Column
Culture
Politics
4 min read

The bullies invoking Jesus as their best buddy

Trump and Putin's desire to be loved, admired and followed.

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A fierce looking man walks at the head of a phalanx of suited men.
Trump strides from the White House to St John's Church, 2020.
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m not at all sure that the parents of a teenager driven to despair, or even suicide, by online trolls, or a woman in a coercive relationship, are likely to see their tormentors as victims, making a cry for help by making the lives of others intolerable. 

Bullies, it is said, have invariably been bullied themselves. A popular proverb has it that bullies never prosper, a comforting canard knocked down by some comprehensive research recently from the British Cohort Study that, of 7,000 children born in 1970, it was the nastiest, most aggressive little pieces of work that did best in life by age 46. 

Social insecurity may well have driven their cruel treatment of others, but financial security has been their reward. Said one of the study’s authors, there’s ‘a strong link between aggressive behaviour at school and higher earnings later in life’. 

What exemplars of that might we find on the international stage? Step forward the erstwhile and very possibly future president of the United States and the great-returner president of Russia. 

They’ve had all that and they want a harder drug. Like most bullies, they want to be loved by those whose attention they have won. 

Bullying may be too light a term for what Donald Trump has done to countless women and business associates in his life, what Vladimir Putin has done to Ukraine and other old Soviet satellites, and what both men have done to their nations’ electoral systems. 

But I want to make an armchair case for the psychological insecurity of both men. That insecurity presents itself in a rather pathetic (in the literal sense) desire to be loved, to be admired and to be followed by devoted disciples.    

And what role model might they come up with for that? Why, of course, they have both invoked Jesus Christ as their best buddy, who is very much on their side politically and who is really a lot like them. 

Trump has endorsed excruciating (again, literally) drawings of himself sitting in the dock at court with the Christ and has published his own $60 “Bible” (one remembers the delightful self-publicist Jonathan King launching his fictional memoir, entitled Bible Two). 

Putin has claimed that he’s not a little like the Nazarene calling fishermen by the sea of Galilee, as he rallies Russian youth to resist the pernicious culture of the “Satanic” West. He casts himself, along with Jesus, as the defender of “traditional values”, though the conflation of the Christ with cultural tradition is a little awry, but never mind. 

There’s pragmatic political ambition in both men for co-opting the Christ to their cause. Trump wants and needs the US Christian Right on his side for re-election. Putin is promoting a rapprochement with Russian religions and already has the Russian Orthodox Church onside for his Ukrainian escapade. 

But there’s something else going on here. The armchair psychologist can identify motives at work. Both Putin and Trump want not only attention. They’ve had all that and they want a harder drug. Like most bullies, they want to be loved by those whose attention they have won. 

Their problem, naturally, is that they can never make it, which can only compound their insecurity 

What better figure to associate themselves with than love incarnate? A demi-god aspires to be loved as God loves and is loved. It may replace a familial love that has been missing, or it may more simply be the toxic desire to be loved by those you oppress and by one’s peers – again, the instinct of the bully. 

That’s closer to admiration and has vanity at its root. Witness Putin’s faintly ridiculous bared torso astride a horse as a younger man, or Trump’s vainglorious comb-over and orange-tanned skin.  

Such a shame that we have no idea how the most famous figure who ever lived, whose legacy is the largest religion on earth, actually looked. Or they might try to look like that. Because, to their minds, emulation would win similar admiration. 

Finally, Trump and Putin need to be followed, like bullies need their gang. Never mind that even the most devoted disciples of Christ abandoned him to his fate in his mortal life. There’s something like 2.5 billion declared followers of him today, some two millennia later. That’s some legacy and the kind that would shore up even for deepest of their insecurities. 

Their problem, naturally, is that they can never make it, which can only compound their insecurity. The nature of Christian leadership, at its source, is unreachable. He said himself that we could not follow where he was going, because it’s a form of leadership beyond human scope – self-sacrificial, infinitely humble while also divine. 

That leadership was among us and we didn’t recognise it. The leaderships of Trump and Putin, even as they claim Christ-like affinity, carve recognition and to be above us. These are not men who would lay down their power, far less their lives, for their friends. 

These are bullies in the playground of politics. We must pray for their souls as we condemn their actions.   

Article
Comment
Language
Politics
5 min read

Our public discourse needs responsible rhetoric before it is too late

The right turn of phrase can turn a nation, the wrong one can destroy

Tom has a PhD in Theology and works as a hospital physician.

A crowd of people stand in the side steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Easter services, Lincoln Memorial.
George Pflueger, via Unspash.

