At first I thought that a radio preacher had taken over the
talk radio station I listen to in the morning.
Then I recognized the President’s voice.
I had never heard President Trump like this before and I’ve listened to
him a few times in these initial months of his presidency. But now he was doing something historical –
and he was doing it with passion and persuasion with the facts of history in
his arsenal of speech-making tools.
It isn’t the first time I’ve heard a president “go
preacher.” Barack Obama did it in the
company of some African American preachers and it was frightening. It was frightening because he was a man of
poise and cultural presence, and tried to put himself in the shoes of preachers
who shake, quake, bellow, enunciate, point fingers and sweat profusely. I watch preachers practically for a
living. And he was as fake as a three
dollar bill. He wasn’t proving he was
part of their “culture” because he wasn’t.
They may share a common ethnic heritage, but he didn’t have believability
as a preacher. I couldn’t remember what
he said because of the way he was trying to say it. And as I’ve said to friends on the other side
of the political tracks from me, “Don’t tell me he is a great orator, or I will
ask you what the content was.” I found
myself asking: ‘Where’s the beef?’ every
time he spoke.
But on this particular morning (6 July 2017), President
Trump was giving a presentation in Poland and he was kicking arse. He had used history and theology to galvanize
the opinion of the Poles. He was
reminding them of a history that admittedly they could never forget, and
instructing his listeners that were unfamiliar with that significant struggle
for freedom. He was telling the story of
how a people hard-working, family-oriented, and faith-filled stood up against
an oppressive political system. I almost
drove off the road when he summarized the source of their strength: their faith.
Since when has a politician ever acknowledged the power of the human
spirit as a credible source of motivation? … um, never in the last 54 years
that I am aware of.
He reminded them of that incredible celebration of the
Catholic Mass held in Victory Square with Pope John Paul II – “their Polish
pope.” (If you want to melt the hearts
of the Poles, just reference their Pope.)
He reminded them of the one cry of the
people: “We want God!” They did not demand power or prestige from
the political system. They wanted the
freedom to be human beings that had a say in their own personal destiny,
because it is a God-given right.
He reminded them of the bloodshed in Warsaw in the 1944
Uprising as Poles sought to hold back the encroaching Nazi-German army. The people put themselves out there by trying
to sandbag against the invaders. Every
time they tried to build up the blockade, snipers would shoot them down. It was a powerful display of the resilience
of the human spirit against the very real physical advancing of hateful
ideologies.
He reminded them of the importance of hardworking immigrants
coming to a country and the necessity to exclude radicalized terrorism from the
gates of any city. As if he slipped it
in, he warned the current country-of-concern (Russia) of parameters. However, it could be no accident that in a
speech to Poland, a nation that had risen from the ashes of persecution and
oppression like a glorious Phoenix, he sent a subtle but clear warning to a
potentially world-threatening Super Power (Russia).
He had finally found the balance in presenting
a case. Perhaps President Trump repeated
certain words of effect too often for speech critics, and critics will come as
sure as the sunset. Yet he had finally brought
forth a connection of the heart by appealing to the human spirit. He looked at the history of a people and
found significant lessons to bring forth.
He tied the issues of the past to the present and he was well received.
Now, to move forward from speech to lived-reality …
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