Our National Psyche’s Language is Changing. Can We Reverse It?
How Americans Think and Speak about Each Other is Descending into Darkness. Why?
Our Unique “National Language”
We have always been an aspirational nation. Having always been a representative democracy as such, even when we failed massively in conducting our national governance structure to the benefit of those it is supposed to serve, we still aspired for something better. We always strove for that “more perfect union” that our founders wrote and spoke about. We wanted our nation’s democracy, with all its imperfections, to be better. Better than what our parents and grandparents had. Better not only for us, but better for our children, better for our grandchildren, as well as better for all future generations of Americans.
That something “better” may not have been at the forefront of our minds constantly or been reflected in all that we said or did individually or collectively. Yet, we generally believed as Americans that improving our democracy was something we were called to do. We never forgot that. It was central to celebrating our national patriotic holidays like July 4th and Memorial Day. It made us as Americans unique; something we could reasonably believe in, as well as hope that much of world viewed it as attainable for all people, whatever country they called home.
We have always believed that. Even when circumstances didn’t reflect our belief, we still wanted to believe it. Even groups of Americans that we turned our backs on did not lose faith in our democracy, even when the evidence argued that their losing faith in it was justified. We still wanted to pursue that belief. And, the words we spoke, especially by our leaders, reflected that belief and that hope. It has been our uniquely American “national language”. It has been a discourse that is part of who we are as Americans.
What Our National “Language” Has Always Been
We developed a national language about American democracy because of our national psyche of hope and betterment. We needed a way to communicate what we were and wanted to be as a nation. It has been a language of inspiration. It has been a language of hope, especially in dark times. But whether in good times or bad, it spoke to us about what we should be striving for, both now and tomorrow.
Because of its aspirational nature, our national language has always exhorted us to come together to meet challenges in pursuit of the common good. A common good that held out the promise that, if we each pursued it together, would do the most good for the most people. And, it would achieve that common good for us at a collective and individual cost we believed would advance our interests both personally and nationally. We believed this even when that common good required sacrifice on our part, which it often has.
Words are important. They should not be ignored, especially in a democracy. Words can bring us together or pull us apart. For in a democracy, just as it is with the precept of truth, words are part of its “currency”. Periodically, we should reexamine those words, to reflect on them, savor them, and ask ourselves if we are meeting their intended meaning.
How Our Leaders Have Spoken to Us
Our leaders used this language to cast a vision of what our national psyche looked like on a daily basis and in times of major events, including war as well as racial and economic turmoil. It was a language that reinforced our national psyche of chasing a better democracy. A better democracy that reflected the revolutionary concept advanced by our founders- the concept of “We the People”. A language that elevated, reflected, and emphasized the importance of not only the consent of the governed, but the rule of law, majority rule, the importance of voting, protection of the minority from majority abuse, and on and on. It has been a language spoken of for so long by so many of our elected leaders, especially presidents, it is easy to take it for granted or ignore it.
Our Leaders Words Have Always Articulated Our National Psyche
But we ignore our national language at our own peril. So many good examples have come down through our history from our leaders exemplifying what this language should be and should consist of in order to reinforce our psyche as Americans. It is to our benefit to examine and take heed of some of those words.
