In 2022, Craig R. Smith and Michael Hyde published The Call: Eloquence in the Service of Truth, a book that examines political rhetoric and how it relates to a phenomenon they refer to as “the call.” In the short time since the book was published, much has changed in the world of political discourse. Because of this, we asked Smith, who cohosts a historical and politically focused podcast called History. Rated R, to tell us more about the call and how it applies to politics in 2025.
Q: What role does eloquence play in political discourse, and how does it relate to the concept of the call as you define it in your book?
Eloquence in the service of truth can play many roles in political discourse. On the more mundane or common level, it can clarify complicated questions. For example, most people think that a tariff is something the manufacturer of a product pays to have that product imported into another country. But in fact, the tariff is paid by the importer who usually passes the tariff along to the consumer/buyer of the product. Thus, if Ford Motor Company is importing a muffler from China for its cars, Ford pays the tariff, not China, and then Ford adds this to the cost of the car for the consumer. This is an example of the informative role of eloquence and is straightforward.
A more difficult role is the persuasive function in which eloquence is used to move an audience from one position to another. Here a great many factors come into play, which we examine in our book. Appeals to logic, emotions, speaker credibility, style in language, venue, delivery all come into play. That’s why speechwriting is such a complicated art form. In the book, we give many examples of successful speeches that moved audiences from one position to another in the name of the truth, ranging from Senator Daniel Webster in the golden age of oratory condemning slavery to Senator Susan Collins trying to create more civility in the contemporary U.S. Senate.
Finally, the highest form of eloquence calls us to the transcendent. This requires several roles for the speaker. First and foremost, the speaker has to have heard the call of conscience before he or she speaks. And frankly that is rare. Second, the speaker needs to translate that call into words that will enable the audience to hear the call themselves. The two primary examples we give in the book are the speeches of Barack Obama and the writing of Annie Dillard.
“Eloquence is a manipulative tool, a perfect cheat, for making people feel
—The Call: Eloquence in the Service of Truth,
at home with bogus truth-claims. The call that lies at the heart of human
existence demands far more than that.”
Q: A lot has changed in politics since you and Michael Hyde published your book. Do you think that the nature of the call has changed for politicians in the past three years?
The nature of the authentic call of conscience is the same. What is different is that politicians are not hearing it. They may not even be trying to hear it. When they do try to hear it and succeed, the results can be quite stunning. If you listen to Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2024 Democratic Convention, you hear an appeal to what Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.” That speech was head and shoulders above any other speech at that convention. The problem is that such moments have become more and more rare in the contemporary era.
The impact of social media has been devastating to eloquence in the service to truth. Instead, social media provides affirmation for almost any version of the world. It has become very hard to break through that cheating of eloquence.
Q: How would this book help readers make sense of today’s political landscape?
First, we define the constituents of eloquence so that readers can parse not only what speakers are saying but also how they are going about the task. We identify all of the available strategies of speakers so that our readers become more sophisticated when it comes to recognizing the rhetorical strategies of politicians and social media. Second, we expand that world into the realm of motion pictures, arguing the narratives are much more powerful than most people believe. While watching a motion picture, most people know they are being entertained, but they often do not realize that they are also being persuaded. Characters are developed in such a way that audience members identify with them and then unwittingly adopt a character’s ideology. The same is true of underlying storylines. Emilia Pérez, a controversial and complicated contemporary film, advances a condemnation of drug cartels on the surface level, while advocating tolerance to trans persons on a secondary level. We hope our book makes audiences more aware of political persuasion in its hidden forms.
For more information about the book visit: https://msupress.org/9781611864090/the-call/