Prompt

The 2020 Presidential Election is approaching, and polls show that college students are increasingly disinterested in election outcomes and in political rhetoric in general. As a way to foster interest in the debates that will directly impact you and your peers as both students and American citizens, The New Paltz Oracle has issued a call for submissions from SUNY New Paltz’s brightest students to rhetorically analyze the social media pages of any presidential candidate. Your assignment is to pick apart the visual/verbal rhetoric promulgated by your chosen candidate, as well as that of the comments and contributions of their supporters. Based on what you can see from their pages (the face they present to the vast internet community) decide whether your candidate would be a great choice for college students or an abominable failure. You may also turn to outside research to support your claims. The best critiques (both positive and negative) will be compiled and printed to form a profile for each candidate so that students will take in interest in the issues and make a more informed decision come election time.

AJ Fitzgerald

 

Prof. Joy

ENG 160-30

18 October 2020

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946 in New York. He was the fourth of five children of Fredrick Trump (father) and Mary MacLeod (mother). Donald Trump attended New York Military Academy, Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school of finance and commerce. He graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in economics and shortly after graduating, he began working full time for his father’s business. This is where he began his journey in becoming one of the nation’s most successful businessmen. Trump also premiered a reality television series called “The Apprentice” which was later revamped to “The Celebrity Apprentice”. He was even featured in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump officially announced his candidacy for the 2016 Presidential election while using his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” or “MAGA”. Many people believed his candidacy was a joke and would never even have a chance to be the Republican nominee. Before the election, every poll had Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton winning in a landslide. Lo and behold, on November 8, 2016 Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States in the largest electoral college landslide for a Republican in 28 years. Over 62 million Americans voted for Trump, which is the most votes any Republican Candidate has ever received. Throughout his candidacy Trump used visual and verbal rhetoric to persuade people to support him. In fact, Donald Trump used social media as his focal point during his candidacy. Theconversation.com even titled an article “Donald Trump tweeted himself into the White House” justifying how he used social media to his advantage for winning the presidency. Before he even announced that he was going to run for president he went to twitter to point out the flaws of his opponents. One month before Trump announced he would be running for president, on May 17, 2015 at 9:04pm, he tweeted “Jeb Bush gave five different answers in four days on whether or not we should have invaded Iraq. He is so confused. Not presidential material!”. He would post tweets of this nature throughout his candidacy to weaken his opposition and to make him appear to be the superior candidate. He continues to use social media as a way to express verbal and visual rhetoric. On October 13, 2020 he posted a photo on instagram that shows Democratic nominee, Joe Biden in a wheelchair at a retirement home and the picture is titled “Biden for Resident”. He uses visual rhetoric in this instagram post by referring to Joe Biden as such an unstable candidate that he should be a resident in a retirement home.