Thursday
I write this not knowing for sure that tonight’s debate will still be held, but my Dante study group has identified an all-too-appropriate passage if the occasion goes forward. Approaching the final circle of hell, which contains those who have betrayed family, country, guests, and lord (including Jesus), Dante encounters a group of ice giants. One of them spiels off an incoherent chant.
The giant, it turns out, is Nimrod, who ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel:
"Rafel mahee amek zabi almit,"
began a bellowed chant from the brute mouth
for which no sweeter psalmody was fit.
And my Guide in his direction: "Babbling fool,
stick to your horn and vent yourself with it
when rage or passion stir your stupid soul.
Feel there around your neck, you muddle-head,
and find the cord; and there's the horn itself,
there on your overgrown chest." To me he said:
"His very babbling testifies the wrong
he did on earth: he is Nimrod, through whose evil
mankind no longer speaks a common tongue.
(trans. John Ciardi)
For Dante, shattering the world’s linguistic unity was an egregious act that led to incessant warfare. Virgil tells the giant that he might just as well blow his hunting horn as speak, identifying him as a blowhard.
Nimrod, in other words, has betrayed the unified state, which would have insured peace amongst Italy’s warring city states, Dante’s major political concern. By stirring up factionalism, Trump too is betraying America, but let’s return to the debate. As the voice of reason, Virgil counsels Dante as he might counsel one who seeks to argue with the president:
Waste no words on him: it would be foolish.
To him all speech is meaningless; as his own,
which no one understands, is simply gibberish.
Engaging in dialogue with Trump is foolish because he is not interested in dialogue. To him, as we saw in a first debate, speech is designed to bludgeon, not to achieve clarity.
His speech is also gibberish. Consider this response to a question from Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade in June, discussed by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and analyzed by Rolling Stone:
Kilmeade: According to a Axios-Ipsos poll, 70 percent of white Americans say they trust the local police. Only 36 percent of African Americans do. How do you attack that problem? How do you change things?
Trump: Well I think it’s a very sad problem. As you know, as a Republican I’m doing very well with African Americans and with the vote with the — in polls and everything — especially, I mean, I haven’t seen one very recently because you had the plague come in from China.
So that changed things up, but we had the best economy ever. We had the best numbers for African-American on employment and unemployment in history. Best homeownership — best everything. We had the best numbers in everything — not only African-American, but the African-American numbers were great.
And further on:
Kilmeade: How do you handle the law enforcement part of this?
Trump: They have to get better than what they’ve been doing. I mean obviously that was a terrible thing. And I’ve spoken about it numerous times in various speeches. And what’s interesting is I spoke about it when we launched a very successful rocket — a tremendous program that culminated on that day and obviously it goes on from there.
But I then made a speech and it was a speech about the rocket, and I devoted 25 percent of the speech probably to what happened — or more — to what happened with respect to George — George Floyd, and it was — and then you listen to this, he doesn’t talk about George Floyd. The rocket went off, I then I made a speech, and I talked about George Floyd, but they said he didn’t talk about George Floyd.
Half — maybe even almost half of the speech, but a large portion of the speech was devoted exactly to that. And so, you know, with — with the media you basically — and basically no matter what you do, it’s never going to be good enough. But the people understand it.
Kilmeade: Right.
Trump: And that’s one of the beauties of social media. I mean, I would love not to even bother with social media, but I’m able to get my word out beautifully by social media, fortunately. You use social media too.
Kilmeade: Right.
As Virgil would observe, “His very babbling testifies the wrong he did on earth.” Unless Trump fully commits to the Commission’s set of rules, Biden should refuse to debate.
Why waste words on an incoherent giant locked in place?