Rhetorical Precis for Anger: An American History

In Stacy Schiff’s Opinion editorial article, “Anger: An American History” (December 18, 2015) NY Times, she suggests that people’s “suspicion of, fear of, and hatred of others” has always been a part of Americas history, and allows the reader to imply that without acknowledging our history, we cannot move forward and become a better nation. Schiff first does this by giving historical facts on how prejudice of others began by those who founded America (The Puritans) before it was even a nation; she then reinforces her main claim with supporting details of how throughout history people have blamed certain groups of people as a whole just to justify that their way of life is correct and should be lived only that way and she does it by constantly bringing up the idea of religion; and to conclude she implies that history does indeed repeat itself and it’s up to us to acknowledge and educate others that if we don’t change the way we think, our perspective of others won’t change and she supports this with Trumps quote on how we have to think smarter in order to end. Her purpose is to show her readers that if we are unable to learn from our wrongs in the past and accept the fact that America is not as exceptional as everyone believes it to be, we will never overcome the need of hating a certain group of people because its different from our own or they might “harm” others way of living. She seems to have more a liberal audience in mind because she addresses the fact of how America's perspective on groups of people should change or else as a nation we won't be able to prosper, and shows that history has proved that nothing good comes from prosecuting groups of people which certainly repeats itself if people aren't educated about it.