Donald Trump’s speech marks the businessman’s entrance in the presidential election race for 2016. His speech abounds of rhetorical devices such as language manipulation, propaganda, suggestions, diversions or emotional appeals, incorporating also statistics and verified data to support the presented arguments. Aligned with the principles of rhetoric, Trump’s speech announcing his candidacy to presidency has a sound structure and most importantly it fits the speaker’s communication style, reaching is intended audience.
The speed is addressed to all American citizens who have the right to vote, as they are the targeted individuals that Trump aims to persuade in voting him. Nevertheless, there are specific categories that Trump’s speech mostly targets, namely the working class, and secondary audiences like parents, business owners or veterans, as the discourse addresses how a new presidency under Donald Trump will be beneficial for these groups.
The rhetoric situation is the presidency election for 2016, which allows Trump the opportunity to present the context of United States. The text focuses on the negative aspects that reflect a poor economic development and an increased unemployment level and expensive medical care programs that disadvantage the U.S. citizens while favoring the foreigners, like Mexicans or Chinese. It also addresses the high interest rates that U.S. business owners have to pay while doing business with emerging economies like China and Mexico. An important topic of Trump’s speech is the Middle East, especially the ISIS problem, which he indicates it is improperly managed by the current leaders. The businessman also speaks about the international relationships with Israel, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan or Mexico, from a political, military and economic perspective, suggesting that these relationships are currently not reflecting the interests of United States.
These negative conditions that describe the current state of United States offer Trump the opportunity for persuasion, as he presents his plan for changing each problem that U.S. confronts with, as the future President of United States. The speaker’s intention is to convince the audience that he has the skills and the competencies required for being the next U.S. President. This is why he punctuates his negotiation abilities, his capacity of building strong brands, hence his intention to make U.S. a strong brand again, or his compassion for the ones in need, visible through his charity work.
Across his discourse, Trump incorporates various rhetorical devices, making clear use of logos, ethos and pathos, the three constitutive elements of speech. He uses numbers ($18 trillion U.S. external debt, 20% real unemployment rate or spending $5 billion on an ineffective website) to support his logical claims for which the current administration is ineffective. He also appeals to the audience’s reasoning sense by suggesting that other countries, China, Mexico or Japan are profiting from U.S.’s incapacity of protecting its royalty and the domestic employment. Trump uses his name and position often times in his speech, referring to owning Bank of America and indicating his business’ total worth of $8,737,540,00, to remember the audience that he is a credible and reputable candidate. Furthermore, he appeals to Americans’ emotions for suggesting that they are treated poorly through Obamacare or the high unemployment rates that keeps them without jobs while the immigrants are getting their jobs: “China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs”.
Through his speech, Donald Trump attacks various groups, such as other politicians who run for U.S. Presidency, foreigners and immigrants, international business partners or important corporations like Ford, inducing the idea that they are against the rights of American citizens, who can only be protected by Trump. To support his attacks and the messages he aims to convey, Trump employs various rhetorical strategies. Logical fallacy is one such strategy, used for describing the Mexicans: “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapist”. This is a logical fallacy because it reflects a faulty reasoning, starting with the mere fact that nobody sends Mexicans to United States, they are coming on their own in search for a better life. In addition, Trump implies that all or most Mexicans are drug dealers, criminals and rapist, alarming the U.S. citizens against them. Suggestion is included throughout Trump’s speech to indicate that he has the financial know-how to raise U.S. economy, but also the firmness to answer the terrorism threat that Americans are afraid of. There are also deductive arguments that Trump uses to explain why U.S. is threatened by Mexico, indicating that a large company like Ford wants to move its manufacturing to Mexico, further hitting U.S. economy by moving its employment capabilities abroad, while American citizens struggle with unemployment.
The deliberate manipulation of language is also visible in Trump’s speech, as he uses wordplay between cheerleader to describe Obama and a leader, to describe himself. Trump’s speech also includes alliteration, which is a form of deliberate manipulation of language that emphasizes a specific sound for creating a powerful effect of strength on the audience: “I own big chunk of the Bank of America Building [] the biggest bank in the world”. Furthermore, the speech is based on an informal language, using words such as (folks, fellas) and the casual form of verbs (gonna), in order to adjust the message to the targeted audience.
The speech also includes comparison, to elaborate on the fact that the U.S. market is infused with Japanese cars, while American cars are inexistent on the Japanese market. Other figures of speech used as rhetorical mechanisms include the metaphor or allegory “Sadly, the American dream is dead”.
The structure of the speech contains: (1) the enumeration of U.S.’s many problems; (2) the climax, which is the announcement of Trump’s running for Presidency and (3) the solutions that he will use for solving all America’s problems.
The use of rhetorical elements and strategies, the structure of the speech and the presented arguments make Trump’s speech strong. Although there are also invalid arguments, like the ones related to Mexicans being criminals or rapists, most arguments are sound and cogent, being supported with facts and numbers, but also with emotional appeal.
Bibliography
Trump, Donald. Trump's Announcement to Run for President. 2016.
Share, Rachel. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of Chaucer and His Prioress. Young Scholars in Writing. pp. 98-108.
