Why Did Khizr Khan’s Speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention Go Viral? Personifying Collective Values in an Epideictic Speech

Introduction

It was prime time on the fourth and last night of the Democratic National Convention, July 28, 2016, not long before the acceptance speech by the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. There were 55 speakers and entertainers scheduled on that date, including U.S. Senators and House members, performers (including Carole King, Katy Perry, Sheila E., and Chloe Grace Moretz), sports figures (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), and governors (Shepard, 2016; Taylor, 2016). An average of 29.2 million viewers watched the convention each night, with 33.3 million tuning in for Clinton’s acceptance address (Huddleston, 2016). A short, 3-minute film appeared on the screen just before the 46th presenter. The film highlighted the role of Muslim Americans in the military, of whom 14 have died in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. It focused on the story of Captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim American soldier who died in Iraq in 2004 at age 27 while saving soldiers in his unit. Clinton was the narrator of the film, telling of Captain Khan’s heroism and calling him “the best of America.” There were pictures of Captain Khan, of his parents, and of his burial place in Arlington National Cemetery. As soon as the film ended, Mr. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazala stepped to the podium.

Mr. and Ms. Khan stood behind the podium, gazing at the convention audience, Mr. Khan in a business suit, and Ms. Khan in a blue hijab. A large photograph of Captain Khan hung in the background. They were introduced by name, and the audience knew they were Captain Khan’s parents. The convention had learned of Humayun’s heroism in the film but knew little about the parents. The Khans were Muslim immigrants originally from Pakistan, who became American citizens in 1986. Mr. Khan, an experienced lawyer now living in Charlottesville, Virginia, was “one of the convention’s lowest profile speakers” (Stahl, 2016). While the audience had never heard of the Khans before that evening, it is clear that they wanted to honor the family for their sad loss. And they were well aware of Donald Trump’s sweeping claims that Muslim immigrants should be feared as potential terrorists. They saw the important symbolism of the Khans’ appearance before an audience of millions, giving public recognition to a Muslim immigrant family who had sacrificed a son in battle. The audience cheered and clapped at length. The couple waited patiently and silently. Khan clasped his hand over his heart. The silence seemed to increase audience interest.

The Role of Surprise in the Structure and Visual Presentation of the Speech

The Khan speech was short, less than 400 words. It was divided into two approximately equal parts, and then ended with a short endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The form of the speech was epideictic. An epideictic speech is a ritual, a ceremonial speech “concerned with virtue and vice, praising the one and censuring the other” (Aristotle, 1954, p. 5). In an epideictic speech, the audience has clear expectations, as for a eulogy, a speech in praise of the dead. It is a performative speech, in which the act of performing the speech itself dominates, rather than the content (Pernot, 2015). The convention audience had just viewed the film about Captain Khan’s heroism, and now the physical presence of the Khans gave them an opportunity to thank the parents. Their lengthy applause before the speech showed their eagerness to express their gratitude, regardless of whether the parents spoke, or what they said. The exact audience expectations for the speech are unknown. But Clinton’s praise of Captain Khan’s military service in the film, and the scheduling of the speech close to Clinton’s acceptance address—Khan was eight speakers before Clinton (Shepard, 2016)—enhanced his credibility. The audience undoubtedly expected eulogistic praise of his son Humayun Khan, and an endorsement of Clinton for president.

The speech began as the audience expected, in a eulogistic narrative style. Mr. Khan spoke prayerfully: “Our thoughts and prayers are with our veterans and those who serve today” (K. Khan, 2016). He spoke slowly and deliberately, about his family, their immigration to America, and their belief in American democracy. They had come to America “empty-handed,” he said, with a belief that with “hard work and the goodness of this country . . . [they] could share in and contribute to its blessings.” They are “patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country,” he said. He praised his son Humayun and spoke of his “sacrifice,” his goal of becoming a lawyer, and of his patriotism. He followed the classic expectations for a memorial or eulogy of the dead.

