Lessons From Trump’s Political Communication: How To Dominate The Media Environment [1st Edition] 3030390098, 9783030390099, 9783030390105

Table of contents :
Preface......Page 6
Contents......Page 9
List of Tables......Page 10
Chapter 1: Disintermediator-in-Chief......Page 11
References......Page 33
Chapter 2: The Permanent Campaigner......Page 37
References......Page 55
Chapter 3: The Clowning Performer......Page 59
References......Page 74
Chapter 4: The Fascist Rhetor, the Incendiary Populist......Page 77
References......Page 99
Chapter 5: Exploiting the Media Ecosystem......Page 104
References......Page 126
Index......Page 132

Citation preview

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING AND COMMUNICATION

Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication How to Dominate the Media Environment

Marco Morini

Political Campaigning and Communication Series Editor Darren G. Lilleker Bournemouth University Bournemouth, UK

The series explores themes relating to how political organisations promote themselves and how citizens interpret and respond to their tactics. Politics is here defined broadly as any activities designed to have an impact on public policy. The scope of the series thus covers election campaigns, as well as pressure group campaigns, lobbying, and campaigns instigated by social and citizen movements. Research included in the series might focus on the latest strategies and tactics within political marketing and campaigning, covering topics such as the strategic use of legacy, digital and social media, the use of big data and analytics for targeting citizens, and the use of manipulative tactics and disinformation. Furthermore, as campaigns are an important interface between the institutions of power and citizens, they present opportunities to examine their impact in engaging, involving and mobilizing citizens. Areas of focus might include attitudes and voting behavior, political polarization and the campaign environment, public discourse around campaigns, and the psychologies underpinning civil society and protest movements. Works may take a narrow or broad perspective. Single-nation case studies of one specific campaign and comparative cross-national or temporal studies are equally welcome. The series also welcomes themed edited collections which explore a central set of research questions. For an informal discussion for a book in the series, please contact the series editor Darren Lilleker ([email protected]), or Anne Birchley-­Brun ([email protected]). More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14546

Marco Morini

Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication How to Dominate the Media Environment

Marco Morini Comunicazione e Ricerca Sociale Sapienza Università di Roma Roma, Italy

ISSN 2662-589X     ISSN 2662-5903 (electronic) Political Campaigning and Communication ISBN 978-3-030-39009-9    ISBN 978-3-030-39010-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book investigates Donald Trump’s political communication as a candidate and in the first two years as president of the United States. The research hypothesis is that the 45th US president is dominating the media system and “building the agenda” by means of five strategies: 1. Disintermediator-in-Chief. First as a candidate and later as president, Trump has instinctively understood the power of disintermediation that allows him to speak directly to a wide audience, in a process which is crucially amplified by mass media. Despite being the oldest person to have been elected as US president, Trump seems to be born for the social media age. He talks to the public through his tweets, cutting out the mainstream media. He is by-passing the whole complex of advisers, pollsters, and traditional journalistic filters. And he has understood, before many, that mainstream citizens live in filter bubbles in which we each choose our own news and, dangerously, our own facts. In looking at the variation among US presidents in the forums they choose to communicate to the press and to answer reporters’ questions, the first chapter argues that Donald Trump is truly the first disintermediating US president. It also sheds light on the ways in which Twitter is affecting the course of modern American politics, 140 characters at a time. 2. The Permanent Campaigner. Donald Trump’s communication has never become “presidential”. Since he formally announced his candidacy for president in June 2015, the characteristics of his communication have not changed. All the way from the exhausting Republican Party presidential primaries to the hard-fought general election campaign against Hillary Clinton, until the 2018 midterm elections, he simply continued his v

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PREFACE

­ ermanent campaign style of communication. He kept attacking political p rivals and civil society opponents and he consistently disdained media and journalists. He also did not stop harsh attacks toward specific segments of population (e.g. Muslims). While illustrating Trump’s novel political communication strategy, this chapter analyzes how his Twitter posts evolved in frequency, form, and content during his political transformation from presidential candidate to the 45th US president. Moreover, it highlights how, unlike any president in US history, from day one in office, Trump started raising money for the next presidential election. He also filed the official document for re-election the day of his inauguration, on January 20, 2017. Donald Trump started his 2020 re-election campaign the exact moment he became president. 3. The Clowning Performer. This chapter reflects on Trump’s talent as a performer and on his clowning strategy, two attributes which helped him build a successful campaign, fascinate many voters and obtain a constant media coverage. In disarticulating old-style political rhetoric, Trump privileges emotions over content, slogans above thought. Emotions play a crucial role in establishing an empathetic relation between the political leader and his audience. Trump’s jokes, nicknames, and harsh mockeries help him impersonate the “everyday man” who fights against the elites. Donald Trump’s public speeches and tweets can be considered as performances which highlight the role of affect in politics and help us understand how these political performances hold together disparate interests, histories, and visions of the future in a script of political performance that usually bridges the public and the private, in order to mobilize political traction. Indeed, Donald Trump’s past TV experiences can be seen as training for his subsequent political adventure. 4. The Fascist Rhetor, the Incendiary Populist. In The Language of the Third Reich, Victor Klemperer argued that “authoritarians have always used language policies to bring state power and their cults of personality to bear on everyday life” and that “the language of brutality and culture of cruelty was normalized through the proliferation of metaphors of war, battle, expulsion, racial purity and demonization”. The language of fascism made fear, violence, and anxiety the normalized currency of exchange and communication. German and Italian languages during Nazi and Fascist time became languages of superlatives, so that the regimes became the best and the greatest, its achievements unprecedented, historic, and incomparable. Hitler and Mussolini were “saviors”, “redeemers”. Trump’s admiration for a number of dictators is well known. What is often

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­ nderplayed is his inclination to mimic their language. His communicau tion attempts to infantilize, seduce, and depoliticize the public through a stream of tweets, interviews, and public pronouncements that sometimes disregards facts and the truth. In a singular reminiscence to the language of Nazism, he has repeatedly positioned himself as the only one who can save the masses. In addition, the use of violent and superlative language fascinates and attracts the masses and is a strategy to keep the consensus up. This section provides a qualitative analysis of Trump’s presidential communication, finding similarities and points of contact with Nazi rhetoric. It concludes that Trump’s language has significant analogies with Nazi language and that both aim to speak the people’s language, embodying the ideal populist rhetoric. 5. Exploiting the media ecosystem. The four previous strategies are designed to cause and trigger the fifth one: constant media coverage which is benefiting from the current habits and weaknesses of US journalism. Traditional American media are experiencing structural changes such as the technological challenge, the role of social media as the first news source, journalists’ increasing job insecurity, and the media’s growing reliance on news agencies and secondary sources. Furthermore, the 24-hour news cycle competition “obliges” news media to cover any event, or any communication related to the president. And Trump certainly knows how the current rules of newsworthiness work. His aggressive rhetoric, his bizarre, and eccentric behavior magnetically attracts news media, allowing him to build the agenda and constantly being in the spotlight—and it does not matter much if the coverage is positive or negative. After detailing some of the crucial characteristics of American journalism, this chapter provides an overview of the current state of US news media, their predominant logics of communication, and their coverage of the 2016–2018 US presidency. Roma, Italy

Marco Morini

Contents

1 Disintermediator-in-Chief 1 2 The Permanent Campaigner27 3 The Clowning Performer49 4 The Fascist Rhetor, the Incendiary Populist67 5 Exploiting the Media Ecosystem95 Index123

ix

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 1.3 Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3

Average number of presidential press briefings per year (1993–2018)4 Number of presidential solo press conferences in president’s first two years in office (1976–2018) 4 President Trump’s personal attacks on lawmakers 21 Fundraising by Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign committee (quarter-by-quarter) 36 Campaign committee fundraising during presidents’ first two years in office 37 Words mentioned in Trump’s tweets before and after election 39 Which of the following sentences is closest to your opinion? 44 If there were time limits placed on US presidential campaigns, what do you think is the right time frame for election campaigns to start? 45 Nicknames coined by Trump 60 Recurring words in Trump’s tweets 74 Number of US adults who read/hear/see Donald Trump’s tweets 110 US citizens’ habits on Twitter and Trump’s official Twitter account 112 Most polarized presidential approval ratings, by party 114

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CHAPTER 1

Disintermediator-in-Chief

News media trust is essential to the role that journalism plays in democracies. The work of the press enables informed and rational political participation by citizens in deliberative democracies (Habermas, 1991). But what happens when the president dispenses with the traditional media filter and speaks directly to the people? In political communication, disintermediation is the process in which a political actor communicates directly to the public through his/her personal social media account (Chadwick, 2017: 284). The term was first used in the early 1980s to describe change in the financial sectors of capitalist economies, especially the impact on broker firms of new technology in the stock market. Disintermediation is innovation that undermines established or incumbent structures. It cuts out the middleman or middle layers in a process. In that capacity, it has been around for a long time: most of the revolutionary developments in the world economy have something to do with making the economic structure simpler and straighter (Chadwick, 2006). Shopping online instead of going to a retail shop is one of the more visible examples. Online banking instead of going to bank branches in person is another (Chadwick & Stromer-Galley, 2016). It happens when a new technology erodes the business model maintaining the “middleman”. Just as happened to record stores and video rental companies: since people started getting their music movies online for free or at a very low cost, it no longer makes business sense to pay for the middleman—the physical store that sold or rented a physical commodity. © The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5_1

1

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M. MORINI

Analogously, the era of social media allows political leaders to speak directly to voters, sidestepping all the traditional journalistic filters that for centuries, mainstream media placed to cover politics. Donald Trump is the first disintermediating US president. His campaign, which got him elected at a relatively modest expense, disposed of the entire political-industrial complex of pollsters, fundraisers, and political advisers. He talks to the public through his tweets, thus cutting out not only the mainstream media but also the traditional circle of presidential advisors. As Pippa Malmgren recently said: “[H]e is the Uber of politics. He is disintermediating, disrupting, and displacing the traditional power structures at every level. And all of these people are deeply upset and uncomfortable, just like taxi drivers” (Smith, 2017). Trump’s disintermediation comes with costs, of course, especially in the foreign and national security domains. Tweets, the erratic statements in press conferences, the unpredictable behavior with foreign leaders, add up to what has been called “shock-jock diplomacy” (Murray, 2017). McGeough (2016) was one of the first to understand how Trump’s campaign was disintermediating politics, cutting out middlemen. He first sought the decline of traditional party politics: Think of the disruptive force of Uber and the taxi industry. In politics too, it’s all about cutting out the middleman and allowing consumers/voters to choose someone who responds to long-held grievances that for years have been fobbed off by parties that have claimed voter loyalty, but at the same time stuck to agendas that served the interests of their donors (…) Trump also treats GOP orthodoxy with contempt.

Indeed, despite being the oldest person ever elected US president, Donald Trump seems to be born for the social media age. Probably, if this had been limited to the campaign period only, Trump’s disintermediating campaign in 2016 would have been considered just another successful and innovative type of campaign. And, it would probably have been studied alongside Obama’s 2012 big data exploitation or Howard Dean’s early use of the Internet in 2004. Crucially, though, this disintermediation did not stop after the election, and Trump’s communication has never become “presidential”. President Trump simply continued his permanent campaign style of communication, based on his personal Twitter account. First as a candidate and later as president, he has instinctively understood the power of disintermediation that allows him to speak directly to a wide

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audience, in a process which is slavishly amplified by the mass media. About a decade ago, it would have been impossible to reach such a large number of citizens in this way. Statistics from the time of Trump’s campaign, however, already showed a complete penetration of social media in the United States among all ages (Gottfried & Shearer, 2016). A good way to start measuring a president’s disintermediating communication is to look at the variation among the presidents in the forums they choose to answer reporters’ questions. Considering the last four presidents at the two-year mark, we see the choices that presidents now have in the venues where they meet reporters. Yourish and Lee (2019) measured Trump’s administration press briefings on a month-by-month basis. They found that “White House press briefings during the Trump administration have gone from must-see TV to practically canceled after just two seasons” and that “President Trump said on Twitter that he told Ms. Sanders ‘not to bother’ with briefings anymore because ‘the press covers her so rudely and inaccurately’”. Martha Joynt Kumar, the director of the White House Transition Project, analyzed the frequencies of press briefings and found that press secretaries for former presidents Barack Obama and George W.  Bush “held regularly scheduled briefings independent of whether their president answered reporters’ questions”. The Trump administration, she said, seemed to use the briefing as an instrument of the White House “to promote the president and his agenda rather than as a medium where reporters establish the subjects under discussion and call upon the White House to answer to the American public on topics of their choosing” (Yourish & Lee, 2019). Table 1.1 summarizes the total number of presidential press briefings per year (all formats included). The findings are self-explanatory: since Bill Clinton’s presidency, the yearly average has significantly dropped and under President Trump is less than a third of what it was under Clinton’s administration. In his first two years, Obama’s administration held 336 conferences, under George W. Bush’s there were 289, in the first two years of Clinton’s administration 409. In 2017 and 2018, only 179 presidential press briefings were held. The picture gets even clearer if we consider only the presidential solo press conferences held in the first two years. Table 1.2 summarizes data for the past 42  years: President Trump, with only 3 solo press conferences in 24 months, is far lower than his predecessors. George H.W. Bush leads this chart with 56 solo press conferences, followed by Jimmy Carter

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Table 1.1  Average number of presidential press briefings per year (1993–2018) I Bill Clinton (1993–2000) George W. Bush (2001–2008) Barack Obama (2009–2016) Donald Trump (2017–2018)

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII VIII Total

Yearly average

241 168 313 311 314 337 301

241

2378

297.25

180 109 119

95 146 156 192

179

1179

147.37

191 145 145

96 157 148 155

145

1280

160

131

48

179

89.5

Source: Author’s elaboration on Yourish and Lee (2019) and Peters (2018) Note: Each column includes briefings beginning with January 20 of that year through January 19 of the following year

Table 1.2  Number of presidential solo press conferences in president’s first two years in office (1976–2018)

Carter Reagan George H. W. Bush Clinton George W. Bush Obama Trump

First year

Second year

Total

22 6 27 11 4 7 1

18 3 29 16 3 10 2

40 9 56 27 7 17 3

Source: Author’s elaboration on Peters (2018)

with 40. It is true that also Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were not great fans of such kind of press meeting (9 and 7 solo press conferences, respectively), but Trump’s numbers are way below Obama’s (17 solo meetings with press in his first two years of administration) and Clinton’s (27). Obviously, reducing the number of solo press conferences is a strategy to avoid a direct confrontation with reporters, with potentially “dangerous” questions and not to have the president’s messages filtered by journalists. So, how does President Trump communicate? He communicates like candidate Trump, through his Twitter account, by-passing any media filters, completely disintermediating his communication.

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For nearly a decade, lawmakers have relied on social media to mobilize support during campaigns. And Twitter is one of the most powerful tools in modern communication: “a form of blogging in which entries typically consist of short content such as phrases, quick comments, images, or links to videos” (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013: 219). The microblogging platform allows its 330 million monthly active users (Shaban, 2019) to compose 280-character messages to relay information to the general public. Politicians are one group that has benefited the most from Twitter and relied upon it for networking (Ausserhofer & Maireder, 2013). The use of Twitter in politics has seriously changed the way campaigns are run; moreover, it has changed how politicians interact with their followers and community when elected. Twitter allows political parties and individual policymakers to by-pass the press to speak directly with voters (Kalsnes, 2016). Already Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign brought Twitter to the forefront of American politics, proving how it could be used effectively to communicate with potential voters (Tumasjan, Sprenger, Sandner, & Welpe, 2010). Trump was an incredibly active Twitter user before his 2016 run for president, as well as during his candidacy, and has continued to be so thus far into his presidency. In particular, candidate Donald Trump distinguished himself “with surprising successes during the Republican Party primaries, and his communication style appeared to overcome any shortcomings with his questionable political platforms” (Ahmadian, Azarshahi, & Paulhus, 2017). Ott and Dickinson (2019) explored the changing character of the public discourse in the age of Twitter. They highlighted the fact that Twitter privileges discourse that is simple, impulsive, and uncivil. Thanks to wireless technology, one can tweet from virtually anywhere at any time. Since tweeting requires little effort, it requires little forethought, reflection, or consideration of consequences. Because of its character limitation, Twitter structurally disallows the communication of detailed and sophisticated messages. A tweet may be clever or witty, but it cannot be complex: “by demanding simplicity, Twitter undermines our capacity to discuss and, subsequently, to think about issues and events in more complex ways” (Kapko, 2016). Two dimensions of Twitter, in particular, predispose uncivil discourse. First, Twitter is naturally informal. Its lack of concern with proper language style and grammar undermines norms that tend to enforce civility. Second, Twitter “depersonalizes interactions”, creating a context in which

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“people do not consider how their interactions will affect others” (Tait, 2016). It is much easier to say something nasty about someone when the counterpart is not present physically. Twitter’s lack of formality and intimacy undermines the social norms that uphold civility and predisposes users to engage in both divisive and derisive communication. Research has also indicated that heavy Twitter users favor negativity and aggressiveness (Thelwall, Buckley, & Paltoglou, 2011: 415). Moreover, Twitter users often try to send messages that align with what their audiences believe. Individuals present themselves differently based on whom they are communicating with to appeal to an imagined audience (Marwick & Boyd, 2010). When politicians try to appeal to an imagined audience, their followers might share messages simply because other people are sharing it. And those who have strong opinion leadership use Twitter more frequently than those with weak opinion leadership (Park, 2013). As some users seek to influence political conversations, others search for messages that align with their own beliefs (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973). During the 2016 election campaign, Trump called Twitter “a powerful thing”, a “modern method of communication”, and boasted about the millions of people who followed him on social media. In a family town hall interview with CNN, though, Trump said he either wouldn’t use Twitter at all as president or would use it only very little (CNN, 2016). Thus far into his presidency, however, he has tweeted very frequently. Later, he partially amended his point of view and tweeted that “My use of social media is not Presidential—it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL”. Although Twitter has only been used by one president before Trump, it is easy to agree with Gabler (2016): “What FDR was to radio and JFK to television, Trump is to Twitter”. Through it, Trump has found a platform to by-pass the press and to speak directly to his supporters “while simultaneously aiming to discredit legitimate reporting” (Anderson, 2017). During his time as press secretary in the first months under Trump’s administration, Sean Spicer explained how the president views the role of Twitter as it relates to media criticism: “a lot of times, folks in the media feel threatened that he has a direct pipeline to the American people” (CBS Sunday Morning, 2017). Trump’s emphasis on Twitter as an engagement tool and a direct way of addressing his supporters is evident, and it produces authentic online engagement. His tactics are simple: the platform became an “unvarnished extension of his public persona” (Moody, 2016). Trump’s “straight talk”

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contrasted strikingly with “the ‘managed and staged’ feel of Hilary’s slick design and clever copywriting” (Williams, 2016). He built “digital engagement at scale, relying on his existing base of online fans as a mobilization base and tactics that flew below the radar of standard online political marketing” (Woods, 2016). Between his candidacy announcement and the 2018 midterm elections, Trump wrote 13,714 tweets and gained more than 61 million followers, while keeping his original just 47 “following”. Is Donald Trump a heavy tweeter? He tweeted on average of 11 times a day with a high of 87. There were only 5 days out of 1237 where he did not tweet. He appeared to have partially slowed down during the second half of his campaign and in the months between elections and inauguration. His frequency also dropped in late April 2016, right around the time he secured the Republican nomination. What time of day is Trump most active? The 45th president does not appear to be a morning person, quite possibly because he likes to stay up late and tweet. His most prolific time is between 2 am and 3 am. His least prolific is between 7 am and 8 am. He tweets least in the morning and always increases it until he hits his tweeting peak after midnight. About 42 percent of Trump’s tweets have been posted between 5 am and 9 am. As it seems when he watches one of his favorite shows on Fox News, commenting on some content that he has seen on television. Although Trump tweets more frequently on weekdays than on weekends, several of his most inflammatory posts have come on Saturdays. He is most prolific on Tuesdays, and least prolific on Fridays. On the foreign policy side, President Trump often tweets about phone calls and visits from foreign leaders (Tech Reviews, 2019). What words does Donald Trump tweet most frequently? “Trump” (878) and “great” (1984) are the most popular words. Interestingly, Trump likes to tweet about himself in the third person. Considering retweeting, the two most common expressions are “Trump2016” (437) and “MakeAmericaGreatAgain” (386), the latter having been heavily tweeted also after the end of the campaign (Hersak, 2017). Trump’s account went from having approximately 1 million followers in June 2015, at the time of the announcement of his run for president, to 15 million followers on November 8, 2016, when he was elected, to more than 61 million in the last week before the 2018 midterm election. The week that had the largest growth of followers was the one of the inauguration, with +7.51 percent. And only once, in a week after his candidacy

