I have often cautioned that we should pay less attention to what politicians say than to what they do not say and, further, that we should notice when and where they do not say it.

Politicians are inclined to speak in trite phrases about a host of issues and individuals, for or against them. In all these situations, the speaker’s aim is twofold: to convey his message and to increase his public esteem. In other words, he aims to improve his electability by saying what he says. Recall the old hoary trope of craven politicians offering their paeans to “God, motherhood, and apple pie.” (Today, of course, the left has changed this list to read: secularism, abortion, and DEI.)

The politician will deliver his message in the setting most congenial for his clichés. Think of a keynote speaker praising the goals and achievements of an assemblage at their annual convention. True, politicians love to portray themselves as having the courage to take a stand against anyone, anywhere, come Hell or high water. While there may be a kernel of truth in their words in the moment they are spoken, they are conditional and, should the stance prove unpopular as an election approaches, it is quickly abandoned.

This is why silence can be the politician’s best friend and the public’s most vexatious opponent. The politician’s goal is to allow his past recitation of popular platitudes to imply that he must support the electorate’s opinion—or at least his party’s—about a contentious issue.

This political logic can be seen in campaign slogans. For instance, consider former President Obama’s “Yes, We Can!”

Caught up in the rhetoric of their champion and the confirmation bias it provided, Obama’s admiring partisans affirmed the agenda he was advancing even if it lacked specifics. Obama became a mirror through which his supporters could see themselves, and they voted accordingly. (During the 2008 Obama campaign, I was asked by a credentialed interrogator what I thought of his slogan, “Yes, We Can!” I simply responded: “‘Yes, we can’ do what?” My interrogator was flummoxed.)

It is also imperative for politicians to avoid saying something unpopular and, worse yet, blurting it out in the wrong place. Sure, what they say may be true, but that will likely only increase the unpopularity of the utterance, especially if it runs counter to the public perception of that politician’s opinions and image.

Let’s look at illegal immigration and a hypothetical Catholic Democrat politician whom we shall call “Joe.”

Joe spends all his time in the media and the marbled corridors of power denouncing the Trump administration’s “inhumane” treatment of “migrants.” His use of the term “migrants” when he is speaking of “illegal immigrants” further blurs the line between lawful and illegal entrants into America. Further, in decrying this allegedly inhumane treatment, Joe cites disinformation, misinformation, and exaggerates—but the one thing he never manages to provide in his descriptions of what constitutes humane treatment of illegal immigrants.

Joe does this while simultaneously condemning violence against illegals and inciting it against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are enforcing federal law. That Joe is, in fact, violating his oath of office is either lost upon him or willfully ignored.

Claiming to be a “devout Catholic,” Joe will even try to shame his co-religionists by citing in the public square—where he otherwise assiduously shuns religious arguments and sentiments—the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It reads in the section pertinent to his purposes:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Yet, if Joe were sincere, he would have long ago cited the remainder of the teaching:

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Did Joe ever dare to stand in the public square—let alone along our then porous borders—and urge those who would enter our nation illegally that they were not only transgressing United States law but the teaching of the Catholic Church? Did he ever tell any immigrants—legal or illegal—that they had a duty to assimilate and respect and support our Constitution and laws, and to assume the civic duties that flow from them?

In conclusion, as the above hypothetical demonstrates, if in the midst of a contentious issue one does not listen for the sounds of silence in a politician’s speech (and notice, too, where and when that silence occurs), then one should be prepared to turn off his critical thinking capacity, join the line of leftist lemmings, and echo as he bumbles into the abyss:

“Hello Darkness, my old friend….”