TOW #5 - "The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election"

The 2016 Presidential campaign is underway as the election is only a little over 390 days away, a mere second in the grand scheme of things. Nicholas Confessore, a New York-based political reporter, Sarah Cohen and Karen Yourish write about the "overwhelmingly white and rich" families funding the 2016 president election in order to emphasize their measures to protect their own wealth through use of imagery and statistics appealing to ethos and logos. The New York Times article states that out of the roughly 120 million U.S. households, just 158 families provided nearly half of the money for campaigns to capture the white house. Imagery is evoked as they depict the top 1% of American households that have donated millions to the political arena as "white, rich, older, and male" billionaires that have made most of their fortunes in just finance and energy. The writers also highlight their residings "in an archipelago of wealth and exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns." The imagery serves to provide background for the readers to portray the behind the scenes of the 2016 campaign. As well as confirm the stereotypes of the top 1%, and highlight their overwhelmingly majority preference to "lean right." The families who have invested the most have been contributing millions to Republican candidates. The classification of "minted billionaire" donors that have deployed their vast wealth are reflecting the shifting composition of the country's economic elite and the measures to protect their own wealth. The article also makes multiple appeals to ethos and logos through various statistics and quotes from investors, political, and demographic experts. Revealed through interviews and hundreds of public documents, lies a class distant from much of America. One of the many statistics reported states, "The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30, according to the most recent available Federal Election Commission filings and other data." The information from the FEC filings highlights the contributions of over half the money in the president election, the vast majority of it supporting Republicans. And most Americans who have been following the presidential campaign are well aware of the Republican candidates pledges to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains, and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs. The big investments in the elephant party are driving the widening inequality as the share of national wealth and income going to the middle class has shrunk. Appealing to ethos and logos, the writers are quick to make a point about why most of the funds are headed to the elephant party. Confessore, Cohen, and Yourish successfully showcase the reasoning of huge funding to Republican candidates to make aware to the American public how the right are trying to stay rich. The authors make their stance on the top 1% from the very beginning to the end of the "entrepreneurs who have opinions of everything."