Trump's Speech to Congress: Presidential Ethos, or Faulty Logos?

When Donald Trump spoke to Congress on March 1, 2017, he made an obvious attempt to appear more presidential than in his earlier public statements. What this means is that he attempted to sound dignified, to avoid name-calling, and to express a policy agenda. He did all of those things quite well, although this speech suffered from significant factual inaccuracies.

Rhetorical scholars going back to Aristotle distinguished three ways that a speaker can persuade an audience: by logos, which refers to the speaker's evidence and reasoning, by pathos, that is, the speaker's emotional appeals, and finally, by ethos, which is the appeal to personal credibility. Aristotle suggested that ethos was the most powerful of these three, and modern scientific research seems to confirm this. The most important factor in whether a speaker is believed is simply whether the speaker is believable. At the same time, Aristotle also wrote as if logos was the most important kind of persuasive appeal. By using examples and reasoning, Aristotle said, speakers can present the audience with arguments in favor of the speaker's conclusions.

Donald Trump, WH photo

So, listening to Trump's speech, one would notice right away that Trump refrained from the personal attacks and conspiracy theories that marked many of his campaign speeches. He spoke in an enthusiastic but reasonable style, and stuck to the script fairly well. He spoke with excellent vocal variety and gestured in his usual habitual but reasonably effective manner. Since many people apparently expected Trump's speech to be an unreasonable diatribe, he clearly exceeded expectations and presented himself before the United States Congress as a plausible leader. All of this represents ethos.

At the same time, Trump's speech failed the most elementary fact-checking.The Pulitzer Prize-winning website Politifact.com found numerous factual errors in Trump's speech. For example, they found that he grossly overestimated the amount of money that the United States has spent on Middle Eastern wars. He falsely claimed that his recommended increase in defense spending would be the largest ever. Similarly, FactCheck.org, published by the Annenberg School of Communication, found that Trump "distorted the facts on jobs, immigration, health insurance, or spending and more." A speech whose arguments are built upon falsehoods can never be considered logically sound. Incorrect information is an unreliable basis for making decisions, and a speech that is full of inaccurate information does not give the audience good reasons to believe points that the speaker is making.

So, was this a good speech? In the sense that Trump exceeded expectations, which were, all things considered, not very high, he probably improved his own credibility. After this speech, it became easier to see him as presidential. His presidential style and appearance probably made many of his points more believable. Did he prove the points that he was making? He certainly did not. In that sense, the speech cannot be considered a model of rhetorical excellence.

Furthermore, there is evidence that attitude change supported by information is longer-lasting and more powerful than attitude change supported only by credibility appeals. This is the same dilemma that Aristotle discussed in his work about rhetoric. On the one hand, credibility or ethos is a powerful persuasive tool. On the other hand, ethical speakers make an effort to get the facts right. Was his speech believable? Maybe so. Did he give his millions of listeners good reasons to believe the points that he was making? Probably not. That doesn't mean that his ideas were necessarily wrong, simply that the sloppy information that he presented did not prove them.