Why The Nazi's Loved America Rhetorical Analysis

“Why the Nazi’s Loved America” by James Whitman is an article highlighting what Nazism means to the U.S. and how in some ways Nazism was drawn from the American Model. Whitman uses facts and statistics (logos), emotion (pathos), and credibility (ethos) build his argument that the Nazi’s loved America.

Whitman’s appeal to logic (logos) are his strongest arguments. Logos appeals to the readers’ common sense, beliefs or values. Whitman uses two kinds of proofs in order to persuade his audience. Firstly, whitman uses a proof known as Examples: “For example, X and Y demonstrate that Z happens.” Whitman implements this proof by first making the claim, “America led the world in race-based law making…(Whitman para. 3 ).” Whitman then supports this claim by providing an example of

Emotion (pathos) is using feelings, desires or fears to influence readers. He does this by using a proof known as fear of pain: “If you don’t do things this way, you risk losing time, money, love, security, freedom, reputation, popularity, health, or beauty.” Whitman invokes the readers emotion in the first sentence when he says, “To say America today is verging on Nazism feels like scaremongering (Whitman para. 1)” This quote is playing on the fact that Nazism is scary, however it is not a unfathomable idea. He uses this fear to make the idea that the Nazi’s loved America fathomable. Additionally, Whitman uses a proof known as expression of disgust. He does this when he says, “Law made second class citizens of Blacks, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Asians and Native. Most especially deprived these non- white Americans of any meaningful right to vote (Whitman para. 3)” In this quote he expresses his disgust with the practice, but proves that it is something that Nazis would support. By combining fear of pain and expression of disgust Whitman effectively leverages the readers emotion to believe that the Nazis really did love