In an article at Commonweal Magazine, Susan McWilliams in political science at Pomona College sets forth her views of the 2016 presidential election. Even though she refers to certain points that Aristotle makes, she does not happen to advert explicitly to his famous treatise on civic rhetoric. But if we use his framework of thought about civic rhetoric, we can see her views of the 2016 campaign in a fresh light.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) December 7, 2016: Susan McWilliams in political science at Pomona College in Claremont, California, has published her post-election observations about the worrisome language of the 2016 presidential campaign at the website of Commonweal Magazine (dated December 6, 2016):

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/beginning-was-word

McWilliams completed her Ph.D. in political science at Princeton University in 2006.

McWilliams' article is titled "In the Beginning Was the Word: The Worrisome Language of the Election." However, even though the title contains the opening words of the prologue of the Gospel According to John, the text of her article contains no mention of that gospel.

Instead, McWilliams refers to Aristotle's claim that people are political animals, a "claim that rested on the fact that people are beings who talk. Because we can use words to reflect and reason with each other, Aristotle said, we are able to discuss the terms by which we want to live. Therein lies politics," McWilliams says.

ARISTOTLE'S VIEWS ON CIVIC RHETORIC

But McWilliams does not happen to advert explicitly to Aristotle treatise on civic oratory. So I want to highlight certain key points from that treatise, and then review certain points McWilliams makes in her article.

Aristotle discusses three kinds of civic oratory: (1) deliberative rhetoric (involving pro-and-con debate about possible courses of action to undertake), (2) forensic rhetoric (in law courts involving pro-and-con debate about the guilt or innocence of someone as charged), and epideictic rhetoric (involving values, and at time pro-and-con debate about possible values to hold).

In our American experiment in democratic governance, deliberative rhetoric is involved in the pro-and-con debate about proposed bill advanced in legislative assemblies such as the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and forensic rhetoric is involved in the pro-and-con debates in our courts of law about charges under debate.

In our American experiment in democratic governance, presidential campaigns typically focus on values.

According to Aristotle, in all three kinds of civic oratory, the civic orator uses three kinds of appeals: (1) logos, (2) pathos, and (3) ethos.

THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

I now want to turn to McWilliams' article and certain observations she makes about Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party's 2016 presidential candidate, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential candidate.

I agree with McWilliams that Hillary Rodham Clinton has never been a talented campaigner. As McWilliams suggest, "Her wonkish inclination to focus on details and the immediate task at hand" may make her an able policymaker and/or bureaucrat.

When Hillary played to her strengths as a policy wonk, she usually was using a logos-appeal. But perhaps at times also involving a bit of a pathos-appeal and/or a bit of an ethos-appeal.

Trump was no match for her as a policy wonk. As a result, he rarely used a logos-appeal. Instead, he used both a pathos-appeal and an ethos-appeal.

Now, if I am correct in saying that our American presidential campaigns involve epideictic rhetoric about values, an ethos-appeal is indispensable for constructing effective appeals involving values.

Trump's campaign motto "Make America Great Again!" effectively expresses certain values.

I agree with McWilliams that "the cynicism that Trump harnessed . . . had long been growing" in the United States well before the 2016 presidential election. But this just shows that Trump's campaign was about certain values.

In my estimate, Trump harnessed cynicism that anti-60s conservatives have been cultivating and expressing for decades. See Philip Jenkins' book Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Bill Press' book The Obama Hate Machine: The Lies, Distortions, and Personal Attacks on the President -- and Who is Behind Them (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2012). (For anti-60s conservatives, President Obama symbolizes the black civil rights movement of the 1960s.)

Now, when Hillary pointed out that Trump had once called a beauty queen fat, Hillary also was invoking a certain value, or dis-value. But that's not all she was doing.

When Hillary mentioned that Trump had once called a beauty queen fat, Hillary was making a pathos-appeal (we're supposed to say, "Ugh!" -- or at least feel like saying, "Ugh!").

In addition, Hillary may have also been using an ethos-appeal (you want to join with me and my air of triumph about knowing better than to say such a thing). McWilliams notes Hillary's air of triumph in saying this.

Now, when McWilliams say that Hillary was "never a talented campaigner," I would say that she was not talented in making an effective ethos-appeal.

But Trump effectively used the tag-line about "crooked Hillary" to undercut any ethos-appeal Hillary tried to make on her own behalf. Her ethos-appeal relied on stressing her experience and preparation for the office of the presidency.

Hillary tried to undercut Trump's ethos-appeal as a tough-talking deal-maker by emphasizing his lack of preparation for the office of the presidency and his real and alleged character defects.

For a fine discussion of the ethos-appeal, see the American Jesuit classicist William M. A. Grimaldi's penetrating essay "The Auditors' Role in Aristotelian Rhetoric" in the book Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches, edited by the classicist Richard Leo Enos (Sage Publications, 1990, pages 65-81).

CONCLUSION

Hillary won the popular vote by at least 2.5 million votes -- and counting. On the level of symbolism, her candidacy symbolized the women's movement that emerged in the late 1960s. For anti-60s conservatives, it may have been a wee bit too much 60s symbolism for them to endure.

In any event, President-elect Trump's electoral victory was decisive. He won electoral victories in a number of states that President Obama had carried in 2012. President George W. Bush famously told us that he was the decider. Soon President Trump will be the decider.

I find the sheer number of states that Trump won worrisome, regardless of his margins of victory in the various states he won. He appealed to a set of anti-60s values to rack up those electoral victories.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview