As a consultant and facilitator in the area of communication, I have been fascinated by one aspect of the American Presidential elections- the art and science of persuasion. After all, Mr.Trump has managed to pull off the biggest deal of his career, selling himself as the ideal Presidential candidate and persuading the voting public to elect him to the most powerful position in the country.
So how did Trump and Clinton fare when it came to their persuasive skills over the course of their campaign? The oldest and still relevant theories of persuasion were propounded by Aristotle in the oldest democracy in the world, Greece. His book On Rhetoric, talks about the three pillars of persuasive appeals -Ethos,Pathos and Logos,which need to be followed by anyone who wants to be a successful influencer.
Though I have not followed every speech and interaction of Trump and Clinton, I have formed a collective impression based on the debate and news reports, which I believe is enough to provide an idea of their powers of persuasion. So, here is my analysis, along with the 5 star rating system that is so popular these days, on how the two candidates fared with respect to Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
Ethos refers to the character and credibility of the speaker.
Ethos is the sum of everything that a speaker is, from basic demographic characteristics to reputation and experience. A speaker’s ethos is what makes the audience trust and like him or her.
Let us look at each of candidates’ Ethos in the context of suitability for the post of President.
The role that gender played in the elections will be a subject of many researches and studies for a long time to come but since I have definite views on this subject and a tendency for a bias towards Hillary Clinton, I shall take gender out of the equation, for the moment. That aside, both are wealthy,white, married,Christians of approximately the same age.
On one hand, we had Donald Trump, with no political experience, no track record of having held any public office and a dodgy reputation as a real estate businessman, reality TV host and promoter of casinos and beauty pageants. His personal character, which emerged over the course of his campaign showed him to be a misogynistic, xenophobic, racist with scant regard for the conventions of human interactions.
Then there was Secretary Clinton, who was already familiar with the White House, first as FLOTUS and then as Secretary of state. Hillary Clinton, with a major in Political science, a law degree from a prestigious American University was also elected to the Senate from New York. She has an extensive knowledge of the political system and a strong record of public service as a champion for universal healthcare and the rights of women and children. She is, by all accounts, a loyal, hard working, patriotic woman who is known to be kind, empathetic and a resilient fighter. The recent email scandal did dent her image as a trustworthy candidate but compared to Trump, she had years of goodwill, the endorsement of President Obama and the support of the media.
If you had to choose someone to be the CEO of America Inc. ,a firm in which you have a major investment, which candidate would you hire?
At the start of the campagin, Hillary Clinton had a definite advantage over Trump.
Ethos Score- Clinton- 4: Trump-2
Pathos- the ability to connect to the emotions of the audience
The first part of using pathos well is to understand who your audience is. Whether you are standing for election or writing a novel, it is not possible to please all the people all the time. Smart salespeople select their audience based on their decision making power. When I make a sales presentation to the senior team of a company, I need to ensure that the CEO’s needs and motivations are kept in mind as a priority.
As per the United States Census Bureau, the American population comprises 77% white Americans, out of which 66 % are non Hispanic whites. Out of these, 95% of them are middle class or working class as defined by their average income. If we assume that at least 50% of them will form the core audience of any speech made by either of the candidates, then the communication has to be tailored to this critical chunk of the audience.
The working class whites were Donald Trump’s core audience and everything he said was focused on this segment.
Hillary Clinton’s audience was a mixed bag of educated liberal whites, African Americans, other minorities, women and the young urban college goers, each a distinct segment.
The second aspect of pathos is the ability to evoke a certain emotion from the audience which motivates them to take a particular action. As Aristotle put it brilliantly-
Take, for instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (1) what the state of mind of angry people are, (2) who the people are with whom they usually get angry, and (3) on what grounds they get angry with them. It is clear that it might be needful in a speech to put [the audience] into a state of mind of those who are inclined to anger and show one’s opponents as responsible for those things that are the causes of the anger and that they are the sort of people against whom anger is directed.’
Trump’s speeches capitalized on the two most visceral emotions, anger and fear. His core audience was told ‘They are stealing our jobs’, ‘They are bringing drugs, they are bringing criminals, they are rapists’. ‘They may be ISIS, they may be ISIS related ’ The only thing worse than ‘them’ was the previous government that allowed ‘them’ to do that. Trump painted a bleak picture of the future, stoking fear and uncertainty and then projected himself as the savior.
