The Policy of Candor versus the Policy of Insult
On Thursday, with a joint interview of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz with CNN, the media competition between the two rivals in the U.S. elections will transform.
At least this is the hope of the media and experts who have recently witnessed the relative silence of Harris’s campaign alongside the relatively interesting activities of Tim Walz on social networks on one hand, and the disorganized rallies and not very impactful speeches of Trump and his vice president on the other. In the current state of the election competition, both campaigns have presented their policies, which, even if they are new, are reflected in a few lines, and even Harris’s economic speech and her promises and plans were overshadowed and forgotten after a week or two by the party convention.
The current approach of Trump’s campaign is also insult, insult, and insult. No new policy is being presented, and promises like deporting immigrants are attractive to the Republican party base, and promises like making everything cheaper are not easily believable for anyone.
The anger and frustration of the people over high inflation in recent years can be influential, and in any case, those voters who have decided based on this criterion may have already made their choice. The Democrats have taken Trump’s taunts and mockery very seriously, and more humorous advertising clips about him have been made and broadcast than before.
Democrats have always insisted on observing manners and principles of behavior during the Trump era and still do not cross the reasonable and customary boundaries of American society.
However, several new analyses have been presented on the unprecedented expansion of jokes and humor in the Democrats’ election advertising, which has crossed their previous boundaries. This trend should be described as the policy of candor.
Perhaps this policy of candor enters the realm of insult with Obama’s humorous reference to Trump’s genitalia, but this is a specific story that Trump himself created with his extramarital affair with the famous porn star Stormy Daniels, and before that, it was Marco Rubio who joked about it with Trump during the 2016 primary elections.
Democrats have always been worried that if they do not observe manners of behavior and speech, they will lose face. Simply put, self-restraint and consideration have often been interpreted as weakness. Trump and his vice president in recent weeks do not recognize any boundaries anymore.
Trump has repeatedly called Harris stupid and crazy, and in response to criticisms, he has said he has the right because Harris is stupid and not smart. His previous insults about Harris’s name and race and similar examples have now become commonplace in his speech, and Pence has also surprisingly pursued this trend recently.
In his election speech in Pennsylvania, he criticized Harris for not properly managing the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, which is naturally meaningless because Harris was not responsible for managing the withdrawal.
However, his remarks about Harris were extremely outside the political norm.
He easily said in response to subsequent criticisms of his speech that he is angry about Harris’s weak management in this area. The policy of candor stands against the policy of insult. The space for creating appeal with ideas and plans has become very limited, while Trump in 2016 gathered votes with the ideas of xenophobia, anti-immigration, and hatred of Washington and those who run the country.
Now even calling Harris a liberal and communist does not have much impact.
It is boldness and courage that are effective, and one tries to show itself to the audience through candor and the other through insult.
