Joe Harris RWS Journal

Since the 1980s, Americans on the political right have consistently voted in favor of supply-side economics, a discredited theory suggesting that lower taxes for the wealthy will benefit everyone. This voting pattern is remarkable because most voters are not wealthy, so they will be unlikely to realize any gains from supply-side policies; if anything, they are liable to be harmed. In short, Republicans can’t get enough of supply-side economics, even though it’s bad for their wallets. Why?

This is the central question that occupies Christopher M. Duerringer’s essay, “The Rhetoric of Supply-Side Economics,” which argues that common economic tropes naturalize the supply-side model and make it feel right for many voters—even when it clearly isn’t.

In this response, I respond to Duerringer’s argument; specifically, I contend that while he offers a useful picture of the extent to which metaphors can shape our thinking, he does not fully account for the reasons that Republicans in particular are receptive to certain tropes. Additionally, Duerringer’s argument would likely be stronger if he attempted to place the influence of tropes into a larger cultural context, which would help prevent readers from overestimating their effects.

Duerringer’s essay is strongest when it maps out the likely effects of metaphors on attitudes toward supply-side economics. It seems to me that his research question—why do some Americans consistently vote against self-interest?—touches a relevant point of contact between theory and real-world behavior. Often, theories are most powerful when they can resolve a paradox or explain an apparently irrational practice. In other words, as the reason for something becomes less apparent, the need for a theory to explain it increases. And here, Duerringer clearly contributes to the field of communications by working to map the underappreciated effects of metaphors on voter attitudes and behaviors. In particular, his combination of the tropes of “money as liquid” and economic classes “as vertically distributed strata” is especially compelling (Duerringer 13). On their own, each of these tropes has a certain amount of persuasive appeal; but as a pair, they attain additional signifying power. Future researchers might explore the synergistic effects of networks of interrelated tropes.

Despite offering a genuine contribution to theory, Duerringer’s argument might be improved in two ways. First, he might offer a clearer accounting of the uneven power of certain metaphors across the political spectrum. If the irrational support for supply-side economics is a uniquely Republican phenomenon driven by powerful conceptual metaphors, then what is it that inoculates those on the political left? Unfortunately, Duerringer does not explain why Republicans seem more receptive to certain tropes—if anything, he argues for their universal appeal (11–13).

Second, the essay would likely be stronger if it placed tropes into a larger cultural context. It is certain that, while metaphors are powerful, they are not the only drivers of voting behavior. While I understand that Duerringer is not obliged to offer a complete picture of the various social, religious, and philosophical factors at issue, his argument would still benefit from at least acknowledging that tropes are not solely responsible for the success of supply-side economics. For instance, if Republicans are more likely to be evangelical Christians, then perhaps they vote for candidates who seem to share their religious values (and if supply-side economics comes packaged with those candidates, then so be it).

Despite these limitations, Duerringer’s work helps to explain the strange, enduring popularity of supply-side economics. Although most would agree that tropes are rhetorical tools created by people, Duerringer reminds us that the influence flows both ways—and people are also created by tropes. By being attentive to the words we use, we can notice and interrogate our own beliefs, and perhaps prevent words from using us in ways that harm our interests.

In this week’s readings, Ioana Grancea argues that advertising copywriters should actively build brand ethos, which she defines as “the implicit personality that shines thorough the brand messages” (149). While I agree that the distinctive, credible voice of a particular brand is often a key feature of many advertising campaigns, I would like to interrogate two of Grancea’s subclaims. In what follows, I use these subclaims as entry points for a discussion about copywriters and brand ethos. In doing so, I hope to more clearly illuminate the benefits and the risks of building brand ethos in the digital age.

The first of Grancea’s subclaims is her suggestion that “people [online] are in search of a quality conversation with like-minded peers, they feel good when their opinions are echoed, they feel they solve major problems of humanity by posting a comment on the topic” (151). Accordingly, Grancea reasons that copywriters should deliver advertisements that cater to these elements of their audiences. I hope that I am not alone in detecting a contemptuous tone in this statement. It seems to me that much of the public is sophisticated enough to understand when they are merely being flattered by the puffery of advertising copy. If copywriters begin, as Grancea suggests they do, by imagining their audience as easily flattered and fatuous—believing that they can solve climate change with a tweet or a like—then I would seriously question the “quality of the conversation” that would then unfold.

A better approach might be to build substantive prosocial behaviors into the brand. For instance, rather than merely echoing opinions or catering to the less creditable traits of an imagined audience, brands might build an advertising campaign around a bona fide charitable act. This is the approach taken by the optical company Eyebuydirect, which donates a pair of glasses to a country of the customer’s choosing after most purchases. Under this model, the customer is given a degree of agency that will likely make them feel involved in the brand; and the associated act of charity has the potential to genuinely affect positive change. However, this strategy is certainly more costly than a piece of ad copy that only pays lip service to customers’ beliefs. I would therefore agree with Grancea that building quality brand ethos is important, but I believe true ethos is unlikely to be achieved as easily or as cheaply as she seems to suggest.

