Stephen James
Professor Mulliken
English 1113
4 October 2011
The Voters’ influence
The two articles, “Stupid Voters Enable Broken Government” and “Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model”, both advocate the voters’ interest towards influencing the government. The main controversy between the two articles is whether or not they will play a critical role in the outcome of elections and if the voter’s are pivotal in the election outcomes then the article is exploring the effects of the voter’s decisions. The position of the article, Stupid Voter’s Enable Broken Government, advocates that voters are making drastic decisions throughout their voting which is causing the government to fall apart, and the second article, Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model, advocates that the voter’s benefit from the election are connected with the voter’s chances of importance to the outcome of the election. The two sources both deal with the question of whether or not the decisions that the voter’s make are effective or not towards the government and the results of how the government is affected.
The two articles both convey rhetorical appeals such as ethos, pathos, and logos but they also have false ethos, extreme pathos, and even some logical fallacies. The article Stupid Voter’s Enable Broken Government by LZ Granderson includes a incident about a former mayor, Marion Barry, who served time in prison and advertised a commercial with him with a crack pipe in his mouth saying “B**** set me up” which convinced the black community to vote for him because by blaming the crack pipe in his mouth was the white people’s fault. After Marion Barry was involved in the commercial and after serving time in prison he still got re-elected for mayor and this is an example that conveys ethos because the fact Marion Barry had taken advantage o his voters due to the fact that he was portrayed as a good man to his voters but a criminal on the inside strengthens Granderson’s credibility because this example supports his argument of how the voters’ enable broken government. The other article, Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model, by John Duffy and Margit Tavits includes ethos as well because they had created experiments in their voter model. The voters were more likely to vote when they thought that their vote was going to count towards an election. This is an example of ethos because the fact that the two graduate students had proved something through an experiment that had been tested strengthens the author’s credibility.
The article by LZ Granderson includes false ethos in a way because he is not an expert on information about the government because he is a Sports Center contributor. The majority of his ethos is false because even though he provides facts about incidents he based his claim from his own opinion about each incident or election in the article. The scholarly article by the Stanford graduates did not really have any false ethos whatsoever because they had provided information to support they claim and the evidence that they had provided was hard evidence. The audience of the article by LZ Granderson does not respect his claim about government because he essentially is blunt about his reasoning and insulting his audience by stating “A lot of us are just plain stupid” (Granderson) as well but, his motives are excellent. The article by the graduate students had an audience that also involved the voters and how they vote or if they even vote at all but their audience would be more subject to respect their claims because they provided laboratory experiments as well as models to support their argument about how voters vote or do not vote towards the outcome of an election. The similarities between the two articles is that both of the articles advocate that the voters should start thinking independently and spend time thinking about who they will vote for rather than jumping onto the bandwagon and voting for whoever is doing the best in each party. The differences between the two articles are that one article argues that voters are so effective that they are breaking the government and the other article is advocating that the voter’s vote is either pivotal or not in the outcome of an election.
The two articles both involve rhetorical strategies such as pathos. The article by LZ Granderson entails pathos because of the tone he is in while he is making his claim seems to be very blunt towards the audience by stating “All of us are at the very least lazy”(Granderson) which may have caused the voters to feel a certain way that is hurtful to the voters. The fact that LZ Granderson had blamed the voters for our broken government by calling lazy and stupid is in the category of extreme pathos because he provides weak evidence to support his claim dealing with the fact that the voters are the reason why our government is broken. The article by the two Stanford graduate students had involved some pathos because the fact that their experiment dealing with voting based on their beliefs caused the voters to feel whether or not that their vote is pivotal or not. Whenever the experimental election involved beneficial opportunities. For example, in one of the experimental elections the voters were offered more money if they voted for a candidate that they agreed with their political beliefs. The article by the two Stanford graduate students did not include any extreme pathos because there are reasoning’s behind each claim that they made. In the article by the two graduate students had used pathos in a way that was not easy find because the majority of the article was filled with hard evidence, facts, and experiments but they used pathos in way that had to be identified beyond the words in the article. In the article by Granderson he had used pathos in a very visible aspect because the expressions that had been place in this article were obviously seen by his own audience. The two articles did not really have similar advocating sides for how they both used pathos rather they had both advocated for opposite sides for how they had used pathos throughout the article. The two articles had described the way they had used pathos in a very intricate way because of the different types of examples used in the articles.
The last type of rhetorical strategy that each of these two articles appeals to be the logical appeals. Unfortunatly, Duffy and Tavits article does not really appeal to logos because the article is about voters participating in experiments to see if their vote is pivotal. One logical appeal that this article appeals to states that “voting happens because people systematically think that their vote counts more than it actually does, though this overestimation declines with experience” (Duffy and Tavits) appeals to logos somewhat because the authors provide a logical reasoning to why voting actually happens which is also in support of their claim that they are making. The fact that the logical appeals that the article by the graduate students have logical reasoning that logically makes sense means that all the logical fallacies cannot be identified within the article. However, the article by Granderson is the total opposite in regard to logical fallacies. The article “Stupid Voters Enable Broken Government” appeals to logical appeals. The logical appeal that this article states that “Newt Gingrich, who cheated on two wives and is the only speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations, and yet somehow he is running for the president of the United States as a religious conservative and managed to get eight percent of the votes during last week’s straw poll in Florida”(Granderson) this statement appeals to logos because the logical reasoning is that since he is disciplined for ethic violations it makes it logical for him to a candidate to run for the president of the United State. This statement is actually a logical fallacy called Ad Hominem because LZ granderson is making personal attacks at Newt Gingrich rather than giving reasoning to his original claim about the government. Another type of logical appeal in Granderson’s article states “The fact that he is even on camera discussing the country's sense of morality during the GOP debates should be offensive to any thinking person regardless of party affiliation” (Granderson) is an appeal to logos because he it is logical to be offended by the person because you are a thinking person. This appeal to logos is also a logical fallacy called bandwagon because it he is saying that the thinking people known as other people are convinced to be offended by this person. Another type of logical appeal that this article appeals to states “The biggest reason government is broken is because of voters“(Granderson) which appeals to logos because he is providing reasoning for why the government is broken. This statement involving voters being the reason for broken government is a logical fallacy called false cause because he is making a claim about stupid people are the cause for broken government. The two articles had different types of arguments that had distinguished the articles together. The article by the two Stanford graduate students did not have any logical fallacies therefore there was not any type of logical fallacies that could have discredited the two authors articles but however, the article by LZ Granderson had numerous types of logical fallacies that had most definitely discredited the author because all the supposedly facts that he had made throughout his article are all discredited because some of them are logical fallacies. The effectiveness of the appeals that both the articles had used was equally affective because they both had committed appeals that were interesting to their types of audiences. The effectiveness of the appeals in the article by granderson was effective in a way that had tried to make his audience see their own flaws towards the government and the effects of what that is doing to the government. The effectiveness of the article by the two Stanford graduate students was effective in a way that proved how voters thought that were pivotal towards the outcome of elections and proving that the voters beliefs increase the voters to vote because they believe they are pivotal towards the outcome of the election.
Works Cited
"Stupid Voter Enable Broken Government." Interview by LZ Granderson. CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Cable News Network, 27 Sept. 2011. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://CNN.com>.
Duffy, John, and Margit Tavits. "Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model." American Journal of Political Science ns 52.3 (2008): 603-18. American Search Premier. Web. Oct.-Nov. 2011.
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