Holier than thou, Hillary has pulled back all of the stops.
In Aaron Blake’s Article, Hillary Clinton essentially just called Donald Trump an unrepentant racist he discusses how Hillary Clinton has been playing a slightly different game than she has in the past. She has adopted very similar tactics to her presidential race opponent, Donald Trump.
Clinton has decided to strengthen the division of the candidates in regards to race. She is now acting similar in many ways to Donald Trump by trying to convince the audience that she is with them and that Donald Trump is the enemy, and therefore, evil. She has taken the initiative to invoke a rhetorical enthymeme in the mind of the audience so that they see Donald Trump as being a racist and bigot. This is an extremely important and interesting tactic, because it creates the mentality of us and them in regards to Donald Trump. For example the Clinton campaign released a video, Hillary Clinton: ‘Trump and the Extreme Right Wing’ that creates the enthymeme that Trump must support and approve of the ‘Extreme Right Wing’ which is said to consist of a constituency based around racism.
The us and them mentality is important. It paints the picture for the audience that Trump is immoral and in many respects, evil. This then creates the enthymeme that Hillary Clinton is therefore good and racially just. It is the simple good vs bad argument. Even in its simplicity it is one of the most powerful arguments used in the political sphere. In this case it comes down to a emotional and logical based argument. Logically racism is viewed as bad in our society. If that is the case, and Trump is associated with racism, then he must be bad. If he is bad, and you support him, then that must make you bad. That argument has made huge waves throughout this election cycle for Clinton.
Throughout this whole time she is automatically considered the good character in the situation. This is assumed because of her accusation. The idea is that she couldn’t make the accusation if she was guilty of the same fault as Trump. This lets voters feel comfortable in voting for her because she is not the “evil” candidate under this premise.
I think the enthymeme concept was really interesting. I didn’t even think about how she used her rhetoric to create that response. I also think that early in Trump’s campaign he did say racist things about immigrants and racial groups, therefore it was easy for her to paint that picture.
I have to say it is a good idea by the clinton campaign to construct an argument in the same manner that trump does when he paints a strong picture using bold allegations against her. It only strengthens her argument that he is a racist to a point where it more easily sticks in peoples heads.