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announcement, did he actually lose followers: the second week of July 2018, with a drop of 0.302 percent. Trump continues to use his personal account regularly, even though upon being elected he has at his disposal @ POTUS, the official account of the president of the United States. Oddly, @realDonaldTrump does not follow @POTUS. In his first 2  years since the 2016 election, Trump heavily tweeted against mainstream media, calling them “Fake News”, for a total of 309 tweets. Interestingly, in the 17 months as a candidate he wrote 0 (zero) tweets containing the caption “Fake News”. Here are some examples of tweets after the election: • Nov 7, 2018, 07:52:39 AM: To any of the pundits or talking heads that do not give us proper credit for this great Midterm Election, just remember two words—FAKE NEWS! [Twitter for iPhone] • Nov 6, 2018, 10:20:08  AM: There is a rumor, put out by the Democrats, that Josh Hawley of Missouri left the Arena last night early. It is Fake News. He met me at the plane when I arrived, spoke at the great Rally, & stayed to the very end. In fact, I said goodbye to him and left before he did. Deception! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 31, 2018, 08:01:51 AM: Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad and solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 29, 2018, 07:14:17 PM: Check out tweets from last two days. I refer to Fake News Media when mentioning Enemy of the People— but dishonest reporters use only the word “Media.” The people of our Great Country are angry and disillusioned at receiving so much Fake News. They get it, and fully understand! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 25, 2018, 08:57:27 AM: The New York Times has a new Fake Story that now the Russians and Chinese (glad they finally added China) are listening to all of my calls on cellphones. Except that I rarely use a cellphone, & when I do it’s government authorized. I like Hard Lines. Just more made up Fake News! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 25, 2018, 06:18:18 AM: A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST! [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Feb 6, 2017, 07:01:53 AM: Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting. [Twitter for Android] • Jan 29, 2017, 08:00:32 AM: Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity! [Twitter for Android] • Jan 24, 2017, 09:16:19  PM: Congratulations to @FoxNews for being number one in inauguration ratings. They were many times higher than FAKE NEWS @CNN—public is smart! [Twitter for Android] • Jan 15, 2017, 07:29:05  PM: much worse—just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News? [Twitter for Android] • Jan 12, 2017, 09:22:21  AM: @CNN is in a total meltdown with their FAKE NEWS because their ratings are tanking since election and their credibility will soon be gone! [Twitter for Android] In similar but opposite dynamics, Trump tweeted the word “Russia” 23 times while being candidate and 176 times in his first two years as president: • Sept 1, 2018, 08:01:22 PM: “No information was ever given by the Trump Team to Russia, yet the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for information from Kremlin sources and just washed it through an intermediary, Christopher Steele.” Jesse Waters [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 30, 2018, 08:17:48 AM: The Rigged Russia Witch Hunt did not come into play, even a little bit, with respect to my decision on Don McGahn! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 30, 2018, 07:54:13 AM: Wow, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr’s wife, is a Russia expert who is fluent in Russian. She worked for Fusion GPS where she was paid a lot. Collusion! Bruce was a boss at the Department of Justice and is, unbelievably, still there! [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 28, 2017, 05:41:09  PM: Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton—sale of Uranium? [Twitter for iPhone] Feuds and appraisals with major media networks are a daily routine in Trump’s Twitter profile. Here is a selection of tweets concerning Fox News (143 tweets as candidate, 122 as president). Interestingly, candidate

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Trump once considered Fox News as a “biased and unfair” media outlet, but after becoming president, his tweets became much nicer toward the conservative TV network, which often aligns with his views: • Nov 5, 2018, 12:59:12 PM: “Bill Nelson is kind of an empty figure in Washington. You never hear his name, he’s never in debates on key issues—he is just under the radar.” Chris Wallace on @FoxNews In other words, Nelson is a “stiff.” [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 31, 2018, 10:33:01  PM: That’s because they treat me fairly! “@FoxNews tops @CNN and @MSNBC combined in October cable news ratings” https://t.co/QX56Pwlmj4 [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 16, 2018, 10:04:32  AM: “Federal Judge throws out Stormy Daniels lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees.” @FoxNews Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con! [Twitter for iPhone] • May 2, 2018, 08:33:41 AM: NEW BOOK—A MUST READ! “The Russia Hoax—The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump” by the brilliant Fox News Legal Analyst Gregg Jarrett. A sad chapter for law enforcement. A rigged system! [Twitter for iPhone] • Apr 2, 2016, 03:31:12  PM: @FoxNews should be ashamed for allowing experts to explain how to make a nuclear attack! [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 26, 2016, 03:12:01  PM: Don’t believe the @FoxNews Polls, they are just another phony hit job on me. I will beat Hillary Clinton easily in the General Election. [Twitter for Android] • Mar 17, 2016, 05:40:53 AM: Great news that @FoxNews has cancelled the additional debate. How many times can the same people ask the same question? I beat Cruz debating [Twitter for Android] • Mar 10, 2016, 04:41:18  PM: Wow, you are all correct about @ FoxNews—totally biased and disgusting reporting. [Twitter for Android] • Mar 5, 2016, 01:09:50 PM: I am watching two clown announcers on @FoxNews as they try to build up failed presidential candidate #LittleMarco. Fox News is in the bag! [Twitter for iPhone] Now, President Trump often turns to Fox News for favorable coverage. He retweets content from Fox and Friends five times more often than any

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other Twitter user (Anderson, 2017). Because Trump considers The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN to be “fake news”, when tweeting about these news organizations, he often portrays himself as the victim of a media misinformation campaign. He also tells his followers that the media is their enemy. Since the beginning of Trump’s entering into the Republican primaries field, CNN was considered the major enemy among the media. And not much changed in his first two years as president. He tweeted 243 times about CNN (169 as candidate, 74 as president), almost always in a strongly negative way: • Nov 5, 2018, 10:18:06  AM: So funny to see the CNN Fake Suppression Polls and false rhetoric. Watch for real results Tuesday. We are lucky CNN’s ratings are so low. Don’t fall for the Suppression Game. Go out & VOTE.  Remember, we now have perhaps the greatest Economy (JOBS) in the history of our Country! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 21, 2018, 05:48:55 PM: Facebook has just stated that they are setting up a system to “purge” themselves of Fake News. Does that mean CNN will finally be put out of business? [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 30, 2018, 05:50:20 AM: The hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function. But actually, as I have always said, this has been going on for a long time. Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck, & AT&T should fire him to save credibility! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 6, 2018, 08:16:34  AM: Great night for Republicans! Congratulations to John Cox on a really big number in California. He can win. Even Fake News CNN said the Trump impact was really big, much bigger than they ever thought possible. So much for the big Blue Wave, it may be a big Red Wave. Working hard! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 2, 2018, 11:46:05  AM: Real @FoxNews is doing great, Fake News CNN is dead! https://t.co/1p37tPiB3v [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 11, 2016, 09:15:40 AM: This is no surprise. Constant phony reporting from failing @CNN turns everyone off. The American people get it! https://t.co/a1A6XMfYx1 [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 10, 2016, 06:38:15  PM: Reuters just announced that Secret Service never spoke to me or my campaign. Made up story by @ CNN is a hoax. Totally dishonest. [Twitter for iPhone]

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NBC is less present in Trump’s tweets (mentioned 71 times, 35 as candidate, 36 as president). However, the tenure of these tweets is in line with the ones on CNN: also NBC is often considered “Fake News” media: • Sep 10, 2018, 07:36:53  AM: “It is mostly anonymous sources in here, why should anyone trust you? General Mattis, General Kelly said it’s not true.” @SavannahGuthrie @TODAYshow Bob Woodward is a liar who is like a Dem operative prior to the Midterms. He was caught cold, even by NBC. [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 24, 2018, 07:39:16 PM: So sad and unfair that the FCC wouldn’t approve the Sinclair Broadcast merger with Tribune. This would have been a great and much needed Conservative voice for and of the People. Liberal Fake News NBC and Comcast gets approved, much bigger, but not Sinclair. Disgraceful! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 13, 2018, 08:30:49  AM: So funny to watch the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN. They are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea. 500 days ago they would have “begged” for this deal-looked like war would break out. Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools! [Twitter for iPhone] • May 4, 2018, 05:45:31 AM: NBC NEWS is wrong again! They cite “sources” which are constantly wrong. Problem is, like so many others, the sources probably don’t exist, they are fabricated, fiction! NBC, my former home with the Apprentice, is now as bad as Fake News CNN. Sad! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 18, 2016, 07:26:46 AM: New CBS National Poll just out—massive lead for Trump. The Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll is a total joke. No wonder WSJ is doing so badly! [Twitter for Android] • Jan 14, 2016, 06:35:00 PM: WSJ/NBC Poll: Donald Trump Widens His Lead in Republican Presidential Race. #Trump2016 https://t. co/r2i8FHPjB4 [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 11, 2016, 09:49:57  PM: Don’t forget to watch The Tonight Show with the wonderful @jimmyfallon at 11:30 P.M. You will not be disappointed! @NBC [Twitter for Android] The New York Times was rarely mentioned in candidate Trump’s tweets. But when he became president—and The New  York Times consistently opposed him and his policies—(negative) tweets focusing on the “gray lady” increased (27):

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• Sep 3, 2018, 02:21:26  PM: According to the Failing New  York Times, the FBI started a major effort to flip Putin loyalists in 2014–2016. “It wasn’t about Trump, he wasn’t even close to a candidate yet.” Rigged Witch Hunt! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 19, 2018, 07:06:43 AM: The Failing New York Times wrote a story that made it seem like the White House Council had TURNED on the President, when in fact it is just the opposite—& the two Fake reporters knew this. This is why the Fake News Media has become the Enemy of the People. So bad for America! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 16, 2018, 09:00:00 AM: The Boston Globe, which was sold to the Failing New  York Times for 1.3  BILLION DOLLARS (plus 800  million dollars in losses & investment), or 2.1  BILLION DOLLARS, was then sold by the Times for 1 DOLLAR. Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT! [Twitter for iPhone] • Apr 26, 2016, 12:43:15 PM: How bad is the New York Times—the most inaccurate coverage constantly. Always trying to belittle. Paper has lost its way! [Twitter Web Client] • Mar 6, 2016, 12:25:25 PM: David Brooks, of the New York Times, is closing in on being the dumbest of them all. He doesn’t have a clue. [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 19, 2016, 09:44:43  AM: Really disgusting that the failing New York Times allows dishonest writers to totally fabricate stories. [Twitter for iPhone] The 45th US president finds fertile ground as levels of news media trust have been steadily declining in the United States since the 1970s. In 1976, about 72 percent of Americans trusted the mainstream press (Swift, 2016). However, since 1997 there has been a slow but consistent downward trend, reaching 32 percent in 2016. Among Democrats perceived news credibility decreased down to 50 percent in 2016. Among Republicans, however, it decreased from 41 percent in 1997 to only 14 percent in 2016. It is important to note that levels of trust in the media also vary when broken down into separate outlets: 88 percent of conservatives trust Fox News, while liberals trust a much larger mix of news outlets (Mitchell, Gottfried, Kiley, & Matsa, 2014). Mourão, Thorson, Chen, and Tham (2018) studied the relationship between media trust, news repertoires, and support for Trump. They observed how “support for Trump is the strongest predictor of news

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­ istrust, even controlling for conservatism and news repertoires. Findings d suggest that the impact of a White House that is hostile to the press goes beyond the way partisanship affects media trust” (Mourão et  al., 2018: 1945). They also found that “a President who is continuously contemptuous of mainstream journalism and simultaneously laudatory about conservative media impacted his supporters’ news choices and media trust beyond simple partisanship” (Mourão et al., 2018: 1946). Since the 2016 election, it has become clear that whatever “news media trust” is, it may be further threatened by a discourse from the White House itself. According to some (Davis & Rosenberg, 2017), frequent and intense attacks on the credibility of the US press by the presidency are unprecedented. Barthel, Gottfried, and Mitchell (2017) report that 83 percent of Americans, including Republicans and Democrats, say there is an unhealthy relationship between the current president and the US press and 73 percent also agree that the resulting tensions interfere with Americans’ access to quality political news. Findings by Mourão et  al. (2018) suggest that: [the] influence of the President’s rhetoric goes beyond the traditional impact of Republican identification found by the literature (…) the mutual dependency between mainstream news makers and the White House in the negotiation of newsworthiness is considerably different in the Trump Era. It is clear that when these two institutions clash, citizens do “pick sides”: those who consume mainstream media have deep levels of mistrust towards the President, and those who are fervent Trump supporters gravitate towards consuming their news exclusively via conservative media platforms.

Unsurprisingly, Former president Barack Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton have often been at the center of attention of Trump’s Twitter account. Interestingly, they were both consistently mentioned also after November 2016. For instance, Hillary Clinton was mentioned in 458 tweets, 124 of which in the first two years since Trump’s election. The “coverage” was inevitably very negative, if not almost outrageous: • Jan 11, 2018, 06:33:06 AM: Disproven and paid for by Democrats “Dossier used to spy on Trump Campaign. Did FBI use Intel tool to influence the Election?” @foxandfriends Did Dems or Clinton also pay Russians? Where are hidden and smashed DNC servers? Where are Crooked Hillary Emails? What a mess! [Twitter for iPhone]

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• May 20, 2018, 08:04:21 AM: Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @ nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 7, 2018, 10:24:23 PM: “…Clinton in the WH, doubling down on Barack Obama’s failed policies, washes away any doubts that America made the right choice. This was truly a change election— and the changes Trump is bringing are far-reaching & necessary.” Thank you Michael Goodwin! https://t.co/4fHNcx2Ydg [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 5, 2018, 09:32:44 AM: Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad! [Twitter for iPhone] • Dec 24, 2017, 07:25:22  AM: @FoxNews-FBI’s Andrew McCabe, “in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.” [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 12, 2016, 07:59:05 AM: Crooked Hillary Clinton likes to talk about the things she will do but she has been there for 30 years— why didn’t she do them? [Twitter for Android] • Oct 11, 2016, 12:43:06 PM: I hope people are looking at the disgraceful behavior of Hillary Clinton as exposed by WikiLeaks. She is unfit to run. [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 9, 2016, 09:20:35 PM: We agree @POTUS—“SHE’LL (Hillary Clinton) SAY ANYTHING & CHANGE NOTHING. IT’S TIME TO TURN THE PAGE”—President Obama [Twitter Web Client] • Oct 9, 2016, 09:06:41 PM: Here are Hillary Clinton’s “accomplishments” at the State Department. #Debates2016 #RattledHillary https://t.co/iouuqXYAdq [Twitter Web Client] • Oct 9, 2016, 08:32:10 PM: Obama and Clinton told the same lie to sell #ObamaCare. #Debates2016 https://t.co/vhOLtHrR66 [Twitter Web Client]

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Also the tweets mentioning Barack Obama are quite negative. They are less “personal” than the ones against Hillary Clinton, but the two prominent Democratic figures are often associated. The first African-American president was named 292 times in Trump’s Twitter account. Surprisingly again, 160 times in the period from June 16, 2015, to November 8, 2016, and 132 times after Trump won the elections: • Feb 21, 2018, 09:40:21 AM: Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 11, 2018, 11:57:57 PM: Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO! [Twitter for iPhone] • Dec 29, 2017, 07:46:23  AM: While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47%…and this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax! [Twitter for iPhone] • Dec 1, 2017, 06:03:35 AM: The Kate Steinle killer came back and back over the weakly protected Obama border, always committing crimes and being violent, and yet this info was not used in court. His exoneration is a complete travesty of justice. BUILD THE WALL! [Twitter for iPhone] • Nov 29, 2017, 09:23:14 PM: Funny to hear the Democrats talking about the National Debt when President Obama doubled it in only 8 years! [Twitter for iPhone] • Nov 11, 2017, 07:43:36 PM: Does the Fake News Media remember when Crooked Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was begging Russia to be our friend with the misspelled reset button? Obama tried also, but he had zero chemistry with Putin. [Twitter Web Client] • Feb 16, 2017, 06:44:54 PM: ‘Trump signs bill undoing Obama coal mining rule’ https://t.co/yMfT5r5RGh [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Sep 6, 2016, 06:12:11  AM: China wouldn’t provide a red carpet stairway from Air Force One and then Philippines President calls Obama “the son of a whore.” Terrible! [Twitter for Android] • Jul 28, 2016, 10:09:11 AM: President Obama spoke last night about a world that doesn’t exist. 70% of the people think our country is going in the wrong direction. #DNC [Twitter Web Client] • Jul 25, 2016, 09:05:27 AM: Great POLL numbers are coming out all over. People don’t want another four years of Obama, and Crooked Hillary would be even worse. #MAGA [Twitter for Android] • Jul 24, 2016, 06:56:43  AM: Wow, President Obama’s brother, Malik, just announced that he is voting for me. Was probably treated badly by president-like everybody else! [Twitter for Android] In the five years since Trump’s official entering into politics, analyses of his rhetoric and his social media behavior have amassed year after year. Bonato and Roach (2018) studied Trump’s tweets using a social network analysis approach, with the primary goal to uncover communities which represent groupings of thematically related keywords. Their aim was also to check for co-occurrence networks based on Trump’s tweets (where nodes are keywords and form links between two keywords if they appear in the same tweet). They studied the candidature period, up until November 2016 and also the first two years of his presidency. They found that in Trump’s 2015 tweets, the two nodes with the most links are “Trump” and “realdonaldtrump”. According to them: “the likely reason why Trump’s name came up so often as a keyword in 2015 was that he was campaigning for the Republican primary, and his tweets often included compliments made about or by him” (Bonato & Roach, 2018). In the 2016 network, these communities reflect his race against the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The focus is on Clinton and the Democratic Party, containing “crooked”, “FBI”, “emails”, and his hashtag “draintheswamp”. Recurring keywords are campaign related such as “rally”, “New Hampshire”, and “Michigan”, along with the hashtag “MakeAmericaGreatAgain”. In another “community”, there are nodes such as “Ohio” and “Florida”, and Trump’s shortened hashtag “MAGA” that stands for “Make America Great Again”. In the 2017 network, a sizeable community concerns Trump’s dislike of the media, and it contains “fake”, “news”, “CNN”, “bad” and “media”. A related community contains “Hillary Clinton”, “FBI” and “crooked”. The presidential job is represented in communities containing domestic

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policy issues such as “healthcare”, “economy”, “jobs”, “tax”, “reform”, and “cut”, and a cluster related to foreign policy issues such as “security”, “China”, and “North Korea”. In the 2018 network, communities emerged related to trade and borders and immigration. Trump’s focus on the media and Clinton continues. He also frequently tweeted about “tax”, “cuts”, and “jobs”. Bonato and Roach’s research (2018) also argues that “while Trump’s words spoken in the traditional media may at times appear unpredictable, our analysis suggests a long-term trend with his tweets”. They identified five groups (or communities) of relevant keywords: the first group gravitates around Trump himself and his achievements and personality, the second around Clinton and the Democratic and Republican opponents, the third is on the campaign, the fourth is on media disdain, and the fifth revolves around the presidential role. The two scholars explain it further: “considering that Trump tweets on average ten times a day and on a range of issues, it is remarkable that in each of the four years, his Twitter networks consistently split up into precisely five communities. In other words, by accident or design, his tweets tend to focus on five broad topics each year since 2015. Some of the issues morph over time, and this is evident from before and after his presidency.” In an interesting paper, Robinson (2018) decided to investigate Trump’s tweets starting from a very basic observation which led to a precise research question: “When Trump wishes the Olympic team good luck, he’s tweeting from his iPhone. When he’s insulting a rival, he’s usually tweeting from an Android. Is this an artifact showing which tweets are Trump’s own and which are by some handler?” Applying a sentiment analysis of Trump’s tweets written all the way throughout his campaign, and based on what he wrote from the two different devices, he concluded that: the Android and iPhone tweets are clearly from different people, posting during different times of day and using hashtags, links, and retweets in distinct ways. What’s more, we can see that the Android tweets are angrier and more negative, while the iPhone tweets tend to be benign announcements and pictures (…) this lets us tell the difference between the campaign’s tweets (iPhone) and Trump’s own (Android).

Robinson (2018) also observed how “Trump on the Android does a lot more tweeting in the morning, while the campaign posts from the iPhone

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more in the afternoon and early evening. Another place where we can spot a difference is in Trump’s anachronistic behavior of ‘manually retweeting’ people by copy-pasting their tweets, then surrounding them with quotation marks.” His findings also include that “tweets from the iPhone were 38 times as likely to contain either a picture or a link. This also makes sense with our narrative: the iPhone (presumably run by the campaign) tends to write ‘announcement’ tweets about events. (…) While Android (Trump himself) tends to write picture-less tweets.” These are often full of “‘emotionally charged’ words, like ‘badly’, ‘crazy’, ‘weak’, and ‘dumb,’” and his personal tweets are definitely much more negative than those of his campaign. Robinson (2018) found that 321 of the 4901 words in the Android tweets were associated with “anger”. In running a Poisson test, he found that: “Trump’s Android account uses about 40–80 per cent more words related to disgust, sadness, fear, anger, and other ‘negative’ sentiments than the iPhone account does (the positive emotions weren’t different to a statistically significant extent)”. Sonnad (2017) identified five characteristics that describe Trump’s tweeting: advice, critique, opinion, prediction, and promotion. He showed that Trump’s “promotional” tweets skyrocketed after his declaration of intent to run for president. Anderson (2017) found out that the tweets that received the highest levels of engagement, as measured by the sum of retweets and likes: tended to articulate policy points. Personal attacks ranked second, accounting for 20 of the top 100 tweets. Only one of the top 100 tweets was a retweet. In 30.7 per cent of his tweets, Trump articulated policy positions. The remaining four content message strategies were more evenly split. He praised others in 17.4 per cent of his tweets, made personal attacks in 16.7 per cent of tweets, provided self-praise 15.1 per cent of the time, and criticized the media in 13.8 per cent of his tweets.

One unexpected result from this study was the frequency in which Trump discusses policy matters. While many of his policy-related tweets focused on telling his followers whom he was meeting with, Trump occasionally announced or teased out future policy decisions. Above all, according to Anderson (2017):

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Trump launched several personal attacks on Twitter. 54 per cent of those attacks were against Democrats, 21 per cent were against Republicans and 25 per cent were against other individuals, countries or groups of people. While a strong majority of criticisms were against Democrats, Trump tended to refer to Democrats more broadly (…) He often called the party obstructionist, but he seldom criticized individual Democrats.

While that was true for the time span of Anderson’s research (the first seven  months following Trump’s inauguration), extending the study all the way to the 2018 midterm elections, the Twitter attacks against single Democratic lawmakers multiply, whereas only a few Republicans are negatively targeted by the president (Table 1.3). While in his first months as president, Trump tweeted quite often against fellow Republicans (“Senator Lisa Murkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad!”), probably because at that time the party had not yet fully aligned with the president and the dregs from the highly divisive primaries were still present; from Fall 2017, several Democratic lawmakers consistently became targets of his tweets. Here are some examples: • Nov 3, 2018, 05:54:55  AM: Congresswoman Maxine Waters was called the most Corrupt Member of Congress! @FoxNews If Dems win, she would be put in charge of our Country’s finances. The beginning of the end! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 31, 2018, 09:17:34  AM: ….Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings massive Crime) “stuff.” Don’t forget the nasty term Anchor Babies. I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 15, 2018, 08:53:25  PM: “WE’RE NOT GONG TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT.” Can you believe this is the Governor of the Highest Taxed State in the U.S., Andrew Cuomo, having a total meltdown! [Twitter for iPhone] • May 10, 2018, 09:30:27 AM: Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fought hard against the Bad Iran Deal, even going at it with President Obama, & then Voted AGAINST it! Now he says I should not have terminated the deal—but he doesn’t really believe that! Same with

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Table 1.3  President Trump’s personal attacks on lawmakers Democrats Richard Blumenthal Adam Schiff Bill de Blasio Chuck Schumer Nancy Pelosi John Kerry Kirsten Gillibrand Dianne Feinstein Dick Durbin Bob Corker Mark Warner Maxine Waters Bob Casey Jr. Debbie Stabenow Jon Tester Andrew Cuomo Claire McCaskill Kyrsten Sinema Harry Reid Andrew Gillum Richard Cordray Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Joe Biden Jerry Brown

Number of tweets 10 6 3 51 55 4 1 6 3 12 3 13 3 5 11 10 2 1 3 3 2 9 6 1 6

Republicans

Number of tweets

Jeff Flake Lindsey Graham Mitch McConnell Jeff Sessionsa Lisa Murkowski John McCain Mark Meadows Jim Jordan Raul Labrador Rand Paul Susan Collins Robert Mueller Paul Ryan

9 10 12 31 1 15 3 4 3 9 2 49 12

Source: Author’s elaboration on Anderson (2017) and Trumptwitterarchive.com (2019) Notes: List of current lawmakers that Trump attacked on Twitter. Total tweets from realDonaldTrump from November 8, 2016 (presidential election) until November 6, 2018 (midterm election) Jeff Sessions previously served as Alabama senator before being confirmed as Attorney General

a

Comey. Thought he was terrible until I fired him! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 15, 2018, 03:28:15 PM: Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military. [Twitter for iPhone] This rise has also to do with the upcoming midterm election and, in a milder way, with the 2020 presidential election approaching (attacks on Warren, Biden, Sanders—all potential Democratic nominees). It is also

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true that, in some cases, Trump attacked and then praised different people at different times. This is what happened, for instance, to Republican Senator Paul Ryan and California Governor Jerry Brown: • Apr 12, 2018, 05:08:49  AM: California Governor Jerry Brown is doing the right thing and sending the National Guard to the Border. Thank you Jerry, good move for the safety of our Country! [Twitter for iPhone] • Apr 19, 2018, 10:48:38 AM: Governor Jerry Brown announced he will deploy “up to 400 National Guard Troops” to do nothing. The crime rate in California is high enough, and the Federal Government will not be paying for Governor Brown’s charade. We need border security and action, not words! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 31, 2018, 11:43:19 AM: Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border! [Twitter for iPhone] • Apr 11, 2018, 08:50:23 AM: Speaker Paul Ryan is a truly good man, and while he will not be seeking re-election, he will leave a legacy of achievement that nobody can question. We are with you Paul! [Twitter for iPhone] Already in October 2016, one month before his election, The New York Times published a list of the 282 people, places, and things Trump has insulted on Twitter (Lee & Quealy, 2016). Wang and Liu (2018), in analyzing Trump’s 2016 campaign, argued how his rhetoric was characterized by his simple, pompous, and repetitive language. In evaluating the stylistic features of Donald Trump’s political discourse based on the evolution over time, they found that—in debates—Trump uses less diverse vocabulary and simpler sentences. Vlatković (2018) argued that behind Trump’s campaign on Twitter, there is a specific framing strategy, which takes advantage of a custom-made environment of information which reaches the user and serves to diminish the chances for a more comprehensive perception. Trump’s style and linguistic registry on Twitter is based on the typical characteristics of social platforms, which favor the emotional dimension over the rational one. Immediacy over reflectiveness, fight over confrontation (Newport, 2018). One of the results is the construction of echo

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chambers, closed and self-referential communities composed of affective audiences, followers who are aggregated by this emotional dimension. Within his operational model, it is worth noting the combination of different linguistic styles (institutional and colloquial, with the second often prevailing), the use of hyper-simplified and understandable language, the recurring self-celebration, built on repeating his accomplishments throughout, with the constant use of superlatives. With President Trump, the bully pulpit (a play of words on the expression coined by President Theodore Roosevelt to indicate the authority position from which important ideas for the country are delivered) seems to have become a bully tweet. The importance of Twitter under Trump’s administration is exemplified by the words of Republican Representative Ryan Costello, who, on being asked how to vote on the budget, said: “if Trump tweets something, then we’ll do it” (Swisher, 2018). This is something completely new for politics, which has in some way also to do with the role of the presidency and decision-making at the highest level. All in all, there are also some positive consequences from Trump’s politics of tweeting: the political backstage, the closed doors where decisions were taken, seems to be gone forever. Everything is online, available 24/7.

References Ahmadian, S., Azarshahi, S., & Paulhus, D. L. (2017). Explaining Donald Trump Via Communication Style: Grandiosity, Informality, and Dynamism. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 49–53. Anderson, B. (2017). Tweeter-in-Chief: A Content Analysis of President Trump’s Tweeting Habits. Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 8(2), 36–50. Ausserhofer, J., & Maireder, A. (2013). National Politics on Twitter. Information, Communication & Society, 16(3), 291–314. Barthel, M., Gottfried, J., & Mitchell, A. (2017). Most Say Tensions Between Trump Administration and News Media Hinder Access to Political News. Retrieved March 15, 2019, from http://www.journalism.org/2017/04/04/ most-say-tensions-between-trump-administration-and-news-media-hinderaccess-to-political-news/ Bonato, A., & Roach, L. (2018, July 29). The Math Behind Trump’s Tweets. The Conversation. Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://theconversation.com/ the-math-behind-trumps-tweets-100314

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CBS Sunday Morning. (2017, March 26). A Polarized America. Retrieved August 10, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhx4B9_9HuI Chadwick, A. (2006). Disintermediation. In M. Bevir, C. Ansell, N. Choi, C. Hay, A. Smith, R. Wilkinson, & L. Zanetti (Eds.), Sage Encyclopedia of Governance (pp. 232–233). New York: Sage. Chadwick, A. (2017). The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. New  York: Oxford University Press. Chadwick, A., & Stromer-Galley, J. (2016). Digital Media, Power, and Democracy in Parties and Election Campaigns: Party Decline Or Party Renewal? International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(3), 283–294. CNN. (2016, April 13). Trump Family Interviewed by Anderson Cooper at the CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6g_bFgMI5A Davis, J., & Rosenberg, M. (2017, January 21). With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift. The New  York Times. Retrieved December 28, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/trump-white-house-briefing-inauguration-crowd-size.html?mcubz=0 Gabler, N. (2016, April 29). Donald Trump, the Emperor of Social Media. Moyers & Company. Retrieved March 3, 2019, from http://billmoyers.com/story/ donald-trump-the-emperor-of-social-media/ Gottfried, J., & Shearer, E. (2016, May 26). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016. PewResearchCenter. Retrieved May 28, 2019, from http:// www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms2016/ Habermas, J. (1991). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hersak, D. (2017). Donald Trump Tweets. Retrieved August 6, 2019, from https://www.kaggle.com/doughersak/donald-trumptweet-statistics Kalsnes, B. (2016). The Social Media Paradox Explained: Comparing Political Parties’ Facebook Strategy Versus Practice. Social Media Society, 2(2), 1–11. Kapko, M. (2016, November 3). Twitter’s Impact on 2016 Presidential Election Is Unmistakable. CIO. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from http://www.cio.com/ article/3137513/social-networking/twitters-impact-on-2016-presidentialelection-is-unmistakable.html Katz, E., Blumler, J., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and Gratifications Research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509–523. Lee, J. C., & Quealy, K. (2016, October 23). The 282 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List. The New York Times. Retrieved July 12, 2019, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/ 01/28/upshot/donald-tr ump-twitter-insults.html?campaign_id= A100&campaign_type=Email&_r=1

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Marwick, A.  E., & Boyd, D. (2010). I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. McGeough, P. (2016, July 15). Donald Trump Cuts Out Middlemen to Become the Uber of Right Wing Politics. Sunday Morning Herald. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.smh.com.au/world/donald-trump-cuts-out-middlemen-to-become-the-uber-of-rightwing-politics-20160715-gq6ekc.html Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., Kiley, J., & Matsa, K. (2014). Political Polarization & Media Habits. Retrieved May 22, 2019, from http://www.journalism. org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/ Moody, C. (2016). How a Golf Caddie Became Trump’s Campaign Confidant. CNN News. Retrieved August 11, 2019, from https://edition.cnn. com/2016/04/29/politics/donald-trump-tweets-daniel-scavino/ Mourão, R., Thorson, E., Chen, W., & Tham, S. M. (2018). Media Repertoires and News Trust During the Early Trump Administration. Journalism Studies, 19(13), 1945–1956. Murray, L. E. (2017, March 15). Deterrence Bounce’ and the Dangers of Shock-­ Jock Diplomacy. Foreign Policy. Newport, F. (2018). Deconstructing Trump’s Use of Twitter. Gallup. Retrieved July 3, 2019, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/234509/deconstructingtrump-twitter.aspx Ott, B., & Dickinson, G. (2019). The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage. London: Routledge. Park, C.  S. (2013). Does Twitter Motivate Involvement in Politics? Tweeting, Opinion Leadership, and Political Engagement. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1641–1648. Peters, G. (2018). Presidential News Conferences. In J. T. Woolley & G. Peters (Eds.), The American Presidency Project. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ node/323900 Robinson, D. (2018). Text Analysis of Trump’s Tweets Confirms He Writes Only the (Angrier) Android Half. Retrieved February 21, 2019, from http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/ Shaban, H. (2019, February 7). Twitter reveals its daily active user numbers for the first time. The Washington Post. Retrieved September 19, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/07/twitter-revealsits-daily-active-user-numbers-first-time/ Smith, D. (2017, March 7). “Building a New Future Framework,” Video Interview with Pippa Malmgren. Real Vision Television. Retrieved July 29, 2019, from https://www.realvision.com/tv/shows/interviews/videos/building-a-newfuture-framework

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Sonnad, N. (2017). Linguists Reveal the Evolution of Donald Trump’s Tweets Over Time. Retrieved April 30, 2019, from https://qz.com/1153080/ trump-tweets-analyzed-by-linguists-reveal-five-characteristics/ Stieglitz, S., & Dang-Xuan, L. (2013). Emotions and Information Diffusion in Social Media Sentiment of Microblogs and Sharing Behavior. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29(4), 217–247. Swift, A. (2016, September 14). Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low. Gallup. Retrieved January 18, 2019, from http://www.gallup.com/ poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx Swisher, K. (2018, December 24). All Text and No Subtext. The New York Times. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/ opinion/trump-twitter-wall-shutdown.html Tait, A. (2016, August 4). The Strange Case of Marina Joyce and Internet Hysteria. The Guardian. Retrieved February 1, 2019, from https://www.theguardian. com/technology/2016/aug/04/marina-joyce-inter net-hysteriawitch-hunts-cyberspace?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1 Tech Reviews. (2019, January 19). Trump’s Tweet-Meter: The Most Revealing Statistics on the President’s Twitter Account. Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://www.computertechreviews.com/trump-twitter/ Thelwall, M., Buckley, K., & Paltoglou, G. (2011). Sentiment in Twitter Events. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(2), 406–418. Trump Twitter Archive. (2019). Trump Twitter Archive. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/ Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T. O., Sandner, P. G., & Welpe, I. M. (2010). Predicting Elections with Twitter: What 140 Characters Reveal about Political Sentiment. Journal of the International Linguistic Association, 10, 178–185. Vlatković, S. (2018). New Communication Forms and Political Framing: Twitter in Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign. AM Journal of Art And Media Studies, (16), 123–134. https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i16.259 Wang, Y., & Liu, H. (2018). Is Trump Always Rambling Like a Fourth-Grade Student? An Analysis of Stylistic Features of Donald Trump’s Political Discourse During the 2016 Election. Discourse and Society, 29(3), 1–17. Williams, J. C. (2016). What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://hbr. org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class Woods, O. (2016). How Donald Trump Won an Election with Digital Marketing. Retrieved August 15, 2019, from https://www.mumbrella.asia/2016/11/ donald-trump-won-election-digital-marketing Yourish, K., & Lee, J. (2019, January 28). The Demise of the White House Press Briefing Under Trump. The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/22/us/politics/white-housepress-briefing.html

CHAPTER 2

The Permanent Campaigner

The permanent campaign has been defined as one of the political ideologies of modern politics (Cook, 1998), because it combines the cult and creation of the political image with the strategic calculus. However, despite what some might think, permanent campaign is not a recent theory. The first comprehensive systematization came in 1980 with the seminal work of Sidney Blumenthal, entitled as such: The Permanent Campaign. The concept argues that the activity of governing is becoming a perpetual election campaign and the executive is converted into a tool for supporting the consensus of the elected people (Blumenthal, 1980: 23). Politics seems to have become a cyclical route where the end of an election campaign is just the beginning of the next one. And the major risk for a permanent presidential campaign is that the executive might appear more occupied with running for re-election than running the country. During the 1980s, and especially in the years of the Reagan administration, American politics seems to have experienced a new season. Its early signs, however, had already been intercepted in a well-known memo written in December 1976 for Jimmy Carter by Patrick Caddell, young pollster and political consultant for the president. Caddell wrote that: in planning a strategy for the administration, it is important to recognize that it is no longer possible to separate politics and government (…) essentially, it is my idea that governing with the public consensus requires a

© The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5_2

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c­ ontinuing election campaign (…), governing with public approval requires a continuing political campaign. (Smith, 2017)

This memo is often credited with creating the concept of permanent campaign. Ever since then, presidents have consistently traveled the country, raising campaign money for their political parties and re-election bids and building public support for legislative efforts. Blumenthal identified the role of the political marketing consultants as the most visible sign of the affirmation of permanent campaign. He argued that “political consultants are the new power inside the American political system. They are permanent, politicians are ephemeral (passing)” (Blumenthal, 1980: 17). Consultants have fully replaced party professionals, embodying the role of new protagonists in the political sphere. Permanent campaign, therefore, means a process in which the activity of governing and the activity of campaigning are not separated. Specifically, it is characterized by the use, while in government, of tools and instruments of public relations that are typical of election campaigns. If, in the past, the election winner after entering office would dismiss pollsters, communication consultants, and any structure related to the campaign, now these same tools are still active. The decline of political parties and the emergence of political consultancy—together with the employment of new communication strategies and more sophisticated technologies—are identified by Blumenthal as the two conditions which are necessary to the realization of the concept of permanent campaign. In classic political science literature, campaigning is focused on single decisions to be undertaken in order to achieve the ultimate goal: winning the election. Governing does not have a final goal, but it is an enduring process. Campaigning is adversarial; governing is collaborative. Campaigning is an exercise of persuasion; governing is an activity of decisions. With permanent campaign, the concepts of governing and campaigning continue to stay separate but the two processes tend to merge. On the one hand, there is the tendency to use, while governing, the tools and techniques of an election campaign, namely, to fully employ communication and marketing strategies to support the action of government. On the other hand, these same communication techniques are used to found and work on the subsequent re-election campaign. This fusion of the two processes can be observed as the final political goals are intertwined: that is, the persistence of the interest for winning

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consensus while in government, which is typical of classic political campaigns. Permanent campaign, then, is “governing through public opinion” (Kernell, 1986: 112). According to Blumenthal, in contemporary politics and in order to govern, there is the need to build the “consensus engineering” based on the necessity for “creating the adequate conditions for promoting the leader’s public prestige, developing the maximum possible control over the factors which determine his/her popularity and investing the obtained approval capital in order to influence the policy-making process” (Roncarolo, 1994: 107). Ornstein and Mann (2000) identified six general trends which can influence creating a permanent campaign environment: the decline of political parties as central source for choosing candidates running for public offices and in mobilizing voters; open policies for interest groups; new communication technologies; new “political” technologies and, in particular, public relations and opinion polls; non-stop fundraising; strengthening of the federal government. Another factor in setting a permanent campaign style in US politics has to do with the role of cable and satellite (and therefore multi-channel, narrowcasting). The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes spread in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. In 1975, RCA created Satcom 1, the first satellite built especially for use by the then three national television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own antenna dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a very successful TV business of its own. Cable and satellite television significantly expanded the offer, and the first all-news television network came in 1980: it was CNN. Founded by Ted Turner, CNN dramatically increased the amount of political news and talks which were available daily to viewers. Furthermore, some of its reporters were among the first to adopt the perspective of the so-called horse-race journalism, namely, a coverage of elections that resembles coverage of horse races because of the focus on polling data, public perception instead of candidate policy, and almost exclusive reporting on candidate differences rather than similarities. According to Broh (1980: 515), “[f]or journalists, the horse-race metaphor provides a framework for analysis. A horse is judged not by its own absolute speed or skill, but rather by its comparison to the speed of other horses, and especially by

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its wins and losses”. News media have often used horse-race journalism with the purpose of making elections appear more competitive and thus increasing the odds of gaining larger audiences while covering election campaigns (Kilgore, 2012). Using sports analogies to describe presidential politics helps in making these contents more appealing and understandable to average viewers (Sabato & Ernst, 2006: 90). Horse-race journalism has long been criticized for its inaccuracy, and it has been considered negative for the well-being of the political environment. Zoizner (2018) empirically found out that horse-race coverage reduces citizens’ substantive knowledge of politics and fosters political cynicism and alienation. If, until the 1970s, popularity and consensus were considered incompatible, based on the assumption that “Presidents cannot maximize their popularity and their efficacy at the same time” (Cornwell, 1979: 86), from the Reagan administration onward, the perspective changed and the idea started spreading that the president can achieve both through the acquisition of control over media, which allows them to establish a direct relation toward the public. If, until then, the activation of public opinion around specific policies was something rare if not odd, in the 1980s, the perspective changed and political leaders started to realize how that support can be helpful not only for government action but also for their re-­ election chances. Permanent campaign has often been criticized and considered controversial; and it has always been difficult to identify how citizens might benefit from it. In the 1990s, for instance, “President Clinton was criticized for polling nearly everything, including where his family should vacation” (Pindell, 2017). The possibility for the president to use media and communication in order to activate public opinion in support of his legislative action is translated into the technique called “going public” and defined as “a communicative practice which aims to use all opportunities offered by media in order to introduce changes in the power relation between the presidency the other government’s institutions and citizens” (Amoretti, 1997: 62). The most seminal analysis of this phenomenon is the one offered by Samuel Kernell, in the book Going Public published in 1986. Here, the central hypothesis is that it is possible to identify a direct relation between the growing presidential communication oriented toward the public and the parallel significant increase of his chances of success in political and administrative battles. According to Kernell, presidential communication oriented to the public is supported by two specific strategies: the encircle-

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ment and the sales pitch of the news media. In reflecting on Lowi’s and Miroff’s studies on leadership, Tulis argued that the American presidency is transitioning into a promised model of “popular leadership”, which is offered as an “antidote against the blockages of the pluralistic constitutional system, as a cure against ungovernability” (1987: 4). Since Blumenthal and Kernell’s first theorization, the idea of permanent campaign expanded all throughout the 1980s and in the entire Western world (Hjarvard, 2008). Its development was strictly correlated with the technological evolution of the media system (Yuan, 2011). First on TV, with the spectacularization of news and politics (Cook, 2006), the emergence of celebrity politics and the success of the infotainment (Mazzoleni, 2014): they all contributed to the polarization and the radicalization of the political language (Mitchell, Gottfried, Kiley, & Matsa, 2014), dramatically changing the media context and additionally contributing to the success of populist appeals (Mudde, 2004). The following step in the rise of permanent campaign was the advent of the Internet and social networks and, more specifically, the arrival of social media (Tsfati, 2010). Since the worldwide success of social media such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (all founded in the middle of the first decade of the 2000s and all of which became popular with millions of users in just a few years), policymakers have been able to reach millions of voters directly, by-passing the traditional journalistic filters and reverting the classic model of verticalized communication (Schrøder, 2015), installing a newly horizontal one. The new communication model privileges simplification and immediacy (all platforms have some inevitable word/content limit) and is an exceptional tool for the president to communicate constantly and directly. On a more sophisticated level, social media can also be considered as an instrument for classifying and cataloguing sensitive information about users, privacy data that might end up in a big database (big data) that may be used to profile voters and adopt sophisticated persuasion’s campaigns. As we have seen, the original concept of permanent campaign has often been centered on presidential polling and the hiring of political consultants (Blumenthal, 1980). Murray and Howard (2002), in following the original approach, explored the extent to which presidents Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton commissioned independent opinion polls and focus groups to assist in policymaking and political maneuvering. They found out that, while a sophisticated polling operation was institutionalized in the White House, there is substantial variation from president to

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president in how much each one uses this operation, with Reagan and Clinton at the top and Carter and G.H.W. Bush at the bottom. In a similar effort, Tenpas and McCann (2007) modeled presidential polling ­expenditures over time using monthly figures. They found that presidents do not vary significantly in the average amount spent per month on polls and they tend to spend significantly more on internal polling during the most intense months of a presidential re-election campaign. They also suggest that polling expenditures increase over the course of each presidential term and that some factors, such as decline in support and upcoming elections, have driven all presidents from Ford to G. W. Bush to poll. The concept of permanent campaign consistently revolves around the role of political consultants. And their role in politics has significantly evolved over the years: When political consultants first began plying their trade, in the ‘1930s, they were portrayed as sinister manipulators of public opinion (…) political scientists have long been sceptical of grandiose claims about campaign tactics. Research has shown, for instance, that television ads tend to have a small effect on how or whether people vote, and any effect they do have fades quickly. (Ball, 2016)

Vavreck and Sides (2014) argue that “election outcomes are largely the result of factors over which candidates and their campaigns have little control and there are few ‘game changing’ moments in a campaign” (quoted in Ball, 2016). Interestingly, Sheingate (2016: 37) wrote that “the consulting industry has ballooned not because its services are particularly effective, but because all the money in politics—which has skyrocketed in the past decade due to campaign-finance deregulation—has to go somewhere”. In the 2016 presidential campaign, more than $6 billion went to or through consulting firms. On the Republican side, the most expensive and professional presidential campaigns proved remarkably ineffective. Ted Cruz’s campaign paid almost $6 million to a state-of-the-art analytics firm which unpacked the characteristics of the electorate based on personality profiles. Marco Rubio’s campaign and his affiliates cost $105 million and Ben Carson’s $78 million. Most notoriously, Jeb Bush, between his campaign and his Super Pac, employed a consultants “dream team”, investing $139 million of his donors’ money—and dropped out after just three primaries, having won four delegates and as little as three percent of the vote in the states where he competed.

