliar ways, Harper, Obama, and other elites across Europe and North America seem to say. But our unfamiliar acts and behaviors will be based on familiar values. So what would be the message? Whatever we do, please do not freak out? This is hardly comforting.

Just thoughts.

yours &c.
g.