Analysis of US congressional speeches reveals a shift from evidence to intuition

4/24/2025 at 9:55:14 PM

I think the rise of C-SPAN was also a factor.

Once all congressional speeches began to be televised, everything started to become campaign fodder. Members of Congress were no longer talking to each other, but always and endlessly trying to appeal to the voters.

Congressional hearings are even worse. Very few congresspeople seem to have any interest and asking meaningful questions. They seem to be focused on getting a video snippet that proves how hard the are fighting for/against a particular issue.

It's all become an endless political campaign. Evidence has never mattered too much in those.

by timoth3y

4/24/2025 at 11:28:29 PM

Do you know the expression "Speaking to Buncombe"? If not, it might be worth looking up.

Also, do you know anyone who watches Congress on C-SPAN? I live in Washington, DC, which is full of the politically obsessed--there are at least two lobbyists on my block--and I have never since the beginning of C-SPAN heard anyone refer to anything heard on C-SPAN.

by cafard

4/25/2025 at 1:28:11 AM

> I have never since the beginning of C-SPAN heard anyone refer to anything heard on C-SPAN.

Correct. They hear it on Fox or MSNBC. Fox, MSNBC, and social media teams mine C-SPAN for clips.

Newt Gingrich understand the power of this very early on. He famously made several impassioned speeches to an empty house. He knew exactly who he was talking to.

by timoth3y

4/25/2025 at 6:06:27 AM

This is a good point. Even in totally unrelated forums, like a confirmation hearing, you will have the rep from Hawaii, have a 30 second infomercial. Oloha, have you tried macadamia nuts from Hawaii?

by patrickhogan1

4/24/2025 at 7:43:13 PM

We are swiftly moving to thoroughly reject the "Reality-based Community"[1] of facts and expertise that (reportedly) Karl Rove dunked on 20 years ago:

    The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

by ryandrake

4/24/2025 at 9:09:44 PM

Wow. That's the sort of hubris that precedes major military disasters. Of course this is coming from the people who directed the US invasion of Iraq, so that's not in the least surprising.

by hodgesrm

4/24/2025 at 11:15:08 PM

What's fascinating about that is that if you're willing to set aside how much that sounds like something a Bond villain would say, it's actually remarkably better than where we are today. First of all it's vastly more articulate than the angry thuggish bravado that characterizes modern political speech, but it's actually aspirational about acting in a way to shape reality rather than trying to work within the existing framework. If you can look past the source and generalize the sentiment, there's actually a nugget of a half-decent idea there. In tech industry terms you might even call this the basic idea behind "disruption".

Given the source, such shaping should obviously be viewed with deep suspicion, but at least Rove was talking about taking real action that actually creates changes in the foundational way the world works. But the modern version is just ignoring reality entirely and simply asserting your own version of it with a combination of emotion based vibes and basic lying. This version of rejecting the reality based community isn't about changing reality at all, but simply getting a critical mass of people to operate in a make believe alternate reality. For all of Karl Rove's problems, this is significantly worse since it means large portions of the public are now operating in a way completely unmoored from the actual underlying facts.

by rainsford

4/24/2025 at 9:04:22 PM

Perhaps such hubris is how all empires die

by thisisnotauser

4/25/2025 at 10:05:05 PM

It’s how they form.

Do you think Empire forms because of calm discussions over dinner?

It comes from people taking up arms and conquering that they want to take, because they can.

by lazide

4/24/2025 at 11:54:01 PM

many do die of hubris/arogance Some trundled along for millenia, with just dynastic turn overs. What we are looking at now, with people saying the quiet part out loud, speaks more to pannic than confidence, so....

by metalman

4/24/2025 at 10:26:45 PM

Of course, it's good to keep in mind that what politicians say in public speeches doesn't necessarily reflect how they reason internally, just what they think will be most effective to get the desired result from their current audience. There's also the factor of current stylistic trends among the congressional staffers who write speeches and briefing outlines.

by mrandish