TOW #1 – Article: "Trump and Obama: A Night to Remember"

The New Yorker

"Trump and Obama: A Night to Remember"

September 12, 2015

By Adam Gopnik

As a staff writer of the New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik has contributed fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, humor, criticism, and internationally reported pieces.  On September 12, 2015, reporting on the fiery occurrences at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2011, Gopnik enlightens the New Yorker newspaper’s readership with his thought-provoking commentary.  Gopnik’s apparent purpose is to share such humorous news, describing the event as “the usual American ritual of the ‘roast’” (Gopnik para. 7), but how can this article be considered “news” if people had already known about President Obama’s outrageously witty gibes at Donald Trump?  The author goes beyond reporting old news; he writes a cause and effect essay for the purpose of identifying a possible cause for the strange phenomenon of Trump’s stunning lead in the polls.

Gopnik begins by summarizing the highlights of the dinner and quoting only a few of Obama’s most provocative gibes, which serve to quickly refresh his audience’s memory of what occurred four years ago, as well as form the context of his analysis.  Using figurative language, such as simile and personification, he writes, “his head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him” (Gopnik para. 3).  Gopnik emphasizes the “parts” of the dinner to introduce the cause he identifies: Trump’s humiliation and anxiety. 

The author then relates such “parts” to the “whole,” his overall argument.  To help his audience’s understanding, he defines the difference between the ideologies of a patriot and a populist nationalist, explaining that “it rests not on a sense of pride in place or background but in an intense sense of victimization (Gopnik para. 7). Gopnik argues that America feels victimized from a “double conspiracy of outsiders and elitists” (Gopnik para. 4), which is what both Trump and the American people have in common, and how Trump has been able to gain the incredible amount of support he has in the polls.

Gopnik bridges his evidence of Trump’s shame, America’s anxiety, and the basis of populist nationalism, ultimately synthesizing his argument about how Trump achieved his current success in the polls.  In doing so, Gopnik appeals to the audience’s sense of logic and reason, successfully convincing readers of one possible reason for Trump’s peculiar political success.