Donald John Trump's State Of The Union 2020 Address

President Trump's State of the Union President Donald John Trump’s State of the Union 2020 address allows him to reach his audience and achieve his intended purpose through the use of rhetorical devices even on the eve of his impending impeachment charges. Trump’s use of these rhetorical devices appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. Trump is able to target his message and convey patronage with his party on national security, the economy, health care, and foreign policy. In the opening of his speech, Trump says, “Three years ago we launched the Great American comeback.” With this introduction, he immediately creates a sense of credibility for his accomplishment and implants the subjective fact that America is back because of his direction.

As a recognizable business mogul, Trump leverages his credibility to emphasize what he has done for the US economy. Trump stated that our economy is the best it has ever been and that under his tutelage he has been able to create seven million new jobs. Given the number of new jobs, President Trump transitions to diminishing the work of the opposition. He effectively used ethos when he remarked, “In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce. In just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people — working-age people — have joined the workforce.” Trump also addressed trade. The first trade agreement he promised to replace in his campaigns was the NAFTA trade deal. He again acknowledged the opposition when he stated this in his union address, “Many politicians came and went, pledging to change or replace NAFTA, only to do so, and then absolutely nothing happened.” However, unlike past administrations Trump takes this opportunity to share that he was able to replace NAFTA and sign a new fair-trade deal. Through various themes, Trump continues to rely on ethos to build trust with his audience, which he then expands on with the use of

However, this device was not effective due to the fallacies. During his State of the Union President Trump continued to trash the NAFTA trade deal when boasting on the fact he was able to replace it with a new trade deal USMCA. However, “The USMCA is a modest reworking of NAFTA launched in 1994, with about 85 to 90 percent the same” (Kessler et al., 2020). Considering the similarities, this fact proves this rhetorical device to be ineffective. Once again, reporter Megan Cassella said “The independent U.S. International Trade Commission found the pact would create 176,000 jobs across all sectors and raise U.S. GDP by 0.35 percent by the sixth year after it enters into force. That study also found, however, that when excluding the provisions that reduce policy uncertainty, the effect on U.S. GDP is actually -0.12 percent.” (Staff et al., 2020). Showing that though there is a similarity between trade deals the effect on Gross Domestic Product would