Barton Swaim

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump perceived, correctly in my view, that political rhetoric in the United States had become empty, a vast collection of platitudes and bogus phrases that no longer bore any real connection to the truth. Everyone else pretended to mean what they said when they didn’t; Trump simply dropped the pretense. The result is a post-Christian political discourse of a distinctively American sort: blunt and self-assured and largely free of the obligation to express yourself with sincerity. The new post-Christian discourse uses words, not as vehicles to express thoughts and arguments, but as weapons — as instruments to wrong-foot adversaries and keep them guessing while you seize the advantage. I find it hard to lament the quickening demise of the old honesty-based political culture. It had become cheap and false. If Trump hadn’t snapped it, somebody else would have.

[Barton Swaim is the author of "The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics" ]