Popular speaker and author, Brene Brown, states: “It’s hard to hate people close up. So, move in.” Communication theorists note that what helps break negative stereotypes the most is, information. How much do we know about the two presidential candidates? Learning the stories of Vice-President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump doesn’t condone their positions, but rather, humanizes them.


Episode Transcript

Rick Langer:
We are talking about political figures, be they Donald Trump or Joseph Biden, who we might disagree with. We need to stop and ask ourselves the question, are we still regarding them as human beings who are made in the image of God?

Tim Muehlhoff:
Welcome to the Winsome Conviction podcast. My name is Tim Muehlhoff. I'm a professor of communication at Biola University.

Rick Langer:
My name is Rick Langer and I'm a professor of Biola as well, in the Biblical Studies of and Theology department. And I'm also the director of the Office of Faith and Learning here at Biola.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And we're both the co-directors of the Winsome Conviction Project. We had an interesting idea for a podcast. We read a quote that got us thinking. The quote comes from a very interesting article in Rolling Stones Magazine, written by Jeff Goodall, entitled The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew: How an Insecure Hippy Kid Reinvented Himself and Changed the World. In it, Jeff Goodall interviewed some of Steve Jobs' friends and asked them, "Where do you think this crazy perfectionist attitude came from?" Because Jobs was notorious for being a perfectionist. Some even claimed he was a narcissist, and he was incredibly difficult to work with.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Well, here's a quote from the article that just got us thinking. Here's the quote. "The central trauma of his life," Steve Jobs, "after all, was being given up for adoption by his parents. And now he's being kicked out of his second family," Apple, "the company he founded. A close friend once speculated to me that Steve's drive came from a deep desire to prove that his parents were wrong to give him up, a desire, in short, to be loved. Or more precisely, a desire to prove that he was somebody worth loving."

Tim Muehlhoff:
Now, when we read that quote, that did not change the fact that Steve Jobs is a perfectionist, maybe even narcissist, but it humanized him to us. What if all of this was an attempt to show his birth parents they were wrong to give him up for adoption? And that got us thinking about humanizing.

Rick Langer:
Yeah, and I think humanizing, obviously we're all human beings, but we can humanize or dehumanize one another. And I would argue that for Christians, humanizing one another should be a thing we're not only naturally adept at, but theologically committed to. In fact, I think Christians should be, and I think we commonly are, actually, notable for arguing, for example, all human beings are created in the image of God. And that fact alone, independent of any of our abilities, accomplishments, or any other characteristic, makes us creatures of an estimable worth and dignity. It should guarantee for us a moral standing before our peers. These are things that we just feel like are born into sound, Christian theology.

Rick Langer:
And sometimes, we speak to our culture and remind them of fact, even when the fact is inconvenient. So for example, we argue that unborn children have moral standing and should be protected and valued before the law. Particularly within that category, we may be arguing that a Down's baby, which right now, 90% of Down's babies are aborted. And we would argue that even a Down's baby... I don't even want to say even. I'm simply saying a Down's baby is also a person in the image of God. So we would humanize the Down's baby. We would humanize mentally handicapped adults, not just those who might be in the womb. Aging people with dementia or in a persistent vegetative state.

Rick Langer:
All of these factors, we look at and say, "Yes, but these are still people who bear the image, independent of their abilities, lack of abilities, accomplishments, lack of accomplishments." We argue that everyone should therefore be getting treated with human dignity and respect.

Rick Langer:
Sometimes, Tim, what I wonder, if the only exception to that rule is Presidential candidates. It seems like we have developed into a cottage industry of dehumanizing our Presidential candidate and political figures, perhaps in general.

Rick Langer:
And I would argue that actually, we really don't disdain their policies or their politics. We seem to disdain their person. We treat them as an object of disdain, not as simply a person that we disagree with. And I think this is a shameful thing, at some point, to treat another person as an I it, rather than an I thou, to borrow the language of Martin Buber.

Rick Langer:
So as we head into this election cycle, we decided that we would take the burden upon ourselves to take a few minutes to humanize our two leading candidates for President here in the United States. And so Tim and I are going to do that. And I volunteered Tim to take the job of humanizing President Trump. And I will be doing the job of giving some humanizing perspective on Vice-president Biden. And so Tim, take it away.

Tim Muehlhoff:
We were thinking about entitling this podcast, the podcast sure to tick everybody off.

Rick Langer:
Yes. Or the please don't slash our tires podcast.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Let me just give a quick disclaimer. I am not a President Trump supporter. I've actually written an essay that got some play, tackling some of the things about President Trump that I just can't support. But Rick, this was a very interesting process for me.