The speech continued in the epideictic style, but it suddenly shifted in its structure, from a traditional narrative of the family’s sorrow and their son’s noble deeds to an accusatory comparison of his son with Donald Trump. Khan adopted the form of antithesis, surprising the audience by abruptly changing his language and his delivery. His language changed from using the pronouns “we” and “our,” to the style of directly addressing Trump as “you.” His voice became louder as he spoke, as though Trump were standing next to him, and he even took a small copy of the U.S. Constitution from his jacket pocket, reaching out his arm as though to hand it to Trump. “Donald Trump,” he declared, “You are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?” Through his voice and posture, he seemed to construct a new character on the stage—Donald Trump himself—looking at him and speaking to him. He approached the invisible Trump as though he was a man who needed help in understanding American history and laws, a man who probably had not read the U.S. Constitution. Now his tone softened a bit, becoming paternal, the voice of a concerned and kindly counselor. “I will gladly lend you my copy,” said Khan. He guided Trump to key passages, pointing his finger for emphasis: “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and “equal protection of law.”

The convention audience suddenly began smiling and laughing and clapping. They had been eager to honor the couple as the grieving parents of a brave soldier and they empathized with that terrible loss. But now Mr. Khan had adopted the role of the fighter, tackling Donald Trump singlehandedly and rebuking him for his weaknesses. This unfamiliar person, someone who was not a national figure, not a politician or a celebrity, someone who stood in contrast to the governors and senators and entertainers on the program, was showing unexpected courage and aplomb. And there was more. Khan went on to chastise Trump and attack the way he had insulted many groups of Americans. The audience cheered him on.

There is no doubt that the Democrats at their convention welcomed this attack on the Republican presidential candidate with partisan zeal. By setting Trump in contrast to his son by antithesis, Khan made these attacks an organic part of the eulogy. In his construction, it was almost as though the presidential candidates were Captain Khan and Donald Trump. Captain Khan had made the ultimate “sacrifice,” he said, but “You [Donald Trump] have sacrificed nothing and no one.” Captain Khan “had dreams of being a military lawyer,” but Khan cast doubt that Trump had a basic knowledge of the law, asking him if he had even read the U.S. Constitution. Captain Khan was with the “brave patriots” buried in Arlington Cemetery, but Mr. Khan asked Trump, “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?” Captain Khan had been called “the best of America” by Hillary Clinton in the film. But Trump instead “smears the character of Muslims,” “disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership,” and “vows to build walls and ban us from this country.” It was a damning contrast. By Khan’s implication, Trump was the opposite of the “best of America,” that is, Trump was the worst of America.

The speech ended with a short endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The audience stood and cheered and clapped for the Khans. And messages about the speech immediately crowded the Internet (Qiu, 2016). Over and over, television news showed images of Khan thrusting the copy of the Constitution toward the imaginary figure of Trump and demanding to know if he had even read it. Over and over, reporters replayed Khan’s question and charge to Trump, particularly the words about sacrifice: “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America—you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

In Khan’s construction of the comparison between his son and Donald Trump, there is no doubt that Captain Khan’s virtues triumphed over Trump’s vices. In fact, in this speech in praise of the dead, Captain Khan’s image became even more virtuous when set side by side with Trump’s weaknesses. Captain Khan was described as having courage and wisdom, of having what Aristotle called the “highest kind” of virtue. People “honour most the just and the courageous,” wrote Aristotle, “since courage is useful to others in war. . . . Courage is the virtue that disposes men [sic] to do noble deeds in situations of danger” (Aristotle, 1954, p. 57). The courageous person takes “actions good absolutely, such as . . . [acting] for his country without thinking of himself; actions good in their own nature; actions that are not good simply for the individual, since individual interests are selfish” (Aristotle, 1954, p. 58). In contrast, Trump was portrayed as a person who had sacrificed nothing for his country, a person lacking in noble virtues such as courage, justice, magnanimity, and wisdom.

