BY THOMAS DE SENO
“We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.”
– Bishop Berkeley
Two women saw Governor Phil Murphy and his family at a Red Bank restaurant. Employing philistine manners and creating a most Jersey of moments, they cursed him out. The problem for Murphy is he lacks the high ground on manners to complain about it.
Phil Murphy launched the “Knucklehead” campaign during the pandemic. This wasn’t a one-off comment in a heat of passion. Oh no. The Governor made it official State policy to call anyone who disagreed with him a knucklehead. He and his serviles employ it regularly, the Press dutifully reports it and Big Tech won’t curb it on social media. Even worse, the State spent money on it. Murphy littered New Jersey with flashing street signs calling his opponents knuckleheads. Good grief.
In the Science of Persuasion, Rule 1 is you can’t convince anyone of anything by insulting them. Did Murphy feel persuaded by those women dropping F bombs on him? It’s counterproductive. There’s a lot at stake because he’s trying to convince people how to deal with a pandemic. It needs to be done right.
Calling people “knucklehead” had consequences on lives and not just by setting a tone of divisiveness throughout the State (it did that too).
At the start of the lockdown there was a report of a man in Rumson who hired a Pink Floyd cover band and threw a raucous “coronavirus party” in defiance of the lockdown order. Murphy called him “knucklehead” on television. The consequences were dire. Taking a queue from the “knucklehead” comment, Attorney General Grewal insisted he face charges. Senator Vin Gopal called for increased fines and jail time. News carried it not just around the country but even foreign outlets reported that he was a pariah. Social media was brutal toward the man, with people threatening his business and some wished him dead. His reputation was obliterated, all because Murphy called him “knucklehead.”
What was later revealed? None of it was true. There was no Pink Floyd cover band. There was no concert. No party. Just a man playing his guitar on his own porch. Very quietly, the charges Attorney General Grewal insisted upon were dropped. There was no world-wide media blitz exclaiming the man’s innocence. No social media mea culpa by the people who wished him dead. Not Murphy, Grewal nor Gopal had the humility to call the man and apologize for their public tar and feathering. Doing so publicly would restore his reputation, and they still should.
All of that happened because Murphy called him “knucklehead” without cause. Words mean things.
After Sarah Huckabee Sanders was chased from a restaurant for being politically on the right in 2018, uber-Democrat icon Maxine Waters not only supported that, she asked for more of it, declaring: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
People took the Democrat command for public incivility and poor manners seriously and it wasn’t just cabinet members they targeted. Ted Cruz, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Kirsten Nielsen, Stephen Miller and more were publicly cursed and chased from restaurants. They tried to invade Tucker Carlson’s home. Then they moved to everyday people who refused to comply with commands of activists in restaurants. The country was divided by a Democrat demand to do so and media wet their pants in delight.
Now that it happened to a Democrat, cries of foul abound. Since Phil Murphy was cursed out in a restaurant in Red Bank, Mayor Pat Menna decided to drive the civility bandwagon. He called Phil Murphy and apologized. In social media posts and in the papers he expressed his “regret and horror” at Murphy being harassed at a restaurant. He apologized to the entire public.
Menna is a Democrat official. He is no where on record condemning Maxine’s Waters’ insistence that Republicans get treated this way in restaurants. He expressed no outrage when Republicans were treated this way in restaurants and at their homes. Nor is Phil Murphy on record condemning that. Too busy calling people knucklehead. While the rest of us can condemn the behavior of those women, Democrats Murphy and Menna lack the high-ground to complain of it; the consequence of their own inconsistency.
There is a real opportunity for Governor Murphy to exercise leadership here and heal the state. He should declare that he is no longer calling the opposition names, knucklehead or otherwise. No need to apologize. No need to say it was wrong or eat crow. Just declare that he is no longer doing that and remove it from the street signs. Attitude reflects leadership, so be a leader and start New Jersey on the road to civil discourse. It’s important.
What’s the best reason for Murphy to do that? Rule 2 of the Science of Persuasion: People are easier to persuade when treated with dignity and respect.
Thomas De Seno is a lawyer and journalist from Asbury Park.
This commentary originally appeared in the Dec. 3, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
