Joseph MacKenzie, Fall 2009
After having identified an exigence, chosen his key audiences, and recognized their constraints, President Obama must now fashion his discourse to meet the constraints of these audiences. However, for a problem as vast as poverty, many other problems must first be solved before the poverty problem can get better. The truth is, Obama has not mentioned poverty in a straightforward way during the first three months of his presidency because fixing the economy, which will eventually help poverty, is the most pressing issue. Most of his discourse regarding poverty comes from his campaign speeches, in which he displayed a wide range of appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos to strike a nerve in his audiences.
One of Obama’s most important speeches on poverty during his campaign was given at Hampton University at a minister’s conference. Obama started the speech with an overwhelming appeal to pathos by telling the story of a baby who was born with a bullet in his arm because his mother was shot while pregnant. He played on miracles and faith to drive this story as it was being told at a minister’s conference, appealing to the majority of his audience. He also used this story as a metaphor for the LA race riots, saying “I’ve been thinking that there’s always going to be a scar there, that doesn’t go away. You take the bullet out. You stitch up the wound, and 15 years later, there’s still going to be a scar.” The point that he was making with this is that urban, poverty stricken areas always have a lack of hope and an anger that is slowly growing and will some day rise up, as it did in LA. This was a great story for Obama to invoke as it has already been stated that African Americans in urban communities are one of his largest audiences. His use of enargeia to paint a picture of a struggling child, which would be especially effective to ministers, helped establish his emotional connection with his audience at the outset. He also makes clear appeals to pathos when talking about hurricane Katrina by saying “People asked me if race had anything to do with the slow response. I said ‘No. This administration was colorblind in its incompetence” (Obama, 2007). This use of pejorative language downplays the Bush administration in a somewhat respectful way as Obama does not name names or resort to insults, but simply states his opinion on the past administration; a simple but effective appeal to pathos. He then goes on to explain that the poverty in New Orleans existed long before Katrina. He not only disagrees with the way it was handled, but recognizes the plight of these people far before tragedy struck. This is how he establishes his ethos here without a direct reference to himself. While telling stories and giving his opinion on past events, Obama is slyly building up good character and a good moral standing with these people.
Farther along in the speech, he begins to tackle the actual problem, and employs logos to do so. He states that low income workers spend 36% of their income on transportation, his health care plan will save Americans up to $2,500 a year, and that we are spending $275 million a day in Iraq. Obama’s appeals to logos usually come as a series of facts and percentages. This was seen very seldom on the campaign trail, but far more in his weekly presidential address.
When talking of workforce development and transportation, he says “But what good are these efforts if men and women can’t afford the bus fare or the subway fare or the car insurance to get to a training center for a new job” (Obama, 2007). This, along with his personal story of meeting a cancer survivor who now has high health care premiums, show how Obama is striving for a purely emotional response from his audience, but also setups a syllogism. One can make the connection that if we need programs like transportation and healthcare to help the poor, but the poor do not have enough money to afford these in the first place, then the programs will never work as they are supposed to. Here, he uses a mix of appeals to the emotions and reason of his audience. This is a smart tactic as he is speaking to people of great faith and hope; the ministers, and people who are affected by these problems in all of the Americans who watched or heard this speech. His extended metaphor of the baby who was shot relating to the state of urban poverty in the United States was an especially brilliant and emotional rhetorical tactic that he employed in order to connect on a more personal level with his audience. However, Obama is not only about pathos when it comes to his discourse. Many times he relies on simple facts and statistics to get his point across.
As stated before, the issue of poverty in itself has not been addressed a great deal throughout Obama’s time as president, but he has touched on the issues of jobs for the poverty stricken and the unemployment rate in his weekly addresses, particularly one of his early addresses from January of 2009. In this address, he lists many numbers and statistics- starting off the year by losing half a million jobs, losing 2.6 million jobs in 2008, and having 3.4 million Americans who need full time work who have had to settle for part time jobs. Using appeals to logos is clearly an attempt to target his political crowd-the senators, leaders, and organizers talked about previously. Not only does this send a message to them personally, but it informs the public who can then put pressure on these officials to do something. He follows up these statistics by saying this can only work if we “take immediate and drastic action”, clearly targeting his peers in Washington. He goes further by stating how he is working with Dr. Christina Roma and Dr. Jared Bernstein on his plan, using honorific language to show how these two doctors will do what needs to be done (Obama, “Crisis and Service”). The label of doctor gives them immediate credibility to those watching, thereby giving Obama credibility for working with them. His first in-office address is a short, to the point appeal to logic whereas his speech on the campaign trail was a cleverly written piece appealing to pathos; one tailored for a broad, more accepting general audience of poor and urban citizens, and one tailored for his political peers.
Although the weekly addresses are short and to the point, not all of them are full of numbers and statistics. In his March 28th address, Obama made an emergency appeal to pathos concerning the floodings in North Dakota. This was directed toward all citizens as he asked everyone for help, but mostly towards his audience of the younger generation as they are the ones who are the most likely to get involved. He shows this by stating:
College students have traveled by the busload from nearby campuses to lend a
hand during their spring breaks. Students from local high schools asked if they could take time to participate. Young people have turned social networks into community networks, coordinating with one another online to figure out how best to help. (Obama, “Weekly Address”)
This is a call to arms for all of the young and willing Obama supporters and he even plays into their culture by telling them to turn to social networking to organize. He spends most of the address detailing the situation in great detail to paint a picture for the listeners. Here, Obama is showing that he fully understands how to appeal to pathos as he meets the three standard criteria for this type of appeal. He understands the state of mind of the people he is targeting; they are scared this might happen to them and willing to help. He understands who can excite their emotions; himself, the President, and the college and even high school aged kids who have joined in to help. Lastly, he understands the reason why people become emotional; in this case, it is because people just like them are losing their families and homes. This understanding, along with a great use of enargeia to show how drastic the situation is, adds up to an affective appeal to pathos. Once again, as he has been throughout his entire career in politics, Obama is indirectly building his ethos along the way with these kinds of addresses and strong appeals to the American people.
At this point, Obama has established his ethos with the American people. They know that he is very passionate about poverty not only from his campaign speeches, but from his past actions as a senator and community organizer. Although he has not been able to effectively address the poverty problem head on so far in his time as President, he still makes it clear through his attention to unemployment, creating new jobs, and strengthening families that he still holds the issue close to his heart.
Works Cited
Obama, Barack. Hampton University Annual Ministers’ Conference. Hampton
University, Hampton, VA. June 5, 2007.
“Weekly Address: Crisis and Service.” President Barack Obama. White House. March
28, 2009. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/>.
“President Obama Delivers Your Weekly Address.” President Barack Obama. White
House. January 24, 2009. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/>.