While Khan’s speech mounted a fierce attack on Trump, the “good” character in his antithesis was Captain Khan, rather than Hillary Clinton. At times, the father seemed to be asking the audience to choose, between virtue and vice, between his son and Donald Trump. But, of course, they could not choose his dead son for president. In the end, Khan made a quick endorsement of Clinton, praising her as “the healer . . . not the divider,” “the strongest, most qualified candidate.” It was a highly unusual endorsement speech, as it drew its structure and arguments from the classical epideictic speech, particularly the eulogy. It made heavy use of praise, but not praise of the presidential candidate. The speech memorialized a heroic soldier and his immigrant Muslim family, in the process countering Trump’s strong attacks on Muslim immigrants.

The Role of Khan’s Presentation of Personal and Collective Anger

While Mr. Khan’s dramatic visual presentation and the verbal shift in the structure of his speech contributed to its attention-getting power, the emotional focus of the message also helps explain why this speech “got a standing ovation at the convention and went viral on social media” (Qiu, 2016). Khan expressed personal and collective anger on a topic Americans care deeply about, the honoring of military veterans, and most of all, for those who have “given their lives for their country.” He built on this reverence for military heroes, describing how his son Humayun had to put his dreams aside “the day he sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers.” Humayun and his family were “patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country,” he said. Yet Trump “consistently smears the character of Muslims,” and “disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership,” said Khan.

He also mentioned Trump’s promise “to build walls and ban us [Muslims] from this country.” These threats by Trump led Khan to say that “If it was up to Donald Trump, he [Humayun] never would have been in America.” The idea that his son, the Muslim American soldier, might have been blocked from immigrating to America in the first place seemed especially unjust, after the audience had learned of his heroism. Khan expressed doubt that Trump had read the Constitution, particularly the sections on liberty and equal protection of the law. In an especially poignant section, he asked if Trump had ever been to Arlington Cemetery, where his son was buried. “You have sacrificed nothing and no one,” he said angrily. The speech effectively connected the personal mourning of a dead soldier’s parents with the collective American commitment to honor those who have died in battle. It also pictured Trump’s attacks on Muslims as a direct violation of religious liberty, a deeply revered Constitutional principle. It was a cry from the heart.

Khan developed the second half of his speech mainly as an attack on Trump, set in contrast with praise of his son. Attacks are one of the main types of speech acts in political communication (Benoit, 2007; Smith, 2015). An attack is a negative statement about an opponent, either about the person or about that person’s policy. They are “more confrontational than . . . [other speech acts], and hence more dramatic” (Smith, 2015, p. 174). There is no doubt that this confrontational section of the speech reflected Khan’s anger, and gained the most active attention from the audience. In viewing the televised speech at the Democratic National Convention, one can see the change in the convention audience’s response, from their serious, empathetic engagement in the first half of the speech. When Khan begins to attack Trump, and particularly when he confronts the imaginary figure of Trump directly, the audience becomes excited, lively, and far more participatory, cheering on the speaker.

The strategic approach in Khan’s attacks on Trump, comparing him with his son Captain Khan, raises questions about Trump’s character, based on his anti-Muslim policy. Just as Khan develops the praise of his son’s character, so he presents Trump’s anti-Muslim policy as proof of his ignorance of American laws and values. He is thereby attempting to reframe both Trump’s policy and his character in a highly unfavorable light. While the reasons for his own anger are clear not only as a speaker to the Democratic Party faithful but also to millions of other interested Americans, his goals are broader. How can he instill that anger in his audience?

Aristotle (1954) has discussed the importance that emotions play in changing the feelings of audiences. Anger is one of those crucial emotions, one in which a person feels pain “for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s friends” (p. 92). People become angry when someone “speak[s] ill of us, and show[s] contempt for us, in connection with the things we ourselves most care about” (p. 95). We care deeply about the people we are “bound to champion”—“our parents, children, wives . . .” (p. 96). The skillful speaker needs to consider how to bring the audience “into a frame of mind that will dispose them to anger.” Showing that the adversary is open to charges of disrespecting us, “and possessed of such qualities as do make people angry” will help the speaker make a strong case (p. 97).

