Too Basic Communication

"What we have here is failure to communicate."

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that famed line from Cool Hand Luke applies to much of our political and social discourse in the current climate. As an example, I've been trying to argue that the phrase "defund the police" is poor communication, because it's too easy for opponents to define "defund" as "abolish" and thus completely misrepresent the intentions of the cause. The problem is "reform the police" doesn't quite cut it, either--because police reform, historically, has been about official corruption not about the basic functions of the police.

Basically, we're stuck in a time when every issue has to be able to be reduced to a three- or four-word slogan, when the reality is that there is a long, nuanced policy proposal behind the sloganeering. But nobody has time for long, nuanced proposals anymore....and they don't fit in headlines or television chyron crawls, anyway.

In an episode of The West Wing during the preparations for a campaign debate, Jed Bartlet's staff are seeking a "ten-word answer" to the difficult questions of the day. Finally, Jed comes up with this:

That’s the ten-word answer my staff’s been looking for for weeks, there it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns, they’re the tip of the sword. Here’s my question: what are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Gimme the next ten words: How are we gonna do it? Gimme ten after that, I’ll drop out of the race right now … Every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong. But those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. I’m the President of the United States, not the president of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else.

That sums up how I feel about political and social discourse right now.