The Real Pronoun Problem
When we hear “we/they” invoked, we have left democratic dialogue and entered propaganda.
This is the second post of a series on propaganda.
Trump wants us to see the pronouns “they/them” as a problem—as a sign of everything that is wrong with political correctness. The real pronouns we should be worried about are “we/they.” These are the pronouns that signal a move to propaganda and, eventually, a slide into some form of totalitarianism.
During the 2024 election, Trump and the RNC ran an ad about Kamala Harris emphatically defending transgender surgery for detained immigrants and prisoners. The ad ran on a loop during football games (the RNC reportedly spent $215 million on transgender ads in the 2024 campaign), and it may have influenced enough young men to vote for Trump and swing the election.
I’m not going to argue the merits of Harris’ position. Instead, I want to discuss Harris’ statement and how the Republicans used it from the perspective of rhetoric. Actually, the perspective of propaganda.
For the backstory on Harris’ comment, see Grace Abels’ “Harris Has Supported Gender-Affirming Care,” published in PolitiFact on October 28, 2024:
https://19thnews.org/2024/10/harris-gender-affirming-care-incarcerated-people-fact-check/
Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Harris’ position is correct—that it is not only the moral position to take, but it is also constitutionally mandated by the prohibition against “cruel and usual punishment.” I know that both points are debatable, but let’s focus on the rhetoric.
To explain the rhetoric concisely, the RNC ad used Harris’ words against her by quoting her out of context. The ad used a soundbite, but it also switched the rhetorical situation. The video of Harris’ defending transgender surgery for detained immigrants and prisoners was made during the 2019 Democratic primary. It occured during an interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality. Harris was speaking to a specific audience, supporters of LBGTQ rights, which might explain why she was so emphatic as she stated her position.
The RNC pulled a soundbite from the interview and reframed it. Mikhail Bakhtin would say that the RNC “reaccentuated” the soundbite. Any time that a quote is removed from its original context and placed into a different context, Bakhtin maintained, its meaning is changed.
The RNC ad ended with this: “Kamala Harris is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” Clever and effective. This made Harris the poster child for hyper-liberal views, evoking the resentment toward political correctness that had been building among many Americans since the 1950s. Part of Trump’s appeal is that he has given permission, since his gilded escalator speech on June 15, 2015, for this resentment to be unleashed.
The history of using soundbites to define an opponent is long. It dates back, at least, to the rise of mass media in the late nineteenth century. Before this time, politicians often adjusted their comments to a local audience. As mass media expanded, politicians had to address a general audience, the entire nation, even when speaking to a small crowd in a small town.
Some politicians have used the complex rhetorical situation of speaking to multiple audiences to their benefit. On August 24, 1976, Jimmy Carter, then running for president, spoke before the National American Legion Convention in Seattle. He announced that, if elected, he would pardon draft dodgers from the Vietnam War. The immediate audience of 25,000 Legionnaires booed him. However, many of the Americans watching Carter on the nightly news had a more positive reaction: They thought that Carter had guts and integrity. This was a different time when the news was less siloed and there were only three television networks.
With the Internet and social media, it is harder to speak effectively to more than one audience. There are too many audiences, and soundbites have become even more important. Every event is recorded, and the words of traditional news sources are obscured as images mutate into mimes on the Internet. In this environment, politicians have become so careful about giving the opposition a soundbite that they typically give evasive answers. This is why so many politicians seem inauthentic and that Trump, who typically speaks without hesitation, comes across as authentic.
Political correctness has, in some ways, led to inauthenticity, and being politically incorrect now seems authentic.
But there is more going on here. The virtue signaling that often comes with politically correct statements from Liberals also plays into the “we/they” dichotomy that is typical of propaganda.
Before illustrating this, I want to point out a general strategy in rhetoric: If you want people to act, speak in simple binaries that portray the “we” as purely good and the “they” as purely evil. This is a key feature of war propaganda, which is clear from glancing at a single World War II propaganda poster.
In the “we/they” binary, the “they” are dehumanized, presented as an absolute evil, which moves people to support the war—to annihilate the evil enemy.