Khan made it clear that he found Trump’s immigration policy unjust, as it insulted and threatened patriotic Muslim immigrants such as his family. He linked that sense of injustice closely to his heroic son, thereby stirring the feelings of Americans who, regardless of party, feel a strong obligation to honor military heroes. Khan gave a face to this issue, in the person of his son, Captain Khan. Not only was the son described, but a large close-up picture of him in his Army uniform appeared behind the Khans throughout the speech. Mr. and Ms. Khan also became part of that picture, appearing in their role of the mourning parents. While Trump had portrayed Muslim immigrants as terrorists or would-be terrorists, Khan now portrayed Muslim immigrants as people like him, hard-working, patriotic Americans, and even more vividly, as courageous war heroes personified by Captain Khan. The image of terrorists is frightening and dangerous, evoking fear. In Khan’s anger and grief, the audience could see a different image, of a family like other families with loved ones in the military, devastated by the loss of their son, but gaining some solace by their pride in his service to country. The audience instinctively champions such families. The idea that anyone would attack them seems unthinkable, outrageous. The audience was already empathetic. Khan’s framing of the way Trump would treat Muslim immigrants built on that empathy, leading many to see Trump as disrespectful to a cherished group—war heroes and their families. In this way, he attempted to bring the audience “into a frame of mind that [would] dispose them to anger” (Aristotle, 1954, p. 97).

The Aftermath: The Heavy News Coverage of the Khan Speech

While presidential party conventions no longer choose the party nominee as in earlier times, since the nominee is selected in the primaries and caucuses, conventions are still vital to the party’s success. A successful convention seeks to motivate and inspire active party members to prepare them for the general election campaign ahead. They introduce prominent party leaders and promising new stars, and set forth the party’s agenda for the fall campaign. The four evenings in prime time also enable party conventions to reach many millions of Americans watching the convention on television or online. The Democratic Convention had enjoyed an average viewership of 29.2 million on those four nights (Huddleston, 2016). Parties hope that certain speeches at the convention will cut through the clutter of multiple media events and catch the positive attention of a wide audience of voters. Thus, in addition to the fact that Khan’s speech clearly galvanized the attention of the Democratic convention audience, it was also important that it gained wide news coverage and stimulated discussion in the days ahead.

Immediately after the Democratic National Convention, polls showed that Clinton had “earned a 7-point convention bounce,” according to a CNN/ORC Poll on August 1, 2016 (Agiesta, 2016). She now led Trump 52% to 43% in a two-way matchup, and 45% to 37% when two third-party candidates were included. There is no way to know whether Mr. Khan’s speech influenced Clinton’s polls. Among her gains, more people now saw her as a president who “will unite the country and not divide it,” and as “someone you could be proud of,” which were ideas related to Khan’s speech. But there were many other well-received moments in the convention, such as first lady Michelle Obama’s widely praised speech on the first night. It is quite possible that the Khan speech, given right at the end of the convention, contributed to the positive polls.

While the Khan speech itself “went viral” on the night it was given, evoking an immediate outpouring of responses on Twitter and other websites (Qiu, 2016), Donald Trump’s responses to the speech magnified the event into something much larger. It was a promoter’s dream, as Trump’s angry words brought headlines and heavy news coverage to the Khan speech. Trump seemed to touch a third rail of American values when he attacked the speech by the parents of a dead hero, saying he had been “viciously attacked by Mr. Khan,” that Khan had “no right” to question his knowledge of the Constitution, that Ms. Khan had probably not spoken at the convention “because she was forbidden to, as a Muslim,” and wondering if Clinton’s “script writers” had written the speech (Burns, Haberman, & Parker, 2016; Talev & Jacobs, 2016). Khan had claimed that Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one,” but Trump insisted that he had sacrificed something. In an interview on ABC on July 30, he told George Stephanopoulos,

I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. . . . I think they’re sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things. (as quoted in Karabell, 2016)

Later that day, after “a flood of negative reaction across the political spectrum,” he issued another message, praising Captain Khan as “a hero to our country,” saying that the focus should be on “the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him,” and blaming Clinton, “because she supported the invasion of Iraq” (Talev & Jacobs, 2016).

