Analysis Of JD Vance's How Donald Trump Seduced The White Working Class

When an author is writing an article, they use techniques and devices to prove and emphasize their main argument. A few examples of these techniques are a metaphor, contrast, personal narrative, alliteration, and anecdotes. Almost all authors use these techniques to transmit their message to their readers. In JD Vance’s article, How Donald Trump Seduced the White Working Class, the author uses specific techniques to convince the readers about the life of the white poor Americans. To begin with, in How Donald Trump Seduced the White Working Class, JD Vance uses personal narrative to convey the theme of the life of the white poor Americans. A personal narrative is a rhetorical device often used in articles by the author, to show that the

The first example of personal narrative used in this article is when the author explains the changing of Middletown. The author says: “ As I grew up, I noticed that the tennis court lines faded with each passing month and that the city had stopped filling in the cracks or replacing the nets on the basketball courts. I was still young when the tennis court became little more than a cement block littered with grass patches” (Vance pg 6). This example shows to the reader that the author's hometown was changing but in a negative way. This example convinces the author’s point because the author is giving a real example of what was going on a first-hand experience. His hometown was changing negatively, and no one from the wealthier states, where the political elites lived, did not realize. The next example of how the personal narrative is used in this article to prove the author’s main argument, is also how the author sees his town lose its innocence. The author gives an example of how two bikes in his neighborhood were stolen, and that after that theft increased and trust in the city decreased. The author says: “I learned that our neighbourhood had “gone downhill”

Anecdotes are usually small, interesting stories or narratives about a real person or event that has occurred. Throughout the article, the author uses anecdotes to prove his main argument. The first example of anecdotes used in this article is when he explains that in the present, people often associate poor with black. The author says: “America has never been entirely sure what to do with its white poor. For complicated historical and political reasons, we associate ‘poor’ in our public consciousness with ‘black’[...]the fact that poor whites outnumbered poor blacks” (pg 1). This anecdote introduces the article, to show that black people should not be associated with poorness. The main idea of this article is to explain the life of the white working class. They are very poor, and others do not realize this because of the association between black people and poor people. The next example of anecdotes used in this article is when the author talks about when his grandparents emigrated to the northern states to have a better life. The author says: “ That region is my ancestral homeland, the place from which my grandparents emigrated [...] They moved in the hope of finding better jobs and higher wages and for a time they found those things. Yet in the wake of a long-term decline in manufacturing in the United States, the economic