Trump’s ingratiating strategies:
“…Ad populum: appealing to the wisdom of the crowd, using popularity as the
measure of value. Dangerous demagogues have no power if they have no followers,
so they use ad populum to solidify their base and wield their supporters as a
cudgel against opponents.
“Trump
routinely praises his people as the smartest, best, most patriotic,
hardest-working Americans. They are great and good, and everyone else is not.
For example, when he claimed that he could ‘stand in the
middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,’ that
was an ad populum appeal about the loyalty of Trump’s base.
“Trump’s
ad populum appeal was designed to silence his Never Trump critics while distracting
attention away from their central criticism of him: that he was a populist, not
a real conservative. Popularity (crowds, opinion polls, ratings, votes) is the
only sign of value to Trump. Conservativism itself has no value unless it is
popular.
“Paralipsis: I’m not saying; I’m just saying. Dangerous demagogues use
paralipsis because it gives them plausible deniability to assert that they
didn’t actually say some controversial thing or that they were merely joking or
being sarcastic. Trump uses this strategy to spread rumor
and innuendo and to give a ‘backstage’ or ‘real’ view of what he supposedly
really thinks. It is rewarding for Trump because it allows him to say two
things at once, without being held accountable.
“For
example, Trump repeatedly amplified racist white nationalist content on his
Twitter feed while denying that he agreed with them. ‘I don’t know about
retweeting,’ Trump told Jake Tapper. ‘You retweet somebody and they
turn out to be white supremacists. I know nothing about these groups that are
supporting me.’
“He
also claimed that there was a difference between tweeting something and
retweeting something, refusing to take responsibility for his retweets. His
retweets functioned as a paralipsis: It allowed him to say and not say and
provided him with the out of plausible deniability.
“American exceptionalism: This refers to America’s
unique role in the world, simplified by Trump as ‘America winning.’
Dangerous demagogues use American exceptionalism to take advantage of their
followers’ patriotism and feelings of national pride for the demagogue’s gain.
“Trump
presents himself as the apotheosis of American exceptionalism and claims that
he is the heroic figure who can make America great again by defeating
corruption and conspiracy. Trump will win for Trump’s people – he’s their hero.
“For
example, Trump claimed that he was uniquely qualified to ‘drain the swamp’ of corruption. His campaign
presented a hero narrative of sacrifice and struggle. He had been ‘the ultimate
insider,’ he claimed, but once he decided to run for president and make America
great again, he had been purified. As ‘the ultimate outsider’ Trump would ‘drain
the swamp’ and end corruption. He said that it would be easy for him to do.
Trump’s alienating strategies:
“Ad hominem: attacking the person instead of their argument. Dangerous
demagogues use ad hominem appeals to mock and de-legitimize legitimate
opposition. Trump routinely attacks people with name-calling,
appeals to hypocrisy and insults to distract the nation away from criticisms
made about him. He uses these strategies to avoid accountability by undermining
the legitimacy of his opposition.
“For
example, he mocked a reporter with a physical
disability. Trump did this to distract attention from his misrepresentation of
events on 9/11 by arguing that the reporter’s memory was as impaired as his
body. This allowed Trump to claim that his version of history was the only
truth, without actually proving that his version of history was accurate.
“Ad baculum: threats of force or intimidation. Dangerous demagogues use ad
baculum to change the subject of debate and use force to silence legitimate
opposition. Trump silences his opposition by threatening them with mean tweets,
violent mobs and condoning, or refusing to condemn, violence conducted in his
name.
“For
example, he used threats and appeals to fear when he repeatedly told his
supporters that Hillary Clinton was determined to take away their guns, leaving
them defenseless against rapists and murders. When he accepted the
National Rifle Association’s endorsement, he threatened, ‘If she gets to
appoint her judges she will, as part of it, abolish the Second Amendment.’ If
that happened, Trump threatened, then gun owners would lose ‘any chance they
have of survival.’
“Reification: treating people as objects. Dangerous demagogues use
reification to position opposition as less than human, thereby denying their
standing to criticize or object. Reification is traditionally a part of war
rhetoric or genocide.
“Trump undermines his opposition by treating
them as objects – things, animals – rather than as people. Objects shouldn’t
have the same rights as people, so it makes Trump’s enemies easy to dismiss and
attack.
“For
example, he treated Muslim refugees as dangerous enemy objects masquerading as
people – as a ‘Trojan horse’ that would unleash ‘a 200,000-man army, maybe. Or
50,000 or 80,000 or 100,000.’ The refugees weren’t people in need of help; they
were an army pretending to be people, dangerous because they were determined to
attack America. Denying the humanity of the refugees made it easier to deny
them refuge, which is precisely what Trump proposed doing with his Muslim ban.
Words as weapons:
“Did
Trump ‘have the best words,’ as he once claimed? Hardly. His words are weapons, well
calculated to attack our public sphere by increasing distrust, polarization and frustration – making it more difficult to
solve political problems.
“Trump
was so successful in using dangerous demagogic rhetoric that no one could hold
him accountable for his words and actions during the 2016 campaign or since. He
uses rhetoric to gain compliance rather than for
persuasion – he deploys language as force, or as a counter punch eroded democracy, which is why his rhetoric is so dangerous” (The Conversation).
Prof. Jennifer Mercieca is an Associate Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University.
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