At first, I thought this was going to be yet another article ranting about how much Donald Trump has ruined the future of America. Most articles that are swamping the news nowadays include some sort of completely biased analysis of Trump's elementary wording and how the candidates never answer what they were asked during debates. And although it is difficult to remain entirely neutral while discussing the current presidential primary race, Kevin Baker takes a different view on America's political situation through analysis of historical events and through intelligent sentence structure that shows his audience that what is happening now has happened before. His ultimate purpose in his article is not to persuade the American public to vote for a certain candidate but rather take a step back and examine the American political party system as a whole.
Through his article, Baker sways in between historical anecdotes and current day issues. In the beginning, he draws attention to a time when Roosevelt and his republican opponent joined sides to eliminate any influence of party and to have a vote on ideological ideals alone, and not the demo graphical borders that the parties had already claimed. All of a sudden, he writes about Roosevelt saying, "He was wrong." This added emphasis on Baker's views, but I actually had to go back to the beginning and read the entire historical reference again that had taken up a good portion of the page. The use of historical references helped Baker later in the text when he was explaining what actually made our American system work, but in many cases, it led to confusion on whether Baker was arguing about the past or the current day.
Baker's purpose became most clear in the closing paragraphs, when he wrapped up his thoughts by writing, "We [America] are divorced... and in this state we can hardly expect to work together...It almost destroyed our nation then, and we cannot afford it now." Luckily for him, I had an assignment to write about this essay, so I kept on reading it to find the purpose. But, an average American looking for an interesting article may not give Baker the time that he takes to develop his argument after he spends too many words going on about historical happenings. Perhaps this is why the articles that aren't going into depth and that are just ranting about Trump, are the articles that are getting the most public attention.
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