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Throughout the years, the “permanent campaign” concept has expanded and has focused not only on consultants and the presidential use of opinion polls but also on political communication in general. For instance, the continuing adoption of the linguistic styles of campaigning while in government (Edgerly, 2015), direct attacks toward political opponents (Turner, Underhill, & Kaid, 2013), and presidential endorsements toward other (fellow) candidates in  local and national elections (Garrett, 2019). Applying just the classic (and narrow) permanent campaign approach to Trump would lead us out of the meaningful core. Trump’s campaign did not invest much money (comparatively speaking), was generally considered as based on the candidate’s instinct (Gilles, 2018), and did not place much interest in hiring political consultants. Trump’s small team was composed of family members, trusted company men, and loyal external contractors. His Director of Digital, Brad Parscale, was a cut-price web contractor for Trump’s businesses, with no political marketing experience. Dan Scavino, the campaign’s Social Media Director, first met Trump as a teenage golf caddie and spent over a decade working for the latter’s businesses, only to switch to Trump’s digital marketing team in mid-2015 (Woods, 2016). Despite what many mainstream media said (Davis & Rosenberg, 2017), Trump’s unexpected victory was powered by digital. In one of his few post-election interviews, he said social media “helped me win” (Flores, 2016). Google said Trump “won the election in search” (GoogleTrends, 2016). His audiences of Facebook “likes” and Twitter “followers” were both millions ahead of Clinton on the Election Day. Trump defeated Clinton in every single state in terms of Facebook interest (Maza, 2018). His data operation operated effectively, blending the best of their own activities to build up a database of supporters, the Republican National Committee’s own significant investments in data and a “shady” third party consultancy, Cambridge Analytica (Lapowsky, 2016), which also provided data for the successful “Leave” campaign in the Brexit referendum (Woods, 2016). So, there was a sophisticated and consistent below-the-radar campaign. Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and bold and eccentric tweets also parlayed into a huge bonus on TV—especially TV news and news-related shows, where the Trump’s agenda dominated the reporting and conversation. Even Clinton’s mentions on news were often in response to Trump’s mentions. This “wave” of awareness that the social media presence generated can be exemplified on what happened on August 31, 2016. On that

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day, Trump tweeted the following: “Hillary Clinton didn’t go to Louisiana, and now she didn’t go to Mexico. She doesn’t have the drive or stamina to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” The Republican candidate attacked Hillary Clinton for not following his lead in handling domestic and international matters and implicitly raised doubts about her strength and her health condition. The day after, speculations around Clinton’s “stamina” were all over the TV news landscape, and the Clinton campaign had to respond directly to Trump’s tweet (Giaritelli, 2016). Trump kept hitting Clinton on her stamina and strength on the campaign trail, and the case was even mentioned on the first presidential TV debate held at Hofstra University on September 26. Trump repeated his claim that “She doesn’t have the look, she doesn’t have the stamina (…) I said she doesn’t have the stamina. And I don’t believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina”. On that night, Clinton tried to shut down the accusation and to counter-attack: Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities and nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina (…) he tried to switch from looks to stamina, but this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs. And someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers. Who has said women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men.

Clinton’s reaction in the TV debate was strong and effective; however, talks and speculations stuck in the public debate (Walshe, Keneally, Stracqualursi, & Struyk, 2016). With just a short (and free of charge) tweet, Trump was able to damage Clinton’s reputation and to set the media agenda for well over a month. Trump’s small team of campaigners composed of work-related associates and family members still assist Trump now, and the president’s interest for 2020 re-election has been confirmed by multiple media: Internal polling became a sensitive subject (…) after Trump blew up at several campaign officials, telling them the numbers they had were incorrect and not an accurate reflection of how he’s polling throughout the country. He has become fixated on the numbers in recent days, asking for

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regular updates or newer polls. “It’s incorrect polling”, Trump told Fox News in an interview. “Yes, it’s incorrect”. (Collins, Westwood, Diamond, & Zeleny, 2019)

Further details of an active pool of pollsters working for the president were released in June 2019, when Trump fired several political consultants after internal polling numbers were made public that showed the president lagging behind Democratic presidential candidates in key states. It was revealed that Michael Baselice, the president and CEO of Baselice & Associates Inc., who joined the Trump campaign near the end of the 2016 election cycle, is still active in Trump’s 2020 campaign, together with manager Brad Parscale. It was also revealed that Adam Geller, who was another key pollster in the Trump campaign in 2016, was let go after continuing to work for the president also in the first two years of his administration (Collins et al., 2019). In June 2019, the campaign also cut ties with Brett Lloyd, president and CEO of The Polling Company, the former firm of White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, all active from 2015 to 2019 (Collins et al., 2019). The unorthodox 2016 Trump campaign has been seen as a repudiation of the consulting industry. Trump spent the primaries boasting about his lack of a Super Pac or traditional fundraising operation: His campaign infrastructure was nonexistent; he spent only about $19 million on television ads. His campaign manager was a former cop with no experience in a presidential race, and his press secretary was a 27-year-old fashion publicist. Yet Trump dominated a 17-candidate field that many pundits had considered the deepest bench of Republican talent in decades. (Ball, 2016)

Trump himself seemed to suspect that his win cast some doubt on the value of political consultants: “I’ve gone against some of the most sophisticated staffs ever put together, with unlimited money” (Ball, 2016). While candidate Trump was an eccentric campaigner, President Trump seems to be a consistent permanent campaigner. Just one month after taking office, he organized a public rally which looked very similar to the campaign events of the previous year. Elving (2017) observed how he “sounded very much like the man we all saw on the hustings in 2015 and through the long months of campaigning in 2016” and how:

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the President often seemed to be responding in the manner of a candidate. He talked about a favorable Rasmussen poll (…) showing him with 55 percent approval (…) the President seemed to rally like it was the year before. At his news conference, he announced the next event, in the same way as he would have announced it when he was a candidate: ‘In fact, I’ll be in Melbourne, Fla., 5 o’clock on Saturday, and I heard—just heard that the crowds are massive that want to be there’.

Again, Elving (2017) explained this campaign style as a precise political tactic: Perhaps the campaign goes on because the president sees it as good politics. It enables him to dominate the cable coverage, much as he did in 2015 and 2016. By doing so, in all likelihood, he will keep his supporters enthusiastic and united. This will pressure congressional Republicans to back his versions of the policies on which they differ.

As for many political matters, “follow the money” leads us to the right answer on whether Trump is employing a permanent campaign or not. Unlike any president in US history, from the first day in office, Trump started raising money for the next presidential election, something no other president has done. Between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2018, (Table  2.1), Trump’s own campaign committee has raised $67.5  million, while seven major pro-Trump Super Pacs together have

Table 2.1  Fundraising by Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign committee (quarter-by-quarter) Period 2017 Q1 2017 Q2 2017 Q3 2017 Q4 2018 Q1 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2018 Q4 Total

Amount raised 7,000,000 8,000,000 10,500,000 6,500,000 10,000,000 8,500,000 10,000,000 7,000,000 67,500,000

Source: Author’s elaboration on Federal Election Commission (2019)

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Table 2.2  Campaign committee fundraising during presidents’ first two years in office President Donald Trump Barack Obama George W. Bush Bill Clinton George H. W. Bush Ronald Reagan

First two years in office

Amount raised (in dollars)

(2017–2018) (2009–2010) (2001–2002) (1993–1994) (1989–1990) (1981–1982)

67,500,000 4,090,000 2,190,000 2,800,000 1,030,000 548,575

Source: Author’s elaboration on Federal Election Commission (2019) Note: Totals include campaign contributions and other incomes, such as offsets to operating expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers

raised nearly $64 million more, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal campaign finance disclosures (Levinthal, 2019). Table 2.2 shows the striking difference between Trump and his predecessors. Going back until Reagan, often considered as the first permanent campaigner (Blumenthal, 1980; Kernell, 1986), the table illustrates how President Trump raised money as no one else before. In his first two years in office—and with probably no real opponent to face in the 2020 Republican primaries—Trump already raised about 15 percent of what he raised in the 2016 full cycle. Barack Obama, for instance, in his first two years in office, raised 0.002 percent of the total amount of money raised for the 2012 presidential campaign (The New York Times, 2012), and George W. Bush over 2001–2002 raised around 0.15 percent of what he actually raised for the 2004 presidential campaign (OpenSecrets, 2016). Trump is redesigning presidential norms and practices: no other US president was ever involved in such a fundraising operation two years into their respective first terms. No one has ever started their re-election campaign quite as early in their first term as Trump has. Modern presidents usually wait until their third year. Obama filed his re-election campaign paperwork with the FEC on April 3, 2011, almost two months earlier than his predecessor, George W. Bush, had in 2003. President Barack Obama held his campaign kick-­ off rally in Ohio in May 2012, as Mitt Romney was becoming the Republican frontrunner. A partial exception was President Bill Clinton, who filed his paperwork a few weeks after being inaugurated, and his first

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rally happened in 1995, just a few days later in the cycle than Trump’s Florida rally of June 18, 2019 (Koronovski, 2019). Levinthal (2019) noted that in the first two years of administration, “since his inauguration, Trump has conducted at least 57 political rallies— funded in part by his campaign and not official White House business. All but a half-dozen took place in states he won in 2016, allowing him to bolster his bases of support”. And, during the more than a month’s federal government shutdown partially caused by Trump’s proposal to fund a wall on the Mexican border, “Trump repeatedly solicited supporters with shutdown-­ themed fundraising messages. Come-ons included buying a ‘brick’ for $20.20 to send to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and contributing to an ‘Official Secure the Border Fund’ ” (Levinthal, 2019). Interestingly, Trump successfully marketed his political brand also in his first two years as president: Trump T-shirts and products with MAGA logo sold well, and all profits went to Donald J. Trump for president—the official organization for re-election. After the inauguration, Trump, like his predecessors, could have paused his quest for campaign money upon taking office. Instead, almost immediately, on January 27, 2017, the Trump campaign wrote to supporters: “Our Campaign Committee, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., is still here (…) We will act as a beacon for our Movement of hardworking patriots who delivered a historic victory this November”. The message concluded with an invitation to visit Trump’s online campaign store, featuring an array of MAGA-themed merchandise, from red “Make America Great Again” caps ($25) to the most Trump-tastic swimwear found from Pacific to Atlantic ($55) (Levinthal, 2019). And by February 11, 2017, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee—a joint federal fundraising committee composed of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee—began overtly asking supporters for money: “We need to once again harness the same grassroots energy that led us to victory last year”, it wrote in an email. “Please contribute $100, $65, $50, $30, $25, or $10 to help us build a war chest to support President Trump as we face an onslaught of attacks from the far Left” (Levinthal, 2019). Let’s now take a closer look at Trump’s political communication. Has he changed his rhetorical style after becoming president? Did he get rid of all the campaign slogans? Did he abandon an adversarial language— pointed at rivals—in order to embrace a more presidential and bipartisan one? Once again, the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is an excellent

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Table 2.3  Words mentioned in Trump’s tweets before and after election

Make America Great Again #M.A.G.A Hillary Clinton (Crooked Hillary) Barack Obama Bernie Sanders (Crazy Bernie) Joe Biden Elizabeth Warren (Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren) (Goofy Elizabeth Warren) Support to Republican lawmakers running for local and national election

Candidate perioda

Presidential periodb

Total

267 131 695 (280) 224 65 (3) 4 27 (10) (24) 9

157 102 148 (92) 243 12 (4) 1 6 (4) (0) 96

424 233 843 (372) 467 77 (7) 5 33 (14) (24) 105

Source: Author’s elaboration on Trumptwitterarchive.com (2019) Note: Total tweets from realDonaldTrump from June 16, 2015 (candidature announcement) until November 6, 2018 (midterm election). Total tweets for the whole period: 13,655 Candidate period: June 16, 2015–November 8, 2016

a

b

“Presidential” period: November 9, 2016–November 6, 2018

case study for measuring the transition from candidate to president and to see if anything has changed. Indeed, one of the characteristics of Trump’s tweets is that many recurring features of his campaign did not stop when he became president. Table 2.3 summarizes some of these trends. Interestingly, the main slogan of 2016 “Make America Great Again” was not abandoned once Trump got elected: it was tweeted 102 times in the first two years after his ­election. And the correlated hashtag #MAGA was tweeted 157 times, even more than the 131 in which it was used during the election campaign. Another sign of a campaign which never stopped concerns Trump’s attacks toward his long-term Democratic rivals: after November 2016 Hillary Clinton was still mentioned 148 times (92 of which together with the derogatory nickname “crooked”). The frequency is incomparable with that of the campaign (695 mentions), when Clinton was at the center of Trump’s inflammatory tweets, but she is still present in the president’s thoughts. Barack Obama (the only rival for which Trump did not invent one of his catchy and successful nicknames) was mentioned 224 times when he was

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M. MORINI

still president and 243 times following Trump’s election, sometimes with a precise “comparative” purpose. Other top Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden were named more during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Here it is worth mentioning that Sanders is often referred to as “Crazy Bernie” and that Trump’s dislike for Senator Warren is so profound that tweets in which she is not referred to as “Pocahontas” or “goofy” are very rare (even though the word “goofy” has disappeared from his presidential tweets). Below are some examples of President Trump’s tweets focused on his Democratic opponents and on using his 2016 slogan and #MAGA hashtag: • Mar 22, 2018, 05:19:57 AM: Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 16, 2018, 07:16:35 AM: Now that her claims of being of Indian heritage have turned out to be a scam and a lie, Elizabeth Warren should apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public. Harvard called her “a person of color” (amazing con), and would not have taken her otherwise! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 16, 2018, 12:37:05 AM: President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn’t happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it. When I won it became a big deal and the Rigged Witch Hunt headed by Strzok! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 22, 2018, 05:49:25 AM: Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for president was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out—she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam! [Twitter for iPhone] • Sep 8, 2018, 10:45:28 AM: Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China—but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive. Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now. Exciting! #MAGA [Twitter for iPhone]

2  THE PERMANENT CAMPAIGNER 

41

• Dec 14, 2017, 03:35:13  PM: In 1960, there were approximately 20,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. Today there are over 185,000 pages, as seen in the Roosevelt Room. Today, we CUT THE RED TAPE! It is time to SET FREE OUR DREAMS and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/teAVNzjvcx [Twitter for iPhone] The tone of the previous tweets is not that different from the following ones, related to the period of the 2016 presidential campaign: • Oct 20, 2016, 03:52:15  PM: When Obama took office in 2009 employer-provided premiums cost $13,375. Today they are $18,142. Thanks, Obama. [Twitter Web Client] • Oct 17, 2016, 07:19:33 AM: “@MarkSimoneNY: Watch Joe Biden’s Long History Of Grabbing, Kissing and Groping Women Who Are Cringing: https://t.co/1iQCMd25Dz” [Twitter for Android] • May 11, 2016, 12:12:06 PM: Goofy Elizabeth Warren didn’t have the guts to run for POTUS. Her phony Native American heritage stops that and VP cold. [Twitter Web Client] • May 6, 2016, 06:15:58 PM: I hope corrupt Hillary Clinton chooses goofy Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. I will defeat them both. [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 13, 2016, 06:48:44 AM: Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disruptors aren’t told to go to my events. Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours! [Twitter for Android] • Oct 8, 2016, 02:40:48 PM: The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly—I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN! #MAGA [Twitter for Android] • Aug 5, 2016, 11:41:28 AM: I’m with YOU. I will work hard and never let you down. Make America Great Again! https://t.co/ wotYvx6Prz [Twitter Ads] • Jul 27, 2016, 07:57:20 AM: Our not very bright Vice President, Joe Biden, just stated that I wanted to “carpet bomb” the enemy. Sorry Joe, that was Ted Cruz! [Twitter for Android] Something that has consistently increased during Trump’s presidential tenure is the support for other Republican lawmakers who are running for election. His tweets of support were very limited before the 2016 cam-

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paign, while they significantly grew before the 2018 midterm elections. This could be explained by the fact that before the presidential election, Donald Trump was still seen as a divisive figure for the Republican Party: many believed that his chances of winning were poor and the candidate himself was certainly not very well “integrated” within the party. Two years later, despite some minoritarian but persistent internal opposition, Trump is a “Republican President”. He has understood the importance of a prolific dialogue with Republican senators and representatives, and he has slowly built his loyal internal “coalition”. In some states he is very popular, and he is definitely more willing to rally and give his support to fellow Republicans running for state and federal offices. Interestingly, considering the decrease in mentions of Democratic figures such as Warren, Sanders, and Biden, who are already running for the 2020 Democratic nomination, it is worth noting that, in the first two years after the 2016 election, Trump seems not to have messed with the 2020 Democratic primaries, because the mentions of these three people have significantly dropped. Another sign of Trump not abandoning an adversarial political communication comes from his tweets against Muslims: • Nov 29, 2017, 06:43:23  AM: RT @JaydaBF: VIDEO: Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary! https://t.co/qhkrfQrtjV [Twitter for iPhone] • Nov 29, 2017, 06:37:13  AM: RT @JaydaBF: VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches! https://t.co/11LgbfFJDq [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 22, 2016, 09:59:29 PM: Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open— and let the Muslims flow in. No way! [Twitter for Android] • Dec 10, 2015, 08:00:55  AM: Thank you to respected columnist Katie Hopkins of Daily https://t.co/LgtY0qdv9U for her powerful writing on the U.K.’s Muslim problems. [Twitter for Android] • Dec 2, 2015, 05:36:13 PM: “@thumpmomma: I likewise saw militant Muslims burning our flag and burning George Bush photos and figures, right after 9/11! Not#here!” [Twitter for Android] • Nov 25, 2015, 08:03:10  PM: Credible Source on 9-11 Muslim Celebrations: FBI https://t.co/UICDNcftJS via @WKRG [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Sep 21, 2015, 07:32:07  AM: “@TheBrodyFile: On the Muslim issue: It might help @BarackObama if he didn’t take five years to visit Israel” [Twitter for Android] As shown from the tweets above, when he was candidate he repeatedly campaigned to stop Muslims migrating to the United States, he retweeted allegations of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks and—for instance, in the March 22, 2016 tweet—seemed not to differentiate between terrorists and Muslims in general. Despite these extremes, a candidate’s strategy can involve being so hostile to a precise community of voters. Many European politicians and parties are, in fact, adopting similar tactics (Lees, 2018). However, when someone becomes the country’s leader, he also becomes president of all Muslims who are American citizens, which currently account for more than three  million people, according to the latest estimates (Newport, 2017). Consequently, the candidate’s harsh rhetoric should, in theory, soften, or disappear. That was not the case with President Trump, who about a year after his election retweeted two videos which allegedly show Muslim people beating up a white Dutch boy and destroying a Virgin Mary statue. It was definitely a move made in full continuation of his anti-­ Muslims campaign rhetoric. Similar “non-presidential” dynamics concern Trump’s recurring attacks on mainstream media (Rosen, 2017), which is part of his rhetorical strategy. Besides the rallies, the attacks on Twitter, the fundraising, and the specific political communication, the “smoking gun” of the real first presidential permanent campaigner resides in a one-paragraph memorandum submitted to the Federal Election Commission on January 20, 2017—the day of his inauguration. The document simply states: “Please accept this letter as my Form 2 for the 2020 election”. Form 2 is the official declaration for someone’s candidacy. It is the document which allows the submitter to legally raise campaign money for an election. Donald Trump started his 2020 re-election campaign the exact moment he became president. However, one last question needs to be addressed: do American voters like the permanent campaign mood? Or are presidential campaigns too long and too poisoning for voters and for the political environment as a whole? According to a Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll conducted in January 2019, two-thirds of Americans would like presidential campaigns to occur in a limited time frame, versus 14 percent who prefer no limits on how long such campaigns last.

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Table 2.4  Which of the following sentences is closest to your opinion?

US presidential campaigns should come in a limited time frame US presidential campaigns should not be limited Do not know

Total

Total

Democrats

Republicans

Independents

January 2019 (%)

April 2017 (%)

January 2019 (%)

January 2019 (%)

January 2019 (%)

67

65

72

68

68

14

23

15

16

11

19

12

13

16

21

Source: Author’s elaboration on Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll (2019) Notes: Total n = 1005, n Democrats = 336, n Republicans = 358, n Independents = 202. One choice only per respondent

Table 2.4 and Table 2.5 show that two-thirds of the Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll respondents also believe elected officials should be prohibited from raising campaign money during non-election years, with Democrats (72 percent) favoring such a restriction slightly more than independents (65 percent) and Republicans (63 percent). American voters do not seem to like the state of permanent campaign. And it is also true that when a president starts a formal campaign so early in the term, it is difficult for him to appear “statesmanlike” but instead looks partisan. Moreover, the fact that money is being funneled into a campaign so early in the term implies to the public that there is an appearance of quid-pro-quo rather than governing. However, President Trump can enjoy several advantages in installing such a political environment. First of all, he has made sure there will be no legitimate challengers in a primary. Second, holding rallies, showing enthusiastic support, going on offense, and putting Democrats on defense are all things he does very well. Third, the president’s enthusiastic public rallies can help to distract from things that are happening in the news and represent a good move away from bad press. Permanent campaign is the best weapon of mass distraction.

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45

Table 2.5  If there were time limits placed on US presidential campaigns, what do you think is the right time frame for election campaigns to start?

Six weeks before elections Three months before elections Six months before elections One year before elections Two years before elections Four years before elections Do not know

Total

Total

Democrats

Republicans

Independents

January 2019 (%)

April 2017 (%)

January 2019 (%)

January 2019 (%)

January 2019 (%)

9

7

9

9

8

12

13

13

12

8

25

27

25

25

31

32

32

37

34

25

8

8

10

7

7

3

5

1

6

3

11

7

5

8

17

Source: Author’s elaboration on Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll (2019) Note: One selection per respondent only

References Amoretti, F. (1997). La Comunicazione Politica. Un’introduzione. Firenze: Nuova Italia Scientifica. Ball, M. (2016). There’s Nothing Better Than a Scared, Rich Candidate. The Atlantic. Retrieved September 8, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ magazine/archive/2016/10/theres-nothing-better-than-a-scared-richcandidate/497522/ Blumenthal, S. (1980). The Permanent Campaign. New York: AbeBooks. Broh, A. (1980). Horse-Race Journalism: Reporting the Polls in the 1976 Presidential Election. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 44(4), 514–529. Collins, K., Westwood, S., Diamond, J., & Zeleny, J. (2019, June 16). Trump Campaign Fires Multiple Pollsters After Unflattering Numbers Leak. CNN. Retrieved August 21, 2019, from https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/16/ politics/trump-fire-campaign-pollsters-numbers-leak/index.html Cook, T.  E. (1998). Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cook, T. E. (2006). The News Media as a Political Institution: Looking Backward and Looking Forward. Political Communication, 23(2), 159–171.

