It’s been my recent habit to post a piece on July 4th.* This year I’m going back to basics – specifically to free speech.
The first amendment to the Constitution reads in part “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” But… it’s one thing to be free to have your say, it’s another to say it in a way that other people hear it.
In ancient Greece and Rome rhetoric was considered a cornerstone of a good education. And in the United States it used to be. Public speaking, or as it was sometimes called, speech training, was typically part of the American curriculum. In fact, in colonial times, training in speech was thought almost as important as instruction in Greek and Latin. Moreover, through most of American history great orators were usually, ipso facto, great leaders. For example, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now things are different. Few 21st century Americans can claim mastery of oratory. While “communication” is standard in leadership curricula, few in public life speak in a way that others find compelling. Further, few understand that speech is the most important tool in the leader’s toolbox. How to persuade others to do what you want them to do without conveying your message? To convey what you want to say is not, of course, just about style. It’s also about content. Still, many was the time when former president Joe Biden had a good message to send but he did not – likely because he believed he could not. He could not communicate in a way that got people to pay attention.
Communicating is different now from what it used to be because attention has become a scarce commodity – the competition for our attention is relentless. For the last decade or two social media has swallowed our time and now there’s AI. The New York Times recently reported that “as generative artificial intelligence has exploded over the last two years, the technology has been used to demean and defame political opponents and, for the first time, officials and experts said, has had an impact on election results.” Still, so long as humans are not entirely replaced by robots if we communicate and connect and how – especially how leaders communicate and connect with their followers – matters.
The miserable message-sending surrounding the resignation of James Ryan, President of the University of Virginia, is an example. Ryan was effectively forced out by the Trump administration. For those who believe that universities should be free of political interference, Ryan’s essentially obligatory resignation was sad as shocking. Equally bad was that Ryan was hung out to dry alone. No one – not a single member of UVA’s board, not a single public official – stood beside him when he announced he was leaving. Nor did anyone seize the occasion to send a message: that notwithstanding the long hand and iron grip of the American president Ryan had been a good leader worthy of his post.
Do these people grasp the importance of speaking truth to power? Instead of folding in silence. Do these people grasp the importance of trumpeting the truth, loudly, clearly so everyone can hear? Instead of folding in silence.
People were shocked when Zohran Mamdani came out of nowhere to clobber former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Why? Did they not note what happened?
In the months before the election Cuomo was nowhere to be seen while Mamdani was everywhere to be seen. Not just everywhere seen but everywhere heard. Mamdani benefited greatly from his sophisticated use of social media. But while his run for mayor seemed new and different, in fact it was curiously, amusingly, old and familiar. He campaigned in person, one on one, face to face, in what seemed every street and alley of New York City. In his invariably dark suit, white shirt, and knotted tie he cut an immediately recognizable figure, speaking to whoever would listen, delivering a message that, whatever you think of it, grabbed people’s attention. Here, finally, was a candidate who visibly and audibly hit the ground running.
Contrast his dynamism with the miserably poor communicators who now lead the Democrats in Congress – Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries. OMG! No matter how smart and sensible their message is, they are so poor at sending it that no one listens. On their watch ethical boundaries have been erased and accountability has been dismantled. But whatever the Democrats’ moral outrage, as a party, a group, and as individuals they have proven incapable of packaging it in a way that gets the nation’s attention. Jeffries’s last ditch effort yesterday to claim center stage – as the White House was about to extract exactly what it wanted from Congress, the passage of its “big, beautiful” spending bill before July 4th, Jeffries delayed the final vote by speaking on the floor of the House for nearly nine hours – was the approximate equivalent of a final cry from the fast-sinking Titanic.
Donald Trump provides an interesting contrast. No one would claim him a brilliant speaker. Nor would anyone say his content is compelling. Quite the opposite. It tends to be mangled and jumbled, vague and imprecise, full of flights of fancy and outright lies. Still, Trump makes himself available to the press and the public it seems every hour of every day. To his benefit he is a relentless hog for attention – tirelessly, and, yes, effectively, selling both himself and his wares. Even during the interregnum, while Biden was in the White House and Trump was out, the former was scarcely seen while the latter was in full view.
Freedom of speech is what we make of it. Americans should however be clear. When democracies are threatened silence is not golden. Speaking truth to – and about – power is step one. Step two is speaking it so that others hear it.
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*See, for example: