Miller and Lapierre

Dane Hollar

Christopher Werry

March 2^nd, 2015

RWS 200

Miller and Lapierre

Author of “Democracy, Demagoguery, and Critical Rhetoric,” Roberts Miller, describes these terms, as well as others, in her own words to her audience. She describes demagoguery as a way of appealing to the mass by popular interests or feelings rather than through logical and rational arguments. She also describes scapegoating as a way of accusing a person or group for faults that may or may not have been their wrongdoing; “scapegoat bears the blame, while the scapegoaters feel a sense of righteousness and increased unity” (Miller 68). Another term, polarization, is said to be a way of influencing people by presenting them with two options, one in which they want their peers to believe and another in which is obviously absurd and no one would want to believe. Miller also describes “simple solutions’ as the answer to complex situations, yet it is wrong. These “simple solutions” may be right or wrong, but the people do not care as long as the problem is fixed. Miller talks about a two different types of people called ingroup and outgroup. This type of thinking is like claiming that there is right and there is wrong and no in between. It also forces people to chose a side and not be able to think for themselves if some aspects on both sides could have a valid point or not. Lastly, Miller talks about victimization. Miller describes victimization as similar to scapegoating except it is focused primarily on a smaller weaker group in order to demolish its existence before it can become large and over power the group victimizing.

            Roberts Miller sees all of these stratagies as a problem because they can be powerful if used by the wrong social group or person. Miller uses examples of powerful people, such as Hitler and Stalin, to emphasize that they used these strategies and caused millions of deaths and issues amongst the world. Miller finds demagoguery as a fallacy that violates the “standards of good public discourse.” She believes that by persuading people through common interests instead of facts and the truth about issues causes people to follow someone or a group for the wrong reasons. For instance, she describes Hitler as a demagogue and how his actions of appealing to the publics common interest violated the “standards of good public discourse.” His actions created catastrophe throughout Europe and amongst the “outgrou” (Jews).

            In Lapierre’s text, he uses a demagogic appeal by relating to his readers about how they worry for their children and desire to protect them. He says “As parents, we do everything we can to keep our children safe. It is now time for us to assume responsibility for their safety at school . . . The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (Lapierre 60).  Lapierre is appealing to the mass of parents that desire to protect their children, which is almost every parent, and doesn’t get into the logical sense of having an armed man at every school in America. He wants it to be done immediately with no questions asked and for parents to back him up. And why wouldn’t they? They want to protect their children, and his argument seems valid. This is how Lapierre uses a demagogic strategy.

            Lapierre uses the strategy, scapegoating, described by Robert Miller as when the “scapegoat bears the blame, while the scapegoaters feel a sense of righteousness and increased unity” (Miller 68). Lapierre says, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is no national, one-size-fits-all solution to protecting our children. But do know this President zeroed out school emergency planning grants in last year’s budget,  and scrapped “Secure Our Schools” policing grants in next year’s budget” (Lapierre 61). Lapierre is the scapegoater and the President is the scapegoat in this situation. Lapierre wants to bring someone to fault for he knows that if he does, people will follow and it will get a rise out of them. This is why scapegoating is effective when trying to rally a group together behind a cause. People want to blame a singular group or person for problems, not themselves.