Demagoguery, Democratic Dissent, and "Re-Visioning Democracy"

I applaud Professor Roberts-Miller's call for a new look at demagoguery. Rather than engage in particular observations and arguments attending Professor Roberts-Miller's call, I would like to begin with her closing remarks: "I am not claiming I have settled the dilemma of rules and inclusion, nor even to have conclusively demonstrated what demagoguery is, let alone what should be done about it. My intention is to raise interest in the research project and revivify scholarship on demagoguery."¹

To my mind, one of the most important implications in Professor Roberts-Miller's essay is that a refocused agenda on so-called "demagogic" rhetorical practices and products may give scholars and public alike a better handle on "deliberative democracy."² While she provides a credible account of why rhetoricians may have turned from studies focusing on demagoguery, she also indicates that scholars in other fields seem to have a growing interest precisely because such studies have great promise in advancing our knowledge of democratic deliberation.³ One place to begin, however, is to probe some of the existing rhetorical literature for helpful critiques of discursive formations that might point more clearly to exactly how rhetoricians have already contributed to the discussion of discursive democracy.

Professor Roberts-Miller indicated earlier in her essay that part of the dilemma associated with sparse treatments of demagoguery can actually be traced back to my 1989 essay on Louis Farrakhan.⁴ She laments, "It is notable, however, the extent to which this scholarly project has lapsed; journals in rhetoric show few or no articles since Steven R. Goldzwig's 1989 piece on Farrakhan."⁵ While there is some truth to this observation, I think the exceptions to this generalization are important and naming them is actually one way of acknowledging and advancing Professor Roberts-Miller's call.

In particular, I believe that current ongoing attempts to understand folks who have been labeled by scholars and publics alike as "demagogues" are helping us realize new ways of interpreting such rhetors, advancing our knowledge of oppositional rhetorics and, ultimately, our understanding of the nuances of our emerging rhetorical democracy. In the brief space allotted for this response, I would like to give some examples of current scholarship that support this argument. While the following exemplars are not meant to be exhaustive nor necessarily representative of an ongoing major trend in current scholarship, they seem to me to be demonstrative of the shifting character of the contemporary treatment of demagoguery. Traditional categories and assumptions are being reformed and retooled, if not supplanted by recent work.

Patricia A. Sullivan points to the need to pay special attention to the unique contours of African American rhetoric to avoid misinterpreting its thrust and intent. She indicates that during the 1988 presidential campaign, media coverage of Jesse Jackson's bid for the presidency "was greeted with frustration by media representatives and political pundits."⁶ These opinion leaders attributed to Jackson those characteristics we often associate with demagogues and demagoguery, "charg[ing] that he was overly emotional, dishonest, and vague during presentations on the campaign trail."⁷ By rereading Jackson through the culture-specific lens of African American patterns of signification, those negative public assessments seem much less convincing and more likely a case of misinterpretation. Using as her case study Jackson's Democratic National Convention address "Common Ground and Common Sense," Sullivan demonstrates conclusively that Jackson employed a "speakerly text," which was ripe with the "double-voiced words and double-voiced discourse" associated with various forms of African American signification.⁸ In Sullivan's account, simple assessments of demagogic practices are rendered problematic. For example, "'Lying' within the context of the black oral tradition does not necessarily connote dishonesty or insincerity."⁹ Indeed, "from the standpoint of African-American patterns of signification, [Jackson] was using 'figurative discourse,' or symbolically adapting his story for the audience."¹⁰ Thus, the "truth" of the narrative lies in its symbolic resonance for the intended audience rather than in any particular truth-telling "in a traditional sense."¹¹ In like manner, charges of being "overly emotional" are conclusions often made...