What does rhetoric has to do with democracy

Democracy  means  rule by “the people,” and has inspired political action for centuries and  around the world. But the word also raises a  question:  Who are the people? And who  gets to decide? Can a “people” arise and rule  a country? What would it take for this to happen? Do the people have to elect  a representative? Is that person representative?

Answering these questions is the work of rhetoric.  Rhetoric is all about  understanding how people—both individual persons and “the people”—can, and perhaps ought to be persuaded. How and why,  do we change our minds?

Rhetoric’s questions, in other words, are the  questions that democracy must answer.

reading poetry is challenging when you don't have or very little of social context and culture schema.

solution: read the introduction, the norm, or even explaination if you still dont get it.