NOW HEAR THIS!

"I AM YOUR VOICE"

      Last Thursday real estate mogul Donald J. Trump accepted his party's nomination as candidate for President of the United States, saying, among other things, "I am your voice." This was said loudly.

It rather reminded me of another candidate for president from another party who decades earlier also rather thought he was speaking for me and my fellow Americans at a high decibel level. Howard Dean.

At the time I had said to myself: "Do I really want a president capable of such a scream?" Much as I liked Howard Dean and his policies, his "scream" made me change my mind.

Oh yes. There was one more screamer that made me wonder. I had voted for him for mayor when I lived in New York. But now it seemed as if he was coming unhinged at the 2016 RNC. Rudolph Giuliani.

There is a school of thought among communications scholars that says that you make your own reality by what you say. In other words, whatever comes out of your mouth creates a certain type of reality that would not be there if something else came out. This is the opposite of "telling it like it is." This is making it be by telling it. If you say the world is going to Hell in a hand basket, then it is. If you say it there is nothing to fear but fear itself, then at least for that one bright shining moment, that is all you have to fear.

When was the last time we had a United States President who could scream? And I mean really open that uvula and blow the apocalypse right in our faces so that its fires were singing our very souls? Let's see:
Barack Obama? Nah.
George W. Bush? Barely moves his mouth, most of the time.
Bill Clinton? Not in public, though that opens some possibilities behind closed doors but, no. I think Bubba generally prefers to drawl his displeasure at the world.
Bush Senior? I think not, even though he tried when he was laying into SAD-DAM HOO-SANE!  Didn't really work. Took the junior Bush to take out the bastard, not with a bang but a whisper. And  Jeb is even more proof. The Bushes of Texas are very unTexan in that regard. They don't scream.
Ronald Reagan? If ever there was the opposite of a screamer in recent history it was The Great Communicator.
Jimmy Carter? Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was even talking.
Gerald Ford? Ok. He could blast his voice but he never seemed to lose his cool. There was a kind of density about him that seemed to preclude going Ape $#&*!!!
Nixon probably melted down in the privacy of his own room but even though he cussed like a sailor on the tapes, he did not scream. Must be the Quaker in him.
LBJ. Could be scary. Didn't need to yell, though. Kennedy had his orator voice but it was under control and Eisenhower probably wouldn't scream if you cut off his hand.
Not Truman. FDR could project, but not scream. Hoover? Don't make laugh. Coolidge? Hard to tell if he was even alive. Harding? No. Wilson? Hard to tell but probably not. Taft? Uh-uh. Which brings me to TEDDY!

 Yeah now. That "damn cowboy" as Mark Hannah called him- he could scream. He may have said he'd speak softly and carry a big stick but I doubt sincerely Teddy did anything softly.  And he's on Mount Rushmore. So maybe I shouldn't be so scared if the next president of the United States, leader of the free world, the man with the nuclear codes, can scream bloody murder and say he is my voice.

Maybe every hundred years we deserve a screaming president. Worked for Germany and Italy eight decades ago. They're doing fine now.