A Speech Against Assisted Suicide

Ethos in rhetoric is an appeal to the speaker's or writer's credibility, character, and authority to sway an audience.  Opposition to assisted suicide tends to be more prevalent on the political right than the political left.  So in a recent House of Commons debate, one speaker demonstrated the idea of ethos: a Labor MP who has a terminal illness spoke out against an assisted suicide bill.

The single speech that might well have defeated the wretched Assisted Dying Bill. pic.twitter.com/PuG1vJk9P7

— Emily Hewertson 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@emilyhewertson) September 11, 2026

SOTU: In Writing Only, Plese

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 David Frum at The Atlantic:

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The Constitution does not set an annual schedule for such information, nor does it require the information to be delivered in person. George Washington and John Adams started the in-person tradition. Thomas Jefferson ended it, both because it reminded him too much of the British practice of the speech from the throne that opens a session of Parliament and (very likely) also because he disliked speaking in public. Woodrow Wilson reverted to the Washington-Adams precedent. Then came television, and the modern State of the Union spectacle. The spectacle is founded, however, on an invitation from the speaker of the House. No invitation, no spectacle.

Given the intentional abuse of Congress’s time and hospitality last night, the next speaker, if there is a different next speaker, should consider very hard whether to extend another such invitation. The case for suffering Trump is that the tradition, if interrupted, may take a long time to return. A future Republican Congress will requite the next Democratic president the same way. But there’s also a risk of setting a precedent that anti-institutional Republicans get to smash things, which pro-institutional Democrats must then clean up. Maybe the only way to restore norms is by imposing some meaningful costs for breaking them. Next January, the next speaker could do everyone a favor with a letter that begins: “Dear Mr. President, the time has come for your State of the Union message. Please send it in writing in the enclosed envelope. Congress will give it all the attention it deserves. This is the method that was good enough for Rutherford B. Hayes, and, Mr. Trump, it is more than good enough for you.”

George Will made a similar point in 2013. 

The Longest SOTU

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 NPR:

Inflammatory Language: Blaming the Other Side

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.

Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Larger majorities of Americans than in the past believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties and their supporters have gone too far in using inflammatory language to criticize their opponents. Sixty-nine percent now say this about the Republican Party and Republicans, a 16-percentage-point increase from 2011, and 60% currently believe this applies to the Democratic Party and Democrats, which is nine points higher than 14 years ago.

These results are based on an Oct. 1-16 Gallup poll, which updated a question that had been previously asked in 2011 in the wake of a mass shooting that injured former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six. The latest poll was conducted shortly after Republican activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated during an appearance at a Utah college and follows two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in 2024.

Republicans and Democrats are now nearly unanimous in believing the other party has gone too far with its rhetoric and are much more likely to think this than in 2011. Ninety-four percent of Democrats, compared with 74% in 2011, now say Republicans and their supporters have gone too far, and 93% of Republicans (vs. 63% in 2011) say the same about Democrats and their supporters.

Booker's Marathon Speech

Victor Feldman at Roll Call:

New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker on Tuesday evening broke the record for the longest floor speech in the Senate’s history with a marathon speech taking aim at the Trump administration’s policies and efforts to downsize the federal government.

Booker continued speaking after surpassing the 24-hour-and-18 minute record set in 1957 by South Carolina Democrat Strom Thurmond. Booker yielded the floor after holding it for 25 hours and four minutes, according to the Senate Periodical Gallery.

The senior senator for New Jersey acknowledged the moment as Democrats on the floor cheered.

“The man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand … I’m not here though because of his speech, I’m here despite his speech,” Booker said of Thurmond, the Dixiecrat-turned-Republican and foe of the Civil Rights Act.

Channeling the spirit of the late Georgia Democratic House member and civil rights activist John Lewis, Booker had held the Senate floor since Monday night in what he called an effort to stir up “good trouble.”

“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said in his familiar booming voice Monday evening. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.”

 

The Language of "I Have a Dream"

 

In the "I Have a Dream" speech, MLK said that he and the crowd had come to DC to "cash a check."  He also referred to the Founders as "architects."

Daniel Stid:

Here King gets to the heart of the matter. Though the modes are different, a century after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans are still manacled, enchained, impoverished, languishing, and exiled in the country where, by birthright now, they are citizens. As such, they deserve more. They were promised more. So they have come to cash the check.

