Rhetorical Precis
Paul Krugman in his column, Donald the Unready, divulges the weaknesses of President Trump’s up and coming administration that is severely unprepared to govern. Krugman supports his acknowledgments by first discrediting the few people Trump has nominated to his administration such as Betsy DeVos who knows nothing about the educational system but was nominated as the secretary of education. He then compares Trump’s administration to Brush’s through examples of selected instances where crises were poorly handled due to a likewise ill-equipped administration. Lastly, the author challenges that during President Trump’s term that a likely crisis will happen and just like every person is predicting, they won't be able to handle it. Krugman’s purpose was to exploit the corruption within Trump’s administration to expose the weaknesses that will follow in correlation to his nominees. The author writes in a pensive but critical tone of Trump’s authoritative actions. This work is significant because it references the past to the presence noting how important history actually has consequence to the future.
Rhetorical Analysis of Ethos Logos Pathos
In his column, Donald the Unready, Paul Krugman uses the modes of persuasion - ethos, logos, and pathos - to not only effectively alarm American citizen of the incoming administration’s shortcomings but also successfully make their failures our own. Krugman uses a majority of logos when referencing Donald Trump’s nominees and listening their qualifications, or more so their lack of qualifications. Through these methods, Krugman intentionally discredits the nominees faulting the credibility of their nomination such as Betsy Devos who was selected to be secretary of education regardless of being under qualified. But further evidence shows accounts of when the Devos family donated large amounts of money to the Trump administration or acted in their favor making the likelihood of Betsy Devos being chosen an act of cronyism - the appointment of unqualified but well connected people to key positions. This same pattern isn't only observed across the seats of Trump’s administration but also in another past president’s cabinet, President George Bush. And if the past says anything about the future, the United States will likely be unprepared and very troubled when an actual crisis occur reminiscent of Bush’s actions during Hurricane Katrina. But no matter how you look at it, past or present, the current administration needs a major boost or so god help us all.