On the other hand Clinton said, ‘I am not a single issue candidate and we don’t live in a single issue world.’ A statement that is undeniably true but did not reflect the needs and motivations of her target audience. ‘Hillary for America’ did project herself as the voice of reason and the President for all. She was also the champion of the minorities and women but she was unable to tap into the core emotions of that group as Obama had done in the past elections.
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people, said Yeats.
The third aspect of pathos is the ability to connect to the audience by talking their language, at their level of understanding. To succeed in the aspect of pathos, the speaker has to communicate in such a way that the target audience can relate to the way the content is delivered.
Sample the comments from the two candidates on the same issues.
Trump– I would knock the hell out of ISIS in some form. I would rather not do it with our troops, you understand that.
Clinton– A more effective air campaign is necessary but not sufficient. We should be honest that to be successful, air strikes have to be combined with ground forces.
Trump – I believe in really really smart trade where we can come out on top, that is what I believe in, alright?
Clinton– Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security.
Even if you don’t think like a wise man, it is important that your communication makes people feel that you are the one with the answers they want to hear. If you are an angry white American working class male who is worrying about losing his job to a large Asian nation or being attacked by hateful brown men who have sneaked into your country, who will you listen to?
Pathos Score- Clinton-3, Trump-5
Logos- the ability to appeal to the reason of the candidates
The word logic is derived from the Greek root logos. Yes, even in elections which are emotionally charged, the logical argument is important. People want technical or artificial proof, either the real numbers or examples and hints that show some cause and effect relationship and allow both inductive and deductive reasoning.
Effective use of Logos requires the language to be simple, understandable and have a stickiness that causes the audience to remember the message long after the speech.
I am going to examine just one segment of one of the national debate which calls for the candidates to produce rational responses to questions on policy to see how Clinton and Trump did with respect to Logos.
In response to the question- Why are you a better candidate to create better jobs that put more money in the pocket of the American worker, this is what the candidates said. I have partly edited the segment but the key words have been reproduced verbatim.
Clinton– ‘We need good jobs, new jobs. I want to invest in you. We need to raise minimum wages, and ensure equal pay for women’s work. … encourage profit sharing and support people who want a better balance between work and family life. Let’s have paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable child care and debt free college. How are we going to do that? We want the wealthy to pay their fair share and close corporate loopholes.’
Trump – ‘Our jobs are fleeing the country. They are going to Mexico and other countries… China is using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild their economy. My friend said.. Mexico is the 8th wonder. They are putting up these big plants there…You see Ford is leaving. Thousands of jobs are leaving Michigan and Ohio. Carrier Airconditioning fired 1400 people. We have to stop that. Under my plan, I will be reducing taxes from 35% to 15% for all companies, big and small business. ..Companies will come, they will build, they will expand. It will be a beautiful thing to watch.’
Remember Pathos. See how Trump never forgets his core audience and their fears. Note use of examples, specifics, numbers and the creation of artificial proof. Which segment will you remember more?
The Trump campaign seems to have understood the galvanizing power of the three syllable chant-‘Bring back jobs! Lock her up! Build the wall! The words when repeated again and again by large crowds carry an explosive energy of their own.
They had a strong slogan- Make America great again. America was great. Now, it is not so great because of all the bad things done by the current government. I will make it great again. A simple proof.
The Clinton campaign lacked a powerful unifying message. Let us make history did not resonate with a large part of the population. Hillary for America was too vague. Though Hillary Clinton has a better vocabulary, superior sentence structures, an elegant turn of words and adequate data to bolster her statements, her logical appeal at many times lacked the simple stickiness that the majority of the audience required.
Logos score: Clinton- 3: Trump-4
Total Score in Persuasive skills- Clinton- 10 : Trump 11
When it comes to persuading people to vote or buy into any product or idea, all aspects of your appeal have to be stronger that your competitor’s. If your competitor’s Ethos is stronger, then you need to destroy that even as you bolster your own logos and pathos. Even though many factors determined the final result of the elections, the respective campaigns will at least will be a great case study in the art and science of persuasion.
