Annie Hicks

Pd. 3
AP Lang and Comp
“Superhero on a Soapbox, Charles Blow”

There’s a monster in the White House. You know it. I know it. The facetious fabricator

bears no less of a threat to our country’s safety than a twenty-foot tentacle monster that can mess

with the minds of the men in charge. But hark! Off in the distance! New York City’s own

superhero come free his people from the grasp of great orange beast. Charles Blow has arrived to

spark anger, to nurture consciousness in the hearts of all who read him (unless you’re a

Republican).

Charles Blow has flown in to speak to you. You, the 23-year old education major at the

Women’s March in Washington, D.C. You, the hard working black man from Baltimore, whose

integrity and passion brought you to the top of your field. You, the kid who was always

infuriated by the students in your third grade class who could lie and cheat their way through

school but still made straight As. You, holding the Saturday paper, flipping through with disgust

and despair, as yet another group of white supremacists marches through the South, or another

Baptist church is massacred. You, “the readers, watchers, clickers, listeners, posters, likers and

retweeters” of the twenty-first century (“Grab ‘Em by the Passion”). You’ve come for validation

of your thoughts and experiences. And as Blow lands on his soapbox, you know that you’ve

come to the right place.

A combination of direct addresses and short sentences forms the language of Blow’s

speeches. By calling out his audience with his use of the second person and forcing them to stop

and think with mandate-like sentence structure, Blow forms a deeper connection with his

audience. He guides their emotions and they rally around his straightforward statements. Orders

such as “withhold your coverage and starve him of oxygen,” (“Grab ‘Em by the Passion”) and
“ask yourself: Do you want a Congress full of Trump puppets?” (“Vote, Vote, Vote!”) target his

readers’ personal opinions, which often align with his own. This way, the columns can seem like

individualized sermons, made especially for each of the flock. His purpose in doing this is not

necessarily to spark revolution in their hearts, but to bring to their attention issues that they may

not have been able to verbalize before. A sense of wariness is carefully nurtured in each reader,

heightening their senses to the many dangers that lurk in the shadows of D.C.

Blow also often refers to the virtues of honesty and duty as a basis not only to unify his

audience, but to exclude those who he believes are too ignorant to his cause. As a black man in

the United States, Blow writes his columns through the point of view of an oppressed citizen. He

had to work his way out of Louisiana in a system that was hell bent against him. Blow’s success

relies on his passion and integrity. Donald Trump, on the other hand, embodies everything that

Blow despises: fraudulence, privilege, and an utter disregard for exactly the people who he

claims to protect. Trump’s deceitful decisions and less-than-holy attitude makes him the perfect

vehicle to convey Blow’s deep set values to his readers. Blow even explicitly tells them to “focus

on [their] principles” (“Vote, Vote, Vote!”) of honesty and civic obligation as their basis for

judgement. Those against whom he rallies his followers are labelled as lacking “duty and

patriotism,” (“‘Mean Drunk’ vs. Teenage Girls”), or “undermin[ing] the rule of the law,” or even

straight up “immoral” (“It Is So Much Worse Than I Thought”). So while it may at first seem

like Blow is just vehemently vandalizing Trump, he is instead berating what he embodies. After

all, every superhero needs a villain.

While some of his stances may seem hypocritical (the column about Trump in which he

tells his readers to stop reading columns about Trump, for instance) Blow’s soapbox sermons are

consistent in their expectations of his audience. A community of like-minded liberals, Blow’s

readers will come away from his columns with solid satisfaction. Their beliefs were verified.

Their claims were echo-chambered on the street corner of confirmation bias. And, more likely

than not, they will continue to peek out of their windows every Saturday morning to catch

another glimpse of their personal caped crusader.