In this essay, I write about writings of others that are published; I analyze the rhetorical situation, the author, the audience, the purpose, the techniques used to communicate with the audience, and the effects on the audience. My goal is to evaluate how the details of writing relate to each other effectively serving the writer’s intention.
Rhetorical Analysis
Since 2016 election of Donald Trump, we have seen the rise of far right-wing in many parts of the world. It seems that the far right-wing are winning every election everywhere around the world. The most recent shocking one is arguably the election of an overt fascist as president in Brazil. In response to the rise of the far right across the world, there have been many attempts to figure out why this is happening and plenty of sources are available in the form of a variety of genres. This essay seeks to analyze five selected sources: newspaper article, magazine article, video lecture, journal article, and a tweet. It examines them closely for rhetorical analysis.
The first source is a op-ed article retrieved from The New York Times. The author is a history professor at Wellesley College, which contributes to strengthen his authority as he puts forward a historical comparison of events. Throughout the world the widespread perception seems to be that Donald Trump and the right-wing have been against globalization from the onset. Railing against this idea, the author attempts to illustrate that the true intention of the right-wing is to ruthlessly seek free finance and free trade while suppressing free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality (Slobodian, 2018). The author is critical of mainstream commentators and is biased for democracy and egalitarianism. The author wrote the op-ed article in The New York Times whose readership is widely considered to be the educated liberal class. The author’s choice of genre, which is a newspaper op-ed article, seems to be quite effective considering the audience of the newspaper and the seriousness of the subject the author deals with. The subject and audience here are far from suggesting other broadly popular genres or overly scholarly genres. A newspaper op-ed article adequately allows the author to put forward enough of his opinion about current affairs by openly approving some values and disapproving others. The author obviously uses negative language as he criticizes pundits and leads to a striking conclusion that demands clear choice from the audience. In the aftermath, the audience is expected to get a more straightforward understanding of various right-wing claims on globalization and what the right-wing really wishes for.
The second source is an article retrieved from Jacobin Magazine. The magazine’s audience is broadly seen as the American left. This genre contributes to communication with quite a broad audience including activists, students, and scholars. The authors are a professor and a researcher who do their job from the leftist standpoint. They are provoked by the rise of the European far right and their gaining a sizable proportion of votes from working people. Unlike the traditional right’s disregard for the working class, recently the far right has desperately taken over left-wing talking points (Alfonso & Rennwald, 2017), embarrassing the left and posing a serious threat to democracy in general. Facing confusion and perplexity from the left, the authors attempt to expose the falsehood of the right-wing claim that they wish to improve the condition of the working class (Alfonso & Rennwald, 2017). The authors use negative language such as deception and fake socialism to describe right-wing’s concern for the working class while using mostly neutral language to deliver facts. Enumerating facts and examples, the authors sharply contrast what the right-wing says with what they do, and the audience becomes aware of the hypocrisy of the European far right-wing turning to working class voters with false solidarity.
The third source is a you-tube video and the speaker in this video is a philosophy professor who is known to you-tube audience largely for his analysis of logical fallacies of right-wing claims. The speaker teaches college students logic and philosophy, and youtube offers him good opportunity to reach a much broader audience. Recently progressive politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been attacked by corporate democrats as well as right-wing media. In this video, the speaker leads the audience through an anatomy of logical fallacies from Nancy Pelosi and other American corporate democrats about medicare for all, the green new deal, universal basic income, and what it means to work for a boss (Zero Books, 2019). Rather than using outrageous language, the speaker remains calm and continues to reveal hidden assumptions and expose types of logical fallacies which lie behind seemingly appealing right-wing claims, mocking the stupidity of those claims. This genre is very much popular with a young audience, so the choice of this genre enables the speaker to effectively communicate with the audience who feels more comfortable with visual material than with printed material. After watching this video, the audience becomes more convinced of progressive arguments and better prepared to refute serious and insidious right-wing arguments.
The fourth source is an article from a scholarly journal. The author is a professor of political science who has been devoted to study of German politics for almost two decades. The audience is mainly academics rather than the general public. This genre is obviously a proper choice as a means of communication among scholars and researchers. The article is a response to the success of the-right wing populist party ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) in the 2017 Federal election. The case presented a profound shock to the German political settlement because under the current party system in Germany, extreme elements are hardly ever supposed to settle in the process of Federal election. In this article, the author attempts to inform the audience on the evolution of AfD and strategies it successfully employed before the 2017 Federal election. According to the author, AfD increasingly conforms to the orthodox populist party and its electoral success implies that right-wing populism has reached the heart of Europe (Lees, 2018). However, the author does not go further than that claim, and maintains a detached and objective attitude. The author enumerates various facts and figures to illustrate AfD’s electoral performances since 2013 that show a clear indication that AfD’s political message with more aggressive attacks on immigration resonated strongly with voters including the middle class. The author uses neutral and plain language and avoids jumping to a conclusion by referring to fact after fact. Most of his arguments are rigorously supported by evidence and facts, and he leaves the audience with a clear and balanced view of one of the recent major political events in Germany.
The last source for rhetorical analysis is a tweet of a well-known U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio. In this tweet, Marco Rubio blames Nicholas Maduro for burning the U.S. trucks supposedly carrying tons of food and medicine into Venezuela (Rubio, 2019). The genre seems to serve well the purpose of political propaganda. It does not require any evidence or facts supporting any claim, so it can be easily used to spread fake news. The author’s purpose is obviously to damage the Venezuelan government and president Maduro. The real danger of this genre lies in the fact that facts do not matter at all. While the party attacked by the tweet is trying to respond desperately with truths, the damage has already been done. In this aspect, the author’s purpose is achieved by the act of posting the tweet. The audience is not limited to the followers of the tweets. Journalists contribute to spread the contents of the tweet to the public. The language used in this tweet is deliberately provocative. The effect of the tweet on the audience is equivocal. It strengthens some followers’ perception while upsetting others.
In conclusion, a rhetorical analysis in this essay clarifies the rhetorical situation of each source and identifies various rhetorical elements. It also explores how effectively the author achieves the purpose of the source. Finally, it deals with the effect on the audience from rhetorical perspectives. Of the five sources selected, three sources reveal clearly the authors’ leftist perspectives, and the fourth one does not show the author’s political preference while the last one obviously shows the political intention of the right-wing politician.
References
Alfonso A., & Rennwald, L. The far right’s leftist mask. Jacobin. Retrieved from https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/far-right-ukip-fn-welfare-immigration-working-class-voters/
Lees, C. (2018). The ‘Alternative for Germany’: The rise of right-wing populism at the heart of Europe. Politics, 38(3), 295-310.
Rubio M. [marcorubio]. (2019, February 23). Each of the trucks burned by Maduro carried 20 tons of food & medicine. This is a crime & if international law means anything he must pay a high price for this. #23FAyudaHumanitaria [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1099423485082955776
Slobodian, Q. (2018, October 22). Trump, populists and the rise of right-wing globalization. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/opinion/trump-far-right-populists-globalization.html
Zero Books. (2019, March 11). The logic of green new deal, ubi, and having a boss. [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpfEkQtM8IM&t=402s
