He saw this coming

"Authenticity Is the New Eloquence," was the title of a talk David Kusnet delivered at a speechwriting conferenceโ€”10 years ago.

David Kusnet is the onetime chief speechwriter for the Clinton administration. He’s also a smart guy. So if I remember right, I likely told him, when he agreed to keynote a Ragan Speechwriter’s Conference that I was planning back inย 2006, to simply say whatever was on his mind.

“When David Murray … invited me to speak to this conference,” he began, “he asked me to be provocativeโ€”so let me apologize in advance for anything that I will say that will provoke you. … Please think of me like the local president of a bricklayers union talking to his fellow craft-workers about how they can keep working even if masonry were to become mechanized.”

So what did Kusnet, now a principal and senior writer at the Podesta Group,ย say that was so provocative pre-YouTube, pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter? What did he discuss that was as dangerous to the livelihood of speechwriters as mechanization would be to bricklayers? โ€œThe rise of the new media; the death of the common culture; the decline of dialogue and debate; and the growing demand for authenticity.โ€

Letโ€™s take them one by one:

Rise of the New Media

Just as radio and television encouraged leaders like FDR and Ronald Reagan to adopt less formal and more conversational speaking styles, โ€œthe cable news networks and the Internet โ€ฆ are making communications even more instantaneous, individualistic and informal.โ€

As Donald Trump would tweet, โ€œSad!โ€

The Death of the Common Culture

โ€œAmericans used to know a few basic texts,โ€ Kusnet pointed out. โ€œThe Bible, the works of Shakespeare and the basic documents of our history. It wasnโ€™t only the elites. The tribunes of the dispossessed knew that their constituents knew the Old Testament, with its struggles for freedom and the New Testament, with its promise of redemption.โ€

To prove it, Kusnet quoted speeches from labor leaders that quoted scripture.

โ€œNow imagine how a presidential candidate would be ridiculed if he or she spoke in as elevated a fashion as the leaders of coal miners and sleeping car porters spoke in the last century,โ€ Kusnet said.

Now, โ€œthe only common cultural reference is popular cultureโ€”TV, movies, music and commercials. And so Walter Mondale criticized Gary Hart by quoting an ad for hamburgersโ€”โ€˜Whereโ€™s the beef?โ€™ The elder George Bush quoted Clint Eastwood: โ€˜Go ahead, make my day.โ€™ And Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes his own films. And now, in the era of hundreds of cable channels, even the popular culture will not be a common culture for much longer.โ€

The Decline of Dialogue and Debate

Martin Luther King spoke to white moderates, Reagan spoke to working class Democrats, Bill Clinton won some of those same Reagan Democrats back, telling them he wanted โ€œno more something for nothing.โ€

But now, Kusnet said, โ€œitโ€™s rare for any segment of society to try to engage its adversaries or even try to speak seriously to the common good. โ€ฆ Instead of persuasion, we have assertion.โ€

Authenticity is the New Eloquence

โ€œThere is a hunger for public figures like Josiah Bartlett of the โ€˜West Wingโ€™ or John McCain in real life whose public voices are distinctive and who sound like they are speaking difficult truths. In a sense, authenticity is the new eloquence.โ€

Kusnet went on to advise speechwriters, in light of these four trends, to try harder to capture the speakerโ€™s real voice, to grab listeners immediately with boldย speech openings, and to โ€œuse simple, muscular American English.โ€

โ€œAnd we can all perform a public service,โ€ Kusnet concluded, โ€œby helping public figures give speeches that say what they meanโ€”and say it clearly.

When you come down to it, that is what our work is all about. Not producing pretty language, or even snappy soundbites, for their own sake. But helping leaders, from every viewpoint and walk of life, find their best voices so that they can participate in the national conversation and advance new ideas which our fellow citizens can evaluate and engage.

If we make that voice conversational and convincing, if we grab listenersโ€™ attention early and hold it with the sound of surprise, and if we write American as it is spoken in this century, then we will do our jobs better.

Kusnetโ€™s speech might as well have been delivered last week. Its adviceย should have been heeded by speechwriters ever sinceโ€”and it had better be heeded from now on. โ€”DM

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