What are checks? At one level they are mere slips of paper, written from one person or entity to another, instructing the issuer’s bank to pay the recipient the amount specified. But it is harder to grasp now, in the era of Venmo, Apple Pay, and ubiquitous credit cards, that there is a moral component to that slip of paper.

A check presumes – and constitutes a promise – that those writing them actually have the requisite money in the bank and stand ready to pay what they owe. Checks are not just a financial instrument but an extension of one’s word, and thus of one’s trustworthiness. Whose credibility was on the line here?

...

Note that King does not refer to the Founders, or to the Founding Fathers, terms that would imply obligations of veneration, obedience, or even familial loyalty. He does acknowledge their status as architects of the republic. It is an interesting word choice. Architects are not owners. They envision and design blueprints for structures that others build, live in, use, maintain, and–when necessary–repair and remodel.

King also pays homage to the “magnificent words” the architects imbued in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In doing so he joins with the great majority of Americans who also see the documents composed by these words as praiseworthy. But King’s tribute seems double-edged. What is magnificent can also be brought low, even sullied. And words are only that; they need to be embodied and given concrete meaning in the world.

 

State of the Union

Gary Schmitt at AEI:

[P]residents from both parties now view the broader public more than Congress as their addressee. Instead of engaging in dialogue with the other branch of government, presidents hope to mobilize public opinion in their speech, generating poll numbers that, they believe, might pressure members to pass the various measures they are putting forward. In other words, instead of talking to Congress, they are talking over their heads as often as not.

It’s no surprise, then, that the members themselves understand their role, in turn, to be cheerleaders or frowning faces depending on their side of the aisle. The function of the president’s co-partisans is to reinforce the view that the president has the popular wind at this back. The last thing on their minds is how some proposal might be put through the deliberative and sausage-making process of committee hearings and floor debate.

Instead of the State of the Union address being a singular constitutional moment, whose formal audience is the Congress, we get a follow-on act that is meant to dismiss to some degree or another almost instantaneously whatever the duly elected chief executive has to say. There is no due deference to the fact that one person has been selected as president and he or she is not just the head of a party but, in this instance, is doing his or her constitutional duty. The fact is, the State of the Union Address is in a sorry state.

Biden: Unlike two trillion dollar tax cut passed in the previous administration that benefited the top 1% of Americans, the American Rescue Plan
Republicans: Boo
Schumer: *waits to clap*
Biden: The American Rescue plan helped working people
Schumer: *claps* pic.twitter.com/gXxcvTsR8K

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 2, 2022

How Presidents Mention Their Predecessors

Amnon Cavari, Benjamin Yoel, Hannah Lowenkamp have an article at American Politics Research titled "In the Name of the President."  The abstract:

Presidents often make references to their predecessors in their oral remarks—a rhetorical tool that can advance support for their policies, define their presidency, and achieve political gains. And yet, despite the frequency that this rhetorical tool is used and its possible impact, references to former presidents have so far defied a systematic empirical research. To fill in this void in the literature, we examine the frequency of references to presidents, the identity of referenced presidents, and the policy context of each reference in all oral references made by presidents Reagan through Trump. We demonstrate that mentioning former presidents is a political tool that presidents use routinely in their public speeches. We find that presidents use this tool strategically—controlling the timing and identity of references and in connection to their policy appeals.

Reagan mentioned JFK more than any other president, even Lincoln.

 

References and Allusions in MLK's "I Have a Dream"

 The "I Have a Dream" speech contains many references and allusions to key ideas, sites, and documents of American civic culture.  The text below contains relevant links in red.

A major theme of our textbook is the relevance of religion in American public life.  Many passages in the speech refer or allude to Bible verses, spiritual songs, sermons, and other aspects of religion. These links are in blue.

------------------------------------------------

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. 

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Declining Discourse

Pew reports that the public is unhappy with the level of deliberation and discourse:

The public renders a harsh judgment on the state of political discourse in this country. And for many Americans, their own conversations about politics have become stressful experiences that they prefer to avoid.

Large majorities say the tone and nature of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years – as well as less respectful, less fact-based and less substantive.

Meanwhile, people’s everyday conversations about politics and other sensitive topics are often tense and difficult. Half say talking about politics with people they disagree with politically is “stressful and frustrating.”

When speaking with people they do not know well, more say they would be very comfortable talking about the weather and sports – and even religion – than politics. And it is people who are most comfortable with interpersonal conflict, including arguing with other people, who also are most likely to talk about politics frequently and to be politically engaged.

