Ben Shapiro's View Of Abortion

Ben Shapiro’s intended audience are those already on his side. It's very unlikely that he is also intending to target the opponents as he vilifies them at first sentence and the usual way to convince someone to switch sides is to first find a middle ground, he doesn't. You can see the way he vilifies his opposition by the word choice he uses and the quotes. “They say that so long as the representative votes the right way on the issues, they can murder dogs in the backyard or allegedly molest young girls.” & “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal,” - Nina Burleigh makes his side seem like the better side as his side does not contain those degenerates, however he ever credits the other side so he
The way he worded the question gave an indication as to his side. “Were representatives supposed to act as simple proxies for their constituents? Or were they supposed to exercise independent judgment?” He uses the word “simple” to underscore that this route leads to dumb representatives. He then Introduces the two sides of the argument. Introducing the Burkean model first, he provides two creditable quotes, Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill. This serves to make his side seem more credible as they are both well respected. Then he introduces the other side with no quotes which gives the indication that the side is so bad that no one respectful has joined it. By associating certain people with a certain view - respected people with his view and disrespected people with the opposing view - he plays on the reader's social stigma of associating with undesirables and helps push them to his side. Also in this introduction of the “Delegate view”, Shapiro does his best to vilify. Shapiro employs words that evoke an apathetic response such as “we only bother” and “supremely transactional”. This switches the tone of the essay from righteous to apathetic which helps distance the reader from the “delegate view” while simultaneously pushing them to the burkean view - his
Shapiro uses emotionally driven statements to associate the “Delegate view” with immorality in congruence with a syntactical element I have dubbed priming which helps intensify the reactions of a reader or to subtly draw the reader to a conclusion. Shapiro primes the “delegate view” with them having the ability to “embrace such people” and goes on to give examples of those people, ones who “can murder dogs in the backyard or allegedly molest young girls”. This primer sets up vivid imagery of the actions of the delegate view which is in direct contrast to the representatives job of pursuing and adjudicating on issues in congress - he paints them as criminals. He uses Nina Burleigh’s quote “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal,”, that was directed at then president Bill Clinton, as a way to further separate the reader from the delegate view as common courtesy is to keep such matters to oneself. He then also expresses the view of Mo Brooks on Roy Moore saying: “Roy Moore will vote right... That’s why I’m voting for Roy Moore.” and this is especially vivid to the reader as Roy Moore has scandals occurring right now. These real world examples help to relate the abstract to the concrete and further separate the reader from the delegate