By Adam Ellwanger, Chronicles, October 10, 2025
Adam Ellwanger is professor of English at University of Houston – Downtown and editor of The Peerless Review (peerlessreview.org), a platform for scholars to publish research that is unfairly rejected by the broken peer-review process.
Over the course of my nearly 20-year career as a professor of rhetoric, I’ve learned that—stripped to its essence—rhetoric is symbolic force. Not all language is forceful. A statement like “His new car is red,” is descriptive, but it exerts no force on the audience. Rhetoric is the type of communication that aims at producing a tangible effect on something real; something outside the self, beyond the symbolic realm of discourse.
The left has now spent decades asserting that offensive speech is violence. They are half right: rhetoric, like a punch, is an application of force. But rhetorical force, under the right circumstances, serves as a useful alternative to physical violence. Thus, persuasive force cannot be the same as violence. Nevertheless, there are moral considerations that must guide our use of rhetoric.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah dramatized the stakes of our political discourse. Many commentators have noted that Kirk’s recent death represents a “turning point.” This is undoubtedly true, and the crossroads at which we find ourselves relates to our speech. If our aim is to transform America—to make it great again—we must consider which rhetorical choices are most conducive to that goal. …
