–Analysis–
FLORENCE — Among the most striking aspects of the anomalous U.S. presidential campaign is certainly the gulf between the communication styles of Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump and that of Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee.
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It is an extreme, almost Manichean, contrast between weight and lightness: the former embodied by Trump, the latter by Harris.
The contrast between a world of stone and the levity of moonlight is also the theme of the most famous and perhaps fascinating of Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, the Harvard lectures that the Italian writer and journalist was meant to deliver in 1984.
Harris’ aptitude for levity is already declared in the slogan she has repeated so often that it has become a meme: “What can be, unburdened by what has been”.
The weight, of course, is represented by an old and stale model of politics, and it has a negative meaning: a past that is burdensome in form and consequence, which, to quote Calvino, “ends up wrapping every existence in ever tighter knots.”
Trump’s weight vs Harris’s lightness
Far from seeing it as condemnation, for Trump weight is a value: it is power, responsibility, duty.
In the face of Harris’s lightness — understood as insubstantiality and superficiality — the Republican leader proudly uses his physiognomy, displaying his imposing stature, turning his body into a huge monolith.
The stance is static, secure. With the calibrated movements of his huge hands he creates images of stability.
When it comes to power dressing, Harris is not afraid to show herself in jogging clothes (ready to “jump”), while Trump never abandons his formal look.
He is the pater familiae who inspires solidity and confidence, through and through.
Masculine vs feminine styles
This brings us to another juxtaposition, between masculine and feminine.
Political communication over the centuries has been (and still is) purely masculine. This is not only because its protagonists have been predominantly male, but because the figure of the political leader is inextricably linked to the image of the pater familiae.
This contrast grows out of proportion in the Trump-Harris case.
Historically, the political leader has been more paternal than maternal in form: the self-control, self-discipline, consistency and moral fidelity typical of the paternal stereotype are qualities more suited to governing than the maternal qualities of care, empathy, gentleness and patience.
This, of course, also translates in communication styles: typically masculine, power-oriented language has generally prevailed in politics over feminine, relationship-oriented language.
The tenets of sexist communication
This contrast grows out of proportion in the Trump-Harris case.
Trump is the prototype of power-oriented communication: he uses violent, aggressive, predatory tones. He manifests his weight through sexist expressions, he does not disdain bullying: the mockery that goes, once again, to emphasize a (real or alleged) power asymmetry.
Trump only rarely laughs, while Harris’s laughter is also symbolic of a liberation.
He does so, above all, toward women: It is true that Trump is prevaricatory toward all his opponents, but the presence of a gender perspective is undeniable.
He demonstrates this through the best-known stylistic choices of macho communication: From the need to brand women (as such “she is a woman,” while he feels no need to define males as “men”) to the use of animal metaphors as an offense (“horseface” to Stormy Daniels, “pig” to Rosie O’Donnell, “birdbrain” to Nikki Haley) — a clear example of the dehumanization that is a typical trait of toxic masculinity.
Power of laughter
Trump demonstrated this attitude from the very first interactions with Harris, in mocking her laughter. ”Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh,” he said.
But laughter — as the late English anthropologist Gregory Bateson tells us in his essay on humor in human communication — is one of the clearest signals of reassurance, agreement and complicity available to humankind.
A trait that is, again, strongly feminine.
Trump only rarely laughs (more often he smiles, sardonically), while Harris’s laughter (whatever idea one may have of her) is also symbolic of a liberation, an empathy, a lightness completely ignored by his opponent.
Perhaps, it is the symbol of a new era of political communication that can bury the most abject extremes of machismo.