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Cornwell, E. (1979). Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion. New  York: Greenwood Books. Davis, J.  H., & Rosenberg, M. (2017, January 21). With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift. The New York Times, 21. Edgerly, S. (2015). Red Media, Blue Media, and Purple Media: News Repertoires in the Colorful Media Landscape. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(1), 1–21. Elving, R. (2017, February 17). President Trump Seems Determined to Continue the Permanent Campaign. NPR. Retrieved May 11, 2019, from https://www. npr.org/2017/02/17/515777903/president-trump-seems-determined-tocontinue-the-permanent-campaign?t=1563545270525 Flores, R. (2016). In “60 Minutes” Interview, Donald Trump Weighs Twitter Use as President. CBS News. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews. com/news/donald-trump-60-minutes-inter view-weighs-twitter-useas-president/ Garrett, K. R. (2019). Social Media’s Contribution to Political Misperceptions in U.S.  Presidential Elections. PLoS One, 14(3), e0213500. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213500 Giaritelli, A. (2016, August 31). Trump Slams Clinton for Not Visiting Mexico and Louisiana. The Washington Examiner. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-slams-clinton-for-notvisiting-mexico-and-louisiana Gilles, J. (2018). Political Marketing in the 2016 U.S.  Presidential Election. London: Palgrave Macmillan. GoogleTrends. (2016). How @realDonaldTrump Won the Election in Search. Retrieved March 3, 2019, from https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/ status/796260360873476096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Hjarvard, S. (2008). The Mediatization of Society. Nordicom Review, 29(2), 105–134. Kernell, S. (1986). Going Public. New Strategies of Political Leaderships. New York: CQ Press. Kilgore, E. (2012, February 6). Hyping the Horse Race. Washington Monthly. Retrieved November 16, 2019, from https://washingtonmonthly.com/ 2012/02/06/hyping-the-horse-race/ Koronovski, R. (2019). Why Is Trump Kicking off His Re-election Campaign So Early? Retrieved April 25, 2019, from https://thinkprogress.org/ trump-re-election-bid-rally-kickoff-permanent-campaign-florida-speech30b5f111e91e/ Lapowsky, I. (2016). A Lot of People Are Saying Trump’s New Data Team Is Shady. Wired. Retrieved September 1, 2019, from https://www.wired. com/2016/08/trump-cambridge-analytica/ Lees, C. (2018). The ‘Alternative for Germany’: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism at the Heart of Europe. Politics, 38(3), 295–310.

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Levinthal, D. (2019). Donald Trump Created a Permanent Presidential Campaign. Here’s How. Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/donald-trump-presidentcampaign-money-fundraising/ Maza, C. (2018, February 8). The Trump-Fox & Friends Feedback Loop, Explained. Vox. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://www.vox. com/2018/2/9/16997022/strikethrough-trump-fox-friends-feedbackloopexplained-tweet Mazzoleni, G. (2014). Mediatization and Political Populism. In F.  Esser & J. Strömbäck (Eds.), Mediatization of Politics: Understanding the Transformation of Western Democracies (pp.  42–56). Basingstoke and New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., Kiley, J., & Matsa, K. (2014). Political Polarization & Media Habits. Retrieved May 28, 2019, from http://www.journalism. org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/ Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Murray, S. K., & Howard, P. (2002). Variations in White House Polling Operations: Carter to Clinton. Public Opinion Quarterly, 66(4), 527–558. New York Times. (2012). The 2012 Money Race: Compare the Candidates Obama. The New  York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from https://www. nytimes.com/elections/2012/campaign-finance.html Newport, F. (2017). 2017 Update on Americans and Religion. Gallup. Retrieved October 28, 2019, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/224642/2017-­ update-­americans-religion.aspx OpenSecrets. (2016). 2004 Presidential Race. Centre for Responsive Politics. Retrieved July 23, 2019, from https://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/ Ornstein, N., & Mann, T. (2000). The Permanent Campaign and Its Future. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Pindell, J. (2017, March 16). Under Trump, ‘Permanent Campaign’ Takes on a Whole New Meaning. Boston Globe. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https:// www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/16/under-trump-permanent-campaign-takes-whole-new-meeting/DhZCLgG2DMCsiAgbC96bcM/story.html Roncarolo, F. (1994). Controllare I Media. Milano: Franco Angeli. Rosen, C. (2017, August 31). All the Times Donald Trump Has Called the Media ‘Fake News’ on Twitter. Entertainment. Retrieved July 4, 2019, from http:// ew.com/tv/2017/06/27/donald-trump-fake-news-twitter/ Sabato, L., & Ernst, H. R. (2006). Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections. New York: Checkmark Books. Schrøder, K. C. (2015). News Media Old and New: Fluctuating Audiences, News Repertoires and Locations of Consumption. Journalism Studies, 16(1), 60–78. Sheingate, A. (2016). Building a Business of Politics. The Rise of Political Consulting and the Transformation of American Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Smith, J.  M. (2017). The Man Who Predicted the Rise of Donald Trump  – in 1976. BuzzFeedNews. Retrieved June 3, 2019, from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jordanmichaelsmith/the-man-who-predicted-the-riseof-donald-trump-in-1976 Tenpas, K. D., & McCann, J. (2007). Testing the Permanence of the Permanent Campaign: An Analysis of Presidential Polling Expenditures, 1977–2002. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71(3), 349–366. TrumpTwitterArchive. (2019). Trump Twitter Archive. Retrieved September 28, 2019, from http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/ Tsfati, Y. (2010). Online News Exposure and Trust in the Mainstream Media: Exploring Possible Associations. American Behavioral Scientist, 54(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764210376309 Tulis, J. (1987). The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Turner, M., Underhill, J.  C., & Kaid, L.  L. (2013). Mood and Reactions to Political Advertising: A Test and Extension of the Hedonic Contingency Hypothesis. Southern Communication Journal, 78(1), 8–24. Vavreck, L., & Sides, J. (2014). The Gamble. Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Walshe, S., Keneally, M., Stracqualursi, V., & Struyk, R. (2016, September 16). 10 Moments That Mattered from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s First Debate. ABC News. Retrieved November 20, 2019, from https://abcnews. go.com/Politics/presidential-debate-10-moments-mattered/stor y?id= 42366107 Woods, O. (2016). How Donald Trump Won an Election with Digital Marketing. Retrieved July 31, 2019, from https://www.mumbrella.asia/2016/11/ donald-trump-won-election-digital-marketing Yuan, E. (2011). News Consumption Across Multiple Media Platforms: A Repertoire Approach. Information. Communication & Society, 14(7), 998–1016. Zoizner, A. (2018). The Consequences of Strategic News Coverage for Democracy: A Meta Analysis. Communication Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0093650218808691

CHAPTER 3

The Clowning Performer

At the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2011, Barack Obama sharply announced: “Donald Trump is here tonight! (…) We all know about your credentials and breadth of experience.” Obama pauses, surfing a wave of laughter. Trump gently nods at the quip and raises an eyebrow (Lee, 2019). Donald Trump was not taken seriously. In July 2019, a secret British diplomatic cable was revealed and it attracted international media coverage. The memo’s author, British ambassador Kim Darroch, referred to President Trump as a “clown” (Chait, 2019). The leaked cable validated questions about Trump’s fitness for office, it almost created a diplomatic crisis, and later the ambassador had to resign. Just a few weeks before, former Vice president Joe Biden, when asked at a South Carolina fundraiser if he had a nickname for the president, said: “There’s so many nicknames I’m inclined to give this guy, you can just start with ‘clown.’” This answer was a clear response to Trump’s renowned attitude of successfully inventing nicknames like “Crooked” Hillary Clinton, “Lyin” Ted Cruz, “Goofy Pocahontas” Elizabeth Warren, and “Crazy” Bernie Sanders. The president has also repeatedly referred to Biden as “Sleepy Joe” (O’Reilly, 2019). Two people, two prominent figures, referred to President Trump as clown. Those were clearly insults, or harsh criticism at least. But clown is not only an insult. The clowning side of politics can also have a fascinating effect on voters; it can be a successful tool for attracting people’s consensus. © The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5_3

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50 

M. MORINI

The power of laughter, the necessity to create an empathetic relation with the people, the strategy of appearing like a simple man, like a “fun buddy”: these are all strategies that contemporary politics require from candidates and leaders. The de-politicization of politics, the mixture of different linguistic and imaginary styles, the logic of entertaining politics, the predominance of TV and social media: they all contribute to political leaders being used to TV cameras, showing prima-donna behavior, ready to joke, showing nonchalance. Contemporary political leaders have to be entertainers, to amuse the public/voters, to make them laugh (and sometimes scare them). Just like a clown. As was astutely observed: Referring to Donald Trump as a clown would hardly be an original stroke of genius on the part of any commentator (…) there are ways in which the term may also be literally, technically accurate. For example, Trump has been paid to entertain people—make them laugh—on television. He has had his own reality show, he co-starred in a McDonald’s commercial with Grimace, and he comically cavorted on Saturday Night Live. Moreover, he has funny and strange hair and a brightly colored face. A big tie. Tiny hands. He likes to make funny faces and voices and make himself ridiculous (…) And like the clown, there are those two sides to him. To some he is funny and entertaining, a welcome and unthreatening presence. To others, he is terrifying, a monster, even otherworldly. (NowThisNews, 2019)

Trump does not laugh much, but he likes to joke: “he joshes like a 1980s stand-up comedian. He makes archetypal ‘dick jokes’ (‘I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee it’). He does impressions—of disabled reporters. He flatters the audience, telling them they were his best crowd all week. He smack-talks like a school cheerleader” (Lee, 2019). Politics and entertainment are also intrinsic to North American culture. The rise of entertaining politics was captured by Debord more than 50 years ago (1967: 218): The spectator’s consciousness, imprisoned in a flattened universe, bound by the screen of the spectacle behind which his life has been deported, knows only the fictional speakers who unilaterally surround him with their commodities and the politics of their commodities. The spectacle, in its entirety, is his ‘mirror image’.

Frills and majorettes, music bands and country singers, celebrities and shows: in the United States, political rallies have always been true

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51

e­ ntertaining shows, and they are made not only to attract and amuse participants but also to let voters identify themselves with it. The personalization of politics is also at its maximum: both for a majority voting system employed at any level, from the choice of the local county’s sheriff to the presidential election, and for an articulated image strategy focused on the individual and aimed to stimulate attraction, admiration (fundraising), and self-identification. The centrality of the mass media and their relevance in the surge of entertaining politics is relatively recent. However, early signs of entertaining politics were already visible in 1932, when the radio started amplifying political messages and Franklin D. Roosevelt masterminded it, spreading his slogans, his persuasive voice even to the most rural parts of the country (Prospero, 2010). For the first time, a candidate was becoming a celebrity. In the political sociology of the immediate aftermath of WWII, scholars such as Cooley, Park, and Wirth believed that the spread of mass media would give birth to a new sunrise for democracy, focusing on the “aseptic” nature of the communication tools. On the other hand, the Frankfurt school (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and later Habermas) started demonizing the mass media, and especially TV—because they considered politics as the domain of seriousness and engagement, not of distraction and fun. Celebrity politics would have been a nightmare for them (Blumler & McQuail, 1968). When mass media started becoming largely widespread among citizens, their role began to be crucial. In 1960, in the first “televised” presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy could exhibit all his mastery with the media, his self-confidence, and the ability to joke and respond quickly. Gray and shabby, with eyes looking down, Nixon was literally destroyed on TV: he was simply incapable of dealing with the new medium. It took him several years to develop TV appearance skills. Nixon worked on himself, carefully re-drafting his own image and then having control of the medium. And in the 1968 presidential campaign, he was a different Nixon, this time clearly exceeding his opponent Hubert Humphrey. Sociologist Russell Middleton, in a well-known research on mass media effects, in analyzing the Nixon-Kennedy TV debates wrote that those had a very important role in at least one voter out of eight. And Kennedy’s success among these voters had effects on the final outcome (Middleton, 1962: 29). Being at ease on TV (can) make the presidents. Candidates need to be able to handle the unexpected, to answer right away, to seduce the audience with words, gesture, and jokes (McGinnis, 1988). Already in

52 

M. MORINI

1986, Meyrowitz explained how “leaders try to act more like the ‘person next door’ and at the same time real neighbors want to have a greater say in  local, national, and international affairs” (1986: 161). Meyrowitz argued against the loss of moral authority that traditional leaderships preserved because of their distance to audience. In doing so, he seemed to predict the current extra-intimacy granted to political leaders and voters by the horizontal communication of social media. Playwright Arthur Miller (2001) made several observations on politicians as actors and the affinities between politics and theater: “we live in an age of entertainment, but is it a good thing that our political life, for one, be so profoundly governed by the modes of theatre, from tragedy to vaudeville to farce? (…) Politicians, by assuming personalities not genuinely their own—let’s say six-pack, lunch box types—they hope to connect with ordinary Americans”. And, in describing the mutated characteristics of politics and the peculiarities of Ronald Reagan’s appeal, he also seemed to have predicted the arrival of Donald Trump: “the parallels between acting and politics are really innumerable (…) it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. (…) In Reagan the dividing line between acting and actuality was simply melted, gone. Human beings—as the poet said—cannot bear very much reality, and the art of politics is our best proof” (2001: 4–5). The necessary current “laws” of TV shows and entertainment politics require politicians to joke, to entertain people, and be a comedian, a good performer; just being someone at ease on TV is definitely a worthy asset. Contemporary politics seem to be characterized by the demise of political elites, the loss of mainstream politics, the end of the time of people giving a mandate to the informed and cultured elite. Now, average citizens seem to prefer average citizens to be in charge, and all politics is reshaping around candidates and presidents who need not only to be in line with the masses but to look and reason like them, even in the shoddiest aspects. The time seems long gone when opposite political sides had to confront each other in the public sphere, calmly debating different proposals and favoring cooperation over confrontation. Communication was modulated with respect to the different spheres, considering places, circumstances, recipients (Desideri, 1984: 35). Now aggressive populism dominates and it doesn’t differentiate between the different arenas. Everything is contaminated and—no matter what—later re-amplified throughout social media. The only goal is to increase audience and consensus, mostly through emotional appeals (Prospero, 2010). There is no

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interest for the forms; simple contents just prevail. The speaker privileges a communication centered on external references, directed toward an indistinct audience to be enchanted with symbols, suggestive images, and jokes. Old-style measured communication doesn’t pay off anymore, people are uninterested, the media prefer not to cover it, it’s boring, and it doesn’t attract viewers. Vocabulary is minimal and the variety of words very limited; the speaker prefers to use stereotypical and most common expressions—because he has to speak like people speak. Trump’s speeches, for instance, have a syntactic complexity which can be understood by a third-grade elementary school student. In his 2016 campaign speeches, the ten most repeated words were: “people”, “great”, “now”, “country”, “China”, “good”, “right”, “big”, “world”, “billion” (Sendhu, 2016). Trump is used to saying “you” and “us”, especially if referred to generic “them”, such as illegal immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian refugees (“young, strong men”). He likes to use a particularly masculine language, with a specific verbal violence characterized by the constant recurring of words such as “kill”, “destroy”, “fight” (Healy & Haberman, 2015). Frankness, rudeness, and candor are characteristics of Trump’s political communication. And privileging emotional appeals over rational arguments is a rhetorical style that is nested in the tradition of US politics and dates back to a historical background which includes figures like Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, and Pat Buchanan: all hardline conservatives, charismatic leaders, populists. In the 2016 campaign, Trump invited his supporters to react against some protesters (“Get’em out of here!”, he shouted in a famous rally), “I’d like to punch him in the face” he said in another event. From disdained journalists to political opponents, Trump calls his rivals “disgusting” and “losers” (Miller, 2016). And it is not just violent rhetoric, it is how most people speak in daily routine, among friends, family. It’s the language that people hear from TV, movies, series. Trump just reconnects to the average voters: he needs to be understandable, clear, straight. And when words are not enough, he can always rely on his showman skills: entertaining the audience with jokes and funny stories, and acting as a clowning performer. Donald Trump is known to large audiences since the early 1980s, thanks to consistent appearances on TV and cinema. The New York-born billionaire starred in 12 movies and 14 TV series, almost always starring as himself. Thanks to this proficient acting job, he has been nominated for

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Emmy Awards twice and he receives an annual pension of about 110,000 dollars from the actors and movie directors’ association (Handel, 2015). A crucial moment, in order to understand the future political rhetoric of politician Trump, came in 2003, when he became the executive producer and TV host of the NBC’s reality show The Apprentice. The show revolves around a group of competitors who play against each other for winning a high-profile job post in one of Trump’s businesses. The TV program’s success was immediate and massive, mostly led by Trump’s performance and his peculiar behavior, characterized by cruel gags, straight language, and direct jokes. Among many, Trump coined the successful catchphrase “you’re fired!”. And, curiously, in 2004, Trump officially registered the trademark “you’re fired!” (Koffler, 2015). For the first season, Trump was paid 50,000 dollars per episode. From the second season, and after the astonishing success, Trump began receiving one million dollars per episode. And in a press conference in 2015, one of Trump’s aides said that the at-the-time candidate had received a total of 214 million dollars from NBC for all fourteen seasons, a figure that the TV network has not confirmed (Byers, 2015). The fifteenth season was put on hold because Trump “was considering to run for President” (Feeley, 2015) and he was later replaced by actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, for the “Celebrity Apprentice” version of the show. Interestingly, Trump directly criticized Schwarzenegger in two tweets: “Wow, the ratings were released, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was flooded (or destroyed) compared to the rating machine, DJT. It’s not worth being … a movie star and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare it to my season 1. But who cares, supported Kasich and Hillary” he tweeted on January 6, 2017. Then in February, again: “Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger did a really bad job as Governor of California and even worse on The Apprentice … but at least he tried!”. Since he was elected president, Trump has criticized people who have nothing to do with politics or are not elected officials. He is particularly active against TV celebrities and movie stars who are openly opposing him. For instance, he went against the award-winning actress Meryl Streep, who criticized him (without naming him directly) for mocking a journalist with a disability, at the Golden Globes of 2017: Meryl Streep, one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but she attacked me last night at the Golden Globes. She is a lackey of Hillary (Clinton) who lost big. For the 100th time, I never made

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fun of a disabled reporter (I would never), but only showed ‘crawling’ when he totally changed a 16-year-old story in order to make me look bad. More of the dishonest means.

Streep responded in February of that year, at a Human Rights Campaign event, saying in an ironic tone: “I am the most overrated and over-awarded actress of my generation”. Trump also criticized Alec Baldwin, who imitates him on “Saturday Night Live”: “Alec Baldwin, whose dying and mediocre career was saved by his terrible imitation of me in SNL, now says that interpreting me was an agony. Alec, it was an agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring Darrell Hammond back, more fun and a lot more talent!”, he tweeted on March 2, 2018. Part of Trump’s pre-political celebrity belongs to sport (and, crucially, on the consistent TV coverage of sports event). In the 1980s he was an active boxing promoter, often organizing fights in the Atlantic City Convention Hall, strategically based next to his Trump Plaza. Among others, he organized the heavyweight title’s match Tyson vs. Spinks on June 27, 1988. For some months he was also Tyson’s financial advisor (Anderson, 1988). Trump notoriously loves boxing and football, and in 1983 he bought the New Jersey General in the first season of the then new United States Football League. In his venues he hosted the major world wrestling event twice (WrestleMania) and on several occasions he even went into the ring. For these reasons, in 2013, he was introduced to the World Wrestling Hall of Fame. Moreover, in 1989 and 1990, Trump named a homonymous cycling race (“Tour de Trump”) which aimed to be the US version of the Tour de France (Hogan, 2016). Obviously, all these events were widely televised and all contributed to Trump’s fame long before entering politics. Furthermore, in Chap. 4, it is highlighted how sport (and boxing and wrestling, in particular) forged his distinctive vocabulary and choice of metaphors. Trump was also actively involved in organizing beauty pageant events such as Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA.  In 1999 he also founded his model agency, based in SoHO, Manhattan (Rosenberg, McNeill, Twohey, & Conlin, 2016). Trump knows that he is speaking to audiences who lack trust in politics. And when people cease to take traditional institutions seriously, those who have not been taken seriously have a relative advantage. A 2015 Pew Research Center report showed that overall trust in government had fallen from 73 percent in 1958 (rising to a peak of 77 percent under Johnson in 1964) to a mere 19 percent in 2015. Only 20 percent of Americans thought government programs are well run. Less than ten percent of

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Republicans had trust in government. And even for Democrats, that same figure was only a little over 30 percent. Aristotle wrote that the enlargement of the audience requires the adoption of colorless clichés and forces an inevitable contraction of the political discourse. The language is colorful in the single expressions but poor in its content (Aristotle, 2010: 1412). In reaching an average universal listener, the political rhetoric becomes poor, vulgar with low argumentative resource. The politician has to use the language of comedy, sometimes inevitably vulgar, in order to entertain and amuse the listener, now identified in a lazy average common man who can be the recipient of any de-­ politicized message (Bergson, 2002). In classic rhetoric, the ridiculous, the laughing, and joking are expressive forms that should be used with extreme caution because they “come from the irrational” and people not only laugh at smart and gentle moves but also at “stupid, raging and undefined jokes, so the nature of laughing in politics is ambiguous and might not be that far from derision” (Quintiliano, 2001: 1037).1 As a heterodox and pessimistic Marxist, Theodor Adorno understood the logic of clowning and explained that clown performances recall an archaic rationality premised on close, affective, mimetic relations that is distinct from the distant, detached, instrumental rationality that predominates in modern society. Clown performances exemplify the interpenetration of the political and the everyday: in fact, Adorno believed that successful political acts feature a clownish quality. He identified that precisely like circus performers whose unfathomable agility, excessive vitality, gags, bits, and skits constitute a crucial characteristic; transmitting political messages in contemporary society requires a clownish attribute (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002). Meanwhile, because emotions play a crucial role in the “surfacing” of individual and collective bodies through the way in which emotions circulate between bodies and signs, Donald Trump’s public speeches and tweets can be considered as performances which highlight the role of affect in politics and help us understand how these political performances hold together disparate interests, histories, and visions of the future. In a script of political performance that usually bridges the public and the private, in order to mobilize political traction. Pierre Bourdieu believed that politics can best be analyzed through a performative lens (2002). Indeed, Donald

1

 English translation provided by the Author.

