Shouting

I just turned down the volume on CNN as Wolf Blitzer shouted at me the latest various statistics of Super Tuesday. I’m sure he’s a nice man and has valid reportorial credentials, but his delivery is often offensive, at least to my ear.

That said, I am amused at the way this election campaign, on the Republican side especially, has resorted to shouting to make a political point. Years ago political points were made with the eloquence of fact and in a voice both instructive and soothing.

Where is that today? Remember JFK and Nixon, remember the Texas drawl of LBJ or the soft-spoken Democrat Eugene McCarthy, or independent Ross Perot, Republican Ike, or Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Ben Carson comes the closest to the soothing conversational tone of any of the candidates.

It didn’t start out that way, for the rest o them, but when “The Donald” started winning with rudeness, innuendo, interruptions and shouting, the rest of the candidates embraced his oratory tactics.

That’s another issues. Oratory, the old kind, the kind that dealt with vision, hope and what’s possible. You listen to Trump today, and you don’t hear great vision or a shining city on the other side of the proverbial hill, you hear, “people love me.” “I’m rich,” “I’m winning, all people are voting for me.”

My friends, this rhetoric, is not America. This is public relations and self-aggrandizement.