P O L I T I C A L    R H E T O R I C
How to Analyze Election Rhetoric

"Politicians are always arguing..."

Yes. And they should be.

In a free democracy, political arguments are the means by which groups -- with different and conflicting interests -- can resolve conflicts using persuasion rather than coercion: words rather than weapons.

For years, I've asked students in my college courses to write an in-class essay on what they "didn't like about political language."

At first, I anticipated complaints about deception or vagueness.

However, a large number -- especially from young women -- were complaints that they didn't like political language because people were "always arguing" or "always fighting."

From this, I inferred that some of the domestic values about "keeping peace in the family" -- that is, children obeying the laws set down by the parent -- were being transferred unconsciously to the wider political sphere.

Later, I realized that much of their dislike was not directed at the arguments about issues, but at the nasty personal attacks against others, the smears and mudslinging, traditionally labeled as ad hominem ("against the man") attacks.

Try to clarify and separate these two.

"Part of living in a democracy is being willing to be irritated, and not confusing being irritated with being oppressed."
- Wendy Kaminer
Alan Wolfe, in "The New Pamphleteers," puts the many extremely partisan (and often nasty) political books published into the long tradition of pamphleteers going back to the political agitators during the American Revolution: "For all their ugliness of language and unpersuasive fury, then, the current crop of political pamphlets bears a striking resemblance to the increasingly democratic culture in which they flourish.... If the only choice we have is between no politics and vituperative politics, the latter is -- just barely -- preferable."

In the 2004 campaign, P.M. Forni writes: According to political observers the levels of emotional involvment on the part of the voting public are exceptionally high, “We’ve become two warring nations [Democrat and Republican],” independent pollster John Zigby recently stated. “The same incivility we have been experiencing within Washington in the last decade has spread out, and we are seeing it nationally now." Professor Forni , in "The Etiquette of Political Conversation" urges all to keep a civil tongue.

Yet, we need to remember that people are emotional and passionate about their genuinely held beliefs. We need to expect conflict, with its predictable negative attack ads and better understand their role.As Professor John Gere wrote: "Attack ads may be uncivil, but what's so important about civility when the future of the country is at stake? They may constitute "scare tactics," but fear also may be appropriate. The real issue should not be the tone of an ad but whether the information presented is useful to voters."

During the 2008 campaign, Howard Fineman (Newsweek) again stressed the importance of discussion and argument in his book, The Thirteen American Arguments, identifying the major themes and issues: "We are, after all, the Arguing Country. We are born to debate, free of top-down rulers and their absolutes; no other place has such a provenance and responsibility. we are -- and must remain, if we are to thrive -- a never-ending series of arguments.... Forgetting this history, purveyors of conventional wisdom worry that we argue too much. The reality is that we do not argue enough -- about what matters.... In a nation built on the idea of argument, the object of reform is not to reach a point where everyone agrees -- because no one ever does -- but to ensure that everyone is heard."