Was Gettysburg Effective?

Gettysburg. A place where respectable people, and presidential hopefuls in this case, come to deliver speeches of unity, of a vision for the country, and of common goals they have in mind to unite the country. The speech being given here could be described as enthymematic because we didn’t explicitly know why he gave the speech here, but many Americans know the history Gettysburg has. Trump’s reasons for giving his speech there cold be different from the speculated reasons the media is portraying. As we discussed in class, Donald Trump unsurprisingly gave a speech at Gettysburg about his plan for the first 100 days of his presidency. However, he also threatened that he would sue the women who accused him of sexual assault, which probably was not the best move since our class discussion that he needs moderate female voters to win the election.

Trump’s polling prior to the speech has been pretty consistent among the white male and female population with a typical 55% male and a 46% female support base. Either way, both of these numbers are greater than the Democratic nominee, Clinton. Though his support from the white population is steady, this will not alone help him win the presidency because Clinton is still overall in the lead, primarily due to his comments about women. “Clinton leads 55-35 percent among women, and has doubled her margin to 32 points among college-educated white women – a group strongly critical of Trump’s response to allegations of inappropriate behavior.”

With all the allegations surrounding Trump, it was very smart of him to speak at Gettysburg, but it was more harmful to what should be his target population. In order to possibly win the election, or to simply turn his polling numbers around in terms of college-educated white women, he must watch what he says about women and to women because this is a sensitive subject to most Americans.