Tim Muehlhoff:
So let me give you my first one about President Trump. We all know his view towards the media. We all know that he's taken on fake news. He has been very hostile towards the media, and you begin to understand why, when you start to look at some of the experiences that he's had. For instance, his son that he had with Melania, Barron Trump, has been targeted and cyber bullied relentlessly. On Twitter, he's trended. People make cutting and cruel remarks about his physical appearance, even speculating whether or not he's autistic. Saturday Night Live writer was suspended for a tweet about Barron Trump, saying that Barron will be this country's first homeschool shooter.

Rick Langer:
Wow.

Tim Muehlhoff:
During the impeachment process, a legal scholar, Pamela Karlan, as she was testifying, tried to make a joke about the fact that President Trump is not a king. And she said this. "The constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the President can name his son Barron, he can't make him a baron." And she meant it as a witty joke. Well, Melania Trump, the gloves were off, and she said, "Listen, there's a long standing policy on Capitol Hill. You do not talk about children that are minors." And the gloves were off, and she said, "You should know better for doing that. Because when my son is the butt of your joke, he gets cyber bullied." And Karlan, to her credit, apologized. She said, "I want to apologize for what I said earlier about the President's son. It was wrong of me to do that."

Tim Muehlhoff:
And then add to that, Eric and Donald Trump, Jr., children from a previous marriage, are treated like idiots by Saturday Night Live. It's one thing to poke fun at the President, but these two well-accomplished businessmen are treated like absolute idiots.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And so when you wonder why President Trump gets angry at the media, maybe it's because his family has been targeted by the media. Now, listen, this doesn't make me a Trump supporter, but I had that Steve Jobs aha moment of saying, "What would it feel like if my son, who is a minor, is being cyber bullied, not just by Twitter users, but by people in impeachment processes?" That humanized me just a little bit with President Trump.

Rick Langer:
Okay. Fair enough. Let me just make a observation about Joe Biden. One of the things that's interesting, the way we normally think of Presidential candidates in the Democratic and Republican parties right now is that the Republican party is a party of faith in the Democratic party is not. With Joe Biden, I would argue that he is one of the politicians that we've had, who has probably had the longest run of being very transparent, in effect wearing his faith upon his sleeve. Now, in his case, he is a practicing Catholic, but has been very active in forthcoming about that for a long, long time. And he currently has the practice of carrying with him a rosary that actually belonged to his late son, Beau, who died a few years ago.

Rick Langer:
But it came to attention of the other Democratic primary candidates when they were in the green room waiting to go on for debate because Joe Biden was holding these rosary beads. And Pete Buttigieg asked him about that. They ended up having a good long conversation about faith. And it was a very, very interesting, touching moment in that.

Rick Langer:
And related to that, also, one of the things I appreciate is there's people who are giving Mitt Romney a lot of flack about being a Mormon, and would we want to vote for a Mormon, things like this. And one of the people who came to his defense on that count, interestingly enough, was Joe Biden. And in that case, what I found particularly intriguing and in some sense humanizing about it, was obviously, they were on the opposite sides of the political... Joe Biden is basically speaking up for a person who's running against the sitting President that Biden was serving as Vice-president for, but nonetheless he says, "Wait a minute, whatever we want to qualify or disqualify a person for, for office, it shouldn't be based on the practice of his faith." And so these were interesting qualities that I found in Biden on that issue that we commonly don't associate with.

Tim Muehlhoff:
When we think about President Trump, we tend to think about the big issues. He's certainly taken on immigration. He's certainly taken on China, as far as fair trade deals. But there's two other issues that he would point to that he's most proud of, and are spurred on by interesting factors.

Tim Muehlhoff:
The first one is that Fred Trump Jr., his older brother, struggled with alcoholism his entire life, and eventually succumbed to a doctor said was a premature heart attack, brought on by his excessive drinking. To this day, President Trump does not drink nor does he smoke cigarettes because of his affection for his older brother. But he's also taken on an epidemic our country is seeing, and that is the opioid addiction problem that we're seeing. Over 130 people die a day from opiod drug-related overdoses. He's taken this on and has actually passed two bi-partisan bills to address this issue. And he has publicly said, "Watching a brother die of addiction, we need to address the epidemic that we're seeing when it comes to this." I thought that was a humanizing factor.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Another one was that if you asked President Trump, what's the greatest achievement during his tenure, he would say the way that he has treated our veterans and particularly VA hospitals. He passed a whistleblower bill that protects informants, that turn in corrupt supervisors at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And in 2019, he signed a bill that addressed veteran suicide. Tragically, 20 veterans commit suicide a day in this country. And he stepped in and said, "Not on my watch is this going to happen." What's interesting about this, Rick, President Trump is the only President to not have political experience, but also have never served with our military. So you asked the question, why is he concerned about the military when he's never served in the military, yet he felt that this was egregious, the way our veterans who serve our country and come back, and now 20 a day are committing suicide.

