Marco Rubio’s Senate floor speech using argumentation and persuasion

Chapter 3 in our textbook by Kuypers and Denton, Jr. discuss the strategic uses of political language. According to Kuypers and Denton, Jr., political language helps to maintain a “social state.” In political communication, it is the context and content that makes language political in the first place. There are nine different common uses of political language, but the one we see the most is “argumentation and persuasion.” This use of political language is for discussing, debating, and for negotiating issues and legislation. All political rhetoric is persuasive whether it’s supposed to alter or change beliefs or to reinforce them.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida spoke on the Senate floor last night. He announced that President Obama was “making a historic mistake.” This mistake is in regards to Obama’s treatment towards Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. He added that although many allies have their differences, the differences between the US and Israel are well-known throughout the world and especially in the Middle-East where some groups of evil people wouldn’t hesitate to destroy Israel. He also said that Israel is a peaceful country and the people of Israel deserve peace after all of the suffering they have had. Rubio finished with saying that they need our support, unconditionally.

This is a good use of argumentation and persuasion by Mr. Rubio. To persuade, you need to provide your audience with facts, which he did. Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the President had called Netanyahu to congratulate him on reelection and that the US would “reassess” their relationship with Israel.

About njbutch

I'm a post-secondary student from Perkins High School. I will be attending The Ohio State University in Autumn to major in political science and business!
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