[lbo-talk] La Style c'est l'homme (ou la femme) même

[Shane Mage]

Listening to the campaign speeches of Sanders and the Clinton after the NH primary, I was once again struck by the overwhelming stylistic difference between the two.  For the Clinton just about every sentence starts with or includes some form of the first person singular--I will fight for, I will do, I have done, I know how, they attack me, my experience, etc. It's like that Beatles song, I Me Me Mine...For Sanders, unless its inescapably personal (I don't have a SuperPAC) it's always we, our, us.

Now I cannot believe that the Clinton hasn't learned, or been told, that the inclusive "we" is a far better rhetorical tool than the separating "I," even if the intention is to convey "leadership."  So why does she speak in such an ineffective and alienating style?

My conjecture: She is paralyzed by dread of seeing a column by Maureen Dowd reminding her that there is, still, only one woman in the world who has the right to use "we" as her first-person-singular.

 

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64