President John F. Kennedy said this at his inauguration on January 20, 1961:
“And so, my fellow Americans; ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country.” [1]
President Abraham Lincoln said this in midst of the Civil War after the horrifically bloody Battle of Gettysburg when dedicating a new national cemetery there in 1863:
“…that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” [2]
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., while peacefully protesting the lack of civil rights for millions of African Americans, said this on the National Mall in Washington, DC in August 1963:
“…Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.” [3]
Our founders wrote this in the preamble of our Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” [4]
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this at his March 1933 inauguration facing the depths of the deepest economic depression this country has ever known:
“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” [5]
In his 2021 Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery President Joe Biden described the idea behind America as a nation:
“It’s the greatest idea (i.e., America) in the long history of humankind. An idea that we’re all created equal in the image of Almighty God. That we’re all entitled to dignity…and respect, decency, and honor. Love of neighbor. They’re not empty words, but the vital, beating heart of our nation…Democracy is more than a form of government. It’s a way of being; it’s a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people…Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty- literally, the rule of the people…” [6]
President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt spoke in his 1910 speech delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas of the duty of our elected officials to serve those that elect them rather than special interests:
“…One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected and not special interests…” [7]
And, in his most recent State of the Union address, President Biden closed with this:
“…Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. And I will always be President for all Americans because I believe in America. I believe in you, the American people. You’re the reason we’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am now. So, let’s build the future together. Let’s remember who we are. We are the United States of America. And there is nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.” [8]
There are numerous other examples of our leaders communicating in this aspirational language of belief and hope in our nation, its people, and what it should stand for, including what we needed to improve upon to achieve the goals the founders’ goals in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. This is how, until recently, we talked and thought about our nation.
The Efforts Underway to Change our National Language
Certainly, we have had “uncivil discourse” before in our history such as Charles Lindbergh and his rising fascist/NAZI movement of the 1930s, or populist gasbags like Louisiana’s Senator Huey Long. But something significant, something different is now happening to how we speak of and think of ourselves as Americans and about nation.
It is in the public square, right in front of us and it is being amplified ten times over by today’s technology of social media and by a news media that has, for the most part, abandoned its role as an independent arbiter of truth.
Yet, it may be so apparent that it is easy to ignore or not notice, or perhaps we are becoming numb to it. It has been underway since 2016. It is an effort to inculcate us with different words and terminology to change our national language, thus changing our national character- our national psyche. This new language has a negative dumbing down effect by changing our focus and attention from belief in democratic ideals and aspirations, to pursuit of cult-like leader support, admiration, and worship.
It is a language of coarseness, frustration, anger, and despair. It is a language of grievance, shared victimhood, revenge, and retribution attempting to reclaim a mythical past based on inaccurate and revised history in order to create a false reality for us. In order to create that false reality, this language degrades and denigrates our democratic institutions claiming they are all broken and that only one person has the ability and the influence to fix them which would be done by replacing them with another type of government. It is a language of mendacity consisting of stereotypes, false promises, false characterizations, and outright lies. It is a language not of aspiration or hope, but of imposed limitations, racial and sexual orientation intolerance, control, negativity, aspersions, false promises, restrictions, and prohibitions.
It is a language that casts a dark vision for our future based not on a shared sense of the common good, but what is “in it for me”. A language that tells us we are entitled to have all of our many individual complaints, our anger, and our jealousies addressed, even if that means reducing the rights and freedoms of others. This language is spoken to us at a childlike level filled with ridiculous statements that have nothing to do with the issues our democracy faces. Infantile statements are now common such as eliminating water saving bathroom fixtures [9] or whether it is preferable to die from a shark attack or electrocution [10]. It is a language full of “hard to follow tangents”, jumping from one thought to another without completing the previous one. It is language intended to validate our fears, insecurities, and prejudices to justify our anger, giving us the “illusion of empowerment”.[11] It is a language that brings out the worst in us, not the best.
Examples Abound of this Seismic Public Square Language Change
Our news media provides us with an abundance of examples of this seismic degradation by our public square’s new language, although the media has generally failed to consistently call out its falsehoods, explain its manipulative nature, and its damaging impacts on a free-thinking democratic society.
On July 21, 2016, then candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump ascended to the podium at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to accept his party’s nomination. The words of his acceptance speech were, in part:
“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, (dramatic pause with audience laughter), which is why I alone can fix it.” [12] (emphasis mine)
This new type of discourse raised its head early in 2017 when now President Trump’s staff, at his direction, set out to insist to Americans that the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was the largest ever. It was not , being easily documented, and easily proven that it was not true. However, they began describing their assertions as “alternate facts”.[13] Lies like this one were now given a label to all of us by Trump’s staff- “alternate facts”, aka lies, which has been steadily fed to us since then. The lexicon of Trump was now being unleashed on all Americans.
