Inconvenient Horror: Violence as Rhetoric and the El Paso Shooting

Abstract:This essay considers rhetorical violence and the nature of violence as rhetorical in the language and actions of Patrick Crusius, the shooter charged with attacking a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The language in the Crusius manifesto is the preface to the violence Crusius brought to El Paso resulting in the deaths of twenty-three people: United States citizens, Mexican citizens, and a German national. The essay advances a framework from which to evaluate violence as rhetorical and illuminates the intersection of the shooter's rhetoric and his act of violence.