Tim Muehlhoff:
So he has said publicly, "My greatest accomplishment is taking care of our veterans." Again, just let that sit there for a while. I can already imagine what the counters would be, but just let that sit there for a while, that these are the two issues he feels very strong about and has made progress on, even bi-partisan progress, when it comes to the opioid epidemic we're seeing.

Rick Langer:
As long as we're on the roll here of thinking about things that a Democratic candidate isn't supposed to be, I mentioned the humanizing aspect of looking at Joe Biden's faith. The other thing would be family. So we think of faith and family, and well, those are two things that are really huge for Joe Biden. His family life, it's stunning to think all that he's been through in that regard.

Rick Langer:
He first began running for public office, I think, in 1969 in a local election, spent a couple of years in the House of Representatives. But in 1972, he was elected as a Senator from Delaware. You know where he was sworn into office?

Tim Muehlhoff:
Where?

Rick Langer:
In a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, caring for his two sons who were in critical condition, after their mom, his wife, and his baby daughter had been killed in a car accident. So at the beginning of Joe Biden's political life is this tragic, driving off to buy a Christmas tree accident that you never come home from.

Rick Langer:
And that not only is one of those things that you feel for him for the tragedy, but one of the interesting things for me that really struck me was his response to that tragedy. Obviously, he instantly became a single parent, but he leaned into that role, and he didn't just become a single parent and farm off the job of raising his two sons. In fact, he rode the train 90 minutes each way to get from Wilmington, Delaware down to Washington, DC each and every day, and had come back in time to put his kids into bed and stay there to eat breakfast with them in the morning. And so he earned the nickname, Amtrak Joe, while riding the Amtrak train back and forth in his first term as a Senator.

Rick Langer:
And one of his staffers, Roger Harrison, commented on this. He said, "Yeah, his sons would often be sitting on his lap during staff meetings." Because what else was he going to do? He had to be taking care of them. If he was busy on the Senate floor, another Senator would take Hunter and Beau into his office and let them hang out with him there.

Rick Langer:
He also bought and remodeled his own home. I'm a guy who loves remodeling, so this resonates with me. But the interesting thing is, once he'd remodeled this large home, here's a description of it. So one of his aides said, "Yeah, so many people came in and out that they nicknamed the house The Station." Union Station, Station. And Hunter, his son, recalled, "Yeah, the door was never locked. The pool was everybody's pool. Beau and I," his brother, "were communal properties that everyone had a hand in raising us."

Rick Langer:
And so there's this incredible feeling of a hospitality and welcome and things like that, that just are the things that I love to associate with family life. And I have to admit when I look at Joe Biden, I see him having done that, and having done that in the midst of some of the most difficult circumstances.

Rick Langer:
And then of course, fast forwarding to now, we have his son Beau who died of a brain cancer in 2015. He'd been attorney general of Delaware. He was planning on running for governor of Delaware when this was first diagnosed. And so he's experienced that loss. And his other son Hunter has been through all kinds of trauma. On the one hand, very successful business person in various ways. But on the other hand, has been a bit of a train wreck, in terms of issues with drug addiction and family problems and things like that. Really interesting.

Rick Langer:
In other political families, all of his struggles and failures in that realm would have caused a whole lot of kind of unpardonable embarrassment to the political reputation of his father. Hunter's comment about that. He says, "My father has been a constant source of love and strength in my life. Even though my life has played out in the media, because I'm a Biden, my father has never once suggested that the family's public profile should be my priority. The priority has always been clear for my dad, as it is now, it's me. 'Never run from a struggle, love people, and find a way to love yourself,' he told me."

Tim Muehlhoff:
And again, I can imagine listeners screaming at the device they're listening to us, saying, "But you're overlooking all the criticisms. You're just overlooking..." And again, you can find the criticisms by doing a quick Google search. This is about humanizing moments.

Rick Langer:
Yeah. I'm not campaigning for Joe Biden. I'm humanizing Joe Biden.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Yes.

Rick Langer:
I'm reminding us that the candidate is a human, born in the image of God, and worthy of the respect that we grant people, simply because of that fact and not because of their achievements, their accomplishments, or their political policies.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Well, let's talk about President Trump and his relationship to family, which is very complicated. And again, we all know his history, but that history became even more complicated when Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never Enough: How my Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, was released. Sold one million copies on the day that it was released.

