Do you know the enemy?
The Rhetorical Construction of Enemies: A look at how and why language is used to create enemies.
What common aspect connects the countries of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran? These nations are considered as the “enemy” of the United States of America. While there doesn’t exist any official declaration which brands the aforementioned nations as the foes of the US, a 2016 Gallup Poll result showed that Americans are most likely to name these countries as their nation’s enemy. In the 2018 iteration, the countries remained unchanged, but North Korea assimilated almost 51% of votes, more than 3 times what the country had received in the poll 24 months before. So, what exactly paints the picture of these nations as the enemy of the USA in the mind of American citizens? This is done so by using a rhetorical technique known as enemy construction.
But first, what exactly is rhetoric?
In language studies, rhetoric is a field of study that deals with the study and practice of how language works. Rhetoric scholars analyse texts and speeches to understand the effect that language has on the world that a language interacts with. Orators or rhetors use various rhetoric devices for effective and persuasive speaking. Multiple rhetorical devices are then employed in various rhetorical techniques. Rhetorical techniques are a very powerful tool, and using them helps a rhetor to build a more powerful argument that can shape our emotions and thoughts about what we perceive and believe. This in turn leads to shaping of our realities. These realities then dictate our language : the words and statements that we use to communicate the idea that has been etched inside our heads.
While all this may seem a bit confusing, rhetorical techniques highlight the essence of what has now come to be known as speech act theory. In a rudimentary sense, speech act theory talks about how a statement spoken by an individual has 2 purposes :
- Speech is used to present information.
- Speech is used to perform an action and shape reality.
One of the primitive speech acts that does both of this is labelling. Labelling is used to create an identity of a person or an entity, which is also a kind of information. This identity defines the characteristics and behaviour of that entity in the mind of a person. The rhetorical construction of an enemy is one such kind of labelling.
To foe or not to foe
Before we dive deeper to understand the process of how and why something is branded as an enemy, let us understand who or what is an enemy? An enemy is someone or something that is harmful of hostile to someone or something.The term is most commonly associated with a hostile unit force or armed forces of a nation. Hence, the most significant trait of an enemy is to have a sense of threat or the ability to cause harm to someone.Thus, be it Nazi Germany or narcotic drugs, anything that has caused harm or has the potential to cause serious harm has been given the tag of an enemy.
The exercise of constructing an enemy is a rhetorical technique, which is recurrent in political discourse. This technique namely involves the use of rhetorical devices mainly scapegoating, polarisation, stock stories*, and condensation symbols to serve one purpose: establish the identity of an enemy. Right from 1930s America when Al Capone was dubbed as the “Public Enemy №1” by the Chicago Crime Commission to the present day tenure of the 45th POTUS Donald Trump, who has often dubbed the media as “Enemy of the People”, such a discourse has been deployed periodically by politicians and bureaucrats alike. But, how is this done? To explain the process and the effects of using this rhetorical technique, let’s take a look at the popular standoff between Donald Trump and the Media.
Donald Trump vs The Media
It’s all about the process
The portrayal of enemy is very specific and such a portrayal is done by the rhetor when the rhetor perceives a sense of threat or feels that they can be harmed by a group of people. Since this technique is mostly observed in political discourses, the threat is generally towards the existing status quo or power that is being held by the rhetor and the actions of the enemy acts as a threat to this status quo.
In such a case, the enemy is debased or denigrated mostly using name calling, sometimes even using derogatory remarks to portray the inhuman or ulterior motives of the enemy. In the context of politics, the focus is on delegitimising the work of the opposition . One instance of such behaviour is noticed in Donald Trump’s views on popular news agencies, which has been consistent from his days of campaigning to his tenure as the President.
Right from his days of campaigning for Presidency to his tenure at the White House, Trump has repeatedly attacked many news media outlets. Trump and his administration has often labeled the mainstream press as the “enemy of the American people”. And in his anti-press rhetoric, Trump has characterised the press with remarks like “lying”, “dishonest”, “third-rate”, “bad” and many more.
Donald Trump’s standoff against the media is not a mere exercise in gaining media attention. Sure, it does help him to grab some spotlight when compared to other politicians thanks to his brazen use of words. However, Trump’s efforts in building this divide between him and the media has been deliberate, and he knows the purpose of it very well.
One might argue that the sole purpose of branding any entity as an enemy is an exercise in maligning the concerned entity’s reputation. However, rhetoric scholars have found that such an exercise serves multiple purposes, which often skips a layman’s radar.
