Talk Is Cheap

There are some life lessons one never forgets—or never should.  Thus, as a teenager I learned that talk is cheap. It is easy to say things that are not true, yet make them sound compelling.  Adolescents, who are prey to numerous insecurities, encounter this on both ends.  They tell boastful stories and are on the receiving end of many.

They must therefore discover how to separate the wheat from the chafe. If they cannot, even their best buddies will make them feel inferior.  Indeed, this is a universal experience.  Hence, my wife’s friends in rural Ohio used to tell each other to put their money where their mouths were.  Braggarts were told to back up their pretensions.

Yet somehow we have come to disregard this axiom in the public arena. Contemporary politicians are now prone to telling non-stop whoppers.  Worse still, their partisans are disposed to believe them.  The party line, however absurd, is treated as gospel.

Although both major parties are inclined to deception, liberals are vying for the record in gullibility.  They angrily assert ridiculous nonsense as if it were fact.  Nor do they feel a need to defend their fabrications.  It is enough that they are the good guys and deserve to be believed.

Accordingly, the conventional wisdom among conservatives is that progressives are talkers, whereas they are doers.  Those on the left are accurately accused of making overstated promises, while those on the right boast of keeping theirs.

The poster-boys for these two approaches are, of course, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.  Obama was undoubtedly one of our most articulate presidents.  A master of the English language, his soothing cadences made his words sound like poetry.  His listeners thus wanted to believe, irrespective of what he said.

Meanwhile Donald Trump sounds like the rude New Yorker he is. When off-script he tends to be repetitive, hyperbolic, and impolite.  Nonetheless, he is also extremely direct.  He tells us what he thinks—even if he knows that people will disagree.

In any event, when it comes to transacting the nation’s business, Trump is head and shoulders above Obama.  Our current president is a pragmatist.  As a lifelong builder, he found it essential to get things done. He has, as a result, accomplished more in a year and a half than Obama did in eight. 

Consider how little Obama achieved.  He got a stimulus package enacted, but it didn’t get the economy going because so much of it went to his cronies.  He also passed ObamaCare, but it was a dud even before it was fully in place. Costs went up and people could not keep their plans or doctors—as verbally pledged.

Likewise, despite all the bold talk, Barack did not bring the nation together.  In fact, he set race relations back at least a generation.  Nor did he raise America’s standing in the world.  Instead he sold us out to the Russians, the Iranians, and the Syrians.

Trump, on the other hand, rolled back taxes, slashed federal regulations, and appointed conservatives to the judiciary—just as he said he would.  As for the world stage, he solidified our relationship with Israel, improved our standing with the Arabs, pushed back against North Korea, provided lethal help to Ukraine, and signaled the Chinese that commercial cheating will not be tolerated.

To be sure, Trump often did this in an awkward and sometimes contradictory manner.  But he was not seeking style points.  He wanted to make things happen, and did.  The liberals and the media may not have noticed; then again they failed to recognize Obama’s faults.

Those on the left are so enthralled by language that they are convinced socialism is in our future.  They are thrilled by talk of social justice, but oblivious to the totalitarian tactics and economic blunders of socialist regimes.  They even applauded a young congressional candidate who wants to guarantee jobs for everyone, regardless of the cost. 

As amazingly, they cling to the idea that Trump colluded with the Russians in order to get elected.  After almost two years of searching for phantom conspiracies, they remain persuaded by the unsubstantiated accusations of fellow liberals.

This is very sad.  Bad guys always seek to lead us astray with honeyed words.  The Russians do it, the Iranians do it, and the Nazis once did it. If we are to avoid these verbal traps, we must recognize them for what they are.  We must look past the veil of language to see how people actually behave.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University