If, in contrast, you want people to slow down and think, do something to blur the binary. Add qualifications and context. Add complexity. Add history. When people think about an issue, even when they are confused, they are less likely to act. In 2019, in her comments to the National Center for Transgender Equality, Harris did not do this. She enthusiastically supported transgender surgery for detained immigrants and prisoners. She presented a complex issue as if it were a simple dichotomy.
Later, she modified her position. In 2024, when she was asked about the 2019 statement, she gave a better answer: “I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump followed. It’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medically necessary basis, to people in the federal prison system.” This statement is not so easily turned into a soundbite, but it wasn’t enough to repair the damage.
It is important to point out, however, that the playing ground is not even. As Aristotle wrote in his Rhetoric, people enjoy being angry. When they are angry, they enjoy plotting revenge. Being rational and nuanced is not as fun. Harris’ earlier statement resonated because it was more likely to piss people off.
I believe that anger is best viewed as a drug. It provides short term pleasure, but it can destroy us in the end. Not just us, but also those around us, those who love us. It’s a karma thing. Our actions create the world we live in.
The danger of the “we/they” dichotomy, for us and our world, is that the “they” can quickly evolve into scapegoats. Once this happens, it is not only easier for the “we” to act; it is also easier to resort to violence—even political terror. Once the “they” have been dehumanized, as in the war poster above, “they” have no rights and “they” deserve to be destroyed.
This move happens more easily than we might expect. We consistently see it on social media. When a video about the RNC ad was posted on YouTube, Harris’ purity evoked a series of equally pure responses. To spare you, I will cite just one example:
Yes, that's sick!!! How many more reasons do people need to know this woman is dangerous in every way!!! Go Trump Go!!!
This is one of the more moderate responses.
To qualify, Harris never said that people who are against LBGTQ rights are evil. But, the implied message of political correctness since, at least, the 1950s, has been that the “we” who are using politically correct language and making politically correct statements are on the moral high ground and that the “they” who have failed to adapt to the rapidly emerging new culture are racists or bigots. The “we/they” dichotomy does not open up political dialogue. It shuts it down.
This is my key point: We need to be concerned about all binaries because they bring us farther away from democratic dialogue and closer to propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that propagandas “does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love and hate, right and wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way.” Earlier, I wrote that Trump tends to talk in binaries (“good” and “bad”) with intensifiers (like “very”). He often describes his actions as “perfect” and the actions of his opponents as “stupid” or “evil.”
The way out of this binary of good and evil is for all of us to be more human and less perfect. This means more than seeing the faults in others. More importantly, it means seeing and accepting our own all-too-human failings.
At the end of each post about propaganda, I will outline a range of political rhetoric related to the topic of that post. This should serve as a summary that can be reviewed. I also hope that it will help us to be more aware of how we, as we interact with family and friends, might promote democratic dialogue and resist the slow slip into propaganda.
Democratic Dialogue: Issues are viewed on a spectrum. The discussion cites exceptions and qualifications. Diverse views are respected and sought out. For example, we tend to think about the abortion issue on a binary; people are either pro-life or pro-choice. But the issue is best viewed as a continuum. Very few people are absolute in either their support or opposition. Is an abortion acceptable in cases of rape or incest? Is abortion acceptable in the third trimester? Once we begin to explore exceptions and qualifications, the divide between “we” and “they” is less stark.
Propaganda Lite: Issues are binary, but some of the people who hold “really, really bad” positions are “good people.” While this might come across as reasonable, it is still a way of dismissing others whom we should try to engage in dialogue. Instead of arguing about a particular policy, ask questions that will help you to understand the history of how they arrived at their beliefs. Try to connect the person’s history with the person’s beliefs. This can lead to a more empathic response, which may reveal new approaches to discussing divergent views.
Propaganda Complete: Not only are the issues on a binary but so are the people who hold those positions. The people who argue for a “really, really bad policy” are evil. There is only the “we/they” and never an inclusive “us.” Calling those who have opposing views “evil” is the first step toward creating scapegoats and, eventually, justifying violence.
Related article: