Charged Political Rhetoric

Extracted Attributes

• Nature

  Necessarily public, laden with and influenced by power, can be a weapon for both the weak and powerful.

• Purpose

  To inform, persuade, and motivate audiences; to create political images; to manipulate perceptions and attitudes; to simplify complex social problems.

• Definition

  The art of persuasion, involving techniques used by speakers or writers to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences.

• Consequence

  Can make political violence more likely, give violence direction, complicate law enforcement response, and increase fear in vulnerable communities.

• Historical Role

  Central in Western and Islamic education for training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets.

• Conflict Rhetoric

  Political rhetoric employed to highlight differences and create opposition to people, groups, or ideas.

• Function in Politics

  Central to creating political images, a key component at every stage of political debate, used to establish legitimacy.

• Five Canons of Rhetoric

  Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, Delivery

• Key Appeals (Aristotle)

  Logos (logic), Pathos (emotion), Ethos (credibility)

Timeline

• The five canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) were first codified. (Source: wikipedia)

  Ancient Greece/Rome

• Rhetoric played a central role in Western and Islamic education for training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets. (Source: wikipedia)

  From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century

• A news report found 54 cases involving assaults and threats linked to individuals who invoked Trump and his rhetoric during their actions. (Source: web_search_results)

  2020

• The All-In Podcast discussed the potential influence of charged political rhetoric, including specific comments from leaders like Joe Biden, as a factor in the political climate surrounding the Trump assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. (Source: related_documents)

  Recent events

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences. Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations. Aristotle defined rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion", and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, he called it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". Aristotle also identified three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric, or phases of developing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, rhetoric played a central role in Western education and Islamic education in training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets.

Web Search Results

• [PDF] Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric

  rally, portrays the war both to O and to P as unjust and unnecessary (frame) and calls for the end of hostilities and the withdrawal of troops (implications). In responding to C, O may accept or reject either or both the frame and the implications of C’s argument. These alternatives yield four different potential outcomes of this episode of rhetorical contestation, reflected in Table 1. [TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE] In case 1, O accepts both the frame and the implications of C’s argument, and policy [...] advancing their preferred issue frame in the hope that their political opponents will accept it (along with the concomitant implications). Without a common frame bounding the debate, such rhetorical interchange—a framing contest— is far more fluid, wide-ranging, and fundamental than in an implication contest. Politics is replete with such framing contests. Advocates of bilingual instruction invoke diversity and inter-cultural respect, while critics charge that instruction in anything other than [...] surrounding the meat of politics. To treat rhetoric as epiphenomenal is to render much of politics puzzling and to do violence to politics as lived by its participants. Rhetoric is certainly a weapon of the weak, but those holding the reins of power can and must deploy it as well. The acquisition and maintenance of rule ultimately hinge as much on legitimacy as on physical coercion, and such legitimacy can be established only through rhetorical action (Weber 1968). While political contestants

• How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence | Brookings

  Some individuals charged with terrorism-related crimes claim that the rhetoric of President Trump and right-wing news media convinced them of the danger of Muslims and other groups and led them to act. A 2020 news report found that 54 cases involving assaults and threats were linked to individuals who invoked Trump and his rhetoric during their actions. Of these, 41 cases involved pro-Trump violence, and 13 cases involved supposed defiance of Trump. A number of participants in the Capitol riots [...] It is often difficult to trace one leader’s statement to subsequent events, and even in the case of the Capitol insurrection the president’s defenders insist on his innocence. However, a range of research suggests the incendiary rhetoric of political leaders can make political violence more likely, gives violence direction, complicates the law enforcement response, and increases fear in vulnerable communities. ## As extremism magnifies, the likelihood of violence increases [...] Leaders lead. That truism highlights an obvious point when considering violent rhetoric: violence against whom? Political rhetoric not only highlights the problem but also the obstacles to solving it, often in the form of supposedly dangerous individuals and communities. Thus, if a leader targets them rhetorically, violence may increase sharply against communities that, in the past, had experienced relatively little violence.

• Stories that Lead to Action: An Exploration of US Political Rhetorics

  Amber Buck: I would define political rhetorics as how individuals talk about issues of identity, power, and civic institutions. As Jen mentions, it’s about power in a broad sense and how individuals and groups interact with institutions (both government and NGO’s) to persuade and take action. [...] Court’s Roe V. Wade overturn. The responses and discussion that follows travel a path that builds on Amber’s initial point to examine rhetorical misfires in political spheres, and again, ones that have repercussions for real, live people. These connections remind us that politics and political rhetorics are not only about the consolidation of power but also about the manner in which people are collateralized in that consolidation. [...] Carlee Baker: I think, like all definitions of rhetoric that political rhetorics are very difficult to pin down. It is necessarily public, for one. I really like what Jen has to say about how power intersects with political rhetoric. All rhetoric is laden with and influenced by power, but the stakes feel higher and the power feels heavier when dealing with political rhetoric in particular. I think that political rhetoric looks and behaves differently depending on those who engage in it, the

• [PDF] Examining the Effects of Conflict Rhetoric on Political Support

  rhetoric is central to creating political images for publ ic consumption and evaluation. Rhetoric is a key component at every stage of politi cal debate because it is where “ideas are fashioned into arguments with a certain force and directio n in order to win the assent of an audience” (Martin, 2014, p. 9). It is through rhetoric that politicians and other political actors most directly attempt [...] to persuade the public to hold certain viewpoints. In this research, I assume that the rhetoric in which politicians engage are purposive actions meant to manipulate the perceptions and attitudes of message receivers. As a political tool, rhetoric afford s politicians the opportunity to simplify complex social problems to neatly packaged tropes that ca n influence policy d emand and political support in the electorate. [...] The term conflict rhetoric is used here to e nco mpass political rhetoric employed with the intention of highlight ing differences between , and creating opposition to , people, groups or ideas . A major assumption in this research is that this rhetorical strategy , often accomplished through attacks and deni gration of out -group members , is purposively used by political actors to activate group allegiance among message receivers to bolster political support. Conflict rhetoric

• The Sources and Consequences of Political Rhetoric

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