When was the last time a brilliant piece of rhetoric made the headlines? 

“Empty rhetoric.”  

“Form over function.”  

“Sloganeering.” 

These—and other accolades—are stock trade when it comes to the art of denouncing public discourse. Red flags are rightly waved in the face of baseless claims and insincere promises. Scroll through a news reel; open a newspaper: language far stronger in style than in substance is not hard to find. 

Nowadays we are sensitive to these kinds of abuses of public platforms. When Donald Trump speaks of the ‘Great Big Beautiful Bill’ or Elon Musk of the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ we know the cogs at BBC Verify are likely to be turning. Fact-checking is an established trade.  

Sometimes political turns of phrase are just careless, inadequately thought through. Granted, a politician’s public address is often put together at a pace. Time is so remarkably tight that phrasing and formulations are not interrogated as fully as they might be. (Krish Kandiah recently picked up the Prime Minister’s “island of strangers” line and its unfortunate resonance) 

But of course, the critiques I’ve listed above are themselves sharply rhetorical. They are punchy. Not drawn-out logical deductions. They aim to make us sit upright and win us over. Or move us to a course of action. 

So: is rhetoric the problem? No. Its misuse is the problem. This isn’t always clear. And it’s the reason why simply decrying “rhetoric” won’t get us very far.  

I am sympathetic to the suspicion. When efficiency and pragmatism tower high among the canons of public discourse, it is easier to trade in polarising x versus y expressions. Being guarded in the face of such potent idiom is understandable.  

And yet the most remarkable public discourses in human history have been rich in rhetoric.  

Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial: “I have a dream.”  

Churchill in the House of Commons: “we shall fight them on the beaches.”  

Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  

All these speakers knew that bare understanding doesn’t typically move people to action. An impassioned speech, a plea to respond, or beautifully woven prose often serve as the tipping point for social engagement. 

Which leads me to wonder, what if a suspicion of smart speech-making ends up stunting social engagement, rather than fostering it? Perhaps political discourse today has gone too far; perhaps rhetoric is beyond repair. And yet: abuse doesn’t mean there isn’t proper use. There is a better way.

When persuasive powers are uncoupled from sound argument, then rhetoric obscures understanding and has become irresponsible. 

In the classical era, training in rhetoric was a prominent feature of an education. You might say it was the way to avoid the charge: “All substance, no style”. It was about turning a sound argument into an art form. For Aristotle, rhetoric was about making use of the tools of persuasion—substance with style. But skill in persuasion was not a virtue of itself; it never stood alone. As Roger Standing has reminded us, “the function of rhetorical skills was not to persuade in and of themselves.” Indeed, training in rhetoric was training in responsibility.  

In his classic 1950s text Ethics of Rhetoric, Richard Weaver put his finger on this. He highlighted that “rhetoric passes from mere scientific demonstration of an idea to its relation to prudential conduct.” True rhetoric, then, is this: the art of lighting up the path that leads from sound logic to good action

Today, it seems that when it comes to the rules of rhetoric, communicators are answerable to polls and popularity. These ends justify the means, which makes fancy formulations fair game. If style secures votes, then it’s a good job done. But this means the communicator has no real accountability for his or her language. Pragmatism is in the driving seat. In a sense, responsibility has been handed over to the hearer.  

This is problematic. When persuasive powers are uncoupled from sound argument, then rhetoric obscures understanding and has become irresponsible. Language is no longer illuminating, but misleading. It is trading on falsehood, or perhaps half-truths, instead of magnifying what is true for the sake of what is good. 

Take an example. In the recent parliamentary debate over amendments to the assisted dying bill, the proceedings opened with the claim that “if we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.” I don’t for a moment doubt the good intent in this claim—securing the most compassionate care possible for terminally ill adults. But let it be said: no, those who do not advocate assisted dying are not “essentially” saying this. This claim is a non sequitur: the conclusion does not follow the premise. It is logically unsound. 

Like many tools, the art of persuasion can be wielded carelessly; sometimes maliciously. But rhetoric-free public discourse would make for a colourless and lifeless thing indeed. What we need now is rhetoric that is responsible—responsible to what is true and responsible to good outcomes. These should not be split; as soon as they are, speech-making becomes sterile or hollow. I recently heard the neat phrase: “Some people reach your mind by going through the heart, and some people reach your heart by going through your mind.” Yes, as the Christian faith has always maintained: mind and heart belong together. Give us words that awaken both, like those once spoken by that obscure wandering rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, in one of the most studied and penetrating speeches in human history:  

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 

I pray for public discourse brimming with both substance and style. It might help lead us to better things. 

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