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Trump’s past TV experiences can be seen as training for his following political adventure. Trump seems to laugh at traditional politics, at slow institutions and he shows it with the proud face of the boss, the same one that he masterfully exhibited in the 14 seasons of The Apprentice. The “boss face” is the metaphor for fast decision-making, for business-like administration, for the populist dream of taking decisions without checks and balances. Sigmund Freud highlighted how comedy pitches ignite a mechanism of pleasure that covers unpleasant meanings and help to overtake any serious topic. It’s the creation of a pleasant effect (Prospero, 2010). Speaking informally helps in building an empathetic relation with the people, and with the aid of jokes, nicknames, and slogans, the clowning performer decapitates the traditional criteria of politics—making it the reign of informal, everyday language, distracting from serious issues and complicated policies. It’s the language of TV: short and simple sentences, fragmented thoughts, repetition of the same few words, abuse of superlatives. Even official political events undergo a specific storytelling which now re-focuses them on bilateral friendships, on direct relationship between the leaders, lacking any residual liturgy. The traditional conventions of old politics are gone. Everything is informal; there is no separation between public and private. In addressing a very serious topic, such as the US-North Korea relations, President Trump tweeted, in full childish style: • Jan 2, 2018, 07:49:19 PM: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works! [Twitter for iPhone] • Sep 23, 2017, 10:08:07 PM: Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N.  If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer! [Twitter for iPhone] With “Little Rocket Man” being another nickname coined for North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un. Similar tweets have been directed against Iran:

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• Sep 25, 2018 05:53:41  AM: Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 2, 2018, 07:09:17  AM: The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their “pockets.” The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 7, 2017, 07:04:01 AM: I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy—yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1in terror, no problem! [Twitter for Android] International relations meetings seem just like funny situation comedies. And as Hobbes argued “in family-style moments, in situations of relaxation, a person can play with sounds, jokes and equivocal word meanings. But not in front of unknown people, where every word game may sound weird or equivocal” (2006: 59).2 When the language and the rhetorical protocols are completely relaxed and liberalized, also the informed and reflexive recipient of the message is missing. And what is communicated is an indistinct populist voice aiming to seduce a large infantilized mass. As Merker (2009: 92) clearly analyzed, “a charismatic voice makes people a generic entity, often something like a mythical-mystic magma”. Again, Aristotle (1996: 355) had already explained how the game, the getaway from reasoning, can be a strategic choice of the political leader: “it’s not always advisable to raise the listener’s attention, and that’s why often many speakers prefer to make listeners laugh”.3 The emotional/sentimental curving of language is transcending the usual dichotomy of true/false, (politically) correct/incorrect. And public opinion now has to face the difficulties in defining common sense. The clowning effect of anti-politics rhetoric is full of metaphors and more-or-­ less subtle messages directed against the Parliament, the judiciary, the separation of powers. A persuasion strategy that places charisma over old-­ style politics forms of representation. The clowning performer is extraordinarily nihilistic against the traditional forms of representation and regenerating toward the new form of charismatic leadership based on 2 3

 English translation provided by the Author.  English translation provided by the Author.

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populism. Acting and speaking like a TV comedian is a mask which helps him in identifying with the people, in destroying any separation between politics and mass society. But it is just a mask; it is appearance and not reality. The mass of citizens are just a passive audience in front of the skillful, jovial, and manipulative political leader—in a dynamics of enlightenment and metaphysics (Heidegger, 1979: 39). In the early American Republic, Tocqueville (1981: 580) appreciated the stylistic and content distinction between rhetorical strategies used in public rallies, with journalists, and in speaking in Capitol Hill. Now the comedian/performer breaks the formalities, the codes of democratic confrontation, making it incomprehensible to compare ideas and policies. The principle of reality is overwhelmed by the emotional flow activated by the constant excitement of the public discourse. And this clowning performance is not based on what Hegel (2006: 79) identified as irony, based on acute and smart observation, but on a laugh of “contempt, disdain”. How else can coining childish nicknames for (perceived) political opponents be defined? And Trump rarely smiles; he prefers to coldly make fun of others. Table 3.1 summarizes the most employed nicknames used by Trump as candidate and then in his two years after the 2016 election. As a candidate, Trump coined a nickname for every primary opponent (mostly “lightweight” and “lying”), and then in the presidential campaign, he constantly referred to Hillary Clinton as “crooked”. “Dope/ dopey/crazy” nicknames were reserved for journalists and political pundits who were critical toward him (Mergyn Kelly, Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, and many others). The New York Times has always been “failing” (before and after the 2016 elections) and “dummy” was consistently used against many targets. Trump’s violent rhetoric softened after he became president (since the election, in his tweets he never used the words “dope/dopey”, “dumb/ dummy”, “goofy”). However, his comedy-style activity of coining nicknames did not stop. New political rivals showed up and new nicknames were invented: “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer”, “Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren”, among many. And others kept up: “Crazy Bernie Sanders”, “Crooked Hillary”, incredibly still in the president’s thoughts—mentioned 92 times after the election. The so-called Russiagate was promptly re-named as “Rigged (Russian) Witch Hunt”. As Quintiliano observed centuries ago, “a superficial politician can seduce a low cultured public using a second-rate oratory based on childish

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Table 3.1  Nicknames coined by Trump Candidate period a Presidential period b Crooked Lightweight

Lying Dope/Dopey

Failing Dummy Crazy

Rigged Cryin’ Pocahontas Goofy Sleepy Eyes

Hillary Clinton Marco Rubio Jeb Bush Others Ted Cruz Others Mort Zuckermann Karl Rove Others New York Times Others Miscellaneous Bernie Sanders Joe Biden Mergyn Kelly Maxine Waters Others (Russian) Witch Hunt Chuck Schumer Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Chuck Todd

280 19 4 19 21 12 8 7 21 79 4 26 3 0 10 2 26 47 0 10 24 13

92 0 0 3 0 25 0 0 0 60 1 0 4 1 0 3 22 0 11 4 0 5

Total 372 19 4 22 21 37 8 7 21 139 5 26 7 1 10 5 48 47 11 14 24 18

Source: Author’s elaboration on Trumptwitterarchive.com (2019) Note: Total tweets from realDonaldTrump from June 16, 2015 (candidature announcement) until November 6, 2018 (midterm elections). Total tweets for the whole period: 13655 Candidate period: June 16, 2015–November 8, 2016

a

b

“Presidential” period: November 9, 2016–November 6, 2018

games, jokes and empty common-places” (2001: 2071).4 Some of Trump’s tweets containing nicknames for opponents or disliked journalists are particularly harsh: • Oct 15, 2018, 06:51:59  PM: Open enrollment starts today on lower-priced Medicare Advantage plans so loved by our great seniors. Crazy Bernie and his band of Congressional Dems will outlaw these plans. Disaster! [Twitter for iPhone]

4

 English translation provided by the Author.

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• Aug 25, 2018, 08:05:42  AM: Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD. Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 16, 2018, 06:37:15 PM: “The FBI received documents from Bruce Ohr (of the Justice Department & whose wife Nelly worked for Fusion GPS).” Disgraced and fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok. This is too crazy to be believed! The Rigged Witch Hunt has zero credibility. [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 27, 2018, 07:47:58 PM: The only things the Democrats do well is “Resist,” which is their campaign slogan, and “Obstruct.” Cryin’ Chuck Schumer has almost 400 great American people that are waiting “forever” to serve our Country! A total disgrace. Mitch M should not let them go home until all approved! [Twitter for iPhone] • Apr 22, 2018, 07:50:22 AM: Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 11, 2016, 06:04:25  PM: Wow, @CNN Town Hall questions were given to Crooked Hillary Clinton in advance of big debates against Bernie Sanders. Hillary & CNN FRAUD! [Twitter for Android] • May 6, 2016, 09:44:44 PM: Goofy Elizabeth Warren and her phony Native American heritage are on a Twitter rant. She is too easy! I’m driving her nuts. [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 17, 2016, 11:58:04  AM: Highly overrated & crazy @megynkelly is always complaining about Trump and yet she devotes her shows to me. Focus on others Megyn! [Twitter Web Client] • Feb 10, 2016, 07:58:39 AM: Dopey Mort Zuckerman, owner of the worthless @NYDailyNews, has a major inferiority complex. Paper will close soon! [Twitter for iPhone] When Trump speaks in public, he is like a celebrity on stage, and he knows how to calculate words, pauses, and the tone of voice. He is used to stage, to cameras, and he knows how to play with mass media, especially with TV. He has a long experience with it; it is his favorite setting. He knows the gestures, the rhythm, how to cheer the audience, how to impress it

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and how to play with symbols and symbolic images. He is an experienced and skilled performer who aims to establish a relation of confidence and full complicity with the listeners. Every time he wants to show that he has nothing to do with old-style serious politics, he knows how to joke, he has the simple solution for every issue, without many complexities and complications. In setting the communication in comedy style, he can transform the political rally into a full entertaining performance, limiting the space for complex reasoning and complicated contents. The audience will hear the same simple answers that they believe should be done; it will experience a full sensation of identification with the speaker, with simple solutions offered in a pleasant and funny framework, equipped with jokes, nicknames, and mockeries. As Schumpeter warned, “voters have a limited sense of reality (…) and are hostile to long and complex thinkings”.5 Average citizens have limits in assimilating data and information and fully react only to emotional acts. Schumpeter seems to have predicted the social media logics: all in all the audience just know what they like and what they don’t, and the de-politicized, clowning-style communication is the perfect strategy: mass audiences just cheer or place a “like” and a “thumb up” on their favored social media platform, without arguing, confronting, reflecting (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 2001: 198). Voters are mostly passive recipients and politics is reduced to marketing. Also Roland Barthes (1972) reflected on how jokes and clowning in politics attract a vast audience which is inevitably attracted by the lowest and least complex linguistic styles. In this way, Trump often echoed Silvio Berlusconi’s rhetorical styles, also based on jokes, name-crippling, and hyper-simplification. According to Thompson, “Berlusconi is a Trump ante litteram” (2017: 172). Trump’s hyper-simplified, conspirationist, funny, politically incorrect language is the language that millions of Americans speak at home, among friends, and in their families. Or, worse, it is just what they think. When they hear a candidate (a president) speaking like them, they naturally establish an empathetic connection. It is the true language of populism. Very effective, reshaping politics. And empathy is key to political persuasion (Feinberg & Willer, 2015). The way people perceive groups and empathize with others shapes their political ideology (Sparkman, Edelman, & Till, 2019). 5

 English translation provided by the Author.

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The “new” political leader needs to establish empathy with the voters, with the audience, speaking their language, reasoning like them. This is different from showing empathy; it is a process that brings the voter into a spiral of self-identification, of igniting identity politics. McLaughlin and Macafee (2019), for instance, demonstrated how when politicians increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings, it leads to increased identification with that politician, which then affects political support. Reicher and Haslam (2016) suggest that Trump’s skills as a collective sense maker—someone who shaped and responded to the perspective of his audience—were very much the secret of his success. They also claimed that: a Trump rally involved much more than just a Trump speech (…) is even more essential to look at the event as a performance of a particular worldview. Once again, the charge of irrationalism can serve to obscure; for if we view Trump crowds as mindless mobs led by primitive urges and stirred up by a narcissistic demagogue (…) a Trump rally was a dramatic enactment of a particular vision of America (…) it enacted how Trump and his followers would like America to be. Trump’s standard argument had three key elements. The first asserted that America, once great, is now weak and repeatedly humiliated by others (…) The second element is that America’s decline was framed as resulting from the actions of its enemies. These enemies are in part external: China and Mexico and other countries who, in his view, cheat, are corrupt and take the jobs and wealth of ordinary Americans (…) The third part of Trump’s argument went on to identify the all-important solution: himself. Throughout his speeches, Trump insisted that he is not like other politicians.

Trump is portraying himself as a prototypical “ordinary American”. And the clowning performances help him in referring to a classic populist confection in which that world is divided into two groups: the common people and a privileged elite. The way Trump talks (the crude, undiplomatic, violent forms of expression) and what he says are not incidental. They are part of his performance as an exemplary American. But it is not enough to be “one of us”. Success also depends on being seen to “do it for us”, acting for the people’s interest. Trump is aware of the contradiction of being one of the wealthiest persons in the country and portraying himself as the champion of ordinary people fighting against the elites. That is why he constantly says he is not

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acting to enrich himself; he does not need any more money. Equally, he cannot be bought to serve the interests of others, such as the international (non-American) elite. While Hillary Clinton was being paid to speak on Wall Street, Trump proclaimed that he was free to “tell it like it is”— something regularly cited as a source of his strength and a major reason why people voted for him (Reicher & Haslam, 2016). And the clowning mask also serves for this strategy of camouflage, to look like an ordinary citizen while standing firmly against the evil elites, which are always somewhere else.

References Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Anderson, A. (1988). Sports of The Times; Trump: Promoter Or Adviser? The New  York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from http://www.nytimes. com/1988/07/12/spor ts/spor ts-of-the-times-trump-promoter-oradviser.html Aristotle. (1996). Politics: Books III and IV. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. (2010). Retorica. Milano: Mondadori. Barthes, R. (1972). La retorica antica. Milano: Bompiani. Bergson, H. (2002). Il Riso. Saggio sul Significato del Comico. Milano: SE. Blumler, J., & McQuail, D. (1968). Television in Politics: Its Uses and Influence. London: Faber & Faber. Bourdieu, P. (2002). Campo del potere e campo intellettuale. Roma: Manifestolibri. Byers, D. (2015). Trump Claims $213M Payout for ‘Apprentice’. Politico. Retrieved May 22, 2019, from http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/07/ trump-claims-213m-payout-for-apprentice-210595 Chait, J. (2019, July 9). Why Trump Fears the Secret British Memo Calling Him a Clown. The Intelligencer. Retrieved August 2, 2019, from http://nymag. com/intelligencer/2019/07/trump-fears-secret-british-memo-kimdarroch.html de Tocqueville, A. (1981). La democrazia in America. Torino: Einaudi. Debord, G. (1967). La Société du Spectacle. Paris: Buchet Chastel. Desideri, P. (1984). Teoria e prassi del discorso politico. Roma: Bulzoni. Feeley, P. (2015). Trump Won’t Renew ‘Apprentice’ So That He Might Focus on a Presidential Run. Retrieved August 8, 2019, from http://www.unionleader. com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20150227/NEWS0605/150229334/ 1010/Art Feinberg, M., & Willer, R. (2015). From Gulf to Bridge: When Do Moral Arguments Facilitate Political Influence? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(12), 16–65.

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Handel, J. (2015). How Did Donald Trump Get a $110K SAG Pension? The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/trump-fec-financial-disclosure-2015.pdf Healy, P., & Haberman, M. (2015, December 5). 95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, from Donald Trump’s Tongue. The New  York Times. Retrieved August 6, 2019, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/politics/ 95000-words-many-of-them-ominous-from-donald-trumps-tongue.html Hegel, G.  W. F. (2006). Phenomenologie De L’esprit. Paris: Bibliotheque Des Textes Philosophiques. Heidegger, M. (1979). Sentieri interrotti. Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Hobbes, T. (2006). Leviatano. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Hogan, K. (2016). The Strange Tale of Donald Trump’s 1989 Biking Extravaganza. Politico. Retrieved July 27, 2019, from http://www.politico.com/magazine/ story/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-tour-de-trump-bike-race-213801 Koffler, J. (2015). Donald Trump’s 16 Biggest Business Failures and Successes. Time. Retrieved June 2, 2019, from http://time.com/3988970/ donald-trump-business/ Lee, J. (2019, May 17). Send in the Clowns: How Comedy Conquered Politics. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 21, 2019, from https://www.ft.com/ content/5d25d042-756e-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab McGinnis, J. (1988). The Selling of the President. New York: Penguin. McLaughlin, B., & Macafee, T. (2019). Becoming a Presidential Candidate: Social Media Following and Politician Identification. Mass Communication and Society, 22, 584–603. Merker, N. (2009). Filosofie del populismo. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Meyrowitz, J. (1986). No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Middleton, R. (1962). National TV Debates and Presidential Voting Decisions. Public Opinion Quarterly, 26, 426–429. Miller, A. (2001). On Politics and the Art of Acting. London: Viking Penguin. Miller, C. C. (2016, March 15). Measuring Trump’s Language: Bluster But Also Words That Appeal to Women. The New York Times. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/upshot/donald-trump-isamong-the-most-feminine-sounding-candidates.html NowThisNews. (2019). What Do Clowns, Fear, and President Trump Have in Common? Retrieved June 7, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qfljkZ0-GEc O’Reilly, A. (2019, May 5). Biden Lables Trump ‘Clown’ During Campaign Stop in South Carolina. Fox News. Retrieved July 20, 2019, from https://www. foxnews.com/politics/biden-labels-trump-a-clown-during-campaign-stopin-south-carolina

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Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (2001). Trattato dell’argomentazione. Torino: Einaudi. Pew Research Center. (2015, November 23). Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government. Retrieved April 3, 2019, from https://www.peoplepress.org/2015/11/23/beyond-distrust-how-americans-view-theirgovernment/ Prospero, M. (2010). Il Comico della Politica. Roma: Ediesse. Quintiliano. (2001). Institutio oratoria. Milano: Giulio Einaudi. Reicher, S., & Haslam, A. S. (2016, November 19). The Politics of Hope: Donald Trump as an Entrepreneur of Identity. The Scientific American. Retrieved August 25, 2019, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ the-politics-of-hope-donald-trump-as-an-entrepreneur-of-identity/ Rosenberg, M., McNeill, R., Twohey, M., & Conlin, M. (2016). Exclusive  – Donald Trump’s Companies Have Sought Visas to Import at Least 1,100 Workers. Reuters UK. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from http://uk.reuters. com/article/uk-usa-election-trump-exclusive-idUKKCN0Q62RV20150801 Sendhu, S. (2016). Donald Trump’s Use of Grammar ‘Typical of Children Aged 11 and Under’. The Independent. Retrieved February 8, 2019, from http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donaldtrump-uses-language-typical-of-children-under-11-a6936256.html Sparkman, D.  J., Edelman, S., & Till, D. (2019). Ingroup and Outgroup Interconnectedness Predict and Promote Political Ideology Through Empathy. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. [Online First]. https://doi. org/10.1177/1368430218819794 Thompson, M. (2017). La fine del dibattito pubblico. Milano: Feltrinelli. TrumpTwitterArchive. (2019). Trump Twitter Archive. Retrieved December 21, 2019, from http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/

CHAPTER 4

The Fascist Rhetor, the Incendiary Populist

In 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Jean-Paul Sartre founded the journal Les Temps Modernes. The Allies had just defeated the brutal totalitarian regimes of Germany and Italy, and the French existentialist philosopher was familiar with the characteristics of the Nazi-Fascist language. In the journal’s first issue, his viewpoint on political rhetoric and on a writer’s social role was summarized in the famous epithet: “Every word has consequences. Every silence, too” (Hirsh, 1982: 41). More than 70 years later, the same quote became a popular feature of news headlines when incendiary rhetoric has increasingly appeared to be a defining characteristic of candidate-then-President Donald Trump. Many observers attempted to draw a correlation between political rhetoric and the mainstreaming of violent extremism “with dangerous linguistic abstractions reproducing themselves in reality” (Goldstein, 2018). Kalmoe (2014) found that people “already inclined toward aggression become even more so when exposed to hostile political speech and that exposure to mildly violent political metaphors increased general support for political violence among people with aggressive personalities”. Moreover, media violence primes aggressive behavior in people who are predisposed to it (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). There is evidence that Trump’s own words have caused audiences to behave badly. In national experiments from 2016 and 2017, University of Massachusetts political scientist Brian Schaffner found that exposure to Trump’s racist comments about Mexicans during his campaign “made © The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5_4

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people more likely to write offensive statements that were toward not just Mexicans but other groups. Indeed, people with prejudices toward one group often dislike other groups, suggesting that bigoted language has consequences beyond targeted groups” (Cassese, 2018). DeVega (2018) noticed how Donald Trump is “unapologetic and enthusiastic in his embrace of hateful and divisive language” and that “Trump’s emails to his supporters consistently feature themes of ‘fighting back’, in which his public and other ‘real Americans’ (largely meaning white conservatives and evangelical Christians) are persecuted victims under threat by Democrats or whatever other group that Trump and his allies deem to be the enemy”. Donald Trump’s language is reshaping American politics: in mid-2016, 20 percent of both Republicans and Democrats considered Russia an “ally” or “friendly”. One year later, Republicans were more than twice as likely as Democrats to say the same. Immigration had for years been a marginal political topic, especially when compared with issues like jobs and terrorism. But Trump effectively recast immigration as a question of American identity and national security. The construction of a wall along the Mexican border, once out of political radars, became one of the cornerstones of his agenda. Today, “three-quarters of Trump supporters say that ‘building the wall’ should be the highest priority of his presidency” (Thompson, 2018). A large literature has established a persistent association between the likelihood of participating in politics and the mobilizing power of “violent” rhetoric. For instance, Valentino et al. (2011) in an experiment based on American National Election Studies from 1980 to 2008 found evidence for the distinctive influence of anger. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory and the “Affective Intelligence model”, they predicted that anger, more than anxiety or enthusiasm, mobilizes citizens. In Trump’s case, the power of muscular rhetoric is obviously amplified by the new media environment. Indeed, in a seminal study, Lelkes et  al. (2017) showed that access to the Internet increases partisan hostility. They also highlighted the fact that access to the Internet boosts partisans’ consumption of media, a likely cause of increased polarization. Of course, conflict is inherent in politics, and leaders can obviously criticize opponents to inform the public. Anger can have a mobilizing effect and can drive desirable, non-violent political action, even harsh protest. Violent rhetoric is also not new in politics. The American founders accused one another of treason in partisan newspapers. Vitriolic uses of

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language between nineteenth-century congressmen caused dozens of brawls before the Civil War (Kinder & Kam, 2010). And the Republican Party has a history of it: from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew until Newt Gingrich “who explicitly trained an entire generation or two of Republican politicians to emphasize division and animosity” (Bernstein, 2018). While we leave to other scholars the task of highlighting the possible link between mass shootings, racist attacks, and the presidential communication, here we want to account for the substance of Donald Trump’s language, by conducting a closer analysis of his style. This chapter provides a qualitative analysis of Trump’s political communication, focusing on his “violent” rhetorical style and aiming to find out similarities and points of contact with Nazi-Fascist rhetoric. And, why his peculiar way of communicating has proven to be successful. Victor Klemperer, in his classic book, The Language of the Third Reich, argued that “authoritarians have always used language policies to bring state power and their cults of personality to bear on everyday life” and that “the language of brutality and culture of cruelty was normalized through the proliferation of metaphors of war, battle, expulsion, racial purity and demonization” (2011: 21).1 The language of fascism made fear, violence, and anxiety the normalized currency of exchange and communication. Klemperer described the destruction of language, or, better, the occupation of language made by Hitler and his Nazi fellows. In his essay, he worked as a philologist, writing words and recurring sentences in his diary, constantly comparing and reflecting on meanings and word trends. He focused his analysis starting from Vossler’s idea that “linguistic phenomena are the manifestation of the spirit”— in other words, that “language shows the real self” (2011: 401). While his book offers a comprehensive accusation against the Nazi regime and its brutalities, full of details of personal experience; in our research we are interested in his key findings on the characteristics of Nazi rhetoric: how language becomes a metaphor for a battle against enemies, how words seem to be like soldiers at the front and the seduction of violent speech is irresistible. For Klemperer, this peculiar use of violent speech represented the formation of a new language of power. If Talleyrand argued that language should serve to “hide diplomats’ real thought”, in the Third Reich’s language, the opposite is true: language 1

 English translation provided by the Author for all Klemperer’s quotations.

