Trump's speech was very effective. He used logos, pathos and ethos to appeal to the American citizens. To start, Trump used other people's logos to develop his ethos. For example, trump stated statistics such as "Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records...roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens." These facts were used to provoke fear in the American people as it questioned their safety. Similarly, he used words such as "terror" and "threaten" numerous times for the same purpose. This was very effective, especially due to the recent acts of terror. This has only caused the chaos, fear and even anger to grow worse. However, he used these unfortunate events to his advantage and continued to use pathos to instill fear in the people in order to gain support. Trump then offers solutions which he claims would help the situation. One of which is to build a wall, which would supposedly keep the illegal immigrants out. Even though this angered some Americans; Trump supporters believe that this is the right thing to do as it provides them with a sense of safety and peace. Likewise, Trump played on words such as "we" and "our" in order to create a feeling of unity and nationalism. Ultimately, Trump's speech was very effective, using fear as his main weapon Trump was very successful in convincing the American people. Although his ideas can be seen as rude, racist, and unethical, many people still find comfort in his words.
I see why Trump's words would provoke fear into the hearts of US citizens. Even though I disagree with his ideas, I agree with you on his use of pathos and logos. He uses statistics to support his ideas, including the topic of terrorism. For example, as you stated, he says that "Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records..."; this is an example of logos which can make him seem more credible during his speech. Adding on, he mainly uses the topic of terrorism since it's a very famous topic as of now and many people seem to be afraid of what will happen in terms of terrorism. Do you think his words will actually benefit him?; in other words, does his wording set an expectation if he becomes president, and will people become against him if he doesn't live up to that expectation?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your claim that Donald Trump uses fear in order to evoke the audience's emotions, in order to fetch him extra votes. I am starting to change my thinking since at first, I thought Clinton was mostly effective throughout her speech due to her excessive use of pathos to develop her credentials as a politican. Now, thinking from your perspective, I am siding with you on your opinion that Trumps' speech was very effective. When you stated that he infuses a large amount of repetition of "terror" and "threaten" into his writing, it made me think of how clever he was being. As you said, these words are only causing chaos, fear and anger, which is how he wants his listeners to feel. He is using logos of recent terrorist attacks in order to evoke pathos, the audience's emotions, their harsh reactions deriving from violence. Doing this will allow the audience to build onto him more and start to side with his thinking. Jennifer, you mentioned that Trump is instilling fear into the people in order to gain support, and I completely agree with that theory, since his speech includes a lot of logos, most of them are in relation to violence. One thing I have to ask you from another perspective, wouldn't inducing violence and fear into his words create chaos, and as a result, cause people to turn away from him, not gaining the support he wanted?
ReplyDelete-Jessica Wong
Hi Jennifer, I completely agree with your point as you mentioned that in various parts of Trump's speech, he evoked fear and insecurity in the American people. You had pointed out that, Trump used other people's logos to develop his ethos such as when he mentioned, "Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records...roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens." Through the use of this quote, I agree with your response that Trump was able to successfully establish logos and apply fear within his audiences. However, I disagree with your argument that Trump was able to develop his ethos through the use of this statistic. In my perspective, the statistic itself did not help Trump to develop his credibility as a presidential candidate; instead, it only worked in his favor to stimulate insecurity of the American people. One way Trump used ethos to increase his credibility was by comparing himself with Hillary in moral terms, portraying her as a corrupted and dishonest politician, in contrast to himself who is a businessman that knows how to run a company. In the past, Hillary had mentioned and attempted to undermine Trump's ethos by indicating that differing from the previous presidential candidates, Trump did not release his tax returns. The reasons behind this act can be that maybe Trump is not as rich as he mentioned or that Trump did not donate to as much charities as he claimed to. Do you think this can gradually affect Trump's attempt to develop his credibility or cause him to shift his focus away from the development of his own ethos?
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I agree that Trump did offer solutions to some of the critical immigration problems such as, building a wall. Although this angered many Americans as you you mentioned, the solution of building a wall can be an approach to various obstacles. The building of this wall will encounter problems such as cost and natural obstacles. In your opinion, do you think Trump's solutions are realistic and can be accomplished?