Grancea’s second subclaim is her statement that copywriters should “invite feedback in an explicit manner and make it part of the brand-content” (156). Interestingly, she claims that this is so even when that feedback is unpleasant or damaging to the brand, because it can “point to a fruitful direction for future development” (159). To be sure, there are real benefits to be had in such a strategy. For instance, in a Youtube video uploaded in February of 2020, a user called “the Lockpickinglawyer” demonstrates how to open a gun safe with a fork. The video was viewed nearly a million times in its first three weeks on Youtube, a seeming disaster for Vaultek, the company that makes Lifepod, the gun safe featured in the video. In response, however, Vaultek made the following statement, which appeared in the comments of the video less than a week after the video went live:

Vaultek stands behind our customers and products 100%. We are aware of the exploit and have taken quick action to develop effective solutions to address Lifepod’s programming function. All Lifepods produced and shipping from now on are upgraded with new firmware to disable the program button when locked, and we are also providing a solution for our current Lifepod customers. We’re listening and will make every effort to continually improve our products. (qtd. in “Opened With FORK: Vaultek LifePod Gun Safe”).

This swift response on the part of Vaultek makes the best of a poor situation in a way that Grancea would likely approve of. Specifically, Vaultek positions their brand as responsive and flexible. And although Vaultek is clearly not infallible, it is willing to learn from mistakes and engage in a meaningful dialogue with Lockpickinglawyer, who becomes a “co-producer” of the brand by offering his critique (Grancea 151).

And yet, other instances of customer feedback and dialogue are of less benefit for copywriters. A particularly colorful example is a 2012 contest put on by Pepsico, the makers of Mountain Dew. In the contest, users were invited to participate in the naming of a new flavor of Mountain Dew, a popular soft drink. Unfortunately for the copywriters and marketers involved, the contest was quickly overwhelmed by internet pranksters, who suggested numerous offensive names for the new soda. It is difficult to imagine how anyone might, as Grancea suggests, turn this into “an opportunity for authentic dialogue” (153). Although I agree with Grancea that inviting feedback can yield positive results, I would encourage future scholars to be more attentive to just how spectacularly internet-driven dialogue can backfire if it is not carefully sandboxed.

While I agree with Grancea that companies should actively use digital media to build brand ethos, I believe—as my interrogation of subclaims illustrates—that it is important to be clear that such a process often entails additional risk and requires additional cost.

Kathleen Blake Yancey passionately believes that the new century requires new methods of writing instruction. In 2009, Yancey, a former president of the National Council of Teachers of English, issued a “call to action, a call to research…a call to help our students compose often, compose well, and through these composings, become the citizen writers of our country, the citizen writers of our world, and the writers of our future” (1).

In 2020, reading her words is inspiring, but it also prompts me to ask some difficult, possibly existential, questions about the teaching of composition. In this response, I will pose these questions and then grapple with them. Ultimately, I argue that there is still a role for teaching composition, but that it may be changing faster than most curricula can readily accommodate.

First, then, the question. Yancey regularly reminds her readers that, for millennia, people have been inexorably compelled to write—even in the face of daunting opposition. She states, “We composers pursued [the] impulse to write in spite of—in spite of cultures that devalued writing; in spite of prohibitions against it…in spite of the fact thatwe…were told we should read but that we weren’t ready to compose. In spite of” (Yancey 1). Yancey returns to this theme—the theme of writing in spite of—throughout her article by noting the sheer number and variety of texts that have proliferated as technology has facilitated new means of composition. Therefore, my questions are these: If, as Yancy agues so eloquently, much of the history of letters exists in spite of great difficulties, then is it possible that those who write well will always write well? Is it possible that writers do not write because they have been given classroom instruction, but because they are innately driven to put pen to paper? Can composition—that is, a true love of writing and not merely the rote creation of expository texts—even be taught?

Now, the grappling. I would like to begin by telling a story from about a recent session that I had as a college-level writing tutor. A student who is taking a composition class met with me looking for advice. They were struggling to begin writing an essay even though they had been making an honest go of it. The first problem, I found out, was that they had been assigned to read a text that held little interest for them. The second, related problem was that their prompt was a full page of detailed instructions spelling out the structure of the essay they were expected to produce. It’s little wonder this student felt no real inspiration when faced with such a task. And part of me wonders if we should require such assignments at all. For many students, graduating college means leaving essay writing behind forever, so what’s the point? If this student isn’t particularly inclined to write essays, why make them?

