It’s unfair to compare President Donald Trump to President Barack Obama.

The announcement of Osama bin Laden’s killing was a dignified example of professionalism, understatement, and honor.  The announcement of Baghdadi’s killing was anything but that. Trump and Obama are simply not in the same league.

From a rhetorical point of view, however, there’s something to be gained by looking at the way Trump went about this.  Words matter.

This is never more true than when world leaders speak of life and death. Here the smallness of the man, raised to the greatness of the office, becomes cancerous.

We can dispense with the childish theatrics of Trump’s teasing tweet of the night before, and the preening narcissism of his post-announcement press conference.  These are all too familiar, sickening though they may be. As an English teacher, a student of language, I see something more nefarious in his words themselves.

Look how Trump described the action.

No U.S. personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him.  He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming. The compound had been cleared by this time, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed.

Eleven young children were moved out of the house uninjured. The only ones remaining were Baghdadi in the tunnel, who had dragged three children with him to certain death.

He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children.  His body was mutilated by the blast, but test results gave certain and positive identification.

It’s a visceral telling.  Trump takes pains to paint the scene, making sure to drive home that Baghdadi was “whimpering and crying and screaming.”

He can’t resist adding that Baghdadi “dragged three children with him to certain death,” and then underlining that Baghdadi’s suicide vest “kill[ed] himself and the three children,” and tossing in the word “mutilated” to make the grisly details don’t go unnoticed.

Five out of these eight sentences have some variant of the words “killed” or “death” in them (if you want to count “mutilated,” that makes six). You can almost see the skeleton of an original statement through all the gore, where “[n]o U.S. personnel were lost in the operation;”  “[t]he compound had been cleared by this time;” “[e]leven young children were moved out of the house uninjured;” and “test results gave certain and positive identification.” The rest is gaudy pulp scribbled in between to revel in its own viciousness.

Compare that with Obama’s telling of the bin Laden raid.

A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability.  No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

That’s it.  Now, this may be just an example of Obama’s professorial detachment matched against the populist style that led to Trump’s success in reality television; but Obama’s report notes the facts without smearing our faces in them.

He likely knows that some details will come out but he doesn’t need to tell that story here. Obama meets the moment with solemn dignity and a deep understanding that victory over terrorists means rising above them to demonstrate the basic decency of the values we proclaim.

That’s all the rhetoric of aspiration, and, as I said above, it’s ludicrous to hold Trump to such a standard.  What is fair to judge, however, is the point of view he asserts in his feeble bluster of words. For that, we have to go to the dogs.

Trump narrates: “He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down.”  By now he’s reduced Baghdadi to an animal state, a pathetic beast “whimpering and crying and screaming.”

No one would argue for Baghdadi’s humanity, and you can debate the cathartic value of picturing a terrorist vanquished in terror.  The problem here, though, is that Trump has turned us into the dogs.

The United States of America, the shining City on a Hill, is the other beast in this scene.  Trump’s innate cruelty, his bullying (“whimpering and crying and screaming”), and his pornographic instinct for dragging us all down into bestial depravity: this is the real damage he’s done to us.  Trump infects.

Language isn’t truth, but language has an effect.  It can call us to the better angels of our nature or leave us snarling like a dog.

Douglas Parker

Port Washington