Trump’s rhetoric against Biden banks on fear

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• At his campaign rallies, President Donald Trump employs ‘apocalyptic’ rhetorics against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to instill fear in the public.
• Experts said that Trump’s rhetorics were not a compelling argument.
• Biden, meanwhile, portrayed Trump as a “racist president.”

President Donald Trump portrayed an apocalyptic kind of life if Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden becomes the US president.

“He’ll bury you in regulations, dismantle your police departments, dissolve our borders, confiscate your guns, terminate religious liberty, destroy your suburbs,” Trump said, as he goes full throttle campaign days ahead before the election.

Typically, Trump includes the consequence of Biden’s presidency with regard to suburbs as he boasts his effort in slashing the federal policies that guide low-income housings.

Linguistics professor emerita Robin Lakoff from the University of California, Berkeley, shared his thoughts on Trump’s claims about Biden.

“It’s pure fear and fear-based on a particular kind of ignorance that only works if your hearers have that particular kind of ignorance.”

 During his 2016 campaign, Trump banked on the message of fear as he instilled it amongst immigrants in his battle against then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“This election is a choice between a TRUMP RECOVERY or a BIDEN DEPRESSION. It’s a choice between a TRUMP BOOM or a BIDEN LOCKDOWN. It’s a choice between our plan to Kill the virus – or Biden’s plan to kill the American Dream!”  the president tweeted, repeating his narrative he uses during rallies.

Trump has continuously slammed Biden following his stance of following experts’ recommendations to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If you vote for Biden, it means no kids in school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas and no Fourth of July together,” Trump said during his campaign rally in Arizona on Wednesday. “Other than that, you have a wonderful life.”

According to director Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s rhetorics are compelling for individuals who are already biased against Biden. For other people though, Jamieson said that such narrative could be seen as a “sign of desperation.”

“The problem with the rhetoric is it’s an alienating rhetoric for people who hear it as extreme and improbable,” adding that it’s also problematic “because you expect a president of the United States to calibrate his rhetoric to reality in at least some plausible way.”

A teacher on presidential rhetoric at Northwestern, David Zarefsky said that Trump’s narratives on Biden and the suburbs were a weak argument.

“I think most people would not put it together as being a sound argument,” he said.

For their part, Democrats also have their own rhetorical tirades.

Biden said that Trump was the US’ first racist president, even past presidents had faced with issues on slavery.

“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed. They’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,”  the former vice president said.

As candidates use rhetorics in the final stretch of the election campaign, it usually embodies fiery and inflated statements.

Source: AP News