Watching the Senate debate last night about the omnibus spending bill brought me back to many times when I worked in legislative setting with Republicans. For those who haven't heard, somebody had quietly slipped an odious provision into the omnibus spending bill that would require the IRS to turn over to the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations committees any American's tax records that they wish to peruse. Democrat Kent Conrad from ND caught this last minute addition to the several thousand page bill, and he threw a fit. Several Democrats joined in, as did McCain, Grassley and a few other Republicans.
Republican chair Ted Stevens was enraged as well. He appeared truly enraged that this was slipped into the bill by a staffer or somebody at the House, both because of the offensive nature of the provision--jeez, it's almost a parody of Big Brother--and because it was such an offense to the integrity of the process. Stevens isn't a hater, and he's generally viewed as somebody with integrity and decency. Separate from his voting record--which is far from the worst in the Senate--he's a throwback to the days when Democrats and Republicans could respect each other and the legislative process. While they could be raw partisans, they didn't try to kill each other, and they valued integrity, both of a person and of the process.
But what struck me the most was a late exchange between Conrad and Stevens, where Stevens came completely unglued and was truly offended by what he (mistakenly) thought were the implications of Conrad's argument as to why the provision needed to be removed before the spending bill would advance for signature by the President. Conrad wasn't assailing Stevens personally. Conrad was quite clear that he had no fears that Ted Stevens would use the authority granted to the persons holding the chairs of the Appropriations committees. Conrad was addressing the possibility that anyone who was chair of an appropriations committee--and Stevens apparently won't be chair next session--could get access to a person's personal tax returns. His argument--and it was correct--was that if the provision became law, the federal government would possess power--whether ever employed--to abuse it's authority and violate the personal privacy of taxpayers for political ends. Stevens, however, viewed Conrad's argument not as an abstract but valid point, but as somehow questioning Stevens' own honesty and integrity.
I've seen the dynamic many times, but I didn't get any insights into it until recently. I often saw Republicans of decency and integrity get enraged when Democrats pointed out the legal implications of a proposed law, and how the wording of the bill could lead to consequences quite at odds with the Republican's stated goal. But the Republicans would mix up the arguments about implications with mistaken attributions about Democrats assailing their intent. It seemed like two different languages were being spoken. And eventually I realized it was because different types of language were being used, and not always appropriately for the function at hand.
Linguists study the various types and functions of language. People will speak for physiological reasons--to burn off nervous energy, or ally fear--or for the pure pleasure of speaking (such as singing, telling rhymes, poetry, etc.). But the real differences for political purposes are between the identifying and reasoning functions of language and what linguists call "phatic communion." Phatic communion has been described as language that serves to "establish or maintain social relationships rather than to impart information," or language used "for establishing an atmosphere rather than for exchanging information or ideas."
Those purposes are vitally important. Think about when you get up in the morning; most of us like to have somebody say "good morning," even though the content isn't important and it's done by rote. Or greetings, or just sharing a common bond, like chatting about the weather with a cashier. But it's also an important part of electoral politics. People vote for candidates because they agree with them, and because they promise to do things they think are important, or maybe just because they're Democrats or Republicans. But they also vote for candidates because of who they are, or "for establishing an atmosphere."
A lot of Republicans are better at using Phatic language, but a lot of those Republicans who are decent--and I'm not talking about assholes like DeLay or just about any Republican from Oklahoma--aren't anywhere near as gifted with conceptual and abstract language, the very type of language that's important for legislating or understanding the complex issues with which one should be conversant as an executive office holder. This makes them deficient as officeholders, and beholden to the sophists who can either gussie up their bad ideas to make them look good, or convince them that it's in their interest to support a policy that contains implications contrary to their intent. (Hence, the crafty neocons who've taken over Republican foreign policy and implemented policies contrary to what most Republicans espouse and actually desire.) A lot of Republicans are good at phatic language, but crappy with abstract language.
Here's the problem for the Democrats on the language divide: too many of our best legislators and thinkers are gifted with complexity and abstractions, but mediocre or worse with phatic language. Kerry and Gore are excellent examples of this problem. Unfortunately, we have too few people like Paul Wellstone and Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy who are gifted at using both abstract and phatic language.
In short, a lot of Democrats are great at creating good policies, but too few of them are good at creating appealing atmospheres. The former is essential to being a good legislator or executive, but you need to latter to get elected.
Comments are closed on this story.