Trump is detrimental to discourse

“I just don’t understand why these people are so angry,” a confused Donald Trump supporter behind me wondered aloud, as a sea of protesters flooded the entryway of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center last Wednesday.

That confusion — especially at a rally for perhaps the most hated and divisive candidate in recent memory — seemed especially ill-founded to me, as someone who was there neither in support or protest of the candidate. A line of police formed to separate the two hostile groups opposing and supporting Trump. Caught between these two predictably heated factions, I certainly wasn’t feeling the love from either side.

As protesters flanked past the line, obscene hand gestures held aloft and indiscriminate, and Trump supporters murmured among themselves something to the effect of calling the hecklers a bunch of losers, I came to a depressing realization — for all the words being shouted over my head, nothing was communicated.

Shouts of “racist bigots have got to go” from the protesters and obscenities yelled in reply from the Trump supporters waiting in line certainly didn’t seem to be convincing anyone on either side to change their minds about the Republican front-runner. On the contrary, I saw a strange change come over each side as they coalesced under the pressure of their angry opponents.

Political rallies have never been the ideal place for genuine, civil discourse on policy proposals. But it was obvious to me from attending last Wednesday’s Trump rally Downtown just how poisonous this candidate specifically is for the well-being of the local and national discussion on the issues themselves.

Of course, the lack of substantive or meaningful communication between people of different political opinions at the rally didn’t just have to do with the reality television star’s persona. Rallies are the political echo chamber par excellence, and they’re designed to be so.

Recent research from the University of Colorado Boulder’s department of psychology and neuroscience reinforced an already-intuitive phenomenon —  the echo chamber. Calling the effect “group polarization,” researchers found data among small groups of politically like-minded individuals to suggest that post-group discussion attitudes were more extreme than beforehand.

Magnify this effect by a factor of several hundred, and you have a political rally — an event designed especially to rile up the people who already support the candidate. It’s obviously not a format particularly hospitable to ideological wavering or openness.

Despite all this, it’s undeniable that Trump’s overblown personality had more than a little to do with the lack of real discussion at last Wednesday’s rally and in our country as a whole.

It’s probably relevant to compare the Clinton rally held at Carnegie Mellon University the week prior to see just how much the Republican front-runner’s caricatured hubris and bigotry play into the poisonous atmosphere his campaign gives off. The Clinton rally, like the Trump event, saw demonstrators, but of a wholly different kind.

Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic presidential nomination showed up outside both events. But where middle fingers and accusatory epithets defined Trump’s event, the Clinton rally drew dissenters who apparently wanted nothing more than to discuss the ins and outs of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision.

Regardless of how many answers Bernie supporters got, their approach was a far cry from the anger and brute force at play in the demonstrations outside the Convention Center. But, as far as protesting techniques go, you can hardly blame the anti-Trump faction for their willingness to forego the niceties.

A full list of the egregious acts of violence at Trump’s campaign events would probably be difficult to compile — from a man in Albany, New York, who was smacked, to a protester at an event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, who was sucker punched, to journalist Michelle Fields, who was dragged to the ground at a press conference in Jupiter, Florida. Trump events certainly aren’t the safest of places.

What’s more, Trump himself gives the unmistakable impression of encouraging this kind of violence at his rallies. Regarding the man in Albany, the real estate mogul absurdly connected the victim with “what’s happening with ISIS.” In the aftermath of the Fayetteville incident, the demagogue promised to “look into” paying the assailant’s legal fees. In connection to the attack on Fields, the perpetrator was none other than Trump’s own campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

True to form, Trump took time during his speech in Pittsburgh last week to heckle a protester exercising freedom of speech. And once again, the candidate’s irresponsible attitude toward his political opponents encouraged those who were there in his support to mimic his unconstructive approach to dealing with those who disagree.

There’s no denying the anti-Trump demonstrators weren’t any better than the Trump supporters themselves at engaging in a real political conversation at the rally Downtown. But given the violent tone of Trump’s campaigning, there’s little real choice.

“Free speech goes both ways,” a middle-aged woman ahead of me in line declared as she belted into a string of curses and profanities directed against the incoming protesters. And, to some extent, she was right.

It’s just a pity that candidates like Trump use their right to free speech to give us discourse of such abysmal quality.

Henry primarily writes on government and domestic policy for The Pitt News.

Write Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu.