Rhetoric: the Political Sleight of Hand

During the 1990, the United States of America was burdened with a huge debt due to the enormous spending in the military and reduced tax rate.

In order to curb this deficit, George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States, made an address to the Nation on the Budget Deficit on October 2nd 1990. Other than just presenting the solutions to the problems, Bush uses rhetoric, the political sleight of hand, to craft an effective speech. By doing so, Bush astutely appeals to ethos, mostly, and intentionally installs logical fallacies.This creates an emotional effect which captures the audience’s concerns and attentions to the deficit.

In turn, this propels the audience to support the deficit reduction plan which, supposedly, would help to improve the dire economic situation. Straight off the bat, Bush presents the deficit issue and further elaborates about how it would haunt their future generations and how it would exacerbate the current situation, if no appropriate actions are taken.For instance, Bush utilizes the rhetorical device, amplification, to amplify the subject “fear” in this sentence, “…fears – fears of the economic chaos that would follow if we fail to reduce the deficit” (G. H. Bush).

This poses as a fear for the audience, who is the general public and specifically, the working people of the United States of America, about their future financial well-being. With the element of fear implemented, the audience would be more concerned with the deficit situation.On the other hand, Bush also uses a logical fallacy – argument from final consequences, which is also known as teleological argument – to explain the source of the budget deficit. Teleological arguments are based on a reversal of cause and effect (Top 20 Logical Fallacies).

Initially, he explains that there are simple rules that apply to the economy such as, “when you get a bill, that bill must be paid. And when you write a check, [there has to be] money in bank. ” Then, he shifted to the reason that “the Nation’s business in Washington has been conducted as if these basic rules did not apply, [when] these rules do apply” (G. H. Bush).

In other words, with the deficit at hand, Bush “pushes” the blame to the nation’s business and indirectly involves the people into the cause for the deficit, when it could be the increased spending in military and lowered tax rate that have caused the deficit. Similarly, people would be more involved in the deficit problem. After raising the concern of the public, Bush offers a solution. This is extremely crucial. By offering a solution, Bush forces and limits the audience’s expectation into one idea.

As a result, the audience would want to know more about this particular solution and focus their attention to its details. With this in place, Bush, conveniently, employs another rhetorical device, anaphora to present the benefits of the deficit reduction plan in a more impactful way. For example, he says, “It will not raise income tax rates…It will not mess with Social Security…It will not put America’s national security at risk. And most of all, it will not let our economy slip out of control” (G.

H. Bush). Likewise, there are other examples where Bush uses anaphora to promote the benefits.All of these are done in an attempt to “brainwash” the audience that the plan is feasible. For example, he says, “note promises – no smoke, no mirrors, no magic act, but real and lasting spending cuts” (G.

H. Bush). The primary intention is to place emphasis on the benefits of the plan, and also to persuade the audience to support the plan. Intelligently and beautifully, Bush inserts another logical fallacy, accompanied with anaphora, near the end of the speech. He says, “[D]eficit reduction agreement is tough, and so are times. The agreement is fair, and so is the American spirit.

The agreement is bipartisan, and so is the vote. The agreement is real, and so is this crisis” (G. H. Bush). This is a false analogy as there is no relevance between the fairness of the agreement and the American spirit.

Neither there is any relevance in other comparisons. Why did he do so? Bush exploits the feelings of his audience to make them feel that the agreement is fair and imperative, just like the American spirit and the crisis. Hence, it should be advocated. Another important factor that makes this an effective address is the tone of Bush.Throughout the speech, Bush maintains an assertive, and yet humble, tone to persuade the audience.

While aggressively promoting the benefits of the plan, he often relates himself as part of the audience, seeing through their eyes and feeling what they feel. This helps to add content to the address by reassuring his people that he knows what it feels to be in their shoes and that he would do his best to ameliorate the clamorous situation. In addition, Bush is apprehensive to his people by saying, “This is the first time in my Presidency that I’ve made an appeal like this to you” (G. H.

Bush).As a nation leader, he is making an appeal to his people, whom they would feel grateful and honored, and have a sense of identity to the nation. Thus, they would assist the nation by supporting the plan. However, Bush’s address lacks logical justifications for the deficit reduction plan.

Throughout the whole speech, he only talks about the benefits of the deficit reduction plan and, has, never once, discussed about how the plan operates. In other words, Bush makes it sounds like he will resolve the problems and is empathetic to the situation, but without stating the specifics of the plan.This is known as the “Sound Byte” method (Burden and Sanberg). Moreover, the main part of the speech focuses on the unanimous agreement of the plan between the republicans and the democrats instead of the actual deficit reduction plan.

This can be seen in the later part of the speech where Bush spends a paragraph persuading the audience to urge their Congressmen and Senators to unite and solve the national problem (G. H. Bush). Looking from a different perspective, this can be viewed as though Bush is doing solely for the interest of the nation, and, probably, not to win support from the people.With this image, the concerned people would believe that this effort is for the interest of the nation and hence, they would support the plan. In a nut shell, Bush’s address to the nation on budget deficit is well structured and planned as a whole.

Appeals to ethos and logical fallacies are cleverly implanted at vital parts of the speech to enhance and reinforce the emotional effect. Even though there is no relevant empirical data about the plan, Bush, with the help of a preacher’s oratory speech pattern, is able to persuade his audience effectively by granting them salvation from the fear of the economy chaos.