The article “RIP, the Middle Class: 1946 – 2013” by Edward McClelland, demonstrates many key aspects of well-written rhetoric. Most of this rhetoric he uses in his argument is to defend the idea that the middle class has vanished. McClelland goes into immense detail on how this happened, how we need to fix it, and how the government plays a factor in this chaotic time. McClelland uses logos to support the first part of his argument but fails when it comes to using ethos and pathos in the rest of this essay.
To begin, McClelland focuses on the use of the logos appeal in his argument. He uses statistics and facts that would make sense to a common person looking to get insight on the middle class in America. One of the many statistics that is used in his argument is when he said, “the wealthiest 1 percent took in 19 percent of America’s income” (McClelland 551). This statistic has a lot of effect on the readers who are looking into this article. Most of the readers are not within the top 1% of the wealth distribution in the United States. With this being said, most people are outraged to find themselves on the outside of the wealth distribution looking in. With this new label of an outsider to the wealth in the United States, many readers would buy into the idea that the middle class is no longer existent which makes his argument very effective. Another statistic that McClelland uses is his reference to unions. McClelland talks about the auto workers struggle for higher wages and job security during a time of strikes and the formation of new unions. Specifically, McClelland references Detroit’s auto worker’s new union when he says, “It guaranteed the of the UAW, whose high wages and benefits set the standard for American workers for the next 45 years” (McClelland 554).
McClelland uses this union to set a precedent for the whole United State’s middle class. He talks about how there was a time of no job security, th...