The Khan versus Trump story seemed ideally suited to gain news coverage, particularly in the setting of the important historical event of a presidential campaign. The story closely related to the journalistic news values of timeliness, human interest, conflict, and celebrity (Kendall, 2005). It was timely, because it occurred right at the nexus of the end of the party conventions and the beginning of the fall campaign, when public attention usually increases. It contained much human interest, because the Khans had a moving personal story as Muslim immigrants with a courageous son who died in war. It radiated conflict, in a David and Goliath scenario, of an unknown immigrant lawyer battling a major party presidential candidate. And the story involved famous people, both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

The media reports of public reactions to Khan’s speech and Trump’s responses continued for days, with political figures and military families and the Khans expressing outrage. Clinton said that Trump was “not a normal presidential candidate. Somebody who attacks everybody has something missing.” She called on Americans “to stand with the Khans and with other families who have lost children in service to the United States” (as quoted in Talev & Jordan, 2016). Senator John McCain said he was “morally bound” to speak, telling Trump that as a presidential candidate he should set the example. He praised Captain Khan as “a shining example of valor and bravery,” and said, “Thank you for immigrating to America” to the Khans (McCain, 2016, statement reported on CNN). Some Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Marco Rubio, and others spoke out to disagree with Trump and to honor the sacrifice of the Khans and the heroism of Captain Khan but “stopped short of condemning him in blunt terms” (Burns et al., 2016). Others spoke more forcefully, such as former Governor Jeb Bush, Governor John Kasich, and former President George W. Bush. They expressed a collective anger at Trump’s failure to honor the family’s sacrifice. Republican Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado said, “Having served in Iraq, I’m deeply offended when Donald Trump fails to honor the sacrifices of all of our brave soldiers who were lost in that war.” And Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said that Trump’s comments “were going to a place where we’ve never gone before, to push back against the families of the fallen” (as quoted in Burns et al., 2016).

The “families of the fallen,” in the voices of Gold Star parents, joined the controversy, though not in unanimity. Gold Star families are the parents of “service members killed in action, training, illness, suicide or death by any other cause” (Altman, 2016). Their sacrifice is symbolized by a gold star on a service flag. Khizr and Ghazala Khan are Gold Star parents, a fact that was widely publicized. Khan’s speech suddenly put Gold Star families in the spotlight. Reporters asked them what they thought of Khan’s speech and Trump’s responses. A “group of Gold Star families organized by VoteVets.org wrote in an open letter” to Trump that he was attacking them when he attacked the Khans. “When you say your job building buildings is akin to our sacrifice, you are attacking our sacrifice,” they said (as quoted in Karabell, 2016). The head of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Brian Duffy, attacked Trump for questioning a Gold Star family’s exercise of free speech, saying, “There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed” (as quoted in Karabell, 2016). Howard Altman, a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times, reached six Gold Star families in the Tampa area soon after the speech and found that they had a variety of responses. As one mother said, “I’ve been getting all kinds of emails from both sides of the political spectrum, . . . all impassioned and it’s a touching subject, a difficult subject, and everyone feels differently about this.” Some shared Khan’s anger, and resented Trump “for criticizing the father,” saying that Captain Khan had “laid down his life for Trump.” Some thought the Gold Star families were being used “as a political football,” and resented that anyone “would try to use the death of a warrior or the grief of a Gold Star family for political or financial gain.” There was strong empathy for the Khans and their pain. But several people were uncomfortable about the motives of politicians, who they saw as taking “interest in them only when it serves their political purposes.” None of the Gold Star families brought up the military rules prohibiting active duty soldiers from participating in politics. That rule applies only to the service member, not the family, and in this case, of course, the service member was no longer alive. But there is an echo of that rule in the words of one Gold Star father, who said he “can’t imagine involving my son’s passing in any type of a political arena” (Altman, 2016).

