Importance of Protesting

The argument essay “Politics, Patriotism, And The Public’s Perception of Protest” by Emma Rigaud tries to prove that being a protestor does not make you destructive or unpatriotic. Rigaud makes use of credible authors to build ethos, statistics to logically back the thesis, and an emotional appeal to the audience. Her ability to expose the flaws in the opposing argument’s points helps to further strengthen her argument.

The first thing she did was she started to build her ethos. She decides to quote an author with an opposing viewpoint and use it to her advantage. The author’s main point was that protesting does not make you patriotic, but instead rude. Rigaud uses another point he made, protesting is something we should learn from, for both present and future protests.

After she exposes the use of ad hominem and strawman to expose the flaws in the opposing argument. She starts by giving an example of a past protest, the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. Rigaud relates the fact that most people during that time period did not support Dr. King nor his protests to today, where a majority of people still aren't in favor of most protests. She states that then, the media would attack Dr. King, and try and diminish the idea behind their protesting. The function of social media, for some people, would be the modern-day equivalent.

Rigaud uses these historical examples to show that, yet again, history is repeating itself. We don't question why people are protesting nor can people connect the fact that people would disapprove of protests because they are “unamerican” or “detrimental to society” and now we see them as brave and beneficial. The idea was that a reader should have read this and thought about how they as an individual feel about protesting in the US. Realizing that history is repeating itself should allow people to think about how we might treat protests today.