Thursday, February 11, 2016

Trump and his Truckload of Pathos

Donald J. Trump has become notorious over the past few months, all because of his extremely controversial and racist statements, many of which have to do with immigration. The immigration of Mexicans. The immigration of Muslims. Pretty much he seems completely opposed to the immigration of all non-whites. The only problem with all of Trump's statements is that they completely rely on pathos alone, playing off of the fears and insecurities of the white American citizen.

At the beginning of Trump's statement on Mexican immigration, he says "And these are the best and the finest," referring to the American people. He opens up with patriotism! Raring up the crowd to agree with him, simply because they too are patriotic and love America. He follows this up with "[Mexico] is not sending their best... They have lots of problems." This immediately exploits the fears of his supporters, furthering the racist undertone of the whole setting. (Side note: Mexico isn't sending anyone, the illegal immigrants are escaping to come to the "land of opportunity" which America is made out to be.)

Trump also makes a statement on Muslim immigration, which is just as ridiculous, and even more racist. He proposed a "complete and total shutdown" on Muslim immigration into America. This got support from Trump's supporters only because of the recent ISIS terrorist attacks scared them. In a phone-call interview, he begins to trash talk a woman who calls him "un-constitutional," instead of actually addressing her comment, and he then attempts to use logos, stating the amount of phone calls and support that he's gotten. He completely storms past the interviewer's questions, going on to talk about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, falling back onto pathos. He never addresses the one question, using pathos only as a diversion in an attempt to avoid (or answer) the question.

His name is Donald J. Trump. The "J." stands for "genius."

1 comment:

  1. I loved that last line. I also strongly agree with your argument here. Every time Trump gets asked a question about immigration he either says, " I will build a wall" or he brings up something about ISIS or 9/11. He constantly uses fear to distract voters from his incredibly flawed immigration plan. If you ever want a straight answer from Trump, don't ask the question you want answered because its very likely he won't answer it at all.

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