The Sword and the Pen
Why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech packs a mighty punch
The Republican ex-governor of California’s remarks on some issue of domestic politics would usually not trouble the world’s news editors. Unless, that is, the ex-governor is box office, and the issue is the gun-toting insurrection aimed at the heart of American democracy.
Even then, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s intervention over the weekend might have been lost amidst the cacophony of voices denouncing the flames of violence at the Capitol, and the emotionally-stunted arsonist who lit the touch paper. The fact that Arnie’s speech is a viral sensation is about more than the speaker or the circumstance — it is also about the words themselves, and the rhetorical tricks the writers use to make them resonate.
First, let’s consider the backdrop. Speeches are rarely events you attend, but instead are consumed on a phone or tablet. We know from endless Zoom meetings or television interviews that the backdrop is a vital part of the communication. Arnie chooses a wood-panelled presidential-style office, with photos, mementos (and is that a cigar humidor?) and he is almost literally draped in the flags of California and the USA. Like the other great actor-turned-politician Reagan, he knows the importance of dressing the set. It reminded me immediately of the Challenger disaster speech in 1986.
How does Arnie start? He makes it clear who he is talking to — his fellow Americans, and ‘our friends around the world’. He establishes his credentials (what speech-writers, after Aristotle, call the ethos), by stating he is an immigrant, and an American. Straight away, he challenges the Trumpian narrative that you can’t be both.
And he starts with the key theme of the speech, that Trumpism is a threat to American democracy, just as Hitler was a threat to European democracy. The evocation of Kristallnacht is a none-to-subtle suggestion that Trump’s devotees are fascists. He names the Proud Boys as the heirs to the Nazi mobs who smashed up Jewish neighbourhoods in 1938. This passage appeals to both the sounds and sights of smashing glass, but he goes further, linking the smashing of windows and doors to the fracture of democracy itself.
Arnie then uses stories from his childhood in post-war Austria, surrounded by men ‘drinking away their guilt’ from the things they had seen and done in the war. But again this anecdote serves a purpose — he links the willing executioners of the Nazi era, the ‘people next door’ who just went along with it, ‘step by step’, to those who enabled Trump. Then he shares the ‘painful memory’ of his ex-Nazi father coming home drunk and beating him. This kind of personal confessional testimony builds audience connection and sympathy. It is powerful because it is authentic. As he says ‘I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes.’
Arnie uses the device polysyndeton — ‘lies and lies and lies’ to reinforce the point that things can ‘spin out of control’. He then uses paralipsis — the device of saying something by pretending to not say it. He says ‘there is a fear in this country and around the world that something like this could happen right here, now I do not believe it is’. By denying it could happen, he plants the thought in our minds that it could.
He attacks Trump as a ‘failed leader’ and ‘he will go down in history as the worst president ever’. If you seek a standout line from this speech, for headlines and soundbites, this is it. The speech writer must always build in the 10 second clip and can be viewed by millions. He goes on: ‘soon he will be as irrelevant as an old tweet.’ This is a smart simile because it is fresh (and as Orwell said, never write anything you are used to seeing in print), but also hits Trump hard where he lives — on Twitter (at least until they banned him).
Next he addresses his Republican colleagues who stood by. Here he uses a quote. Quotes are a rhetorical stock-in-trade, but they must be chosen well. They must relate to the theme of the speech and the audience, and not just be plucked off BrainyQuote. By quoting Teddy Roosevelt, and then hat-tipping JFK’s Profiles in Courage he reaches both sides of the aisle. Arnie then performs another reveal — that he grew up Catholic and learned his Bible. He uses the allusion of ‘a servant’s heart’ to appeal for public servants who serve a higher ideal than their own power or party.
He uses another anecdote about the people from all over the world who have been ‘calling and calling and calling me’ (polysyndeton again) to express their anxiety, including a woman in tears ‘wonderful tears of idealism about what America should be’. He uses the well-worn image of light versus darkness ‘America will come back from these dark days and shine our light once again.’ You’ll spot the alliteration of ‘dark days’ and the allusion to Ronald Reagan’s shining city on the hill, itself lifted from the Bible.
Then, the piece de resistance: the Conan sword. To use a prop in a speech can elevate the occasion into something people remember forever. Shakespeare has Mark Antony wave Caesar’s will at the Roman mob, and politicians have been holding up papers, hats, pens, dollar bills and much else, ever since. None has ever waved the sword from Conan the Barbarian. Is it really the actual sword from the film? Who knows, who cares? One of the most appealing aspects of Arnie the politician is the debt he repays to Arnie the actor; he is unafraid to exploit his Hollywood fame. The sword is a superb visual aid, deployed towards the end when attention spans are getting stretched.
Note the use of language — ‘now you see this sword?’ Arnie is making us look at him. If our attention had drifted, it is right back on him, and the huge weapon he is wielding. The prop allows his somewhat tenuous analogy between the tempering of steel and the testing of democracy, whereby both come out stronger. A word of warning here though. Arnie’s trademark Austro-American accent makes ‘tempering’ sound too much like ‘tampering’, the very thing the Trumpists accuse their enemies of doing to the election. If you fear people will hear a different word to the one you mean (the heartbeat between ‘ageing’ and ‘Asian’ for example), rewrite it.
His peroration is a classic call to arms, demanding reforms, accountability and healing. By repeating ‘we need’ he builds urgency and rhythm, using the type of repetition known as anaphora (see for example Churchill’s ‘we shall fight…’). Arnie subverts Trump’s America First, and forges it instead into Democracy First, just like the filmmakers of turned the baddie in The Terminator into the goodie in Terminator 2. Sorry, couldn’t resist it.
He ends by a directed appeal to Joe Biden, addressing him as ‘you’. Then a directed warning to ‘those who think they can overturn the United States constitution’ ‘You will never win’. He uses a group of three, sometimes called a triad or tricolon ‘today, tomorrow and forever’ before the classic final words of so many American speeches ‘God bless America’.
The right words, in the right order, delivered by the right person, at the right time. That’s a usable definition of a great speech, and Arnie delivers one. A strong theme, a clear message, and skilful use of a range of rhetorical devices: all the ingredients are there to make it sing. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have shown us his sword, but his pen — or the pen of his speechwriters — is much mightier.
Paul Richards is a writer-for-hire.
