Rhetorical scholars are among those least surprised by the success of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Trump and Sanders are doing what teachers as far back as Aristotle said successful speakers do: Make the audience believe the speaker is one of them. Consider this passage from the Christian scholar Saint Augustine in the fourth century AD:…
Modern Political Communication and Rhetoric (Syllabus)
Classes start at The George Washington University next week, which means another spring of ranting about rhetoric and conversations trying to make sense of the campaign season. And as always there will be Aristotle. Given current political events, should be an eventful semester. Below is the current working draft of the syllabus with most of the logistics redacted:…
Talk Politics
America is a system based on the premise that no one person has the right answer to every issue, and that the best answers will only come from deliberation. Yet we discourage political discussion. We teach students the importance of volunteering at a soup kitchen or cleaning up a park, but never teach them to…
If Politics Is Local, Advocacy Should Be Too
In recent years the most successful policy advocates began using traditional campaign techniques to advance their positions, supplementing “shoe leather” lobbying with earned and paid media, social media, and local stakeholder engagement. They are now increasingly supplementing Washington work with local and state-based work. While Congress Shouts More (and does less) Who Is Filling the…
Congress and The Influence Industry: Framing The Issue
The most successful lobbying doesn’t tell elected officials what to think. The most successful lobbying tells elected officials what to think about and how to think about it. Successful lobbying isn’t about bags of cash exchanged in underground parking garages or drunken promises extracted in rooms full of hookers. The best lobbying is about agenda…
Donald Trump, Archie Bunker, and Broken Toilets. The Logic of American Politics.
Donald Trump continues to do well in the polls because people agree with what he says. This sounds obvious, but a lot of the experts in the political and pundit classes keep wondering the same thing: “How can Trump be popular when he’s so obviously nuts?” Some blame reality television, hyper-partisanship, partisan media, and a…
Lobbyist is NOT a Four Letter Word
The best lobbyists are trusted experts and allies in the elected official’s policy efforts. The best lobbyists, in political science terms, offer legislative subsidies to elected officials. They provide the support on which Congressional staff, Members of Congress, and ultimately the American people, rely. This is in part because legislation about complex issues requires specialized…
The Three Budget Debates
Since the mid-1990s I have dropped in and out of the federal budget debate, the politics of the federal budget, and citizen engagement in the federal budget. The substance of that debate is largely the same today as it was when President Clinton was in office (one notable difference being that the government was running…
The Mad Dash To Status Quo
The recent shootings in Santa Barbara have, rightly, grabbed national headlines. The father of one of the victims is, appropriately, expressing rage and outrage at both the event and the set of laws that he sees allowing events like this. And as a result, no law will change. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza points out…
FINAL EXAM: Modern Political Communication and Rhetoric
This semester’s course in contemporary political rhetoric in The School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University started in January with Aristotle’s Rhetoric, worked through Kenneth Burke, Richard Weaver, Ernest Bormann and others, then looked at contemporary analyses of rhetoric and war, the rhetoric of apology, and other case studies, and ends…