Muhammad Ali is the Greatest.
Donald Trump definitely is not.
Why?
Discuss.
What does this tell Clinton’s communication team about what they should be doing?
Discuss.
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
Hmm. There has been some notice taken of an effective structure in Trump’s tweets if looked at as insult haiku. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/metrical-analysis-of-trump-insult-haiku
Widely used in sport…the Rhetoric of Talking Trash. Here is the basic formula, as far as I can tell:
NOTE: The order of Steps 1 and 2 are negotiable.
Every rhetorical strategy should have a purpose. I think this is where a lot of people base their dislike of trash talk; they see it as a useless device. However, I would argue that talking trash serves a very important goal; it is about self-confidence, about the type of brazen, head-held-high, no-one-can-stop-me, it’s-not-arrogance-if-it’s-the-truth belief in oneself that I love to see.
http://eiuwrites.blogspot.com/2014/01/richard-sherman-and-rhetoric-of-talking.html
See Dozens for similar in the black tradition. Wonderful and international, too. The comedic element is crucial. http://www.elijahwald.com/dozens.html
I dunno if Clinton SHOULD compete. She is the “eat your peas” candidate. That is her brand.
That really is more her strength. Thing with HRC is that she seems to be good at remaining calm, and given Trump’s tendency to both trash talk and melt down, she may come off well once all is said and done. That first debate between the two will be an interesting one, to say the least.
Mohamed Ali could trash talk and remain calm in the rebuttal and trash talk the riposte with equal creativity.
What he was not obligated to do that politicians must do in debate if we are ever to restore political discussion about policy is segue to that informed policy talk without a cliched transition like “But seriously folks.”
>>she seems to be good at remaining calm
remaining calm is an underrated skill. And in a contest with someone like Trump, an effective offense.
Eat your peas, remember, mommy knows best. (Not daddy?)
Clinton is obligated to compete because it is one thing that draws media attention. And she is obligated to win in order to keep Donald Trump sputtering.
To say that Clinton is the “eat your peas” mommy candidate is to say two things IMO:
It makes one want to see what Samantha Bee could do with the topic of women politicians trash talking.
The “eat your peas” characterization is saying that Clinton’s rhetorical style is one of hectoring people to do the right thing. If that is a brand, there is something positive in it that attracts voters. How might that work for women politicians and not for men, given the gender stereotypes of US culture?
2.
What is Trump doing wrong that Mohammed Ali got right?
Missing the comedic element?
Culturally, are white people tone-deaf to good trash-talking? Or at least to doing it themselves?
What is Trump doing wrong that Mohammed Ali got right?
Ali was way more intelligent. Also way healthier. (In his prime.) He had more range as an improvisor as well. But most importantly, his time was better.
Jazz musicians talk about “time.” Complex and accurate rhythmic ability. That’s what made Ali such a great fighter. He had time like Charlie Parker. Charles Mingus once said “If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lotta dead alto players.” Yup. Ali had that kind of time. He’d hit other boxers 8 or 9 times in totally unpredictable rhythms and they would get so confused that they’d eventually give up. He was that way verbally, too. Totally improvised…as is Trump, really…but in a whole other dimension of complexity. His rhythmic thing was so strong!!!
Bebop trash talk.
Bet on it.
Trump?
No comparison.
Leaden.
Jazz players also talk about “licks.” Automatic musical phrases. We all have them, and we all use them in improvisations. Charlie Parker had so many!!! And they were complex. So did Ali. Plus, both of them could alter those licks on the fly. Trump? Short, relatively unimaginative licks, albeit delivered with real power.
“Little Mario”
“Dull Jeb.”
Etc.
Watch him dismantle Jeb Bush, whose time is so bad I wonder if he can walk a straight line.
They work against pedestrian opposition…which is basically all he’s faced so far…and they work with the relatively stupid people who are his supporters. They may also work against HRC, because her time is terrible!!! That’s why I would love to see him debate Elizabeth Warren. She’d carve him up the way Charlie Parker carved up other, lesser soloists. She has great time. Listen once she gets on a roll regarding CitiGroup.
She’s poppin’!!!
Time.
It’s what’s for dinner.
AG
What you just said.
Now a stand-alone post.
Trump, Ali, HRC and Elizabeth Warren. Time Wounds All Heels?
Please post your comments there.
ASG
Except Ali didn’t get it from jazz, the dozens, etc. but from Gorgeous George.
No, Marie. You are wrong. He was born in 1942 and grew up segregated in Louisville, inside a culture that was .steeped in jazz, the blues and cultural traditions like the dozens. Bet on it.
In my late teens and early 20s…only a few years younger than was Mr. Ali…I spent a great deal of time in black urban neighborhoods. They were neighborhoods that had not yet completely decimated by the heroin and crack epidemics that were visited upon them at least partially by a frightened and hostile federal government that wanted to break them up because it saw a united black population as a threat to its hegemony. The blues was everywhere, as was jazz. It was in the speech of the people; it was in the way that they walked and danced; it was the background music of their lives just as was rock ‘n’ roll…a devolved form of rhythm and blues, really…the background music for white youth at the time. It was a major part of Ali’s cultural heritage, and he had the talent to use it to its fullest no matter whether he really thought much about it or not,. It was just the water in which he swam.
