Award-winning economist, Paul Krugman, in his latest article, “It’s All Benghazi”, challenges the public to acknowledge “political fakery” (politicians using events to further their own agenda) as what it is, a pure act of hoodwink. Krugman’s purpose is to get the reader to stop pretending “political fakery” doesn’t exist. He incorporates a casual tone when discussing his idea and switches to a serious and logical tone when discussing his evidence in order to appeal to the mindset of young adults in America.
Krugman starts off with referencing Representative Kevin McCarthy by reviewing his speech for not running for speaker of the house and how McCarthy acknowledges the “political fakery” going on in the G.O.P. He appeals to audience using the credibility of the McCarthy by quoting him saying “ by admitting… had nothing to do with national security, they were all about inflicting political damage”. He then uses the credibility in order to get everyone one the same page by saying “But we all knew that, didn’t we.” He implements this as a transition from a serious tone into a casual simple sentence in order to convey the normality of this situation.
Now that Krugman establishes the normality of the situation, he then questions the “commentators” who write about those situations. He appeals to the logic of the reader by claiming people writing about events like the Hillary Clinton Fiasco knew that these events were “political fakery” as of a result of him saying “Surely they ... know better” while also listing other Clinton “non scandals”. Since in the previous section, he stated that “political fakery” was normal and obvious, this logic appeal results in the reader to being aware that these “commentators” are making a whole lot out of nothing on purpose. He claims that because of these situations, politicians “keep getting a free pass.” which gives off a negative tone towards the situation and is intended to guilt trip the people who follow “political fakery”.
Krugman proceeds to use the federal debt as an example of this “political fakery”. Using famous politician, he appeals to reader by using a familiar situation. He brings up Paul Ryan, a person who presented himself to be a “heroic crusader against deficits”. He follows up by confirming that “commentators” were talking about the federal debt as though it was a serious issue when it really “wasn’t”. He takes a break from this serious tone with a quick humourous clarification by saying “I don’t mean it was bad economics, although it was.” to bring back the reader’s attention. He returns back to his serious tone to remind the audience of all the dastardly events that were going to happen to U.S back then because of federal debt. He sarcastically tells the reader to “don’t tell anyone, but the much feared events had happened.” This again gets the reader’s full attention back. He then answers his statement with stating what happened, nothing. Nothing happened after the events that were greatly feared, it was a false alarm, more precisely, a “fake alarm”.
With this fake alarm revealed, Krugman’s claims that the people who were “deeply worried about the deficits”, were just pretending to care. He uses one of his past articles that dissects the “Ryan Plan”, as a way of appealing to reader that this is concrete evidence and that nothing actually was in jeopardy. This leads into Krugman’s main point about “political fakery”. When the people start to take “political fakery” serious, that in itself is “a kind of fraudulence”. He wraps up with a calm sounding sentence and tells people that sometimes under the “shouting”, it’s not really anything but “All Benghazi.” This article made by Krugman, as you can see, was unique and something I would agree with. Growing up in a Red state, I personally have witnessed political fakery on a day to day basis so this really hits home. People need to calm down and assess the situation, there’s no need to bring a megaphone everywhere you go. - Nick A
Krugman, Paul. "It’s All Benghazi." The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2015. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.
Steinhauer, Jennifer. "Kevin McCarthy Withdraws From Speaker’s Race, Putting House in Chaos." The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/us/politics/house-speaker-vote.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/opinion/its-all-benghazi.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
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