The Harm of Rhetorical Schizophrenia

(Disclaimer: La Tonique Media LLC does not represent any political ideology. While we do not espouse any political beliefs, we do seek to provide a balance perspective by incorporating voices from both sides of the political spectrum.)

By Stepan Gauvreau

Dichotomous messaging from the president and the secretary of state is deleterious to the ability of the U.S. to promote democracy and pressure authoritarian leaders to respect the right of citizens to assemble peacefully.

On July 1st, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo railed against Chinese actions to curtail ongoing protests in Hong Kong, calling it “…one of the most unfree countries in the world,” and further noting in a press release that government “security forces are already rounding up Hong Kongers for daring to speak and think freely.”  He denounced the treatment of protestors who were trying to stem the tide of Chinese encroachments on Hong Kong’s autonomy.  The week before Pompeo’s statements, President Trump wrote on Twitter that demands for equality from Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders and protestors amounted to acts of “treason, sedition, [and] insurrection.”

Americans who assembled to demand equality and fair treatment by law enforcement were called treasonous by the president, while Hongkongers who assembled to protest increasingly impinging Chinese influence were lauded by the secretary of state.  The government’s schizophrenic reply to peaceful assembly at home and abroad was not limited to the situation in Hong Kong.  

In response to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s crackdown of protests after the August 9th election, which was deemed unfair by many governments in the West, Pompeo released a statement calling on Lukashenko to respect the right of Belarusians to peacefully assemble.  Several weeks before the statement made by Pompeo, unmarked federal officers, lauded and encouraged by Trump, were grabbing Portland protestors off the streets using unmarked vehicles.  On June 1st, peaceful protestors in Washington, D.C., were tear gassed to clear a space for a photo op for the president. The divide in the language between the president and the secretary of state is not only markedly hypocritical but also damaging to the U.S.’ ability to support democratic movements throughout the world.  

A Black Lives Matter protest in the UK. (Getty Images)

Though the invasion of Iraq, the Great Recession, and other gaffes and blunders have caused many foreign governments and peoples–especially those previously or currently not aligned with U.S. foreign policy–to doubt American promotion of democratic practices and global liberalization, the U.S. and its citizenry still possess immense power in their ability to champion democratic movements. 

Despite the president’s vitriolic response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the inertia of the protests–which served as proof that the U.S. is a nation still struggling for appreciable equality–was evident in the parallel BLM campaigns around the globe.  While catalyzed by the grim killing of George Floyd and the subsequent public outcry, the protests that sprung up in dozens of countries focused their demands to denounce respective institutional problems, making the movement part of their own and the global fight for equality.

The schizophrenic response from Trump and Pompeo to what ostensibly is the right of every person–the right to peaceful assembly–underscores the malleability of a supposedly unalienable right.  This constitutional provision has been bent and beaten to fit the personal and party agendas of the Trump administration.  Masha Gessen, in her book Surviving Autocracy, writes that “Hypocrisy in politics, as infuriating and damaging as it can be, serves the function of reiterating aspirational values. But the Trump administration has no moral ambition."

The lack of any moral ambition in the current administration is why Hong Kong protestors, when faced with brutal crackdowns from the state, were spurred on by pro-democratic rhetoric.  Partisan pandering, among other reasons, is why American BLM protestors who reacted adversely to escalations in force and violence from law enforcement were labelled as seditious and treasonous.  Obsequious and sycophantic followers of the president at all levels only serve to create an echo chamber for this hypocrisy; and such begets the obliteration of accountability.

Dichotomous rhetoric absent democratic aspirational values undermines our ability to support human rights from a position of moral leadership. The U.S. has long adhered to promoting democratic processes throughout the globe.  Sometimes this support has been only nominal, and sometimes it has been used as a pretext for invasion, regime change, or extrajudicial killings of foreign nationals.  But this ideal–the advancement of democratic values–is a foundational aspect of American national identity.  As voters, citizens, and members of an increasingly illiberal world, it is paramount that we hold members of government accountable for hypocritical rhetoric and actions. 

The moral leadership of the U.S.–in lockstep with that of our allies–is crucial to curb the rise of right-wing nationalist governments that have cropped up at an alarming rate in the last two decades.  Constant support–not only when it is politically convenient–of the right of citizens to peacefully assemble in Hungary, Russia, the Philippines, and other countries where democracy is under attack is tantamount to fighting for the right to peaceful assembly in the U.S., a country whose constitution names the right as inalienable.  

With the right to assemble peacefully being derided and attacked by the highest public officials, we, the body politic, must hold public officials and entire administrations accountable for bifurcated and hypocritical talk.  Such widely disparate rhetoric from the members of one administration should not be separated and treated variously.  Blatant hypocrisy that lacks moral ambition should be remembered by all in voting booths, where a deleterious and illiberal administration can be held accountable. 

Stepan is a political writer for La Tonique.