Gorgeous George? Ali copped a hustle from him, a way to make his boxing more show-biz. But how he ran that hustle? That was just sheer talent filtered through a black cultural upbringing, and it was glorious.
As was the culture itself.
Sometimes things arise through a crucible of trouble that become greater than that trouble can handle. That was the black U.S. culture from at least the early 1900s right on through the ’60s if not later. The Iran-Contra/crack cocaine crime was the final straw for that culture, and we are all the poorer for its demise.
Ali was one of its most iconic and heroic champions, along with people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and hundreds of others, almost all gone now.
May they rest in peace.
AG
>>Culturally, are white people tone-deaf to good trash-talking?
no but possibly you have to know where to find it. You must not be a pro wrestling fan. Trump is. I think seeing Trump in that context is useful (the best writing on this IMO has been by Chauncey DeVega at dkos).
i’ve also read that Ali intentionally modeled his flashy, self-promoting style after the big pro wrestlers of the 50s, especially Gorgeous George.
So if you cast Hillary Clinton in kay-fabe, how would that work in a male-female bout?
I would like to see the correspondence between Trump’s supporters and pro-wrestling fans. No doubt they understand his rhetoric easier.
i’m reluctant to stretch the analogy too far out of shape.
There aren’t many male/female matches. I was watching WWF/WWE when they had Chyna wrestling men and I don’t remember how they booked it.
You’ll have male/female trash talking, but usually in the context of the woman being a manager or “valet” speaking for a male wrestler, so she talks trash at the male opponent who returns most of the trash at the man she’s representing. That obviously doesn’t apply here.
mostly, I think Trump is the only one who’s playing it kayfabe, which is where the analogy breaks down. He’s in character, I still don’t think he’s taking the process seriously. For him it’s a reality show where winning the daily twitter battle means as much as an election months down the road.
his fans? Wrestling fans are in on the joke. They might not who’s booked to win but they know its scripted. It’s a unique situation: it IS serious and everyone except Trump acts like it’s serious.
There should be some good ones showing up here over time…
https://www.quora.com/What-were-some-of-Muhammad-Alis-greatest-trash-talk-moments
A really good primer for strategy. Recommended. ..http://darkdamian.blogspot.com/2005/04/playing-dozens.html
Playing the Dozens is more than a game of fun–it is a battle for respect. It is an exhibition of emotional strength and verbal agility, a confrontation of wits instead of fists. The dozens is a war of words–perhaps the best type of war there is.
This verbal tradition combines elements of boxing, chess, and poetry. In a contest demanding the poise and power of a boxer, the aim is not just to win but to deliver a knockout. Fought before a crowd, the verbal pugilist wants not only his opponent but all who witness to think twice about confronting him or her again.
Like chess, playing the dozens requires a strategy. To win a battle, you must stay two or three snaps ahead of your opponent. Even as you are being attacked, you should be setting up your counter-snaps. Should I say something about his Fayva shoes? Or perhaps attack his fat sister? I’ll save my best shot for his K-Mart cologne. This is the type of strategic thinking that makes a master snapper.
Painting humorous pictures of your opponent through words is key to becoming a dozens laureate. “You’re so fat, your blood type is Ragu” is an actual snap fired in a legendary battle at New York’s Frederick Douglass Projects. The picture created by this verbal H-bomb still haunts the victim to this day.
Snaps have to be delivered properly in order to work effectively. The setup–“Your mother is so fat…”–is a classic example of how to cock the hammer for the ensuing snap–“…she broke her arm and gravy poured out.” Like the firing of an individual snap, the delivery of a series of snaps requires a rhythm. You might loft your initial snaps slowly, then fire the successive barrage with increasing speed.
Members of the audience serve a number of fundamental roles in playing the dozens. First, they are needed to witness the event. Playing the dozens without an audience is like launching fireworks in daylight. Second, they are responsible for recording the verbal history of the battle, and then for spreading it throughout the community. Third, they fuel the conflict by responding to the snaps, and it is their reaction that determines the ultimate winner.
“Ultimately, mastery of the dozens demands that you go to that place where humor, anger, joy, and pain all reside. It is from that cauldron that the greatest snaps are born and delivered.”
I do think if she engages, she should be mindful of the “castrating” narrative that already exists. Maybe not worth reinforcing that stereotype…
Her best outing on social media was the #SofS meme of her. Those were funny and powerful.
Not to mention the dominatrix meme from the 1990s.
a right-wing acquaintance of mine has a poster with that artwork on his wall. Hillary in leather fetishy getup with a crop.
We get along fine as long as no one mentions politics. He saw me giving that poster a long hard look but neither of us said anything.