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Summary Of A Minority President Lakoff

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In the commentary, “A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed And What The Majority Can Do”, George Lakoff (2016) offers a refreshing analysis of the rudimentary divisiveness between America’s progressives and conservatives to explain the American zeitgeist. He presents a framework to explain Donald Trump’s unexpected win at the United States Presidential Elections 2016. By explaining Trump’s tactics, Lakoff attempts to transform his readers into critical listeners, well-versed in political rhetoric to readily oppose acts of Trump which contradict “American values”. This mirrors the fear ancient philosophers had of possible repercussions arising from an unassuming audience facing a masterful speaker (Beasley, 2012). In this essay, I seek to challenge Lakoff’s argument that Trump’s success at the elections is largely contributed to the oratorical tactics pointed out by Lakoff. …show more content…

He then asserts that Trump successfully utilized oratorical tactics to manipulate the unconscious mental frames of voters for political support. He categorizes Trump’s oratorical tactics into repetition and “metaphorical thought”. Trump combined their usage to develop a person which subconsciously connects to voters by altering the way voters perceive his character.
Using Trump, Lakoff effectively highlights the power and danger associated with “metaphorical thought” in political rhetoric. Nonetheless, he fails to account for Trump’s use of emotional appeal (pathos) embedded in his rhetoric, as a means of persuasion. Lakoff emphasises that “most thought is unconscious” but without ackowledging the power of unconscious emotions and unconscious thought which translates to powerful emotions, Lakoff excludes one of Trump’s most powerful tools. He assumes that Trump only appeals to the subconscious values which Lakoff believes determines the populace’s

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