Rick Langer:
Wow.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And just to bring up to speed, Mary L. Trump, the President's only niece, wrote a tell all book where she personally attacks President Trump. Says that he's a narcissist. He hits seven of the nine characteristics of a narcissist and maybe could possibly be a sociopath. Now for those you don't know what a sociopath is, that'd be a person with a weak conscience who doesn't really care about others. It was a stinging book. The President tried, on many different occasions, to block it legally, but the book was finally released.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And he was asked in an interview what he thought about the book. And this is what I thought was interesting, his response. "It hurts me more that my father was attacked and that my mother was not treated kindly."

Tim Muehlhoff:
Donald Trump loved his father. And in the book, Mary Trump argues that he was a sadistic, abusive father who attacked relentlessly his children, particularly Trump's older brother, Fred Jr.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Now just for a second, let's imagine the book was true and what effect that would have on Donald Trump, growing up in such an abusive house. In a later interview, Donald Trump, when asked the question, "Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?" He responds and says, "No, I really haven't. I just try to do better." Now, where would he get that from? Well, in Mary's book, she says that Fred Trump Jr., Trump's older brother, whenever he tried to apologize, was mocked by his father and made to feel like a complete failure. And all that Trump's father would say to Fred Jr. Is, "I'm training you to be a killer. Killers don't apologize."

Tim Muehlhoff:
So if we wonder why it's hard for President Trump to apologize and take blame, this is just a moment, Rick, where I stopped and said, "Imagine growing up in such an abusive family." And the real problem he had with the book is that you attacked my dad. Because Donald Trump would say that he absolutely loved his father. His father was a standup guy. He was tough, but he was good.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And this is what he said about his father. "I think he was the most solid person I've ever met. He was a very good person. He was a very, very good person. He was strong, but he was good."

Tim Muehlhoff:
So one, Donald Trump loves his father. And what really bothers him about the book is not that he's being attacked, but his dad. And then if we grant the fact that the book is true, which is up for debate, you wonder why it's hard for President Trump to apologize? Because he watched an older brother be ridiculed for doing so.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Rick, that's just a moment I need to sit with. And I'm not a President Trump supporter, and I know his faults. That's a pretty humanizing Steve Jobs moment for me right there.

Rick Langer:
Yeah. Yep. One other thing about Joe Biden that I found humanizing, as I was looking into his story, is the candor, the openness he has about some of his failures, sufferings, weaknesses, losses, things like that. They aren't things that have necessarily been hidden. I'm sure there's things that have been hidden. I understand all of those dynamics, but there's been a lot of interesting things acknowledged.

Rick Langer:
Just as a quick example, the issue that he has with stuttering. And he has dealt with this candidly, this has been a story he's told many times. I happened to be looking at a speech he gave at the Stuttering Foundation. I didn't know there was one, but there is one. And it was several years ago. He was giving a speech there, and here's some quotes from that. He said, "Stuttering has nothing to do with your intelligence quotient. It has nothing to do with your intellectual makeup." Which I think is a good thing to remind us. And that's often what we mock people of. But then he says, he knows stuttering, when you think about it, it's the only handicap that people still laugh about. They still humiliate people about it.

Rick Langer:
And at that point, I found myself move because I thought he's right. But then here's an interesting thing he said. "And they don't even mean to." And it's an interesting thing where I see it's gotten in our DNA that we do this humiliation. People don't even necessarily mean it.

Rick Langer:
And I think Biden's ability to understand even people who were mocking him or mocking other people who face the same challenges, as a lot of times, those things are just going on, and people don't even notice and aren't even aware. And he has been able to acknowledge that.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And Rick, this one particularly hits me with Vice-president Biden. Because again, let me just be candid, I'm not a Biden supporter either. I teach speech classes. I'm a communication professor and actually have done some consulting with politicians on how to deliver a speech and connect with an audience. So it drives me crazy to watch Vice-president Biden fumble and just can't get a word out. And he switches thoughts very quickly.

Tim Muehlhoff:
And I'm just watching him, and you want to attribute it to age. That's where a lot of people go. Well, I forget where I was going. I was in an airport pre-COVID, and I grabbed an Atlantic magazine, and it was all about Biden and his lifelong stuttering problem. And I got to tell you, it changed the way I viewed him, to think, "Boy, what would that be like to be a lifelong stutterer? And now you're in front of everybody. Every word you say is going to be scrutinized." How that would feed into that issue of stuttering. That was a humanizing moment for me, for Vice-president Biden. I'm so glad you brought that up.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Hey, let me bring up one more with President Trump real quick. And again, I can just hear the reaction, and perhaps I share some of it, is that in an interview with the Family Leadership Summit in 2015, when asked about his faith, President Trump said, "I am a man of faith. I am a Christian. And my favorite part of the service is communion."

