Careful use of careless words

Donald Trump is not the inspiration of today’s Republican Party right wing. He certainly is a contributing partner, but not the designer. He is, instead, the heir to the leadership of Newt Gingrich, who was speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich was first elected to Congress in 1979, a mean-spirited Georgian who came north propelled by venom, incivility, and ego. He got some of that from the Reagan staff, but he added a more fine tuned rhetoric.

Gingrich is smart; he has a Ph.D. in history and was a college professor. He made his mark in the House and in Washington as a compulsive philanderer. His second wife said he had asked for “an open marriage.” She refused and they were divorced, making way for Callista, whom Donald Trump later named as our ambassador to the Vatican.

Gingrich helped instill name calling as a deliberate art form for Republican candidates and officeholders. He defined the poetry of right-wing partisanship. He provided his colleagues the words to use.

He said, “language is a key method of control.” He advised them to describe Democrats “with words like corrupt, cheat, disgrace, endanger, failure, hypocrisy, intolerant, liberal, lie, pathetic, sick, steal, traitors, waste, welfare, and abuse of power.” Power mattered to him; the truth did not.

I have no printable words to describe him. Tax relief for the wealthy was his main mission in Congress. He also was a leader in shutting down our government twice.

If Gingrich ever reached across the aisle, it was to goose a Democrat. He left Congress when he was reprimanded by the House. The vote was 395 to 28, hardly a partisan divide. He was fined $300,000 for ”reckless or intentional” use of nonprofits for clearly illegal purposes.

Donald Trump might have discovered name calling on his own, but Newt Gingrich made the way easier. Trump’s addiction to nasty is non-partisan. He called Jeb Bush “low energy,” Marco Rubio “Little Marco.’’

He gave Democrats equal time with “Crooked Hillary.” Amarosa Newman, who worked in the White House for both Trump and Bill Clinton was “wacky and deranged, a crazed, crying lowlife.”

His vile tongue went beyond political people. Stormy Daniels was “Horseface.”

James Comey had been FBI director. He was ‘‘an untruthful slimeball’’ and a ‘‘leaker and liar.” He filled in the details — “as time has proved, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the ‘crooked Hillary Clinton’ case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst ‘botched jobs’ of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”

Gingrich was right. Language is a tool, and an effective one, to label and denigrate, a useful tool for irresponsible politicians. Then and now, they desecrate. Trump has proved it. To use a few words I might have learned from them, they are creeps, crazies, and traitors to what really makes America great. Truth and decency are not burdens they carry.

Oh, I think I just got a message from Stormy Daniels. Horseface says Donald Trump is not a horse’s face.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.