TRUMP, PAUL HARVEY, AND PLAGIARISM BORDERING ON BLASPHEMY

RECENT TRUMP BEHAVIOR OFFERS CHILLING INSIGHT into the man. He or likely his sycophant suppliers of Truth Social drivel have perverted, many times word for word, an essay of the late conservative radio personality Paul Harvey; thus, in a way committing plagiarism bordering on blasphemy. 

Curiously enough, all this has an indirect yet first-hand connection to me and my automotive journalist career.

I met Paul Harvey at a Buick press event in the early 2000s.

Paul Harvey. Wikipedia says of Paul Harvey’s career, “From 1951 to 2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, on 400 American Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers.”

Paul Harvey Aurandt, 1918–2009. American radio broadcaster for ABC News. Image of his receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

Harvey’s On-Air Persona. According to Wikipedia, Harvey is credited with having coined the term “skyjack” (he was an aviation enthusiast), as well as popularizing “Reaganomics” (as a staunch Republican) and “guesstimate” (as something of an investigative reporter). Less to his credit are Harvey’s associations with J. Edgar Hoover and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and also his penchant for mixing editorial and advertising: Salon magazine called him the “finest huckster ever to roam the airwaves.”

Harvey’s Rhetorics. Harvey’s obituary by Robert D. McFadden in The New York Times, March 2, 2009, described, “[He] personalized the radio news with his right wing opinions, but laced them with his own trademarks: a hypnotic timbre, extended pauses for effect, heart-warming tales of average Americans and folksy observations that evoked the heartland, family values and the old-fashioned plain talk one heard around the dinner table on Sunday.”

Harvey’s “Farmer.” Exemplary of the man was Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer” speech to the Future Farmers of America, delivered November 1978 in Kansas City, Missouri: “And on the 8th day,” it begins, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker…’ so God made a Farmer.”

The oration continues, “I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon—and mean it… so God made a Farmer.”

Image from American Rhetoric. Regardless of one’s views of the man, it’s pure Harvey.

Dodge Ram’s 2013 Super Bowl Farmer Commercial. Super Bowl commercials are known for their news-making as well as hyping of the product. Dodge Ram’s 2-minute pitch during the 2013 Super Bowl was memorable—in that the product was never cited until the last few seconds of the ad. 

The commercial shared by The Wall Street Journal via YouTube. It acknowledged Harvey’s authorship at the onset.

Trump’s Travesty—National Review’s View. Founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley Jr., National Review continues as an erudite voice of conservatism. In the magazine, January 5, 2024, Noah Rothman discusses “Donald Trump: Instrument of God.”

Trump gestures during a campaign rally at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, Florida, November 8, 2023. Image by Octavio Jones/Reuters from National Review.

Rothman reports, “Through the magic of AI technology, the former president’s staff have adapted legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey’s famous monologue, ‘So God Made a Farmer,’ replacing references to agriculturists as a class and replacing them with mentions of Trump. If you’re disinclined to sit through the nearly three full minutes of blasphemy, you can peruse the transcript via Mediaite.” 

I managed to do both: perused the transcript and watched the video (which at times looks like a skewed SNL intro). And I agree with National Review‘s Noah Rothman: “Sitting tacitly by while Trump anoints himself God’s instrument on Earth doesn’t exactly dispel the notion that the party has been hijacked.”

Geez. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024