What Trump taught me about communication yesterday

“There are two Americas”. That was the favorite idea of one of my classmates, when I was studying communication at University of Texas, Edinburg USA in the 1980s. He first launched the idea in a class of “Presidential communication” and later in a class of International communication. I remember him because I thought he had a point. Few of the professors did.

In the light of the last four years and especially of yesterday, I must elevate him to having been insightful on the verge of clairvoyance. He claimed that we, in the university setting, were so immersed in the liberal JFK side of that division that we did not understand, or simply could not see the other side.

Without understanding that side we could not understand how a freedom loving democratic USA could commit atrocities during the Vietnam war, in central America e.t.c. We were like fishes in separate aquariums.

In the same way, Journalists and politicians have failed to make a hermeneutic analysis of Donald Trumps speeches and tweets. While lambasting statements such as “Proud boys, stand back stand by” not enough people took them anyway as seriously as they should have.

Yesterday showed us what message “Proud boys” and others in the alt right movement heard when they heard the president tell them to “stand by”, and then in yesterday’s speech that ““We will never give up and never concede”.

Perhaps if my classmate in Texas had met with more understanding some 35 years ago, America would have been better prepared for what happened. Until we understand how people like “proud boys” interpret communication, we fail to predict what will happen.

That is a lesson we all can learn from yesterday′s eruption after five years of increasingly populist communication. After all, the same can happen here, there and wherevery you are.

Ps. If you remember the class mate I’m talking about, or if you are him, please send me a note so I can credit you with the foresight.