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Donald Trump's rhetoric

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This article is part of
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Donald Trump
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The political rhetoric of Donald Trump has been scrutinized in an extensive body of reporting and analysis by linguists, political commentators and others.[1]

Overview[edit]

Trump's rhetoric has its roots in a populist political method that suggests nationalistic answers to political, economic, and social problems.[2] It employs absolutist framings and threat narratives[3] characterized by a rejection of the political establishment.[4] His absolutist rhetoric emphasizes non-negotiable boundaries and moral outrage at their supposed violation,[5] and heavily favors crowd reaction over veracity, with a large number of falsehoods which Trump presents as facts.[6] Trump's scenic construction (introduction of characters and setting stage depicting an issue) uses black and white terms like "totally", "absolutely", "every", "complete", and "forever" to describe malevolent forces, or the coming victory. For example, Trump described John Kerry as a "total disaster", and said that Obamacare would "destroy American health care forever". Kenneth Burke referred to this type of "all or none" staging as characteristic of "burlesque" rhetoric.[7] This rhetorical pattern within a Trump rally is common for authoritarian movements. First, it elicits a sense of depression, humiliation and victimhood. Second, it separates the world into two opposing groups: a relentlessly demonized set of others versus those who have the power and will to overcome them.[8] This involves vividly identifying the enemy supposedly causing the current state of affairs and then promoting paranoid conspiracy theories and fearmongering to inflame fear and anger. After cycling these first two patterns through the populace, the final message aims to produce a cathartic release of pent-up ochlocracy and mob energy, with a promise that salvation is at hand because there is a powerful leader who will deliver the nation back to its former glory.[9]

Analysis[edit]

Trump uses rhetoric that political scientists have deemed to be both dehumanizing and connected to physical violence by his followers.[10] Neville Hoad, an expert on gender studies, described Trump's rhetoric as violent, listing examples such as "grab them by the pussy" "locker room" "jokes" to misogynist insults, philandering, and even sexual predatory behavior where Trump is able to turn allegations of groping and raping into political assets rather than liabilities.[11] Sociologist Arlie Hochschild states that emotional themes in Trump's rhetoric are fundamental, writing that his "speeches—evoking dominance, bravado, clarity, national pride, and personal uplift—inspire an emotional transformation," deeply resonating with their "emotional self-interest".[12][13] One study suggests that significant environmental deregulation occurred during the first year of the Trump administration due to its concurrent use of spectacular racist rhetoric but escaped much media attention. According to the authors, this served political objectives of dehumanizing its targets, eroding democratic norms, and consolidating power by emotionally connecting with and inflaming resentments among the base of followers, but most importantly served to distract media attention from deregulatory policymaking by igniting intense media coverage of the distractions, precisely due to their radically transgressive nature.[14]

According to civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborne and political theorist William E. Connolly, Trump's rhetoric employs tropes similar to those used by fascists in Germany[15] to persuade citizens (at first a minority) to give up democracy, by using a barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, personal invective, threats, xenophobia, national-security scares, religious bigotry, white racism, exploitation of economic insecurity, and a never-ending search for scapegoats.[16] Connolly presents a similar list in his book Aspirational Fascism (2017), adding comparisons of the integration of theatrics and crowd participation with rhetoric, involving grandiose bodily gestures, grimaces, hysterical charges, dramatic repetitions of alternate reality falsehoods, and totalistic assertions incorporated into signature phrases that audiences are strongly encouraged to join in chanting.[17] Despite the similarities, Connolly stresses that Trump is no Nazi but "is rather, an aspirational fascist who pursues crowd adulation, hyperaggressive nationalism, white triumphalism, and militarism, pursues a law-and-order regime giving unaccountable power to the police, and is a practitioner of a rhetorical style that regularly creates fake news and smears opponents to mobilize support for the Big Lies he advances."[15]

Trumpisms[edit]

Donald Trump speaking at one of his rallies in Arizona, October 2020

Trumpisms or Trump-speak are the mannerisms, rhetoric, and characteristic phrases or statements of former U.S. President Donald Trump.[18][19] They have been described as colorful comments that "only Trump could get away with".[20][21] By 2016, Politico observed that what used to be called Trump's gaffes now had the official designation of "Trumpisms".[22][23] They have become well-known and are the subject of numerous comedic impersonations that imitate Trump's confident exaggerations and general lack of detail.[24][25] An MIT student built a Twitter bot that used artificial intelligence to parody the President with "remarkably Trump-like statements".[26] Artificial intelligence has also been used to analyze Trump-speak.[27] Trump's children have acknowledged his atypical speech patterns, with both Ivanka and Eric Trump stating that they share some of their father's Trumpisms.[28]

Journalist Emily Greenhouse noted in a 2023 Bloomberg article that Trump may be most quotable man in politics and highlighted the following example:[29]

I'm the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. Nobody's ever been more successful than me. I'm the most successful person ever to run. Ross Perot isn't successful like me. Romney—I have a Gucci store that's worth more than Romney.[30]

