Trump Editorial- Fiery Rhetoric

The editorial board of USA Today, in "Will Trump's lows ever hit rock bottom?" (2017), passionately proclaim their opinion that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be leading our nation, partly due to his wildly inappropriate and offensive comments and remarks, and his overall lack of morality, ethics and simple humanity which is consistently displayed in his speech and behavior over and over again. They highlight several specific examples of Trump's abominable behavior in recent history, even giving a lengthy catalog of just a number of his offenses, and use fiery rhetoric to display both Trump's disgraceful nature as well as their hate-fueled feelings towards him, delivering their message with a scathing, disgusted and critical tone to accurately convey their thoughts on the subject. Their purpose is to take a strong stand against Trump and use their position as a representation of an established news platform to hopefully educate and influence the public on this issue. Their harsh and explosive tone is meant to relate directly to their readers and viewers, some of whom may not hold the same views as them, in order to shed light on the real character of the man leading our country. 

Fiery rhetoric has definitely found its place in the political platform in light of the recent election and is a hot issue up for debate. I think that such explosive diction definitely is able to reel in an audience and get one's point across, however, I do not think that it necessarily has a place in politics. I admit that when reading an article or listening to a speech in which the person is overly passionate, spewing insults and criticisms right and left, it definitely gets my attention and may even make me feel more passionate to their side of the argument. Vulgar language, name-calling, and scathing criticisms have become staples of American politics in the past year, and while it does leave its mark, it could also be inappropriate for the setting. I am all for people expressing their opinions and calling out those who are acting unethically, immorally, or inappropriately, however, there could be a better way to deal with it. Politics is a serious matter in our country that should be dealt with in a serious, mature way. Our countries issues and differences should be dealt with in a systematic, organized manner as opposed to reverting back to and resorting to name-calling and hate speeches. In addition, I think that this fiery rhetoric is just calling for attention since the more controversial you are with your words, the more views you are going to receive and the more buzz you will create. More importantly, it is bringing in too much emotion to the issues. When listening to words like this, it is easy for someone to get caught up in the whirlwind of hatred and antagonism, and the actual facts and reality of the situation many times gets overshadowed. We spend so much time focusing on how we feel about the situation rather than what is actually going on and what we could do to deal with it. Strong, powerful diction and passionate, critical tones could be used as great persuasion techniques and definitely have their time and place, just usually, that's not in politics.

Comments

  1. AlexandraDecember 19, 2017 at 6:53 AM

    For the precis: It's really really good. The only thing that I really noticed is that you did not specifically mention who the audience is. (Who is their readers and viewers?) Besides for that everything was perfect!

    For your response: I completely agree!

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