In the commentary, “A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed And What The Majority Can Do”, George Lakoff (2016) offers a refreshing analysis of the rudimentary divisiveness between America’s progressives and conservatives to explain the American zeitgeist. He presents a framework to explain Donald Trump’s unexpected win at the United States Presidential Elections 2016. By explaining Trump’s tactics, Lakoff attempts to transform his readers into critical listeners, well-versed in political rhetoric to readily oppose acts of Trump which contradict “American values”. This mirrors the fear ancient philosophers had of possible repercussions arising from an unassuming audience facing a masterful speaker (Beasley, 2012). In this essay, I seek to challenge Lakoff’s argument that Trump’s success at the elections is largely contributed to the oratorical tactics pointed out by Lakoff. …show more content…
He then asserts that Trump successfully utilized oratorical tactics to manipulate the unconscious mental frames of voters for political support. He categorizes Trump’s oratorical tactics into repetition and “metaphorical thought”. Trump combined their usage to develop a person which subconsciously connects to voters by altering the way voters perceive his character.
Using Trump, Lakoff effectively highlights the power and danger associated with “metaphorical thought” in political rhetoric. Nonetheless, he fails to account for Trump’s use of emotional appeal (pathos) embedded in his rhetoric, as a means of persuasion. Lakoff emphasises that “most thought is unconscious” but without ackowledging the power of unconscious emotions and unconscious thought which translates to powerful emotions, Lakoff excludes one of Trump’s most powerful tools. He assumes that Trump only appeals to the subconscious values which Lakoff believes determines the populace’s
In politics, polarization refers to an instance in which an individual’s stance on a given subject is reflective of their identification with a particular political party or ideology. Through her writing, Maclean’s aim is to slander the “radical right’s plan” to overrule a majority outcome in favor of protecting the minority. A conclusion that is evident through her efforts to capitalize on the American desire for polemical books, provoking her to commit the scholarly misdeed of capitalizing on her audience’s emotion to gain support for her unfair portrayal of Buchanan. Her chief villain is an economist that she argues that although he has not been recognized as a central influence on the libertarian movement, James Buchanan’s politics are centered on early public choice
He continually uses rhetorical devices to create pathos and
Pathos Henry Logically, logic should be the most powerful type of persuasion, but this is not often the case. On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry stood to speak in front of a divided Virginia House of Burgesses. What he said used all forms of persuasion, yet only one is truly responsible for his success. In Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention,” pathos is by far the most persuasive technique as his strong words and heavy, hard tone form a strong hate for Britain while making an unignorable call to action.
There is no doubting when it comes to rhetoric that a strong emotional appeal by a credible influential figure is an incredibly effective rhetorical strategy. This is gloriously exemplified in Allison Grimes’ article, "'' Rigged' rhetoric wrong, destructive", wherein Mrs. Grimes asserts that Trumps questioning of the legitimacy of the current election cycle is dangerous, however, her usage of emotional appeal and appeal to authority underscores her failure to include logical appeal. Allison begins her article firmly, by stating "It's time to tell it like it is."
John Boehner’s Resignation and the Republican Presidential Race On September 25th, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced to congress that he planned to resign within the next few weeks. Following this news, the Republican Party has had constant debate over Boehner’s departure and also over the fate of the party as a whole. In the article by Collinson and Reston, the two authors claim that the Republican Party is becoming increasingly divided causing traditional republicans like Boehner and Jeb Bush to be seen outcasts.
The turmoil, upheaval, and controversy of the 2016 Trump election is a significant current event of the modern world, but this landslide election is not the first in America’s history to raise such conflicting opinions. The Revolution of 1800 was another shift in political history that impacted not only the candidates, but majority of the public. The defeat of John Adams to Vice President Thomas Jefferson led to the rise of the Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party. Often in politics, opposing views, scandals, and negative publicity plays a role in the election process, due to this, in both the 2016 election and 1800 election negative criticism from both parties was evident. The 1800 and 2016 elections
Every writer has a goal in mind when writing. For some that goal is to entertain, for others, it’s to educate. When writing, authors have many tools or tricks they use. One of the more common tools is rhetoric. There are three main components of a good rhetoric argument, ethos, pathos, and logos.
Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and afterwards, when GOP nominee Donald Trump won the Electoral College but not the popular votes, Americans displayed a disconcerting lack of civics knowledge and awareness. Many supporters of Hillary Clinton suddenly began to question why the Electoral College system is still used, while Trump’s supporters chanted for Hillary to be locked up. Whether or not Clinton should be imprisoned, the 2016 election raised a series of provoking questions: Why did it take so long for Americans to realize that the United States has never used a popular vote to directly elect a president? Why are some Americans surprised that now-President Trump is struggling to follow through on campaign promises like sending ‘Crooked
President Obama 's speech to school children should go to school because it can benefit their future uses rhetorical appeals to help persuade the readers and schoolchildren. One example of a rhetorical appeal that Obama used to persuade his reader was pathos. Pathos can help persuade a claim because it can cause emotions in the reader and make them feel that they can do something about it. Obama uses is when he states that, “I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him longer-hundreds of extra hours- to do his school work.
In Richard Nixon’s 1952 “Checkers” speech, Nixon attempts to defend himself against critics who claim that he used $18,000 of contribution from his supporters and for his own profit. Nixon used his speech to reach his goal of persuading the American public to see his side of the situation. The speech is effective because of the use of the rhetorical techniques logos, pathos, and ethos that Nixon uses to effectively sway over his audience. However, because of the fallacies and possible bias in Nixon’s speech the validity is put into question.
Former president Barack Obama, in order to regain voters after a huge controversy during his 2008 presidential campaign regarding things his pastor said used numerous rhetorical strategies to persuade his voters. Obama had to persuade his voters to stick with him. Obama used repetition, allusion and many others to get his point across to the audience. In his speech in which he is talking on racism and cultural differences he uses repetition to further emphasize his point.
Multiple presidents throughout history have presented their Inaugural speeches, but not all have been as influential as a speech presented with complete thought and various rhetorical devices. An inaugural speech or inaugural address is the first speech made by a President at a ceremony; this ceremony is called an Inauguration. In Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech, which was held on January 20th of 1981, he presents many Rhetorical Devices in which engage both to the audience's emotions and provide information throughout his whole speech. Ronald Reagan used many rhetorical devices and got his point across to the people which made his inaugural address nothing short of excellent. The first Rhetorical Device Ronald Reagan used in his Inaugural speech was the use of Pathos.
Fallacies in political speeches: Donald Trump announces he is running for president. Donald Trump’s one very distinct “ability” is making a vast amount of people react to what he says. Be it good or bad, this makes him gain more attention not only in the United States, but all over the world. At the end of the day, what really matters is if his statements have, in fact, any effect on people’s votes. So for those who are not yet sure about his sincerity, it only takes a not to deep analysis of his speeches to spot serious fallacies.
In my paper, I will analyse Donald Trump’s political activities before and after the election to get an objective viewpoint of America’s President. We’ll start off with the history of Trump, both personal and political, to see whether there was some sort of significant development over the years indicating a tendency towards ‘good or evil’. Next, we will take a look at what Donald Trump promised to do – the wall, lowering taxes and repealing Obamacare to name a few – and evaluate if he managed to keep his election pledges. This success rate is a major factor in definitively assessing Trump’s influence on America.
In Donald Trump’s Victory Speech and his campaign website “Immigration Reform” page, Trump has voiced his boisterous opinions and plans on the American immigration problem, but the language he uses verbally and on his webpages are significantly different. In Comparing these two texts the diction is almost foreign to one another, the contrasting use of syllables are great, the statistics are exaggerated, and the fallacies are abundant. Although these text bear the same ideological message, the differences between the verbal language Trump uses in his speech and the language of webpage are pronounced. The level of diction is despairingly different between the two texts.