Finally, my argument. I agree with Yancy that certain people will always write, even in spite of the most strident opposition. It also seems likely that some people, unless absolutely forced, will never write. However, I would argue (and I think Yancy would agree here as well) for the existence of a great middle mass of people who exist somewhere between these two extremes. And for these people—and I count myself among them—receiving the right sort of instruction and encouragement is essential if they are ever to write well.

What then, does this sort of writing instruction look like, now that we are nearly a quarter of the way finished with our (not so) new century? Yancey issues a call to action, but she does not offer much by way of specifics. I speculate that effective instruction will make writing a less onerous task by uncoupling it from the strictures of the expository essay. It’s not that students shouldn’t be taught to critically evaluate a text; rather, they should be granted a greater measure of autonomy to write in their own voices, and to select texts that are of genuine interest to them. My favorite writing prompt in college was one that I received in graduate school. The professor asked us simply to “tell him something interesting about something interesting.” I know that undergraduates will likely need a bit more guidance than that. But even so, I wish I had received a prompt of that sort years earlier. If I had, I might have decided to become a writer years ago, rather than waiting until my thirties to go back to school.

In the early twenty-first century, the scholarship on demagoguery seemed hopelessly stuck. Rather than serving as a vital field of inquiry—one that might help explain and minimize a particularly toxic variety of rhetoric—the concept of demagoguery had devolved into “a term of abuse that people apply to rhetors with whom they disagree” (Roberts-Miller 461).

Worse still, some of the existing literature seemed to indicate that all emotional appeals, even those prompting positive social change, carried the whiff of demagoguery about them (Roberts-Miller 461–462). Per this line of reasoning, there was little, aside from outcomes, to distinguish the rhetoric of, say, Martin Luther King from that of Joseph McCarthy. After all, both men used powerful emotional appeals to unify groups and drive social change. And yet, very few of us would be likely to group the legacies of these two men under one rhetorical roof, so the critical approach to the topic of demagoguery went stagnant.

And yet, there remained a pressing need to distinguish between demagoguery and bona fide pathetic appeals. Demagoguery, of course, did not go away merely because scholars had failed to adequately define it. If anything, one might argue that, in the age of the internet—where social polarities have sharpened, and digital texts circulate at the speed of light—the need to describe and control demagoguery is ever more urgent.

In the following response, I discuss and evaluate the definition that Patricia Roberts-Miller has posited as an alternative to older, less workable ways of thinking about demagoguery. I argue that although the new definition offers clear advantages, it might be more useful if it were decoupled from the notion of propaganda.

The alternative definition suggested by Roberts-Miller states that demagoguery is “polarizing propaganda that motivates members of an ingroup to hate and scapegoat some outgroup(s), largely by promising certainty, stability, and…‘an escape from freedom’” (462).

The first advantage of this new definition is its utility. Scholars who are interested in exploring demagoguery now have at their disposal a list of its relevant characteristics. These characteristics are grounded in real-world behaviors and effects that can be tested against the statements of any particular rhetor. It seems to me that the increasing prevalence of demagogic rhetoric creates an exigence that demands a practical response from scholars. This definition is tailor-made for examining rhetorical acts that one might encounter in the course of daily life—in other words, it is grounded and workable.

The second and most important advantage of Roberts-Miller’s definition is its acknowledgement that emotional, populist appeals are not inherently demagogic. Roberts-Miller’s definition accomplishes this by relying on a secondary definition of propaganda—“highly fallacious discourse” (466)—that, in turn, describes fallacies as violations of certain practical discursive rules (469–471). This is crucial, as it offers an alternative for scholars unwilling to tar all social activism with the same critical brush. Thus, it offers a workable path around the quagmire that had stalled progress in the field of demagoguery.

However, this new definition of demagoguery might benefit from the elimination of “propaganda” as one of its essential terms.  Although Roberts-Miller’s critical path is workable, I believe that it might be rather easier to walk if propaganda were explored as a separate, albeit related, species of rhetoric. I make this suggestion because the inclusion of propaganda opens the door to what Roberts-Miller herself has admitted is often “a meaningless term, simply indicating disapproval” (466). Thus, it necessitates another, secondary definition, which somewhat complicates and detracts from the definition’s use value, one of its principal assets. Therefore, the definition might be simplified and improved by stepping away from the notion of propaganda and focusing instead on the divisive effects of demagogic rhetoric.

As misleading, unethical, and manipulative appeals proliferate in the digital age, the work of labeling and minimizing such rhetoric is essential. Thankfully, the critical conversation around demagoguery is increasingly vibrant, and the work of Roberts-Miller has been key to its revival.