Let’s talk about the gains
American political scientist Murray Edelman in his book Constructing the Political Spectacle broadly identified that by the means of constructing an enemy there are 4 functions that are being fulfilled. And these 4 functions are fulfilled even in the case of Trump.
- Discourse about enemies reinforces institutional structures : Edelman in his book wrote that
“To establish governmental agencies to deal with external or internal security is to guarantee that their top officials will see serious threats to security and so pre-serve a function, a budget, and careers”.
- Discourse about enemies produces anxiety, which produces an opportunity for the public officials to mitigate that anxiety : Edelman remarked that
“If [public] yearning for security and protection creates leaders, leaders themselves do more than their share to construct the threats to well-being that keep those aspirations alive.”
- Discourse about enemies personify issues, thus giving abstract problems a tangible form : According to Edelman
The discourse of enemies, enacts a “displacement of resentments onto personified targets”.
- Discourse on enemies helps to overcome divisional barrier by unification against a common enemy : Edelman also pointed out
the discourse of enemies functions as a form of transcendence, making it possible for people who are divided on issues to overcome that division through a confrontation with the shared enemy. Discourse about enemies creates, in David Kertzer’s terms, “solidarity without consensus”.
Sun Tzu in his book Art of War said that
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
When we examine the purposes from the context of this standoff, the picture is very clear. Trump knows that the most powerful enemy to threaten his power is the media. And he doesn’t shy away in saying it out loud. By using such a choice of rhetoric, Trump has actively engaged the American people in reinforcing his opinion and strengthening his stand using Twitter. And he tweets about “Fake News” on a pretty regular basis as well. If you go to this link, you will find that Donald Trump mentioned about fake news or corrupt/dishonest media about 12 times in a span of 11 days.
Firstly, calling out popular news agencies as the fake news gives the opportunity to develop a partisan divide between the media and the American public.
Secondly, there has been a problem of fake news in the USA, with many websites created with the agenda of spreading misinformation. However, Trump has subverted this issue to the popular media and has succeeded in personifying an abstract problem and creating anxiety among public simultaneously. Trump has been strengthening his stand as a Messiah of the people who is trying to save the Democracy of America by calling out those institutions which peddle fake news having an anti-presidency bias. This gives him an opportunity to do work against the media.
And if you think this tactic hasn’t worked, then think about it again. A Gallup Poll in 2018 showed that the public confidence in television news and newspaper is among the least, when compared against the likes of Presidency, Military and organised religion.
This has not only helped him gain strong support from the likes of Republican party members and GOP supporters, Trump has also gained support from the most unlikeliest bunch of people — The Indian Twitter users.
And these tweets are not the only one. If you go to this link, you will find many other Indian Twitter users are rallying behind Trump in his rhetoric.
The other interesting part of this standoff is that Trump tweets from his personal account : @realDonaldTrump and not from the @POTUS account. This helps him to reach out to more people, as Trump’s own account has nearly 59 million followers compared to the 25.4 million followers of the POTUS account. Since this battle has been waging on for so long and has continued from his account, Donald Trump’s tactic has been more in the spotlight due to his tenure and has helped him gain some serious advantage over the media. Thus, even when Trump will no longer be at the helm of the government, the support that he rallied behind in his tenure will help him gain virtual immunity over what the press choses to report against him.
So, what do we do?
The recent testimonial of Michael Cohen brought to light that many news articles which Donald Trump dismissed as fake news were verified by the statements of his ex-attorney. Unsurprisingly, Trump has now gone on the offensive against Cohen.
It is evident that such a kind of rhetorical technique will be persisting in the political landscape. Politicians will try to use this to shape our thoughts and emotion about them and their rivals. But, as responsible readers and consumer of news, we should take into cognizance of this effect whenever we encounter such a discourse.
Perhaps next time, lets make an effort to delve deeper to find out what is the actual truth of the story before buying into any kind of narrative that will be surrounding us. Let our own wisdom shape our realities, and not mere performative acts of such kind of speech.
References
- *Stock stories are a set of fictional account templates which are used to justify a certain characteristic or stereotype of a person.
- Jasinki, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric.Sage Publications, 2001. Print.
- How Can Words Change the World? Performative Language. Dir. The Ling Space. Perf. Moti Lieberman. YouTube. The Ling Space, 16 Mar. 2016. Web.
- Jones, Ronnell Andersen, and Lisa Grow Sun. “Enemy Construction and the Press.” Arizona State Law Journal (2017). Print.
- Klein, Ezra. “”Enemy of the People”: How Trump Makes the Media into the Opposition.” Vox.com. Vox Media, 30 Oct. 2018. Web.
