The article “Trump Makes Promises He’ll Never Be Able to Keep” was featured on MSNBC’s website. The article discusses how the author Steve Benen believes that Donald Trump’s claims regarding health care are impossible because the president has set unreasonably high benchmarks. The negative context is established right from the beginning of the article and is further developed during its duration. The title of the article is even utilized in creating the negative context being communicated by the article. The author’s choice of the words “Promise” and “Never” are used to evoke a strong emotional response from the audience. The word “Never” evokes a strong emotional response because it implies impossibility. The word “Promise” also induces a strong response because the symbolic value of a promise is important to people. By using these words together Steve Benen is making an attempt to persuade the audience that the president has lied to his constituents. Steve Benen continues to develop this context and creates the larger symbolic message by utilizing terms like “unrealistic”, “will never” and “irrational” throughout the article.

The larger symbolic message I believe that Steve Benen is attempting to communicate is that Donald Trump and also the Republican Party are incompetent group that lack trustworthiness. This symbolic messages is communicated through the context and a variety of other ways. Steve Benen communicates the Republican Party’s incompetence by stating “There is no scenario in which Republicans can create a system with universal coverage and lower deductibles”. This statement is then followed by “In other words, if GOP policymakers wanted to move “Obamacare” to the left, then maybe it could achieve these goals”. This sequence of statements implies that the GOP is incompetent enough to believe the impossible is achievable. Another implication of the statements is that the GOP is also too incompetent to realize that if they utilized the current democratic healthcare system in place they could potentially reach their goals. The lack of trustworthiness is symbolically derived when Steve Benen comments “the (republican) party is led by an incoming president who’s publicly making promises he’ll never be able to keep.”. This statement attacks the trustworthiness and credibility of Donald Trump, by saying he makes promises he can’t keep. This statement implies that Donald Trump lies publically to his constituents by making promises he can’t keep.

This message would resonate a lot differently depending on the audience. The audience that this message would be most effective on is Democrats and other groups that dislike Donald Trump. This message would be effective to these groups because the audience is able to identify with the statements made by Steven Benen. On the other hand those who empathize and support Donald Trump would be unable to identify with the symbolic message Steve Benen is making an attempt to communicate. The audience has a direct relationship to the means that were chosen to communicate the message. The article was posted on MSNBC’s homepage. MSNBC is a network that is known to cater to liberals. By posting the article on a liberal news source there’s a greater chance for the message to identify with the audience. If the same article was posted on a website like Fox News for example there’d be less of a chance for the message to identify with the audience. 

Article:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-makes-health-care-promises-hell-never-be-able-keep