"No more uncertainty, no more fear, no more worry." is what you're supposed to feel after a Presidential Inaugural Speech. However, while Trump's speech was supposed to address the concerns of his opposers, it mostly just catered to his supporters. I say "mostly" for a reason. This speech, overall, is one of Trump's best, when compared to the speeches he made during his run for office. Trump is a terrible speaker, I don't think many people will argue with that. Going off on tangents and inserting infamous "Trump One-Liners" really weakens his arguments for anyone who doesn't already agree with him. So what made this speech so much better than his others? He stuck to the script. It seems that the messages he wants to convey are much stronger and deeper than how he is able to convey them. This time, while he still doesn't give specifics, he talks more realistically, less "believe me" or "you'll see", as many of his other speeches have contained.
There is only one moment in the speech where this Trump trait shines through, "America will start winning again. Winning like never before.". What does that mean? Does it have any substance backing it up? Or is it just a vague promise, catering to the most patriotic of citizens? For the most part, Trump's speeches contain no details or actual proof of "winning like never before". Trump relies on his audience to believe in his rhetoric and to especially never ask questions aimed at him. His speeches and entire campaign relied on the American people's pathos or appeal to emotion. He knew that the American people were suffering and decided to use that as his main promise, to "Make America Great Again". Like most presidential slogans, Trump's MAGA is vague and can be taken differently by everyone. When comparing this to Obama's 2008 slogan of "Change", we can see that they both can be taken in the same way even if the people behind the slogan are different in many ways.
But enough about the negatives. Did his speech work? To answer it simply, I don't know. I have no authority to speak on the overall effectiveness of Trump's Inaugural Address. I believe, as I stated earlier, inaugural speeches are needed to convince the other side that the next four years are not going to be as bad as they might have thought. Did Trump's speech do that? Again, I don't know. I've talked to a few opposers of Trump over the past few days and everyone gives me a different answer, but for the most part they all still said: "I don't know.". Since this is the answer that I got most often, I guess that Trump's speech was not effective by definition of the parameters set by me.
Let's compare him to a mostly successful president and his speech in 1981. By far, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump have been the most compared presidents during this entire campaign. They're both outsiders, relatively. They're both successful people in the private sector. They both have the main focus of bringing work back to America. Reagan's speech is, unsurprisingly, very similar to Trump's in the sense that appealed very heavily to emotion and little to fact. However, I don't think I've ever heard any president using several specific facts in any general speech to the public. So there's one similarity.
However, there is one striking difference. Reagan uses much more poetic language throughout the whole thing, while Trump finishes his speech with an awkward poetic break in his otherwise stern and straight forward speech. Did this make Reagan's speech more effective? Yes. Even if you lack the ability to comprehend what Reagan is saying within his speech it still sounds more elegant and thoughtful than Trump's "bull in a china shop" approach to the speech. Was Trump's speech any good? Somewhat. Was his message good? Yes. As I said before, his speaking skills pale in comparison to others, but the actual text of the speech is actually not bad. Overall, I believe that if this speech was given by someone else then many of Trump's opposers wouldn't be thinking of this speech as crude or undeveloped.
Did I enjoy the speech? Yeah, I guess. Did it convince me that the next four years are going to be a smooth ride? Definitely not. However, we must look to the future, not dwell on past mistakes. Trump is president now, and in the short-term there isn't anything anyone can do about it. Always trying to bring him down, or catch every mistake he makes, or even simply wishing for him to fail is like wanting a pilot to crash a plane we're all in.
I agree with this blog completely and think that your final statement is something everyone needs to understand. I agree with you, Trump is by far not a great public speaker, but I think that the most important part is to tune into the content, which was very developed and effective.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting analysis Vinny - - I wouldn't have considered the whole "I don't know" aspect without reading this.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had gone into more depth on Reagan's speech just because I'm not as familiar with that (however, that's next on our list to cover for my government and economics class).
I agree with what you said that, as far as this campaign goes, this speech was probably one of his best and I agree that the "Trump One-Liners" do weaken his overall message of what he's saying. I feel like for the most part, you did a good job at keeping your personal opinion out of it and when you did put them in, like when you said "I guess that Trump's speech was effective by definition of the parameters set by me," you acknowledged that it was an opinion and it fit in with your point.
You had a strong analysis and you got me thinking in a different way. Good bloggin' Vincent.
Vinny, this is a very thoughtful blog that I enjoyed a lot and agreed with many of your points. The point where I said "I thought the same thing!"was when you said, "Overall, I believe that if this speech was given by someone else than many of Trump's opposers wouldn't be thinking of this speech as crude or undeveloped." You did a good job recognizing both sides, and recognizing that you do not know everything and how his presidency will play out. You should have your political conversations with people the same way you write your blog, I think people would really like your ideas.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really thought out blog and that you presented strong arguments. I like how you brought up how you didn't know if it was effective, because it is something that is hard to determine. I agree that this is one of his best speeches but I also think that looking at just the text of his speech was more effective than listening to him speak it.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog, I like how you are unbiased and I agree with your last points, that we need to look to the future, because he is president and there isn't anything we can do about it.
ReplyDeleteVincent, I love the last two sentences of your post. Something I struggle with is hearing people constantly complain about Donald Trump being our President now. No matter what your political beliefs or opinions are, the people of America need to wake up and respect the fact that he is our president for the next four years and that there is nothing they can do about it. By rebelling and protesting that he is "not my president" only further divides our country. America needs unity. Also, I liked how even though you are a clear Trump supporter, you are still able to analyze both sides and criticize when criticism needs to be given. This aspect only enhanced your post even further. Great job!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blog, I can conclude that you put a lot of effort, time, and thought into composing it. You managed to look at both perspectives without being biased towards one side. I thought the comparison between Trump's Inaugural Address and Reagan's speech to be a legitimate one. This is due to the statement you made in regards to both of when which read, "By far, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump have been the most compared presidents during this entire campaign." I couldn't agree more with this statement since both had little to no political background and not many people see them as being credible. Overall, your post analysed both speeches in great detail and I enjoyed reading what you had to say. Make America Great Again 2017!
ReplyDeleteThis was a good well thought out blog. I think you did a good job and I could see you writing this. I agree with what you said about Trump and his speech and tone. I don't really know about Reagan but it seemed like there speeches were similar. Great job !
ReplyDeleteInteresting analysis, and although I don't agree with everything you have say, I still think you did a decently unbiased analysis of Donald Trump's speech. I agree that he isn't the best speaker by any means, and that he of course catered to his people, which just makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with the fact, a lot of his statements don't have much backing behind them, I mentioned in my post the use of "meaningless" words like, "great", and it seems most of his sentences are constructed of these words.
I feel like you could have touched on Reagan a little bit more, just because I don't know too much about him, and a little background info would have been great, but your overall effectiveness of your blog is telling. You were able to get your point across in not only a profession but effective manner.
If I could make one little change though, USE PARAGRAPHS! Please, please, and please, split up your paragraphs. When looking at them here, all the words become jumbled together and makes it very difficult to read. Separate them. Some pictures would have been great too, but that can be worked on another time.
I really like your last sentence about cheering for all of his mistakes or simply wishing for a pilot to crash a plane with all of us aboard. I liked reading this speech, and liked the more serious tone.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love your blog title. Love it. It's great. Greeaat. Very clever. No one loves clever more than me. No one. Not anyone on this Earth out of the billions and billions. Clever humor is great and I love it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the majority of this post, and very much appreciate you being as unbiased as possible; I think that makes it easier to digest. Also, more Reagan. Reagan isn't my fav but his speech was pretty impressive. Also also, S E P A R A T E P A R A G R A P H S.
God bless you and God bless America.
I agree with that we need to come together as a nation and stop fighting. Make America Great Again.
ReplyDeleteWow, I am amazed that you stayed unbiased on this. I definitely agree with you that Teumps speech wasn't very effective and his speaking skills are sub-par, even though he tried to get a good message across. But please next time separate paragraphs or add photos/gifs, it really enhances a blog. Good blog, though.
ReplyDeleteYou offer good thought in this post. However, when it comes to the actual assignment, your logos was cursory. In addition, while your structure is reasonably organized, paragraphing would only make what you write even more powerful, as it focuses your argument into logical pieces that the reader can more easily follow (rather than looking like a rant).
ReplyDelete