The most disturbing consequence of Donald Trump becoming the Republican nominee for President is not that he is unelectable or that he represents the Old Guard of Republican politics. The most disturbing consequence is that he will poison the campaign discourse on both sides for the next eighteen months.

Donald Trump’s gifts are name-calling and inciting grievance.  He sets the tone for any campaign he enters into by inspiring anger, not reflection. He believes the best way to motivate voters is to charge them up with righteous anger, and so he channels his own anger to arouse them. He can be blamed for bringing out our worst in political discourse.

Fox News has been his mentor and accomplice. Fox features hosts  and guests who appeal to bitter grievance, because that is their way to attract audiences. We have seen in the Dominion Defamation case that Fox has less interest in facts than in viewer ratings. We can expect the network to keep the drumbeat of grievance pounding throughout the Presidential campaign, because angry victims are hungry for red meat programs. So labeling (“socialist,” “leftist,” “communist,” “anarchist,” “atheist,” “extremist”) will be the fodder of their primetime talk shows.

Donald Trump will play the counterpoint of making up names to denigrate his opponents. Trump’s names ( I will not dignify many of them here) are intended as character assaults, rather than political positions. His labels are attempts to personally malign an opponent, rather than to critique the candidate’s position. His official name “Sleepy Joe Biden” is less offensive, but rather an underhanded critique of Biden’s age.  In some ways that label has emphasized the coolness of Biden, rather than his lack of energy, so Mr. Trump may have to come up with a better insult.

But Trump has made better use of nicknames in the Primary campaign, so we should expect plenty of that in the next year. He doesn’t want to separate on the issues yet, so he will try to characterize his opponents as weak or lacking charisma in order to take advantage of them.  Republicans rarely object to  nicknames, but find them entertaining in intra-Party politics.

However, it is hard to make the transition to a national race once the name-calling is stoked. The slogan “Let’s go, Brandon” a phrase sanctioned by Ted Cruz (Sen, TX), Bill Posey (Rep – FL) and Jeff Duncan (Rep- SC),  reminds us of the increasing coarsening of political discourse. The expression has utterly vulgar origins.

It started at an Oct. 2 [2021] NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. Brandon Brown, a 28-year-old driver, had won his first Xfinity Series and was being interviewed by an NBC Sports reporter. The crowd behind him was chanting something at first difficult to make out. The reporter suggested they were chanting “Let’s go, Brandon” to cheer the driver. But it became increasingly clear they were saying: “F—- Joe Biden.” https://apnews.com/article/lets-go-brandon-what-does-it-mean-republicans-joe-biden-ab13db212067928455a3dba07756a160.

You can find this slogan posted throughout the South, as you drive from town to town, a sign of cheap shots and contempt that has no place, even in political discourse. Although Trump did not originate the phrase, he has never repudiated it either, a sign that it fits his name-calling strategy.

Stoking anger is the main goal of labeling and name-calling in politics. It could motivate voters who might otherwise sit on their hands at polling time, but it runs the risk of alienating certain voters who want to make decisions based on issues, rather than personality.  Any politician who allows “Let’s Go, Brandon” to be posted at his or her rally, should be called on it, if not eliminated from consideration. If a Democratic candidate resorts to a similar strategy, I am through with that candidacy.

But Donald Trump knows no other way to get votes. He doesn’t like campaign platforms, because he wants to change his color, like a chameleon,  as he travels around on the stump. He can use labels and insulting names wherever he finds the right echo chamber, but he doesn’t want to be accused of being a feminist in some parts of the country, while he pretends advocacy for women’s rights on the suburban platform.  The insults are localized, while the issues are nationalized.

The worst part of Donald Trump is not his political positions, but how he and Fox News go low, while Democrats look weak by trying to “go high.”  That is the discourse we can look forward to in the next eighteen months. It is not only Republicans that know the low road, but the feisty Biden-supporters, who will not take a shot without swinging back. The important issues will be drowned out by the low-discourse of name-calling and labeling. Our daily conversation will be coarsened by the depths our leaders are willing to go.

How much more of this offensive political dialogue can we stand without completely losing our ability to constructively disagree?