Charles Krauthammer

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In Things That Matter, Charles Krauthammer compiles a collection of written works spanning the course of his career. Each essay addresses some of Krauthammer’s core principles, from politics and history to religion and personal life. In a more recent essay titled “Decline is a Choice” (2009), Krauthammer discusses the decline of the United States as an influential nation and the results of such a decline. He claims that the nation’s loss of hegemony in the world is voluntary and can be linked to the pessimistic attitudes of Americans and declinist governmental policies implemented by the ideologues of the “New Liberalism”. He begins by defining the status of the United States in the world and analyzing how the nation differs from other great…show more content…
The first sentence of the essay compares the views of the declinists, who view the United States as a nation in decline, to the variability of weather. He proclaims that “The weather vanes of conventional wisdom are engaged in another round of angst about America in decline” (Krauthammer 352). As the first sentence of the essay, this sentence serves as a sort of hook to draw in the audience. According to Strunk and White, co-authors of The Elements of Style, figures of speech should be used sparingly and should avoid confusing the reader of the author’s purpose (80). Krauthammer’s metaphor here is effective because he draws in the audience by interestingly comparing the declinists to a weather vane in order to produce an image of the declinists varying in their views over time. Moving on, Krauthammer goes on to list some labels given to describe the state of America: “Imperial overstretch. The Asian Awakening. The post-American world. Inexorable forces beyond our control bringing the inevitable humbling of the world hegemon” (Krauthammer 352). The list of labels incorporates a sort of sarcasm, as they are seemingly dropped in to the essay in a careless manner among many other more carefully worded sentences. As a conservative anti-declinist, Krauthammer ridicules the views of the declinists who have the United States dead and buried, so to speak, by…show more content…
With a list of foreign policies provided, he moves on to discuss the “testable” implications of such policies. He argues that the “New Liberals” that originated with President Clinton argue that they are not “engaging in moral reparations”, but are simply trying to gain the cooperation we have not received from other nations due to “American arrogance, unilateralism and dismissiveness” (358). He goes on to say that “With all the bowing and scraping and apologizing and renouncing, we couldn’t even sway the International Olympic Committee” (358). Here, Krauthammer’s polysyndeton serves to create a feeling of over excessive effort put in by the United States to become more levelly-integrated with the rest of the world. Also, the subtle humor in presenting the inability to persuade even the International Olympic Committee serves to draw in the audience a little more with some dry humor. In On Writing Well, William Zinsser claims that the incorporation of humor is “the secret weapon of the nonfiction writer” (207). Dry humor, found throughout Things That Matter as a whole, is certainly an asset for Krauthammer’s writing style. As he wraps up his discussion of the failed policies of the “New Liberalism”, Krauthammer argues that the “deliberate choice of strategic
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