Trumpisms frequently come in the form of insults directed at his critics, labeling them "dogs", "losers", and "enemies of the people".[31][32]

Violence and dehumanization[edit]

Trump's 2024 campaign has been noted for using increasingly dehumanizing and violent rhetoric against his political enemies.[33][34][35][36] Examples include Trump calling for shoplifters to be shot and for Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appointed by him, to be executed for treason. He also made fun of the hammer attack that critically injured the husband of the then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.[34]

Trump has used Nazi racial hygiene rhetoric in a video interview on a right-wing website, and has twice stated that undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country", a term echoing white supremacists and Adolf Hitler.[35][37][38][39] Trump's anti-immigration tone is noted to have grown harsher from his previous time as President, where, as reported in The New York Times, he "privately mused about developing a militarized border like Israel’s, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn migrants’ skin." Other rhetoric from his 2024 campaign includes statements that foreign leaders are deliberately emptying insane asylums to send the patients across America’s southern border as migrants, and comparing migrants to the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.[40] Trump has described immigrants as deadly snakes during his rallies, repurposing lyrics from the 1968 song "The Snake."[39]

In a campaign speech and social media post, Trump called some of his political opponents "vermin", promising to "root out" the "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections".[36][41][42] The term “vermin” was used by dictators Hitler and Benito Mussolini and in Nazi propaganda to dehumanize people, and Trump said they were a greater threat to the United States than countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea.[36][41] Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to criticism by saying:

Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.[41]

According to the New York Times, scholars are undecided about whether Trump's "rhetorical turn into more fascist-sounding territory is just his latest public provocation of the left, an evolution in his beliefs, or the dropping of a veil." Experts say that Trump "exhibits traits similar to current strongmen like Viktor Orban of Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey."[43]

