As if by magic, our Rhetoric and Civic Life blogs have culminated this semester on quite a significant week. This past Tuesday, Americans celebrated (or dreaded, I suppose depending on your political party…) midterm election day! Americans across the country voted for governorships and senator positions. Voting, as we have discussed many, many times, is quite possibly the epitome of a civic activity. It is the foundation of the grand democratic process that our nation holds dear. It is the method by which any average Joe across the country can lend their voice to the leadership in America and make a real (albeit fairly miniscule) impact on the governance of us all. Unfortunately, we didn’t see a presidential election this time around. I’m not necessarily saying that because I don’t like Obama but because I am not a very political person and that’s the only exciting one to me. Regardless of my opinion, election days are extremely important to maintain the dynamic and fluid fabric of government. It’s what separates us from some totalitarian dictatorship.
If you pay attention to the news, you will know that this midterm election day was particularly contentious. For the past few years, this country has seen a bipartisan legislature. The House of Representatives was controlled by the Republicans (Or GOP if you prefer) and the Senate was controlled by the Democrats by a slim margin. President Obama has had such a difficult time passing anything through the Congress because of the gridlock. Anything that passed through the Senate was shot down in the House and vice versa. After Tuesday, it doesn’t look like Obama will be seeing an improvement as the Republicans have clinched the majority in the Senate, establishing a firmly partisan Congress opposed to President Obama.
The GOP (left) dominated this senatorial election.
Now, Congress can basically operate to a degree above the President’s head. The new Senate majority leader, Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell hasn’t exactly been Obama’s biggest supporter in the past so it will be interesting to see how the government will function moving into Obama’s last term.
R-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
According to this article, Obama has publicly stated he won’t back down on any of his major projects (i.e. Obamacare and immigration). This is sending a strong rhetorical message that the Democrats are still strong. Furthermore, this could be seen as pathos because his supporters would feel pride at his steadfastness and rally to his side.
Obama is sad
In politics, we see rhetoric at work everywhere. It’s the method by which these politicians get elected. Many pundits blamed Obama’s poor ratings on pulling the Democrats behind. Whether or not this is true, its a very strategic platform for a Republican candidate to use Obama as a scapegoat for the Democrats’ failings. This incites the audience through mostly ethos. They’re trying to bolster their own credibility by discrediting the opposition and pointing at their shortcomings. Obviously, this is a logical fallacy but how many voters do you think care about logical fallacy?
On the local side, Pennsylvania has not been immune to the change wrought by election days as the governorship previously held by Republic Tom Corbett was relinquished to Democrat Tom Wolf (seriously, both Toms?). This outcome has been predicted for months as Governor Corbett has not exactly killed it in the ratings.
The results of the election
He was recently condemned as a “Dead Man Walking” in a National Journal article. You can see past approval ratings here (if you enjoy irony, there was an ad in the corner when I visited this site for Corbett’s campaign.) Corbett was heavily criticized for his (lack of) contributions to the public school system of Pennsylvania and the enormous budget deficit that was never really made a priority. Wolf has promised to make education his top priority. He also promises to enact a 5% extraction tax in the natural gas industry (aka fracking) which he plans to use to close the budget.
In with new (left) and out with the old (right)
Whatever your political preferences, elections are vital to this country. I hope all of you fulfilled your civic duty and voted on Tuesday! Let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on the recent happenings. Don’t worry, this is a safe place, don’t hold back on those opinions!
Alex,
What a great way to end our RCL blogs! Voting for congressional reps and participating in this Midterm elections are probably the best ways to express our civic duties. Its interesting to see the role that our voting choices play into our lives, and Im glad you mentioned the election race between Tom Wolfe and Tom Corbett. Although I personally do not keep up too strongly with political ideas, I am hopeful that Wolfe will follow through on his promises and bring new changes to PA.
On another note, I truly is disheartening to see what is happening in congress. With this political gridlock, we are wasting away hours and days talking about ideas which will ultimately come up fruitless. Your Obama crying gif really sums up the whole situation. Hopefully there will come a day where these two sides will see eye-to-eye, but as of now, that is just wishful thinking. Great finishing blog post Alex!
Alex,
I’m so glad this was your RCL blog topic this week, (though it’d be hard to choose something else), because I wasn’t going to have any other time to look at the election results in this busy week. You did a really nice job of talking about a somewhat dry topic and embedded very relevant videos and links. It is kind of scary to wonder how our government is going to function with Congress being entirely Republican as opposed to our liberal leaning President. Personally, I don’t have extreme opinions to either side, but choose to take my own stance on particular issues. I am very happy about the 5% extraction tax hopefully being implemented by Tom Wolfe, but I know some other democrat-type decisions made by Wolf will bother me in the future. The Obama crying gif really pulled on my heartstrings, especially after watching him address how strongly he is going to continue working even in the adversity of the opposition from Congress. We will just have to wait and see how things go!
Thanks for the pertinent and informative post!
-Emily
What a perfect week to write a RCL blog 🙂
Personally, I’m so glad you dove into the campaign promises that each PA candidate promised. I really didn’t feel educated enough to cast a ballot on Tuesday, but after reading your post, I have a better idea of what candidate stood for. I hadn’t heard good things about Corbett, so I’m glad he’s out of office now!!
And then there’s the fiasco that’s happening in Congress right now. No one can agree on anything, and I feel like even though I don’t know totally what all the issues are in Congress, I know that we’re aren’t making a whole lot of progress.
Thank you for reminding each of us that it is a civic duty to vote and be involved in change. Maybe if I can become more educated about the government, it’s debates, and specific people, I can put all this rhetoric skills into effect!!