The naming of the Khans as “Gold Star parents” helped dramatize the emotional focus of Khan’s speech on military sacrifice. The nation honors the families of the fallen for their sacrifice. As House Speaker Ryan said, “[Captain Khan’s] sacrifice—and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan—should always be honored. Period” (as quoted in Burns et al., 2016). Some of the Gold Star families said they realized that “the majority of Americans have no idea what a Gold Star family is” (as quoted in Altman, 2016). But the terms “gold” and “star” are positive symbols, associated with wealth or value, and with awards and rank, as in the military. Used as an adjective, the words “Gold Star” before the word “family” suggest that the family is “exceptional,” and “outstanding” (Webster’s New World Dictionary). An audience could guess at the meaning of the term, which gave the Khans heightened credibility.

A group of Muslim women “across different backgrounds and professions” launched a Twitter campaign contesting Trump’s remark about Ms. Khan “being silent, or not being allowed to speak” at the convention (Khamis, 2017). They called it #CanYouHearUsNow.

Khan and his wife contributed directly to the continuing debate with Trump. Khan’s speech had catapulted them into the public eye, and the couple appeared repeatedly on television news programs. Khan called on Republican leaders to denounce Trump, and several key leaders did so, though mainly praising Captain Khan’s courage and sacrifice. Ms. Khan wrote an opinion piece in the Sunday Washington Post explaining that she had not spoken at the convention only because she feared she would break down, not because she was a Muslim woman. “Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could?” she said. She expressed confidence that “without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart” (G. Khan, 2016).

Khizr Khan angrily denounced Trump’s attacks. “He has no decency. He has a dark heart,” he said (as quoted in Karabell, 2016). On “Meet the Press” on NBC July 31, Khan “accused Mr. Trump of running a campaign ‘of hatred, of derision, of dividing us,’” and urged voters “to reject his brand of politics” (Burns et al., 2016). The author heard Khan interviewed by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, answering Trump’s charge that the speech had been written by Clinton’s speechwriters. He said he had been offered help on the speech by the Clinton writers, but declined, because he knew what he wanted to say (MSNBC, 2016). He told the New York Times that “he wrote his own speech with no input from Clinton’s campaign” (Talev & Jacobs, 2016). As an experienced lawyer who “worked with immigration and international business law” for many years in the Washington, D.C., area (Willingham, 2016), Khan had the kind of writing and speaking background that develops strong communication skills. Former colleagues praised him, such as Helen Trilling of a Washington firm, who said: ‘“We were proud of the impressive speech he gave, but not surprised at its power . . . given what we knew of his character” (Willingham, 2016).

The Khan speech and Trump’s responses in early August 2016 were clearly a difficult period in the Trump campaign. There was widespread criticism of Trump’s defensiveness, particularly when he equated his own construction of buildings to the sacrifice of Captain Khan, who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber. He kept shifting his remarks, attacking Khan, then warning of Muslim terrorists, praising Captain Khan’s valor, then questioning Mr. Khan’s right to criticize him [Trump]. Some thought at the time that he might be damaging his candidacy beyond repair. Four days after the Khan speech, New York Times reporters summarized the dispute: “The clash has already entangled him in a self-destructive, days-long argument with sympathetic accusers who are portraying him as a person of unredeemable callousness” (Burns et al., 2016). Zachary Karabell in Politico wondered if this would be the “turning point,” drawing an analogy to Senator Joe McCarthy’s demise when confronted with the damning words of the Army’s chief counsel, Joseph Welch, in the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (Karabell, 2016). Both Karabell and the New York Times reporters acknowledged, though, that Trump had been able to survive earlier controversies. “He has proved remarkably resilient,” said the reporters, “getting past controversies that might have sunk other candidates” (Burns et al., 2016).

By mid-August, 2016, Clinton still maintained her post-convention polling gain over Trump. The RealClear Politics running average of six polls in the August 1 to 15 period showed Clinton ahead of Trump by an average of 6.7 points (Adams, 2016). Prominent prediction models showed Clinton “with a great chance to win the election” (Adams, 2016). Multiple events occur in campaigns, and the Khan speech controversy was only one of many. Whatever the impetus, on August 18, Trump for the first time gave a speech in which he expressed regret. He spoke generally, not mentioning any specific regret, saying,

Sometimes in the heat of debate, and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that. And believe it or not, I regret it. I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. (Hohmann, 2016)

His press secretary was asked afterwards if there would be a direct apology to the Khan family. She said, “He may . . . I certainly hope they heard him” (Kellyanne Conway, in Hohmann, 2016).