... 

Pew Research Center’s wide-ranging survey of attitudes about political speech and discourse in the U.S. was conducted April 29-May 13 among 10,170 adults. Among the other major findings:

Broad agreement on the dangers of “heated or aggressive” rhetoric by political leaders. A substantial majority (78%) says “heated or aggressive” language directed by elected officials against certain people or groups makes violence against them more likely. This view is more widely shared among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents than Republican and Republican leaners.

Words, Public Opinion, and Higher Education

At Gallup, Brandon Busteed and Frank Newport report:

Different words used to describe higher education evoke different confidence ratings among U.S. adults. Americans are considerably more likely to say they have a great deal of confidence in "higher education" than in "colleges and universities." Public confidence in "community colleges" and "postsecondary education" falls between these other two terms.
...
The term colleges and universities in a comparative sense evokes more negative reactions than the broader terms higher education or postsecondary education. Thirty-six percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in higher education, compared with 29% who have a great deal of confidence in postsecondary education and 23% who have a great deal of confidence in colleges and universities. More broadly, these differences persist, but are slightly reduced, when adding in the group of Americans who say they have quite a lot of confidence -- 55% have either a great deal of or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, compared with 45% in colleges and universities.

Gallup also finds a partisan and ideological divide:

Confidence in Four Ways of Describing Postsecondary Education, by Partisanship and Ideology

% Great deal of confidence

	Higher education	Community colleges	Postsecondary education	Colleges and universities
	%	%	%	%
Party ID
Republicans	26	28	25	12
Independents	33	27	28	22
Democrats	50	34	33	37
Ideology
Conservatives	25	28	26	15
Moderates	40	31	29	26
Liberals	45	30	35	28
GALLUP, JAN. 8-28, 2018

State of the Union: Reading Level

From the School of Information at UC Berkeley:

Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses

Using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability test1, datascience@berkeley collected the grade level of each presidents’ first State of the Union address.

Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses

President	Party	Year	Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
Donald J. Trump	Republican	2018	8.1
Barack Obama	Democrat	2010	8.7
George W. Bush	Republican	2002	9.8
Bill Clinton	Democrat	1994	8.9
George Bush Sr.	Republican	1990	9.0
Ronald Reagan	Republican	1982	11.1
James Carter, Jr.	Democrat	1978	9.8
Gerald Ford	Republican	1975	10.9
Richard Nixon	Republican	1970	10.8
Lyndon B. Johnson	Democrat	1964	11.4
John F. Kennedy	Democrat	1961	12.8
Dwight D. Eisenhower	Republican	1953	12.4
Harry S. Truman	Democrat	1946	12.7
Franklin D. Roosevelt	Democrat	1934	15.5
Herbert Hoover	Republican	1929	14.5
Calvin Coolidge	Republican	1923	10.9
Warren Harding	Republican	1921	14.7
Woodrow Wilson	Democrat	1913	15.6

Transcripts: https://presidency.ucsb.edu/sou.php

1The Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate how difficult a passage in English is to understand.↑

Presidential Vocabulary

Bill Frischling writes at Factbl.og that Trump uses a less developed vocabulary than other presidents.

California and States' Rights

Liberals are embracing states' rights,  a term that -- until very recently -- they denounced as a racist dog whistle.

Tim Arango at NYT:

Just as Californians were enjoying their first days of legal pot smoking, the Trump administration moved to enforce federal laws against the drug. On the same day, the federal government said it would expand offshore oil drilling, which California’s Senate leader called an assault on “our pristine coastline.”

When President Trump signed a law that would raise the tax bills of many Californians by restricting deductions, lawmakers in this state proposed a creative end-around — essentially making state taxes charitable contributions, and fully deductible. And California’s refusal to help federal agents deport undocumented immigrants prompted one administration official to suggest that state politicians should be arrested.

The clash between California and Mr. Trump and his supporters — between one America and another — began the morning after he won the presidency, when Kevin de León, the State Senate leader, and his counterpart in the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, said they “woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land.”

Since then the fight has metastasized into what could be the greatest contest over values between a White House and a state since the 1950s and 1960s, when the federal government moved to end segregation and expand civil rights.

Back then, of course, the ideologies and values at issue were reversed, as conservative Southerners, under the banner of states’ rights, fought violently to uphold white supremacy. In these times it is liberal California making the case for states’ rights, traditionally a Republican position.

