America’s political system has thrived for 230 years, but in one of the most polarizing elections in the nation’s history many Americans are disgusted with both candidates. Nevertheless, a candidate must be elected, so like all election cycles, public figures take to the campaign trail presenting their arguments for who should lead the nation come January. Peter Thiel represents one such figure. He is a member of the Silicon Valley elite – a captain of industry funding America’s future. At the Republican National Convention, Thiel presents a persuasive speech arguing a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for positive change. The speech relies on rhetorical elements to shape the angle of vision. This angle of vision forces the audience to see his …show more content…
Words with strong connotations dramatically alter the strength of an argument. Theil capitalizes on this fact and depicts Hillary Clinton as unfit for the presidency when he claims, “We don’t need to see Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails: her incompetence is in plain sight. She pushed for a war in Libya, and today it’s a training ground for ISIS” (Thiel). Theil uses three ideas with strong connotation to drive his point against Hillary. He brings up the email scandal, ISIS, and calls Clinton incompetent. The email scandal and ISIS are some of the strongest buzz-words in American political culture. Framed in this context, they depict Clinton as being untrustworthy and having poor foreign policy. At the same time, he says that her incompetence is in plain sight. The word incompetent is generally not used lightly because it carries strong negative connotations. Of course, Theil intended to use the word incompetence exactly for this reason. By framing his argument against Clinton in this context, Thiel artfully discredits Hillary’s foreign and domestic actions in a single