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is straight, brutal; nothing is softened. Le style c’est l’homme [the style makes the person]. It has a corrosive power (2011: 31). Nazism uses a violent, manipulatory rhetoric that through the repetition, and high frequency of poisoning words aimed to direct masses toward its social and political goals (2011: 32). The Third Reich’s language is poor, simple, and at the same time, very understandable: “It didn’t make any distinction between oral and written language, there was no difference in style. Everything was allocution, exhortation” (2011: 36). Moreover, “it did not make any distinction between the private and public sphere (…) it is the language of fanaticism (…) the language for conditioning the masses”. In its simplicity it expresses only one side of human nature (2011: 40). He also added that “the word volk [people] is used like ‘salt on meals’. It is everywhere” (2011: 48). And that Nazi language uses “any trick to create tension and intense sensation”. Again, he observes that violent language requires “enemies”, preferably “enemies of the state” to be wormed out and exposed to the masses (2011: 53). And the necessity for the enemy is directly exemplified in an infamous article by Goebbels of 1945, where “Jews are responsible for the misfortune of the World” (2011: 217). What is clear from the construction of Nazi language is the goal of speaking the Vox populi. In doing so, the linguistic style of sport becomes very helpful, because it is easily understandable by many: Hitler often used the phrase Auf Siegkampfen [fighting until the victory], an expression originally coming from the horseracing world (2011: 276). Every kind of sport is useful for the final aims, because metaphorical values are “well suited to be understandable to the masses” (2011: 278). Mixing from different sport genres, the most brutal and effective phrases come from boxing. The wide use of slogans serves the same logic: “they’re like a good punch, directed to subjugate the reasoning of those listening” (2011: 296). The general strategy is clear: “emotions have to replace reasoning (…) the ideal Gefolgschaft [listener] does not think, just follows” (2011: 293). Goebbels was a master of combining heterogeneous linguistic elements: from simple to complicated, from formal to vulgar style, from rational to sentimental, from prophetic tones to daily routine ones. The effect is estranging and effective: the audience gets an “epidermic reaction similar to hot-and-cold shower therapy, the listener is constantly attracted and rejected, it never rests and has no time to revive his/her critical sensibility” (2011: 36). All in all, the strategy is again exemplified in: “Hitler

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knows perfectly the psychology of the masses, and he believes that it should be kept as incapable of thinking” (2011: 303). The German and Italian language during the Nazi and Fascist era became a language of superlatives, so that everything regimes did became the best and the greatest, its achievements unprecedented, historic, and incomparable. Hitler and Mussolini were “saviours”, “redeemers”. The use of a violent and superlative language fascinates and attracts the masses and is a strategy to keep the consensus up. In Trump’s era, about 80 years after Klemperer’s notes were taken, the modes of communication which allow for compromise and moderate confrontation seem to be deliberately delegitimized. The president described right-wing extremists as “very fine people” (Jacobs & Laughland, 2017), encouraged supporters to “knock the crap out of protestors” (White, 2016), and endorsed attacks on the press by his party’s congressional representatives (BBC News, 2018). And he has a history of calling for violent acts against those who protest at his events that goes back until at least August 2015, those of the very early days of his presidential campaign. In 2016, Kate Sommers-Dawes (2016) listed the ten times when Trump called for violence at his rallies, among which the most shocking include: When demonstrators interrupted a Trump rally in St. Louis, Missouri, the then-candidate bemoaned the fact that there were no longer “consequences” to protesting and insisted the “country has to toughen up. “You know, part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right?” he explained. Outside the event, people screamed profanity and anti-Muslim rhetoric at each other while a bloodied protester was given medical treatment. Thirty two people were arrested”. At a press conference in Florida in April 2016, Trump was asked about his rhetoric in the wake of an incident in which a supporter at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, sucker-punched a black man in the face. While he wasn’t asked about that specific altercation, Trump said of violent behavior in general at his events: “The audience hit back and that’s what we need a little bit more of”. He also praised people using physical force at his rallies as “appropriate”. At a rally in Michigan in early March 2016, Trump again seemed to give the green light to violent behavior. As a protester was being escorted out of the building, Trump marveled at what a “fun time” everyone was having. “Get him out”, he then said. “Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it”. He then told an anecdote about a brawl at a prior rally that was “amazing to watch”.

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In a speech in July 2017  in Long Island to law enforcement officers, Donald Trump urged officers to be “rough” on suspects. He also referred directly to migrants, using dehumanizing and offensive themes: “They’re animals”, and “we will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you, and we will deport you” (Arter, 2017). Trump’s comments often fall outside acceptable societal norms, and his linguistic tricks are redefining the American value system. His rhetorical style is based on the symbiotic relationship between “truthful hyperbole” and incitement to violence. Trump is an expert in using rhetoric to exploit the tendency of linguistic dissonance, that is, a lack of agreement or harmony between people or things (Festinger, 1957: 22). As Goldstein (2018) observed: “Trump’s use of superlatives and absolutisms like ‘amazing’, ‘tremendous’, and ‘big league’ are meant to play with people’s sense of reality and proportion, and when deployed as expressions of fact they serve to skew the line between objective truth and subjective opinion”. This process of rationalizing information that contradicts the established ideas and empirical understanding is practiced prolifically by Trump on Twitter. His favored social media platform enables him to respond with repeated, consistent assertions such as “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself”, and diversions like “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!” which deny any conflict between claim and truth (Forbes, 2016). The cumulative effect is one of subversion, with semantics destabilized and democratic authority undermined. The challenge this creates is twofold. First, modes of communication which allow for compromise have been delegitimized. The erasure of complex meaning has induced a preference for a world conceived through binary categories and contrast, so that, for example, people and countries are portrayed as “strong” or “weak”, “winners” or “losers” but nothing in between. Second, an increasingly fundamentalist culture of political discussion is emerging. Several scholars have claimed that Trump has repeatedly performed dangerous speeches. According to Susan Benesch, for instance, to rise to the level of dangerous speech, at least two of the following five indicators must be true (Itkowitz, 2018): (a) a powerful speaker with a high degree of influence over the audience; (b) the audience has grievances and fears that the speaker can cultivate; (c) a speech act that is clearly understood as a call to violence; (d) a social or historical context that is propitious for violence, for a variety of reasons, including long-standing competition between groups for resources, lack of efforts to solve grievances or previ-

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ous episodes of violence; (e) means of dissemination that is influential in itself, for example, because it is the sole or primary source of news for the relevant audience. Trump’s rhetoric then seems to meet the stated criteria for “dangerous speech” or speech that can lead to violence: he has described Mexicans as a great threat, individually and collectively. He said that his supporters could use the Second Amendment against Hillary Clinton and he suggested that Clinton and President Obama were founders of the Islamic State. The latter being a classic “hallmark of dangerous speech to describe an in-group member as the enemy” (Itkowitz, 2016). In October 2018, he praised Greg Gianforte, Republican Representative of Montana, for body slamming a reporter (Cochrane, 2018). Trump’s incendiary speeches have also influenced the Americans’ perceptions. Vandermaas-Peeler et al. (2018) demonstrated how Trump’s rhetoric as president has encouraged white supremacist groups. His incendiary rhetoric also collected accusations of being xenophobic. America’s Voice blog, for instance, gained national media coverage when it published a map which documents instances where president-elect Donald Trump, his supporters, or his staff have harassed or attacked Latinos, immigrants, Muslim-Americans, African-Americans, and other minority and marginalized groups (America’s Voice, 2019). Table 4.1 shows the recurrence of the words which specifically define Trump’s incendiary rhetoric on Twitter. Already at first glance, these numbers highlight how Trump’s rhetoric has changed in the transition from candidate to president. Words such as “moron”, “goofy” (usually referred to Elizabeth Warren), and above all “dope/dopey” have been completely abandoned by President Trump. Some others have been significantly reduced: “lightweight”, “dumb”, “dishonest”, “boring”. While some (residual) words seem to be counter-trending (“weak”, “terrible”, “loser”), some tweets better exemplified Trump’s rhetorical strategy. For instance, the ones featuring “loser” and the messages which clearly contain vilifying attacks on others: • Aug 16, 2018, 07:56:42  PM: How can “Senator” Richard Blumenthal, who went around for twenty years as a Connecticut politician bragging that he was a great Marine war hero in Vietnam (then got caught and sobbingly admitted he was neither a Marine nor ever in Vietnam), pass judgement on anyone? Loser! [Twitter for iPhone]

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Table 4.1  Recurring words in Trump’s tweets Incendiary word in tweets Weak Dishonest Terrible Dumb/dummy Fool Loser Lightweight Stupid Dope/dopey Boring Incompetent/ incompetence Pathetic Goofy Clown Disgusting Haters Overrated/over-rated Low rating/bad rating Racist Lowlife/low-life Moron No talent

Total recurrence in the period

Period as candidate a

Period as president b

140 138 119 86 57 48 45 38 36 34 33

69 84 44 66 28 15 42 22 36 27 25

71 54 75 20 29 33 3 16 0 7 8

31 26 24 24 22 18 16 10 8 4 4

24 26 20 14 11 15 11 9 4 4 3

7 0 4 10 11 3 5 1 4 0 1

Source: Our elaboration on trumptwitterarchive.com (2019) Notes: Total tweets from realDonaldTrump from June 16, 2015 (candidature announcement) until November 6, 2018 (midterm elections). Total tweets for the whole period: 13655 Candidate period: June 16, 2015–November 8, 2016

a

b

Presidential period: November 9, 2016–November 6, 2018

• Jan 7, 2018, 03:35:39 PM: The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated! [Twitter for iPhone] • Nov 18, 2017, 08:31:47 AM: Crooked Hillary Clinton is the worst (and biggest) loser of all time. She just can’t stop, which is so good for the Republican Party. Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in three years! [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Nov 15, 2017, 05:45:39 AM: While in the Philippines I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is. Loser! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 26, 2016, 09:02:29 AM: Have a good chance to win Texas on Tuesday. Cruz is a nasty guy, not one Senate endorsement and, despite talk, gets nothing done. Loser! [Twitter for Android] • Feb 5, 2016, 09:01:35  PM: Really dumb @CheriJacobus. Begged my people for a job. Turned her down twice and she went hostile. Major loser, zero credibility! [Twitter for iPhone] • Dec 13, 2015, 12:28:50 AM: Something must be done with dopey @KarlRove—he is pushing Republicans down the same old path of defeat. Don’t fall for it, Karl is a loser [Twitter for Android] • Nov 15, 2015, 06:47:06 PM: I have watched sloppy Graydon Carter fail and close Spy Magazine and now am watching him fail at @ VanityFair Magazine. He is a total loser! [Twitter for Android] For instance, Trump’s last campaign ad in 2016 vilified three opponents, all Jewish: investor and philanthropist George Soros, the former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and the CEO of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein. In August of the same year on Twitter, Trump adopted white nationalist propaganda that the South African government is engaged in a genocidal campaign against white farmers (Harcourt, 2018). This incendiary rhetoric is additionally exemplified in the use of words such as “dumb” and “stupid” and the almost slanderous “dope/dopey”. Once again, their recurrence significantly dropped since Trump became president (“dope/dopey”, for instance, has not been used since September 2016). In some of the selected tweets below, several incendiary terms are combined and appear quite harsh: • Aug 17, 2018, 09:06:13  AM: Wow! Big pushback on Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York for his really dumb statement about America’s lack of greatness. I have already MADE America Great Again, just look at the markets, jobs, military—setting records, and we will do even better. Andrew “chocked” badly, mistake! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 3, 2018, 10:37:36 PM: Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike! [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Oct 5, 2018, 08:03:06  AM: The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love! #Troublemakers [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 16, 2018, 01:05:29  AM: Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jan 10, 2018, 10:14:15  AM: The single greatest Witch Hunt in American history continues. There was no collusion, everybody including the Dems knows there was no collusion, & yet on and on it goes. Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing. Republicans should finally take control! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 1, 2016, 05:16:36 PM: Crooked Hillary Clinton is a fraud who has put the public and country at risk by her illegal and very stupid use of e-mails. Many missing! [Twitter for Android] • May 15, 2016, 02:06:18 PM: Wow, I have had so many calls from high ranking people laughing at the stupidity of the failing @nytimes piece. Massive front page for that! [Twitter for Android] • Dec 23, 2015, 10:22:59 PM: Hillary said “I really deplore the tone and inflammatory rhetoric of his campaign.” I deplore the death and destruction she caused—stupidity [Twitter for Android] • Nov 1, 2015, 08:48:26 AM: Jeb’s new slogan—“Jeb can fix it”. I never thought of Jeb as a crook! Stupid message, the word “fix” is not a good one to use in politics! [Twitter for Android] • Sep 17, 2016, 06:14:58  PM: Never met but never liked dopey Robert Gates. Look at the mess the U.S. is in. Always speaks badly of his many bosses, including Obama. [Twitter for Android] • Sep 17, 2016, 12:28:43 PM: Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope! [Twitter for iPhone] • Sep 10, 2016, 12:57:59 AM: I havn’t seen @tonyschwartz in many years, he hardly knows me. Never liked his style. Super lib, Crooked H supporter. Irrelevant dope! [Twitter for Android] • Feb 25, 2016, 07:34:11  AM: Mitt Romney, who was one of the dumbest and worst candidates in the history of Republican politics, is now pushing me on tax returns. Dope! [Twitter for Android] • Dec 11, 2015, 10:53:02 PM: Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016 [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Nov 12, 2015, 10:00:34  AM: .@KarlRove is a biased dope who wrote falsely about me re China and TPP.  This moron wasted $430  million on political campaigns and lost 100% [Twitter for Android] • Oct 18, 2015, 01:15:24 PM: It’s amazing that some of the dumbest people on television work for the Wall Street Journal, in particular a real dope named Charles Lane! [Twitter for Android] • Jul 29, 2015, 04:44:56  PM: How can a dummy dope like Harry Hurt, who wrote a failed book about me but doesn’t know me or anything about me, be on TV discussing Trump? [Twitter Web Client] • Jul 22, 2015, 09:47:26 PM: .@AC360 Has the absolutely worst anti-­ Trump talking heads on his show. Dopey writer O’brian knows nothing about me or my wealth. A waste! [Twitter for Android] • Jun 25, 2015, 07:19:39  AM: I hear that dopey political pundit, Lawrence O’Donnell, one of the dumber people on television, is about to lose his show-no ratings? Too bad [Twitter for Android] • Jun 19, 2015, 09:27:59  AM: Goofy political pundit George Will spoke at Mar-a-Lago years ago. I didn’t attend because he’s boring & often wrong—a total dope! [Twitter Web Client] “Lightweight” and “overrated” are two very interesting words. The first one comes from the vocabulary of sports, precisely from boxing. Trump used it repeatedly while being candidate; then in his first two years as president, he used it only three times. This word is particularly significant since, as we have seen, Nazi rhetoric often relied on sports terminology and metaphorical meanings. The Nazis employed words coming from different sports, but the most frequent, most brutal, and effective phrases came from boxing (Klemperer, 2011: 279). Trump has been regularly involved in boxing, wrestling, golf, cycling both as organizer, practitioner, and even protagonist. So he is well aware of the potential of these terms. On the other hand, “overrated” sounds like a term widely employed in the show-­ business world. Here, again, Trump’s experience as a protagonist of the TV show The Apprentice made him recognize the effectiveness of this term: • Oct 19, 2018, 12:34:07 PM: Beto O’Rourke is a total lightweight compared to Ted Cruz, and he comes nowhere near representing the values and desires of the people of the Great State of Texas. He will never be allowed to turn Texas into Venezuela! [Twitter for iPhone] • Dec 12, 2017, 08:03:35 AM: Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to

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my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 7, 2016, 06:09:08 PM: Michael Morell, the lightweight former Acting Director of C.I.A., and a man who has made serious bad calls, is a total Clinton flunky! [Twitter for Android] • Nov 20, 2016, 06:22:34 AM: The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior [Twitter for Android] • Aug 29, 2016, 08:30:04  AM: Crooked Hillary’s brainpower is highly overrated. Probably why her decision making is so bad or, as stated by Bernie S, she has BAD JUDGEMENT [Twitter for Android] • Mar 18, 2016, 04:55:11 PM: Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv. [Twitter for iPhone] “Dishonest” and “pathetic” are particularly aggressive terms and (especially the latter) remained substantially employed in Trump’s tweets. They are obviously directed at targeting some “enemies” (often the media, consistently referred to as “fake media”) and are a good indicator of the constant need in Trump’s rhetoric to point at someone: • Sep 10, 2018, 08:57:18 AM: The Economy is soooo good, perhaps the best in our country’s history (remember, it’s the economy stupid!), that the Democrats are flailing & lying like CRAZY! Phony books, articles and T.V. “hits” like no other pol has had to endure-­ and they are losing big. Very dishonest people! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 31, 2018, 01:37:04 PM: Wow, I made OFF THE RECORD COMMENTS to Bloomberg concerning Canada, and this powerful understanding was BLATANTLY VIOLATED. Oh well, just more dishonest reporting. I am used to it. At least Canada knows where I stand! [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 9, 2018, 11:02:33  AM: This is an illegally brought Rigged Witch Hunt run by people who are totally corrupt and/or conflicted. It was started and paid for by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats. Phony Dossier, FISA disgrace and so many lying and dishonest people already fired. 17 Angry Dems? Stay tuned! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 21, 2018, 04:51:07 PM: “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News

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Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 22, 2018, 07:49:31 AM: Every time you see a Caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our Country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic Immigration Laws! Remember the Midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally. [Twitter for iPhone] • Jun 5, 2017, 08:49:56 AM: Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his “no reason to be alarmed” statement. MSM is working hard to sell it! [Twitter for iPhone] • Mar 4, 2017, 08:19:29  AM: Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show [Twitter for Android] • Jul 24, 2016, 08:27:56  AM: There is no longer a Bernie Sanders “political revolution.” He is turning out to be a weak and somewhat pathetic figure, wants it all to end! [Twitter for Android] Trump has frequently used language that dehumanizes or vilifies immigrants. He referred to them with the words “Infest”, “Violent”, “The worst criminals”, “Crime infested and breeding”, “Shithole”, “All have AIDS”, “Go back to their huts”, “Illegals”, “Bad hombres”, “The Snake”, “Rapists” (Mack, 2018). The language of pollution is used to treat some groups as not simply inferior but also as a threat to the body politic. Giroux (2019) provides a glimpse of the logic and effects of the discourse of pollution. He writes: The politics of disposability is no longer a discourse limited to the historical memory of totalitarian governments, internment camps and extermination policies. As both a state-legitimated ideology and established policy, it now exists at the highest levels of the US government and is central to the creation of a death-saturated age. Fantasies of absolute control, racial cleansing, unchecked militarism and class warfare are at the heart of an American imagination that has turned lethal. This dystopian mindset is marked by hollow words and lethal actions; similarly, its dreamscape is pillaged of any substantive meaning, cleansed of compassion and used to legitimate the notion that alternative worlds are impossible to entertain.

“Moron”, “clown”, and “goofy” can be fully considered as offensive words, even beyond the current (low) standard of the political discourse.