Typos, Continued

Another day, another step backward for education. On his Facebook page, Trump misspelled miners.

a 

Typos

The Trump administration is incompetent in ways both large and small.

*Handel pic.twitter.com/CNDGUcTfIQ

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 19, 2017

At Pacific Standard, Seth Masket recalls his work in the White House Office of Correspondence, which once subjected outgoing mail to several layers of review.  The Trump administration is ... different.

Some examples of these typos can be found here. I'm less interested in those resulting from Trump's tweets and other less formal communications than I am in those appearing in official correspondence and press statements. These include, but are not limited to:

• A press release about the Middle East that sought to promote "the possibility of lasting peach."
• A White House media list of global terror attacks that contained such words as "Attaker," "San Bernadino" and "Denmakr."
• British Prime Minister Theresa May's name misspelled as "Teresa May," which happens to be the name of a porn star.
• This message to schools receiving the President's Education Award, in which "success" was spelled "succuess." (This error was apparently caught and fixed in subsequent iterations.)

Frederick Douglass's Speech

Trump apparently thought that Frederick Douglass is still alive.  He is not, but his words are.  On Memorial Day, it is worth remembering his address at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1871.

The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.

As U.S. Grant wrote as he was dying near Saratoga Springs, NY:

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.

Trump Uses Nazi Analogy

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

From the Anti-Defamation League:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today voiced concern about a tweet from President-Elect Donald Trump that posed the question, “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” in response to news coverage over intelligence agency revelations on alleged Russian government intervention in the 2016 election.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, issued the following statement:

The President-Elect’s use of Nazi Germany to make a political analogy is not only an inappropriate comparison on the merits, but it also coarsens our discourse and diminishes the horror of the Holocaust.

There are legitimate questions on all sides regarding foreign influence in the 2016 presidential race. But the United States has democratic elections, a free press, rule of law and a civil service -- including our intelligence agencies -- that is deeply loyal to the U.S. Constitution. These facts invalidate any analogies between America and totalitarian societies.

ADL always has maintained that glib comparisons to Nazi Germany are offensive and a trivialization of the Holocaust. We have a long record of speaking out when both Democrats and Republicans engage in such overheated rhetoric. It would be helpful for the President-Elect to explain his intentions or apologize for the remark.

"America Is Great Because America Is Good"

My piece at The Christian Science Monitor:

"America is great because America is good,” said Hillary Clinton during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Immediately, her critics went on social media to accuse her of plagiarizing Alexis deTocqueville, French author of the 19th-century classic, "Democracy in America." But Tocqueville never wrote any such thing.

Various forms of the spurious quotation (often including such purple prose as “pulpits aflame with righteousness”) have been circulating for decades. It is unclear where it all started, except that we do know that these words appear nowhere in Tocqueville’s works. Nevertheless, politicians of all stripes have long been fond of using the lines, usually with the false attribution. Indeed, one repeat offender was none other than President Bill Clinton. He credited Tocqueville with saying “America is great” on many occasions – including the video that preceded his own acceptance speech at the 1996 Democratic convention.

It’s purely a guess, but it seems plausible that Mrs. Clinton or her speechwriter heard the phrase in that video and decided to recycle it 20 years later. One cannot charge her with plagiarizing Tocqueville since the latter didn’t write it in the first place. But was she plagiarizing her husband? Maybe it doesn’t count if it’s all in the family, or perhaps the phrase is so short and familiar that it comes under the heading of “common knowledge.” I will leave such judgments to the experts in literary ethics.

Plagiarism

Peter Schroeder reports at The Hill

Experts that hunt out plagiarism professionally say there is basically no chance that Melania Trump’s speech Monday night did not steal lines from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech.

Turnitin, a California-based company, uses a computer algorithm to automatically vet submitted writing for any matches that could amount to plagiarism. Following the controversy Monday, the company used that tool to analyze Trump’s Republican National Convention speech.
...
Chris Harrick, Turnitin vice president of marketing, told The Hill on Tuesday that 6 percent of Trump’s speech was determined to have language that matched with other existing text. All 6 percent came from Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Harrick noted that the company does not play “judge and jury” on whether something was plagiarized, but the odds that Trump’s speech did not include plagiarized content are effectively a mathematical impossibility.

According to Turnitin, there is a 1 in 1 trillion chance that two writers would write the same 16-word sequence by coincidence. The longest matching sequence of words between the Trump and Obama speeches was 23 words.