TOW #10 - Political Divide Splits Relationships – and Thanksgiving, Too

In Political Divide Splits Relationships – and Thanksgiving, Too by Sabrina Tavernise and Katherine Q. Seelye, the presidential election is conveyed to separate families. People had very strong opinions about who the next president of the United States should be and has created tensions between families, especially if they had different opinions about the election. Many family plans for the holidays were cancelled or even moved to remove the possibility of family members who voted for either Trump or Hillary from attending.  Thanksgiving is known for the time family gathers but this year after the election, family members have been dealing with the repercussions of the election as family relationships were affected by this political divide. Many democrats refuse to sit across the table from family members who voted for Trump who believes in things that they despise. Some relationships, no matter who voted during the election, are still secure and their relationship was not affected by different political ideas. Sabrina Tavernise is an American journalist for the New York Times and Kate Seelye is a Middle East journalist for NPR. The audience is any person who has experienced changing relationships with their family after the election. This article was written after the 2016 presidential election after Donald Trump was elected. The author’s purpose in this article is to inform the audience how the 2016 presidential election has politically divided the relationships between family and friends and express that family can continue to have strong relationships even with different opinions.  The rhetorical devices used in this article are strong diction and cause and effect. The strong diction used in the article depicts the serious effect the election had on family relationships. Cause and effect is used in this article to show how the results of Donald Trump winning this election affected many families across America. I believe the authors achieved their purpose because after reading, the audience can accept that even if their elected president won or lost the election, family relationships can still be strong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/political-divide-splits-relationships-and-thanksgiving-too.html?_r=0