Does filming a speech from a kitchen detract from its message?

[commonsense]

Probably so. At least there are many who would focus on the speaker’s environment.

Take Sen. Britt for example. Wasn’t the idea of her rebuttal speech to portray her as a common mom?

But that’s in stark contrast to her reality. She’s not a typical housewife. She’s a U.S. Senator. She’s a Washingtonian who’s lost her Deep South accent.

She only sees her family if she commutes on a weekend by jet aircraft. And at that, she’s working on Saturday and leaving before noon on Sunday.

And unlike most middle class wage earners, she works 12 hours a day, except at those times when she has to work 16 or more hours under pressure.

It has been postulated that only 7% of a message comes from its content, while the rest comes from non-verbal clues such as tone quality and visuals.

Britt’s tone was condescending (“Bless his little heart”) and her facial expressions were melodramatic. How could anyone avoid being affected by her kindergarten teacher approach?

All this is not to overthink the subliminal environment of the speech. After all, the majority of the message is contained within the non-verbals.

And for a message to be well received, there has to be a modicum of trust for the speaker among the audience. Unfortunately this is hard to acquire in view of the public mistrust of Congress.

Perhaps the wonks and experts who wrote this rebuttal should have paid more attention to the basics of communication.

Is there another way to characterize Britt’s rhetoric?

[mickthinks]

The kitchen was an important part of the message. The GOP’s response to Biden’s SOTU address wouldn’t be properly understood had it been delivered from anywhere else.

And, yes, that’s a fail.