President Trump: Politics and the English Language by Eden

President Trump: Politics and the English Language by Eden - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

Many socialists complained about a lot of things in the ’40s and ’50s, and George Orwell was no exception. However, he did have a few good points in his essay “Politics and the English Language,” and he would have been extremely disappointed in the language of our president today. Not only is President Donald J. Trump smashing all the rules from the essay, but also using and misusing rhetoric to get what he wants.
To start, the president is running his campaign through twitter. This in itself is something that Orwell said not to do in the form of the ninth paragraph of his essay. “The writer… cannot express [the meaning] or inadvertently says something else.” Trump did exactly that when this summer when he told four congresswomen of color to “go back to where they came from” in a tweet. This is a misuse of rhetoric that he uses creates chaos on the hill, a recurring problem for the president.
Another difficulty President Trump still suffers from is visual rhetoric. He is not an easy person to trust on camera. The easy comparison is him and the two guests in the video “New York Times Election Night Live: Politics and the English Language,” Mark Thompson and Jim Rutenberg. Thompson is the easiest to trust out of the three. His suit is pressed, he sits up straight, and he speaks smoothly and confidently. He is also oriented left, which makes him subconsciously more respectable. Rutenberg is another story. His shirt is wrinkled, he slouches and has a stutter. None of this makes him a bad person, he just creates subliminal distrust. The president is a mix of the two, depending on which news sources are being used. On average, talk shows and CNN choose either bad pictures or pictures in which he is oriented right, making him the bad guy. C-span and Fox news do the opposite, choosing pictures oriented left. The president doesn’t understand that there is a difference and that he does have a good side.
Unquestionably, President Trump does use some rhetoric to his advantage, even if it goes against everything that Orwell wrote about. Both Thompson and Orwell point out in their respective presentations the repetitiveness and the problems associated with it. Thompson points out that if something is repeated enough, people will begin to believe it. Orwell uses the same argument about phrases and sayings that writers fall into. Trump ignores or uses these facts, starting his sentences with nicknames of his competitors or enemies. His persona as president solidifies every time he says “fake news media” or “sleepy Joe,” and creates a strong ethos appeal. This use of rhetoric convinces an audience that they would be crazy to support his opposers.
Parts of this aforementioned audience becomes the president’s supporters, who begin to believe everything he says. Rutenburg mentioned that he was polling high in authenticity even though he was not telling the truth. This is the political insincerity and manipulation that Orwell complained about, and what Trump is exceedingly good at. He is able to call on logos appeal with his supporters to seem like the best choice. The president takes certain truths and magnifies them, which ends in chants like “build the wall” or “send her back.” These borderline racist chants seem reasonable to Trump’s supporters, and that is why his campaign is still successful.
In summary, President Trump uses different appeals and rhetoric for his benefit. This is the basis of his campaign, his way of turning an audience into supporters. The ethos and pathos appeal are especially enticing to these supporters because he uses them well. This manipulation was Orwell’s concern. And for all the complaining he did, George Orwell did have some right ideas.