Tim Muehlhoff:
Now this is from a man... By the way, this is the same interview that he doesn't ask for forgiveness. When asked the question, "Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?" His response was, "I don't think so." But he said, "Here's what I love about communion. I walk away feeling cleansed."

Tim Muehlhoff:
And I thought to myself, well, if you don't have any sin, if there's not anything to be cleansed of, then why would you have the feeling of being cleansed? And again, his history is his history. We all know about his failed marriages, the accusations of adultery, being a womanizer, the Access Hollywood interview. But here's a man who says my favorite part of church is this moment where I feel cleansed by communion. I thought that was an interesting humanizing moment.

Rick Langer:
So let me put a little bit of a wrap on this. What do we draw from all these things? Well, number one, it's a reminder that our two Presidential candidates are people. They have families, they have failings, they have feelings, they have strengths and weaknesses, but they are people who are made in the image of God, who stand in need of God's grace, and whose lives, like any other person's life, is worthy of regard and protection.

Rick Langer:
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, cautions against us being angry with someone and calling them a fool. He warns that judgment comes on those who do that. And he does have by invoking the 10 Commandment against murder. And remember that that command against murders one that's a command against taking a person's life because a person is made in the image of God. And that feature of language, to realize, in some sense, I'm dehumanizing the person of way I talk is the thing that Jesus points out.

Rick Langer:
And likewise, James warns about blessing God, but then turning around and cursing a person with the same mouth, cursing a person who's made in God's image.

Rick Langer:
The book of Proverbs cautions against mocking the poor, because those who mock the poor insult their maker.

Rick Langer:
So in all of these cases and countless more, reminded that the words we use to describe our fellow human beings are actually a reflection of the way that we see and worship God. So we, at some point, need to stop and think in this election cycle, as we are talking about political figures, be they Donald Trump or Joseph Biden, who we might disagree with, we need to stop and ask ourselves the question, are we still regarding them as human beings who are made in the image of God? And are we using a tongue in a way that I will be compatible with blessing God with it on Sunday morning when I go to church, or tomorrow morning, when I wake up and say morning prayers? How am I doing at that? Because I worry that sometimes we don't take our theology seriously at points like this.

Tim Muehlhoff:
Oh, great thoughts. Well, let's end this humanizing segment of our politicians from a scene from one of my all-time favorite shows, Rick, The West Wing. Are you a fan of the West Wing?

Rick Langer:
I'm a huge fan of The West Wing. Some of the most brilliant television ever, writing and acting both, I've ever seen. I am a fan of The West Wing.

Tim Muehlhoff:
So there's a great scene where Leo McGarry, who is the chief of staff of President Bartlet, let's go a bunch of staffers because they've been leaking inside quotes to the media, and they have not been flattering towards President Bartlet. So he brings them, he fires all of them. Then he asks one woman to stay, and she stays, and she thinks, "Oh boy, I'm going to get round two of this rebuke." And he said, "I'm willing to give you a second chance if you want it." And she looks at him and says, "Why would you do that? I did give negative quotes." He goes, "That's right. But the entire time I've spoken to you, you always refer to him as President Bartlet. You were the only one to do so in this entire meeting, I will give you a second chance cause you showed respect."

Tim Muehlhoff:
So can we have one application of this? However you feel about President Trump or Vice-president Biden, let's give them the dignity of that title. You can critique President Trump, but let's call him President Trump. And let's call him Vice-president Biden because they at least earned that. That might be a nice little soft startup, as we rightfully critique Presidential figures.

Rick Langer:
That's a great thought, Tim. And we hope that perhaps, this election cycle, you would use your speech as a bit of a spiritual discipline, to just say, "How can I form my soul in a way that really does express the kind of respect and regard that all other people are due." And in some sense, perhaps, especially those who serve in political office in some of the most challenging times we could ever imagine, in one of the most polarized communication climates we've ever known. It is somewhat of a thankless job. And perhaps, we can honor them simply by giving them the regard that I think the Bible teaches us is due to every single person.

Tim Muehlhoff:
So if you loved this episode, it was my idea. If you hated it, it was Rick's idea, and I was opposed to it.

Rick Langer:
Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Muehlhoff:
It's Dr. Tim. Rick, can you tell them where to listen to the Winsome Conviction podcast?

Rick Langer:
We'd love to have you continue with us on this journey, and you can find us at Apple Podcasts. You can find us at Spotify. You can find us on Google Play or check out the winsomeconviction.com website. And thanks so much for joining us.