Of Trumpets and Trump
An easy, sure-fire technique to make your correspondence irrelevant, ignored, and irritating
Allow me to offer an Iron Law of Oratory:
“You may stand in the most inspiring edifice on earth, delivering the most soaring and poetic eulogy imaginable, for the most beloved figure of our era—but should you fart audibly during your oration, that low-register, low-altitude trumpet blast will be the only thing mourners recall of the entire event.”
An analogous law holds that if a trumpeter performs Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” flawlessly, save for one off-key BLAAAT!!!, it is the errant BLAAAT!!! that will linger years later in the listeners’ memories.
This brings us to an equivalent Iron Law of Correspondence:
“You may craft the most literary email possible, waxing lyrical on art, music, literature, aviation, astronomy, botany, quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and the achievements of your children—but should you insert a single fleeting, gratuitous mention of Donald Trump, that reference will be the only thing your reader will recall of your missive.”
We shall label these equivalent phenomena “Trumpet Blasts” and “Trump-et Blasts.” (ADDENDUM: I must note that one especially clever reader suggests that “Musk-et Blasts” are now a parallel phenomenon.)
AN AUTHENTIC TRUMP-ET BLAST
Almost every day, some friend—usually on the political left—sends me an email demonstrating the Iron Law of Correspondence. Recently, a great friend and outstanding scholar wrote me to compliment “An Inexhaustible Voice, a Soul, a Spirit”—an essay I had written on a beautiful teenage girl who triumphed over lifelong illness to become a magnificent singer. My essay concluded with William Faulkner’s inspiring declaration of optimism concerning mankind’s future. My friend wrote:
“Enjoyed your post, the music, and especially the quote by Faulkner. Reading that elegy for courage and other triumphs of the human spirit made me think of Deirdre McCloskey’s book Crossing: A Memoir. Have you read it? I found it moving and educational. … The current Presidential-felon’s attack on anyone who is different rings so hollow in light of Faulkner’s words.”
Dissecting this email: my friend wrote to say that my account of the young woman had moved him. That he had enjoyed her music. That Faulkner’s words had especially touched him. That those words reminded him of a great economist who has triumphed over a very different sort of personal struggle. And then, in closing, he inserted an irrelevant non sequitur concerning the 47th president. BLAAAT!!!.
Since then, our correspondence has been a discordant trumpet duo. We’ve not discussed the brilliant and courageous young singer, nor the beauty of her music, nor Faulkner’s inspiring words. We’ve not recalled the works of the economist he mentioned, nor her struggles, nor her book. Instead, we’ve talked past one another—each enumerating the moral and intellectual deficiencies of Donald John Trump (and for comparative purposes, Joseph Robinette Biden) via tedious and time-worn anecdotes. Neither our agreements nor disagreements have been edifying or enlightening to either of us. (And he agreed with me when I showed him a draft of this essay.)
ON THE PATTERNS OF TRUMP-ET BLASTS
My friend’s note was merely one car in an endless freight train of similar emails rolling and rumbling into my inbox each day. In them, one can discern empirical regularities. Trump-et Blasts are never offered as hypotheses, opinions, or topics for discussion. Rather, they are always stated as Euclidean postulates—self-evident Truths that we surely agree upon and which warrant no discussion. Recipients of Trump-et Blasts have five possible Supreme Court-like responses: affirm, ignore, concur, dissent, or defer.
AFFIRM: Express agreement, and the sender’s mails will grow more frequent, breathless, and Trump-centered.
IGNORE (i.e., deny certiorari): The sender will see your failure to comment as tacit agreement. However, just to be sure, he or she will then commence a sustained campaign to elicit actual affirmation. The frequency of missives will increase until you issue a clarifying opinion, overturning stare decisis by adopting one of the other four options (or by blocking his or her email account).
CONCUR (i.e., express general agreement, but with some qualifications): Your correspondent will condemn your effrontery in deviating even one-seventh of a scintilla from his or her original blast. For example, if the sender says, “Donald Trump will be remembered as the worst president in U.S. history,” you dare not respond with, “I agree with your complaints about Trump, but at this juncture, I consider Andrew Johnson to be the worst, given that his Reconstruction policies effectively re-enslaved emancipated people.” Such impunity will elicit a barrage of non sequiturs about Donald Trump with zero bearing on how he compares with Andrew Johnson: “My friend just lost her job at USAID!” “Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago!” “Trump incited rioters on January 6!” If you respond with, “Again, I’m not disagreeing with your concerns, but for now, I consider Andrew Johnson to be the worst president,” you’ll hear: “But Trump said, ‘Grab her pussy!’” “He tried to undermine Georgia’s electoral process!” “He assaulted a woman in a department store!” After the third round, your correspondent’s responses will assume the form of a medieval manuscript—with no spaces, punctuation marks, or lower-case letters.
DISSENT: Say, for example, “I reject your characterization of Trump as ‘felon-in-chief,’ given the massive irregularities in that trial,” and most correspondents will respond with a molten torrent of words as incomprehensible as the fevered glossolalia of Appalachian snake-handlers and as unpronounceable as the language of Cthulhu. The few who respond calmly to your dissent will do so in the manner of Pope Urban VIII’s supposed response to Galileo’s discovery that four moons revolve around Jupiter. Legend says the Pope simply refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because, he said, he knew Galileo was wrong.
DEFER: Respond with, “I can’t judge today, given that we don’t know what will happen in the next four years. FDR was a horrible president in his first two terms and only achieved greatness in his third term,” and correspondents will shout, “My friend lost her job at USAID!”, “He assaulted a woman in a department store!” etc., etc. The kinder ones will look upon you with pity and suggest a psychiatric evaluation.
CODA
For over a decade, a vast proportion of American discourse, public and private, has revolved around Trump-et Blasts and the gorilline breast-beating that follows each and every pointless and unnecessary insertion of Trump (or politics in general) into otherwise unrelated conversations. While healthy, respectful debate can build bonds and amplify friendships, that is almost never the case with Trump-et Blasts. The interminable ensuing conversations resolve nothing. No one involved is persuaded to modify his or her opinion. No one learns anything. Friendships fray and break. As Jonathan Swift said in 1721:
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.”
Henceforth, when someone sends me an email that includes a Trump-et Blast, I’ll simply highlight the offending passage and add a link to this essay. “Of Trumpets and Trump” shall be my Marbury v. Madison—a citation that effortlessly dispenses with infinitely varying and repetitious controversies. It would please me to no end were you to use my essay for the same purpose.
Friends are welcome to engage me in actual political discourse, but I’ll not take the bait if your comment is gratuitous, Euclidean, or both. Send the astronomy-and-grandchildren info in one email and the Trump stuff in another. And state the Trump stuff as an opinion, a query, a topic for discussion—not as an edict or primitive mathematical assumption.
One additional empirical regularity concerning Trump-et Blasts. In the paragraphs above, please note that I have not offered a single opinion about Donald Trump—positive or negative. But as surely as Jupiter has moons, within a few days of publishing this essay, someone will write to tell me:
“Stop defending Donald Trump and MAGA!!!”
Or, more precisely:
“STOPDEFENDINGDONALDTRUMPANDMAGA”
TOWARD BETTER CORRESPONDENCE
Here is how Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” sounds when the trumpeters don’t miss a note. This is how your emails can sound if you omit gratuitous political hot-takes. (Appropriately, this Marine ensemble performs specifically for U.S. presidents.)
Spot on. I think there’s another salvo incoming: Musk-et Blasts. Same rules apply.
OK, but Wilson was the worst president.