A More Perfect Union Is a Step Away

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The speech titled “A more Perfect Union” was delivered by Senator Barack Obama, a running candidate for president, on March 18, 2008. It was a response to the video clip of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jerimiah Wright, making racially charged comments against America. It was made so the public did not condone the actions of the pastor to Barack Obama. The pundits and various new media outlets played the clip repeatedly on the television, YouTube, etc… This was degrading Obama’s reputation and making the running for president harder. He knew he had to appeal to the citizens of America and so he used Aristotle’s Logos, Ethos, and Pathos, which are appeals to logic, ethics, and emotions respectively. In addition he uses rhetorical strategies. The myriad of both of this made this speech a masterful one and made the speech a turning point in the election.
This speech was important to his campaign in a plethora of ways, When the video was released to the public the specific sound bites used by the news gave the impersonation the Reverend Wright was discriminating against America. Since, Obama was running for the 2008 presidency, he needed to get approval from the majority. Since the people who discriminate usually are at an extreme end they could not be a target audience. So when the news came out about the pastor discriminating people made connections to Obama. This bad publicity was making much more difficult to become president. So he made the speech to show that the actions of the pastor are not related to him in anyway. He decided to kill two birds with one stone by stopping the bad publicity and giving his views on the issues of racial equality that emerge with the Reverend’s actions. Obama sought to educate the America...

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...g march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring, and more prosperous America.” This appeals to logos because he showed reasons for the decadence of the current society and he gave a proposal to solve it, a wish. The idea is simple. There are and there were problems in America. Obama pitched a solution, a cause, an effect. He effectively uses examples to emphasize his point. His explanation made much sense to the audience because; he used a myriad of examples and references from his knowledge. This speech was a turning point in the election and for good reason. It inspires us to unify like we were to 400 years ago but, not did. It inspires us to take charge and control racism for the society we live in now is not the same. It inspires us to know that just because your pastor preaches hate, doesn’t mean that you do.

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