Further, the inauguration speech given by Trump, called by some his “American carnage speech”, painted a bleak dystopian picture of the U.S.:
“…For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories…. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now..[14].”
Since then, our former president and members of his party have been continuously involved in creating a public square language and delivery style that has launched us on a non-stop descent into a lower form of speaking, writing, and thinking about ourselves and our nation. We hear messages about how unintelligent our military leaders are, messages about how disgusting some of our major cities are, messages about how our fallen soldiers are “suckers and losers”, and how we must question our long-term alliances that have insured peace in Europe since the end of World War II.
We hear descriptions of their political opponents as “enemies” worthy of investigation, imprisonment, or worse. We hear of plans to pardon convicted insurrectionists, and how a former president’s multiple felony convictions for election interference are a “sham”. We hear plans for retribution for the former president’s other pending criminal interferences in the form of pursuing possible imprisonment of those he views as his political enemies who brought these charges against him. And this is just a small part of this lower grade discourse that is sweeping our America like a tsunami right now.
Lowering the Bar, One Word at a Time
The question becomes for all of us Americans is this- is this who we are? Is this is how we want our leaders to communicate to us? Is this how we wish to think of ourselves? Do we consider this form of communication inspiring? Does it lift us up? Do words like this describe who we want to be both individually and nationally? Do we understand what these words are really telling us, what they are really communicating as to what is intended for our nation if those using this language resume power?
Do we understand that these words are telling us of an intention to change our form of government? Do we understand that these words are telling us that those speaking them really do hate democracy, and they intend to change our form of government with or without our consent? Do we understand that they believe they know what is best for us, We the People, and that our democratic right to grant the consent of the governed means nothing to them?
That’s the Importance of Our National Language
That is the importance of our national discourse, our national language. Its words and messages can be used to inspire us to work towards not only a better today, but perhaps more importantly- a future of hope and a better democracy. Or, it can manipulate and motivate us to a place of grievance, victimhood, fear, anger, and thus, a collective sense of misery where we lose our collective American optimism. What do you choose? What do we choose? Either by being proactive or by default doing nothing, we all choose one way or another. We choose for ourselves and we choose for our country.
As for me, even with all our challenges, problems, and obstacles, I choose hope. I choose freedom. I choose democracy. I optimistically choose it for today and for tomorrow. I choose it for myself, my children, and grandchildren. I choose democracy and its language as the basis of our national political discourse, not the language of darkness. How about you?
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[1] John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 1961, Voices of Democracy, https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/kennedy-inaugural-address-speech-text
[2] The Gettysburg Address, by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, PA, www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
[3] Transcript of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech : NPR
[4] Preamble - We the People | Constitution Center
[5] Franklin D. Roosevelt | The White House
[6] “Remarks by President Biden at the 153rd National Memorial Day Observance, May 31, 2021, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/05/31/remarks-by -president-biden-at-the-153rd-national
[7] From the Archives: President Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism Speech | whitehouse.gov
[8] State of the Union 2024: Transcript of President Joe Biden's speech | AP News
[9] Trump says people are 'flushing toilets 10, 15 times' in call for better water standards (youtube.com)
[10] Trump Reveals He’d Rather Die by Electrocution Than by Shark (nymag.com)
[11] Donald Trump’s strange speaking style, as explained by linguists - Vox
[12] Excerpt from Donald Trump 2016 Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech, July 21, 2016, Politico, https://www.politico.com/video/2020/08/20/trump-at-2016-rnc-i-alone-can-fix-it-085403
[13] “Conway: Trump White House Offered ‘Alternate Facts’ on Crowd Size”, by Eric Bradner, January 23, 2017, Updated 12:38 EST, https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/Kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html
[14] Full text: 2017 Donald Trump inauguration speech transcript - POLITICO