We are deep into the political year to end all political years.
More than 20 Democratic candidates are winnowing down to five or so. The primaries have started.
Most importantly, we are barraged with political ads that stir up fears, tear down opponents and once in a great while, tell us what a candidate stands for and will attempt to achieve if elected.
Candidates must get their message across in a few seconds. The way this is done is to come up with clever one-liners. A few words can be devastating to your opponent during a debate and then become become viral on the internet.
President Trump is a master of the one-liner. “Lying Ted, Low Energy Jeb and Little Marco” all served to create an image of his opponents as less than worthy of your vote for President. “Lock her up” chanted repeatedly served as a rallying cry to greatly diminish Hillary Clinton.
The point is that one-liners accomplish their purpose, while lowering the quality of political debate to a new low. As Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.” This is a great one-liner, but was ineffective in our current world of social media-based politics.
The one-liner “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!” first appeared in American politics in a 1768 song by Founding Father John Dickinson. Patrick Henry (1799) and Abraham Lincoln (1858) used the phrase as well, when our country was at risk of breaking up over slavery. In this case, the one-liner was meant to give warning of a dangerous political schism that eventually led to the Civil War.
One-liners can be funny. Consider Ronald Reagan’s response to protesters chanting “Make love, not war.” His classic response was “ By the looks of you, you don’t look like you could do much of either.” The very few words in a one-liner can turn orators into legends. Consider Martin Luther King’s last speech “I have been to the mountaintop,” or his “I have a dream” speech. Both were meant to inspire and appeal to good will among very different people.
Sometimes, one-liners are subtle. During a Presidential debate Ronald Reagan, 73, said of Walter Mondale, 56, “I am not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience.” What he said he was not going to do was exactly what this one-liner did.
Sometimes, one-liners can be outright lies. Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” was outed with a blue dress and some DNA. George Herbert Walker Bush said “Read my lips. No new taxes.” That aspirational and undeliverable goal met the cold realities of huge deficits when we used to care about deficits.
So what do we learn from one-liners? Think about what is being said.
Is it mean-spirited? Does it have a shred of truth or just a clever use of words? Does it inspire? Is the one-liner worthy of your vote? Will the world be a better place if the person uttering the one-liner is elected?
So here’s my one-liner. “The energy used to think before you vote does not pollute the environment.”
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star.