ABSTRACT
One of the main roles for a citizen in a democratic society is to engage in political discourse, i.e., to engage in (written or oral) conversation about political issues. Political discourse often (though not always) takes the form of debate, in which the participants take up a position on a disputed question and try to persuade other participants of their position. People from all walks of life take part in these debates, in all sorts of venues-from television and radio, to Facebook and Twitter, to workplaces and neighborhood bars. In this debatestyle form of political discourse, a wide range of different questions can be up for debate (and, as the discourse unfolds, the questions themselves can evolve). But during the run-up to an important election, the simplest and most common question is: Whom should we elect? In the United States at present (late May, 2016) there is a lot of discussion about whom “we” (the American people) should elect as President of the United States in the upcoming presidential election.
