Joe Klein is Time's current political columnist and the author of Primary Colors, a roman a clef written portraying Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.
- Speaker: As stated above, Klein works as their political columnist, and because of that his works are political. As for his writing style, it's rather analytic; for example, in his piece titled "The Ideological Challenge at the Core of Trump's Radical Presidency", he analyzes Trump's Inaugural Address refers to its anti-free trade views as "myopic & simple". He then spends the following paragraph building on that idea with stats proving free trade's benefits, all the while questioning the views of what he calls the " demoralized middle class".
- Occasion: As a political columnist, Klein's works are obviously written around what is politically relevant at the time, so the immediate occasion varies. However, while Time's website puts his last written piece at January 26, 2017, the majority of his work dating back to April of 2015 are, like most others in his profession, mainly based on the daily misadventures of the Trump administration, with his most recent article revolving around the president's Inaugural Address.
- Audience: It seems that Klein's audience is liberal-minded individuals who don't align with the Democratic Party. While that might seem like a contradiction, you should note that sharing a party's beliefs doesn't make a you member. An example of this is seen in his September 2016 piece "Don't Believe the New Myths About America's White Working Class", where he mocks them for seeing voters "as members of amorphous "identity" groups rather than individuals", also stating Democrats ''view... minorities as victims in the grips of larger forces". Despite his mocking of the party, he also mocks the book Hillbilly Elegy, stating "the culture described ... is so similar to that of the black underclass that it demolishes the...argument that these sorts of behaviors--sexual profligacy, drug dependency,... and a free-range sense of helplessness that leads to irresponsibility--are unique to African Americans".
- Purpose: Obviously, Klein wants to tell a story about politics or explain why you should agree with him. However, the style he uses doesn't always work. For example, in "Why We Must Must Focus Now on Maintaining Peace, Civility, and Democracy", he spends the first paragraph rambling about an encounter with Bill Clinton, which he never brings up again; then he brings up statistics about how POC's and women have more rights and opportunities, which is nice, but doesn't relate to the main topic. It's like this through the whole work: ideas that aren't relevant or just not built upon.
- Subject: As previously stated, Joe Klein is Time's political columnist, so all his works revolve around politics of some sort, mainly that of the American variety.
- Tone: Klein, having worked for Time since 2003, has a fair share of experience writing on politics. However, at times it seems that experience has gone to his head, as some of his pieces give off a rather caustic and almost arrogant tone; for example, in his piece "Embracing His Rival, Bernie Sanders Gives Hillary Clinton the Boost She Needs", he mocks Democrats stating "they tend...to be unduly optimistic about government's potential to get things done". While this is arguably true, the tone he writes the piece with gives off a feeling of superiority. In his piece "