Falsehoods[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Collinson, Stephen (2023-11-14). "Analysis: Trump's extreme rhetoric conjures the prospect of a presidency like no other | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  2. ↑ Rowland, Robert C. (2019). "The Populist and Nationalist Roots of Trump's Rhetoric". Rhetoric and Public Affairs. 22 (3): 343–388. doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.3.0343. ISSN 1094-8392. JSTOR 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.3.0343. Unknown parameter |s2cid= ignored (help)
  3. ↑ Marietta, Morgan; Farley, Tyler; Cote, Tyler; Murphy, Paul (2017-07-26). "The Rhetorical Psychology of Trumpism: Threat, Absolutism, and the Absolutist Threat". The Forum. 15 (2): 330. doi:10.1515/for-2017-0019. ISSN 1540-8884.
  4. ↑ Tarnoff, Ben (2016-11-09). "The triumph of Trumpism: the new politics that is here to stay". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
  5. ↑ Marietta, Morgan; Farley, Tyler; Cote, Tyler; Murphy, Paul (2017-07-26). "The Rhetorical Psychology of Trumpism: Threat, Absolutism, and the Absolutist Threat". The Forum. 15 (2): 313, 317. doi:10.1515/for-2017-0019. ISSN 1540-8884.
  6. ↑ Kessler, Glenn; Kelly, Meg (2021-12-07). "Analysis | President Trump has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims over 355 days". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
  7. ↑ Appel, Edward C. (2018-03-15). "Burlesque, Tragedy, and a (Potentially) "Yuuuge" "Breaking of a Frame": Donald Trump's Rhetoric as "Early Warning"?". Communication Quarterly. 66 (2): 157–175. doi:10.1080/01463373.2018.1439515. ISSN 0146-3373.
  8. ↑ Löwenthal, Leo; Guterman, Norbert (1970) [1949]. Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 93. ISBN 978-0870151828. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 1, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2020. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help) Search this book on
  9. ↑ Smith, David Livingstone (2020). On inhumanity: dehumanization and how to resist it. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-19-092302-0. Search this book on
  10. ↑ Nacos, Brigitte L.; Shapiro, Robert Y.; Bloch-Elkon, Yaeli (2020). "Donald Trump: Aggressive Rhetoric and Political Violence". Perspectives on Terrorism. 14 (5): 2–25. ISSN 2334-3745. JSTOR 26940036.
  11. ↑ Hoad, Neville (2020-10-01). "Big man sovereignty and sexual politics in pandemic time". Safundi. 21 (4): 433–455. doi:10.1080/17533171.2020.1832801. ISSN 1753-3171.
  12. ↑ Hochschild, Arlie Russel (2016). Strangers in their own land: anger and mourning on the American right. New York London: The new press. ISBN 978-1-62097-225-0. Search this book on
  13. ↑ Thompson, Derek (2020-12-29). "The Deep Story of Trumpism". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
  14. ↑ Pulido, Laura; Bruno, Tianna; Faiver-Serna, Cristina; Galentine, Cassandra (2019-03-04). "Environmental Deregulation, Spectacular Racism, and White Nationalism in the Trump Era". Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 109 (2): 520–532. doi:10.1080/24694452.2018.1549473. ISSN 2469-4452.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Connolly, William E. (2017). Aspirational fascism: the struggle for multifaceted democracy under Trumpism. Forerunners. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-5179-0512-5. Search this book on
  16. ↑ Neuborne, Burt (2019). When at Times the Mob is Swayed: A Citizen's Guide to Defending Our Republic. New Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-62097-358-5. Search this book on
  17. ↑ Connolly, William E. (2017). Aspirational fascism: the struggle for multifaceted democracy under Trumpism. Forerunners. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-5179-0512-5. Search this book on
  18. ↑ Homolar, Alexandra; Scholz, Ronny (2019-05-04). "The power of Trump-speak: populist crisis narratives and ontological security". Cambridge Review of International Affairs. 32 (3): 344–364. doi:10.1080/09557571.2019.1575796. ISSN 0955-7571. Unknown parameter |s2cid= ignored (help)
  19. ↑ Bradner, Eric; Mattingly, Phill (2016-06-06). "GOP to Trump: Stop alienating Latinos". CNN. Archived from the original on 2023-04-06. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  20. ↑ Phillips, Amber. "The 6 Trumpisms Donald Trump will trumpet in the Trump debate". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 2023-02-22. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  21. ↑ "6 'Trumpisms' that would mean a political end for anyone but Trump". PBS NewsHour. 2015-09-06. Archived from the original on 2023-02-22. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  22. ↑ "The 155 Craziest Things Trump Said This Election". POLITICO Magazine. 5 November 2016. Archived from the original on 2022-12-02. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  23. ↑ "Mythbuster: What Donald Trump didn't say about Africa". BBC News. 2016-11-11. Archived from the original on 2023-04-07. Retrieved 2023-04-06. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  24. ↑ Mascaro, Lisa (2016-09-12). "'Believe me': People say Trump's language is affecting political discourse 'bigly'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2023-03-01. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  25. ↑ Stieb, Matt (2022-08-25). "Jamie Foxx Is Secretly a World-Class Trump Impersonator". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 2023-04-06. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  26. ↑ Misener, Dan (2016-10-25). "Twitter bot creates 'remarkably Trump-like' tweets". CBC. Archived from the original on 2023-03-05. Retrieved 2023-03-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  27. ↑ Bierman, Noah (2020-05-07). "Can't decipher Trump-speak? Meet Margaret, the computer bot". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2023-03-18. Retrieved 2023-03-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  28. ↑ Effron, Lauren (2015-11-19). "Donald Trump's Children Dish on Their Dad's 'Trumpisms' and What They Think of His Hair". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2023-02-11. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  29. ↑ Greenhouse, Emily (2015-06-01). "Donald Trump: 'I'm the Most Successful Person Ever to Run for the Presidency'". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2023-04-01. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  30. ↑ Hafner, Josh. "Trump: I won't do straw poll if everyone backs out". The Des Moines Register. Archived from the original on 2023-04-16. Retrieved 2023-03-03. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  31. ↑ Glasser, Susan B. (2019-10-24). "On "Human Scum" and Trump in the Danger Zone". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2023-03-05. Retrieved 2023-03-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  32. ↑ Pappas, Stephanie (2016-02-25). "Trumpisms: Political Insults Erode Voters' Faith". Live Science. Archived from the original on 2023-03-05. Retrieved 2023-03-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  33. ↑ Nacos, Brigitte L.; Shapiro, Robert Y.; Bloch-Elkon, Yaeli (2020). "Donald Trump: Aggressive Rhetoric and Political Violence". Perspectives on Terrorism. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. 14 (5): 2–25. ISSN 2334-3745. JSTOR 26940036.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Haberman, Maggie; Nehamas, Nicholas; McFadden, Alyce (October 3, 2023). "Trump Said Shoplifters Should Be Shot, Part of a String of Violent Remarks". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Gabriel, Trip (October 5, 2023). "Trump Escalates Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric With 'Poisoning the Blood' Comment". The New York Times.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 LeVine, Marianne (November 12, 2023). "Trump calls political enemies 'vermin,' echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
  37. ↑ Sullivan, Kate (October 6, 2023). "Trump's anti-immigrant comments draw rebuke". CNN. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
  38. ↑ Kim, Soo Rin; Ibbsa, Lalee (November 13, 2023). "Trump compares political opponents to 'vermin' who he will 'root out,' alarming historians". ABC News. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 Layne, Nathan (December 16, 2023). "Trump repeats 'poisoning the blood' anti-immigrant remark". Reuters.
  40. ↑ Charlie Savage; Maggie Haberman; Jonathan Swan (November 11, 2023). "Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans". The New York Times.
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 Gold, Michael (November 13, 2023). "After Calling Foes 'Vermin,' Trump Campaign Warns Its Critics Will Be 'Crushed'". The New York Times. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
  42. ↑ Dorn, Sara (November 12, 2023). "Trump Compares Political Foes To 'Vermin' On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda". Forbes. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
  43. ↑ Michael C. Bender; Michael Gold (November 20, 2023). "Trump's Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent". New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2023.


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