Clinton returned to the Khan story often during the remainder of the campaign. During the final presidential debate, “She invoked their names . . . as an example of the list of people Trump . . . attacked during his campaign” (Griffiths, 2016). Khan also campaigned for Clinton, as when he spoke in October at a mosque in Norfolk, Virginia, as well as at a restaurant and a Democratic campaign office (Sullivan, 2016). The Clinton campaign released an emotional ad in late October focusing on the Khans, with Mr. Khan raising one of the issues from his speech: “I want to ask Mr. Trump, would my son have a place in your America?” As he spoke softly, “footage of his son being laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery play[ed] on a nearby screen” (Griffiths, 2016).

The Khan story made millions of Americans aware of Captain Humayun Khan’s heroism. His grave at Arlington National Cemetery “became a pilgrimage site of sorts, decorated with flowers, flags and notes from visiting strangers” (Sullivan, 2016).

Conclusions

Many factors came together to make Mr. Khan’s speech so consequential. Its timing shortly before Clinton’s acceptance speech, the salience of the issue of immigration laws, and the close fit with the news media’s focus on conflict and human interest all helped this speech gain attention. Yet other convention speeches, by people with far greater name recognition than Khizr Khan, offered some or all these qualities.

The unique power of this speech was in Khan’s skillful construction of an epideictic speech, which personified a deeply held, collective American value, the universal respect for soldiers who die in battle and their families, and linked it to the issue of Muslim immigration. And that power was then amplified by Trump’s responses to the speech. Khan framed the speech in a moving and emotional way, both visually and in words. The sight of the serious, sad, silent couple, with Ms. Khan in non-Western dress, the large projected photograph of their son Humayun, a war hero, and Mr. Khan’s sudden gesture of reaching out to hand a copy of the Constitution to the imaginary figure of Donald Trump—these visual aspects drew the attention of the live and television audience.

In his words, Khan eulogized his son’s strengths and set them in opposition to Trump’s perceived weaknesses, harnessing his own anger and grief as a Gold Star parent. The word “sacrifice” was central to the speech. The sacrifice of this Muslim American family was unquestionable. Khan portrayed Trump’s immigration policy as in direct opposition to his son’s courage and sacrifice, and in direct violation of Constitutional principles. His own anger was apparent, and by portraying Trump as disrespectful of Muslims, even a heroic Muslim American soldier and his family, he stirred the emotions of his audience. By offering to loan Trump his copy of the Constitution, he underlined the issue of religious freedom. By questioning whether Trump had ever visited Arlington National Cemetery, he raised the question of whether Trump knew what sacrifice was. Finally, with his angry charge, “You have sacrificed nothing and no one,” he raised serious questions about Trump’s character. The Trump portrayed by Khan seemed to violate a deeply held collective value, the honoring of military courage and sacrifice. The speech “went viral” as soon as it was given, evoking extensive discussion online and then in the press. There had been 257 presenters in the 4 days of the Democratic Convention (Shepard, 2016). There is no doubt that this speech stood out.

Trump’s responses to the speech expanded the news coverage and online discussion for days. His first replies met with widespread condemnation, as he entered into the argument as Khan had framed it, arguing about “sacrifice.” He claimed that he too had sacrificed, by building buildings and employing workers. His casual analogy to a heroic military death was ridiculed and derided. Over the subsequent days, Trump kept adjusting his responses and said that he had deep respect for military heroes. Political leaders, Gold Star families, media commentators, and the Khans themselves continued to discuss the Khan speech. While some saw the Khan speech and its aftermath as a potential “turning point,” it is hard to determine causality in the midst of a national campaign. On August 18, 2016, Trump gave a speech in which he expressed “regret” for any words he had spoken that might have caused “personal pain” (Hohmann, 2016). He did not mention any particular incident, but in answer to a specific question, his press secretary said she hoped the Khans had heard him.