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Official 2020 DNC Thread - VP Kamala; speakers announced

Well done, Joe. Well done, DNC. Strong organization and execution.
 
honestly the lead up to the speech was more rhetorically appealing than the speech itself, which was fine.
 
honestly the lead up to the speech was more rhetorically appealing than the speech itself, which was fine.

Could you go into more detail? I'm going to ask a friend of mine with a PhD in rhetoric what she thought as well.
 
The drive in, socially distanced celebration is charming.
 
Agreed. It had a small town July 4th type feel.

A friend of mine said she heard that the networks only gave the DNC one hour because they have to give equal time and the RNC did not give them a plan.
 
Could you go into more detail? I'm going to ask a friend of mine with a PhD in rhetoric what she thought as well.

Putting on my Aristotelian hat here. A very broad Aristotelian take.

Looking over the Twitter chatter, this is one of the all-timers. Not convinced of that. It was a fine speech. He only needed to do fine. If I showed this in my public speaking class, I would expect my students to have ample amounts of praise and criticism for this. That's Twitter for you.

I was struck by how short it was - likely a product of the production style (no audience) - which will compress delivery time but also change the message since you don't have an audience to seek a response/respond to. That lack of audience to play off of, and its effect on the speech I thought resulted in the attempt to compress a few, key lines of thought (civil rights, pandemic, climate change) by centering it around a single appeal to ethos (that his personal character is superior to the opponent, or rather, that the other's ethos is non-existent).

The lead up to the speech balanced emotional, character, and logical appeals a little better - the stuttering kid, the grandchildren speaking highly of him, some args from Buttigieg and Bloomberg. Makes sense, they're recorded. But, the produced set pieces seemed to pull on my heartstrings and make better arguments than Biden did, imo. I'm not saying his speech completely missed this - just that it can be difficult to confidently work in strong emotional appeals and reasoning when the crux of your speech is an (even if it's warranted!) attack on another's ethos. Put another way, a slightly more talented speaker/speechwriter team (always co-constructed) can make you dislike the opponent without even mentioning the opponent. That didn't happen here.

edit: repeated myself
 
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Regarding reactions to the speech, I have no doubt that Biden benefited from some significant lowering of expectations, aided in no small part by Trump's campaign.
 
Thinking more about it -- I was kind of shocked that the explicit "care" messaging he had been toying with recently didn't really materialize here. But, again, this was a condensed speech that was more about another's ethos than his. The set pieces did most of the personal character heavy lifting it seems.
 
also CNN should hire some rhetorical scholars because jesus their post-speech coverage is bad.
 
also CNN should hire some rhetorical scholars because jesus their post-speech coverage is bad.

You don't really have to know things to be a CNN pundit. I love consulting with my friend who is a rhetorician because she typically has unique takes compared to the pundits.

Thanks for posting your take. I see where you're coming from. I thought the short speech was a plus. Due to the tight production, coverage ended at about 11:15 each night. I think the fireworks pushed this night a little longer. Based on the YouTube clips, here are the lengths of the big speeches. Michelle was around 18:32. Barack was 19:24. Kamala was 18:55. Joe was 24:31. By comparison, Hillary's 2016 DNC speech was 57:31 and Trump's 2016 RNC speech was over 75 minutes. Short speeches are the way to go, especially in near empty rooms. They played to the strengths of Michelle, Kamala, and Joe. Obviously Barack excels with large crowds, but his speech fit the moment. The best take I heard on Michelle's speech is that she was like a good friend sitting you down to tell you to get out of a bad relationship.

Short speeches should be the norm going forward. We'll see what the RNC does.

My take on the lead up to the speech is that they set Biden up to just land the plane safely. He needed to give a good speech and he did and the drive-in fireworks were a nice touch.
 
Fair. I think short speeches work when the speaker is either not the focus of the rhetorical situation (Michelle/Barack) or is not engaging enough to carry the time. I can't imagine cutting a second from Obama's 38 minute 2008 "A More Perfect Union" speech. It's an incredible display of oratory that foregrounds race instead of using it as an attention grabber or teases a future "that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character." I was disappointed by that tonight.

I don't think short speeches should be the norm. I think that's a view primarily informed by the current moment. The voice is still important. You need time to develop thought in oratory - length comes from clear organization alongside statement and restatement. Without enough time it just becomes a bed of talking points. Gross.
 
38 minutes for an excellent orator works. 75 minutes of Trump or 57 minutes of Hillary does not. How much longer to you think Biden’s speech would have been with applause lines like lists of Obama/Biden accomplishments or Day 1 goals or grievances with Trump? I think significantly longer.

The DNC found a way to get rid of all the lines about a farmer from Nebraska or single mom from St. Louis. Just show them. In past speeches, that kid with a stutter may have been 30 seconds in a speech. Showing him was more powerful.

I’ll add that the further we get from a captive network TV convention audience, the further we get from the utility of big speeches. Nobody is going to watch a 75 minute speech on YouTube the next day. They’ll watch a 25 min speech.
 
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Uh. That's... what I said...

Except the last part. I don't get down with technological determinism. There's still a place for the extended speech in American politics. Just because there's increased access to the speech via soundbites doesn't mean (1) demand for the speech act has necessarily shrunk or (2) the speech act should be replaced by an abbreviated form (esp. if you have an orator capable of rising to the occasion).
 
I thought the speech was phenomenal. It was the first time I ever felt that I wasn’t voting against Trump but for Biden.
 
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