Last night, live across Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a nationally broadcast address to rouse, galvanize and hearten the nation. He said basically nothing. Persuasive oratory, however, doesn’t demand much in the way of concrete meaning — just a tide of credible emotion and a little argumentative panache. His message lacked clarity, depth and, looking it over again, actual information.
But if you weren’t paying careful attention, it sounded pretty nice.
On the NBC sitcom Community, Jeff Winger, a disgraced lawyer, charming womanizer and reluctant community college student, is famous for his Winger Speeches — glib, eloquent monologues designed to win arguments and mend problems through the power of silver-tongued charisma. He relies on appeals to emotion, rhetorical gimmicks, clever-sounding turns of phrase (“the real bugs aren’t the ones in those beds” “the only ghosts are the emotional ghosts I call fear…”).
Like Trudeau last night, Winger appreciates that what often counts is what it sounds like you’re saying rather than what you’ve really said.
One of the hallmarks of this source of discourse is the frequent invocation of gladdening cliche. It was all there: the apologetic confession (“this isn’t the news any of us wanted to hear”), the promise of hope (“we still have a shot at Christmas”), the obligatory salutation to our elders (“the Greatest Generation showed us that it isn’t easy… but they never gave up”), and of course, the inspiring call to action (“we have the power to get this under control,” “we can do this,” “we must come together”). This has the crafty effect of making the listener at once emboldened and responsible. You can do this, Trudeau urges. But remember. It’s on you.
Jagmeet Singh was right to identify, in his remarks immediately after Trudeau’s speech, that it’s “not good enough to just say the words” in matters of historical crisis. But the trick inherent in this sort of speech is that while the speaker is speaking, it certainly seems that words might be good enough — that appealing to our indomitable civic pride and stalwart enthusiasm might be enough to make us forget that few specific policies have been outlined, and that nothing much has actually been proposed for dealing with this looming second COVID wave.
“Diversity is not just our strength,” the Prime Minister seriously remarked. “It’s our competitive edge.” That sounds pretty good, until you give it the bare minimum of critical thought.
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