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As it can be seen in Table 4.1, they have been almost completely abandoned by President Trump. However, they were often employed by candidate Trump: • Dec 2, 2015, 06:38:03 PM: @DrRPSmall: Amen, Mr. Trump! The liberal media morons do indeed owe you an apology! Bravo, sir! Your friend and supporter #DocinMich. [Twitter for Android] • Nov 12, 2015, 10:00:34  AM: .@KarlRove is a biased dope who wrote falsely about me re China and TPP.  This moron wasted $430  million on political campaigns and lost 100% [Twitter for Android] • Aug 11, 2018, 08:18:06 AM: …..Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top officials now dismissed or fired? So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 22, 2016, 08:29:02  PM: Just watched the very incompetent Mitt Romney Campaign Strategist, Stuart Stevens. Now I know why Mitt lost so badly. Stevens is a clown! [Twitter for Android] • Jan 15, 2016, 09:18:52  PM: .@FrankLuntz is a total clown. Has zero credibility! @FoxNews @megynkelly [Twitter for Android] • Jul 17, 2016, 07:14:46  AM: I hope that Crooked Hillary picks Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, as her V.P. Then we can litigate her fraud! [Twitter for Android] It is evident how Trump’s rhetoric has inevitably softened since he became president. However, this clearly two-step rhetorical strategy can be developed into a threefold strategy. If we include Trump’s pre-candidature tweets, we see how citizen Trump was far more aggressive than candidate Trump and President Trump. And, besides a wider use of words like “moron”, “dope”, and “goofey”, he was also consistently tweeting against the credibility of global warming (he wrote only a couple of tweets on it after Spring 2015 and as many as 102 before entering the primary race), supporting theories on autism caused by vaccines and supporting birtherism against President Obama (theories which claimed that Obama was born outside the United States): • Dec 28, 2017, 07:01:47 PM: In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that

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good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up! [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 19, 2015, 08:30:30 AM: It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming! [Twitter for Android] • Oct 21, 2013, 01:26:45 PM: Where’s the global warming? 2013 was one of the least extreme years in weather on record http://t.co/ foGcQyOIZy [Twitter Web Client] • Sep 6, 2014, 05:06:57 AM: Attention all hackers: You are hacking everything else so please hack Obama’s college records (destroyed?) and check “place of birth” [Twitter for Android] • Nov 2, 2012, 08:57:19 AM: Everybody knows why Obama would not show his college applications—they are just not willing to say! [Twitter Web Client] • May 30, 2012, 11:44:03 AM: I want to see @BarackObama’s college records to see how he listed his place of birth in the application. [Twitter Web Client] • Mar 28, 2014, 07:35:50 AM: Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes—AUTISM. Many such cases! [Twitter for Android] • Apr 1, 2013, 03:23:14 PM: .@michellemalkin & @BuzzFeedAndrew: “Vaccine court awards millions to two autistic children damaged by vaccine” http://t.co/E7B0kydeXl [Twitter Web Client] • Mar 30, 2013, 05:00:23 PM: “@KimStagliano: @realDonaldTrump When will NYT write about vaccine damage and its price? 3 girls w autism here, Mr. Trump.” They should Kim! [Twitter for Android] These three types of contents, which later almost disappeared, let us formulate a threefold Trump’s rhetoric: as citizen (before June 2015), as candidate (June 2015–November 2016), as president (from November 2016 onward). Again, while his tweets have significantly softened over time, some characteristics have remained constant: aggressively targeting the opponents (mostly politicians and journalists) and choosing simple words, often coming from sport and TV terminology. As Klemperer noted in the Third Reich language: “[There is a] tendency to brevity, coming from military, commercial and sport rhetoric” (2011: 258). Trump’s speeches are dramatic: he makes bold yet unrepentant claims about his abilities and he is particularly forceful about the failings of his

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opponents. One of his strategies is “to construct the character of his opponents using simple but short descriptions” (Ball, 2016). Indeed, “Little Marco”, “Lying Ted Cruz”, and “Crooked Hillary” are labels that carry character-destroying meaning, which Trump uses to undermine his opponents with concise and memorable nicknames (Mack, 2017). In a similar way, he labels groups in order to exaggerate threats to American security, such as telling stories about “killing Muslim terrorists with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood” and personally seeing thousands of Muslims celebrating after 9/11. It is not just Muslim groups from Latin America who are rapists and murderers (Flaherty, 2016). The characteristics of totalitarian language have also been detailed by Faye, in his seminal compendium (1972). Interestingly, the similarities with Trump’s rhetorical style are striking: conciseness, aggressiveness, repetitiveness, enemy targeting, and sense “overturning”—in other words, if you are accused of something by someone, simply reverse it, blaming the accuser of the same things. In a subsequent book, Faye (1996: 30) specified how the Nazi language was a “language of death”, whose main goal was to target specific groups, designated as “enemies of the people”. In this construction of a parallel reality, the violent rhetoric of the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s was keen to arouse the most dangerous stereotypes that are, once again, encapsulated in the common popular culture of any time. Trump’s language, especially as a candidate, was characterized by a frequent use of personal superlatives: “I will be the best by far in fighting terror” (23 March 2016), “I will be the greatest job-producing president in American history” (23 January 2016), “I am the BEST builder, just look at what I’ve built” (13 May 2015)—exactly like what, in Nazi times, Klemperer referred to as “the abuse of the superlative” (2011: 258). The Third Reich language functions in a way that tells listeners something like “you and me, us, are the same, we speak in the same way (…) we both have this inclination for exaggeration (…) the usage of superlative forms is needed to impress a stronger effect and a more pleasant reminder in the listener” (2011: 259). The superlative is the propagandistic strategy par excellence. Klemperer observes the recurrence of the words Welt and Raum [world and space], together with the abuse of the word “historic” (2011: 265). In each of the Führer’s statements, there is an enumeration of his successes, sarcastic mockery of his adversaries, and a certain dose of boastfulness (2011: 266, 268). Klemperer highlighted the recurrence of the words Aktion and sturm [action and storm] (2011: 91), a reference to “doing” that is also present

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in Trump’s tweets, always ready to highlight his accomplishments. Another aspect is the desire for tradition, a sort of retrotopia of a hypothetical “golden age” now in peril (2011: 106). And what is Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” if not a nostalgic referring to a golden past? But while the Führer did not have to speak every day and it was even better to add some silence and mystery around his figure, Trump speaks at least 11 times a day through his defining tweets. Exaggeration, repetition, creation of effective leitmotifs imposed on others and repeated by others is also a constant in Trump’s political communication (“crooked Hillary” became a constant feature in media headlines and in daily conversation). In line with Klemperer’s observations of Nazi language as a key to solving issues and with a strong focus on action and doing things, there are several of Trump’s tweets which sound similar: “Nobody knows jobs like I do!” (8 January 2016), “Nobody beats me on National Security” (8 April 2016), “Nobody can beat me on the economy (and jobs)” (30 April 2016), “Nobody will protect our Nation like Donald J. Trump” (26 March 2016), “Nobody more against ObamaCare than me” (31 January 2016), “Nobody has more respect for women than Donald Trump!” (26 March 2016), “At least 67 dead, 400 injured. I alone can solve” (27 March 2016).

But, again, this very high self-esteem seems to be confined to the campaign period. The same happens for another form of denigration of others, namely, the use of the expression “Don’t/doesn’t have a clue”, which recurs ten times in our period of analysis, but only once as president: • Jul 17, 2016, 04:26:50 PM: President Obama just had a news conference, but he doesn’t have a clue. Our country is a divided crime scene, and it will only get worse! [Twitter for Android] • Nov 30, 2015, 07:44:45 AM: When will @CNN get some real political talent rather than political commentators like Errol Louis, who doesn’t have a clue! Others bad also. [Twitter for Android] • Oct 30, 2015, 11:30:23  PM: I am going to save Medicare and Medicaid, Carson wants to abolish, and failing candidate Gov. John Kasich doesn’t have a clue—weak! [Twitter for Android] • Jun 24, 2015, 09:07:53  PM: .@WhoopiGoldberg had better surround herself with better hosts than Nicole Wallace, who doesn’t have a clue. The show is close to death! [Twitter for Android]

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Along the same line is the expression “laughing”, though quite popular in his tweets as president (19 recurrences in total, 12 of which as president): • May 25, 2018, 06:13:19  PM: …but complain and obstruct. They made only bad deals (Iran) and their so-called Trade Deals are the laughing stock of the world! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 18, 2018, 08:11:28 AM: If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America! [Twitter for iPhone] • Sep 23, 2017, 05:20:47 PM: Democrats are laughingly saying that McCain had a “moment of courage.” Tell that to the people of Arizona who were deceived. 116% increase! [Twitter for iPhone] • Feb 8, 2016, 11:38:00  AM: Everybody is laughing at Jeb Bush-­ spent $100  million and is at bottom of pack. A pathetic figure! [Twitter for iPhone] One of the most defining of Trump’s words employed in his tweets is “worst”. This word is equally adopted both as candidate and as president (44 and 40 recurrences, respectively). It is a term which summarizes in itself some of the already mentioned defining characteristics of Trump’s rhetoric: conciseness, aggressiveness toward others, and the use of superlatives: • Sep 23, 2017, 06:13:35  AM: Alaska had a 200% plus increase in premiums under ObamaCare, worst in the country. Deductibles high, people angry! Lisa M comes through. [Twitter for iPhone] • Sep 19, 2017, 09:41:13 PM: I was saddened to see how bad the ratings were on the Emmys last night—the worst ever. Smartest people of them all are the “DEPLORABLES.” [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 27, 2017, 08:51:35  AM: We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada. Both being very difficult, may have to terminate? [Twitter for iPhone] • Aug 20, 2017, 06:22:07  PM: Heading back to Washington after working hard and watching some of the worst and most dishonest Fake News reporting I have ever seen! [Twitter for iPhone] • Jul 5, 2017, 06:14:11  AM: The United States made some of the worst Trade Deals in world history. Why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us? [Twitter for iPhone]

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• Mar 13, 2017, 08:11:17 AM: ObamaCare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far! Republicans will come together and save the day. [Twitter for iPhone] • Oct 19, 2016, 08:28:08 PM: Hillary is too weak to lead on border security—no solutions, no ideas, no credibility. She supported NAFTA, worst deal in US history. #Debate [Twitter Web Client] While in the Third Reich’s language, there is a planification based on terms coming from disciplines such as Math that does not seem present in Trump’s rhetoric—“invasion of technical vocabulary” (2011: 191), “cult for numbers and stats, often inflated as numerical superlatives (…) the use of the word ‘total’” (2011: 262)—which in most cases just seems his own natural flow of thoughts; similarities are copious: “the Third Reich’s language is in constant need of emphasis, exclamatory forms” (2011: 65). In his booklets Hitler makes a “massive use of capital letters” (2011: 66), exactly like Trump’s usage of capital letters in his tweets. Sentences are often exaggerated and situations emphasized: “Sentences are short, like fragments of a specific liturgy (…) whoever is without intellectual defenses when he is exposed to that rhetoric suffers an emotional reaction” (2011: 72). Rhetoric is assertive; doubts are not even considered. Hitler’s statements also express a “persecutory delirium” where “enemies are everywhere (…) enemies are by now in the heart of Germany” (2011: 137), something somehow similar to Trump’s repeated attacks on traditional media, often labeled as “fake news media”. Klemperer’s diary offers a considerable amount of similarities between Nazi language and Trump’s rhetoric, and both styles can be easily labeled as inflammatory. However, this use of violent language is not the only relevant finding here. It can also be interpreted as a sign, as a specific characterization of a wider, more comprehensive picture: the populist rhetoric. Both Nazis and Trump employ a hyper-simplified language, the easiest to understand. They need to speak and to convince the masses, the average citizen. So, they speak as the masses do: sport metaphors, simple words, and brutal expressions. The same language that people would hear in casual conversations in bars, clubs, at home, in the streets. The populist style is the most evident common feature between Trump’s and the fascist rhetors. Indeed, according to Susan Hunston, Professor of English Language at Birmingham University (2017): “There is, then, evidence that Trump’s language is highly distinctive, but that this distinctiveness aligns him with

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scenarios of casual conversation. Although his language, both in content and in style, is odd for a political leader, it is familiar to his audience. It is the true language of populism”. He described the floods in Houston as: ‘very devastating’ (rather than the more usual ‘absolutely devastating’ or ‘utterly devastating’). He said the wall he wants to build between the US and Mexico would be ‘beautiful’, a word he has also applied to Confederate statues, a letter written to him by James Clapper, factories to be built in the US by Apple, any babies in the news for whatever reason, and Brigitte Macron. He asserted that in Charlottesville there had been violence ‘on many sides’ (not, incidentally, ‘on both sides’ or ‘on all sides’). (Hunston, 2017)

He threatened North Korea with “fire and fury”. In his speeches he tends to use strings of subordinate clauses that are not tied to a main clause. Trump’s language appears to be designed to align him with non-­ politicians, to assert his identity as a “common man”. This analogy continues if we look at other aspects of his language style. All the evidence shows that Trump’s language is simple in its construction and sometimes non-­ standard. It prefers the outspoken opinion to the “politically wise”. This is the language of casual, unconventional talk, private language used in a public arena. Trump’s debate rhetoric during the Republican primary displayed three prominent traits: it “use[d] simple language”, it “defer[red] to trusted friends and colleagues”, and it “constantly insult[ed] his opponents” (Ott & Dickinson, 2019). According to Shafer (2015): “Trump isn’t a simpleton, he just talks like one (…) [he] resists multisyllabic words and complex, writerly sentence constructions when speaking extemporaneously in a debate, at a news conference or in an interview”. Reflecting on how Trump’s speech favors the momentary over the considered, Gabler (2016) wrote: “above all else, Donald Trump is the candidate of impulse running against candidates of calculation”. Based on an analysis of Trump’s public utterances during the campaign, Merrill (2015) concluded: “Trump’s language is darker, more violent and more prone to insults”. Crockett (2016) drew the following conclusions: First, Trump’s lexicon is simple and repetitious, relying heavily on monosyllabic words such as “good”, “bad”, and “sad” such as this tweet which managed to incorporate all three: “Failing @NYTimes will always take a good story about me and make it bad. Every article is unfair and biased. Very

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sad!” (May 20, 2016). Second, Trump’s tweets are overwhelmingly negative in connotation—and the majority of them are outright insults.

Trump also makes frequent use of exclamation points and all caps. These stylistic practices reinforce the “negative sentiment of his tweets and heighten their emotional impact, which is, in turn, reflected in the intense emotion of his followers, a phenomenon scholars refer to as emotional contagion” (Auflick, 2016). Vrana and Schneider (2017) analyzed presidential debates from 2000 to 2016. They found that, compared to other candidates, Trump uses shorter words and a more restricted vocabulary, suggesting that his language will appear familiar to a larger proportion of people: His grammar is simple: his sentences are shorter and he uses fewer nouns compared with the number of verbs, and far fewer noun-noun combinations. Using a large number of nouns proportional to verbs is known to be a measure of complexity in language, as is combining ideas in noun-noun sequences. This can be demonstrated by comparing: ‘We will construct (verb) a wall (noun)’ (1 verb, 1 noun); ‘Construction (noun) of the wall (noun) will take (verb) time (noun)’ (1 verb, 3 nouns); and ‘Wall construction (noun-noun) is (verb) a complex process (noun)’ (1 verb, 1 noun, 1 noun-noun). There is a great deal of evidence that casual spoken English typically is more verb-heavy and formal written English is more noun-heavy. In the semi-formal context of presidential debate, therefore, Trump’s speech is less formal, more conversational, than that of any of the other speakers (…) Trump prefers the non-complex and the familiar. (Vrana & Schneider, 2017: 4)

Wendy Brown calls Trump’s rhetoric “apocalyptic populism” (2017). Media often use populism as a pejorative label, defining it with the illusion of being able to govern according to the general will of the people, the latter being considered as the only source of political legitimacy (Mény & Surel, 2002). The populist strategy consists of an antagonistic relationship between “the (good) people and  the (corrupt) elite” (Canovan, 2002; Stanley, 2008). Populists place “the people” at the center of politics and, at the same time, are hostile toward (corrupt) political, economic, and cultural elites because they stand in the way of the (legitimate) desires of the people. Mudde sees populism “as a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic

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groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale [general will] of the people” (2004: 544). Populists are also called “chameleons” and that has to do with the fact that populism can be combined with basically every ideology—and also explains the differences in their agenda (over time and across countries) (Lee, 2006). Taguieff’s reflections are in line with a more comprehensive definition focused on political communication (1997): populism is considered as a sort of “rhetorical arsenal”, which can be used in different ways, according to the specific prevailing political cultures of each country. Populists have the necessity of an enemy, of a scapegoat; they’re always targeting against someone. Why is this violent and populist language so appealing to people? Why is its seductive power still so effective? Because it is so naturally understandable by the average citizen, even the most illiterate ones. It is how people speak in daily talks, in many family contexts. It is the language used in informal conversations with friends, in bars and cafes. For many, the reaction to someone who is speaking in such a politically incorrect way is: “finally, someone who talks like us!” And the focus is not on the contents but in the appealing power of the hyper-simplified language. Koschorke (2018: 33), again focusing on the Nazi’s rhetorical characteristics, vivisected Hitler’s Mein Kampf and highlighted how the book’s linguistic choices have been made very basic in order to manipulate the reader, in a logic that constantly takes personal experience to build general rules, building an “assertive rhythm of writing”. Baker and Peters (2018) highlighted the fact that in moments of national crisis, presidents typically reach for unifying themes, as Bill Clinton did after the Oklahoma City bombing and George W. Bush did with the bullhorn on the wrecked fire truck after 9/11. President Trump chose confrontation over conciliation (…) Trump stands at the center of that debate, a pugilist and partisan who rarely describes himself as the leader of all Americans.

As Peter Baker observed in The New York Times (2019): “At rallies and in interviews, on Twitter and in formal speeches, he relishes the bad-boy language of a shock jock, just one more way of gleefully provoking the political establishment bothered by his norm-shattering ways”. Other presidents, of course, have engaged in common language and found a connection to everyday people. However, Trump seems to break all the courtesy rules that have been around for centuries:

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In a single speech on Friday alone, he managed to throw out a “hell”, an “ass” and a couple of “bullshits” for good measure. In the course of just one rally in Panama City Beach, Fla., earlier this month, he tossed out 10 “hells,” three “damns” and a “crap”. The audiences did not seem to mind. They cheered and whooped and applauded (Baker, 2019).

Swearing is certainly part of his appeal because it helps to create the impression that he is saying what he thinks, without filters. In an unfiltered communication, disintermediated rhetoric. People tend to believe other people when they swear, because they interpret these words as a sign of strong emotions (Mohr, 2013). In public rallies and tweets, Trump’s anger is prevailing over any other emotion and supporters appreciate it. And straight talking, gritty language, swearing expressions have always been part of Trump shows, ever since he was a star of reality TV. The populist strategy again emerges clearly when “he knows they like him to use words that lie over the edge of the traditional boundary of presidential decorum (…) [H]is controversial word choices are an aspect of his role as the disrupter he promised his constituents he would be” (Baker, 2019). In order to understand Trump’s rhetorical strategy, based on incendiary and populist rhetoric, it is then finally useful to recall a sentence of Joseph Goebbels from 1934: “we have to speak a language that people understand. Whoever wants to speak to the people has to, as Luther would say, look directly into their mouths” (Klemperer, 2011: 278).

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Kalmoe, N. P. (2014). Fueling the Fire: Violent Metaphors, Trait Aggression, and Support for Political Violence. Political Communication, 31(4), 545–563. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2013.852642 Kinder, D., & Kam, C. (2010). Us Against Them. Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Klemperer, V. (2011). LTI. La Lingua del Terzo Reich. Firenze: Giuntina. Koschorke, A. (2018). Manipuler et Stigmatiser: Démystifier Mein Kampf. Paris: CNRS Editions. Lee, M.  J. (2006). The Populist Chameleon: The People’s Party, Huey Long, George Wallace, and the Populist Argumentative Frame. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 92(4), 355–378. Lelkes, Y., Sood, G., & Iyengar, S. (2017). The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect. American Journal of Political Science, 61(1), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12237 Mack, D. (2017). Here’s Everything and Everyone Trump Has Attacked on Twitter Since the Election. Retrieved February 8, 2019, from https://www. buzzfeed.com/davidmack/tr ump-twitter-list?utm_ter m=. gg8nkyzy7#.nj3NMZBZb Mack, D. (2018). “Infest,” “Violent,” “Shithole”: This Is the Language Trump Uses to Talk About Immigrants. Retrieved July 30, 2019, from https://www. buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/trump-immigrant-language-wordsinfest-snake-violent Mény, Y., & Surel, Y. (2002). The Constitutive Ambiguity of Populism. In Y. Mény & Y. Surel (Eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge (pp. 1–21). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Merrill, J.  B. (2015, December 5). How Donald Trump Talks. The New  York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/05/us/politics/donald-trump-talk.html?_r=1 Mohr, M. (2013). Holy Sh∗t: A Brief History of Swearing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Ott, B., & Dickinson, G. (2019). The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage. London: Routledge. Shafer, J. (2015, August 13). Donald Trump Talks Like a Third Grader. Politico. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://www.politico.com/magazine/ story/2015/08/donald-trump-talks-like-a-third-grader-121340 Sommers-Dawes, K. (2016). All the Times Trump Has Called for Violence at His Rallies. Retrieved April 13, 2019, from https://mashable.com/2016/03/12/ trump-rally-incite-violence/?europe=true Stanley, B. (2008). The Thin Ideology of Populism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95–110.

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Taguieff, P.-A. (1997). Le populisme et la science politique du mirage conceptuel aux vrais Problèmes. Vingtième Siècle, 56(1), 4–33. Thompson, D. (2018). Donald Trump’s Language Is Reshaping American Politics. The Atlantic. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/donald-trumps-language-is-reshapingamerican-politics/553349/ Valentino, N., Brader, T., Groenendyk, E., Gregorowicz, K., & Hutchings, V. (2011). Election Night’s Alright for Fighting: The Role of Emotions in Political Participation. The Journal of Politics, 73(1), 156–170. Vandermaas-Peeler, A., Cox, D., Najle, M., Fisch-Friedman, M., Griffin, R., & Jones, R.  P. (2018). Partisan Polarization Dominates Trump Era: Findings from the 2018 American Values Survey. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://www.prri.org/research/partisan-polarization-dominates-trump-erafindings-from-the-2018-american-values-survey/ Vrana, L., & Schneider, G. (2017). Saying Whatever It Takes: Creating and Analysing Corpora from US Presidential Debate Transcripts. Retrieved January 9, 2019, from https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/ corpus/conference-archives/2017/general/paper271.pdf White, D. (2016, February 1). Donald Trump Tells Crowd to ‘Knock the Crap Out Of’ Hecklers. Time. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from http://time.com/ 4203094/donald-trump-hecklers/

CHAPTER 5

Exploiting the Media Ecosystem

The fifth strategy of Trump’s political communication comes from the combined action of the previous four. In a way, it is both their consequence and their achieved goal. The combination of disintermediating presidential communication, permanent campaign, clowning performance, and violent and populist rhetoric attracts and ensures constant free media coverage. Trump knows how to play with the media, how to capture their interest. He has done things his own way and successfully played the news cycle in an unprecedented way. His pre-political fame and his experience with TV and sport have been key factors in his presidential race and have helped him in masterminding the communication environment as president. Being a celebrity even before entering politics allowed Trump to run a low-cost campaign based on his ability to attract free media coverage. For the entire cycle of the 2016 Republican primaries, Trump invested around $60  million. This is nothing compared to Clinton (around $300  million) and Sanders ($212  million) on the Democratic side. Trump’s Republican competitors spent much more than him: Ted Cruz invested around $155 million in his campaign; Marco Rubio raised and spent $125 million; and Jeb Bush’s campaign had more than $160 million. Even a “marginal” candidate such as Ben Carson, who withdrew early from the campaign trail, spent more than Trump: $76  million (Fec, 2016). Trump’s eccentric statements and harsh tones captured the media attention which reported everything that came from his Twitter account © The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5_5

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or campaign rallies (Mindich, 2016). He won primary after primary with one of the smallest campaign budgets. He benefited from what is known as earned media: news and commentary about his campaign on television, in newspapers and magazines, and on social media. According to Confessore and Yourish (2016), “he has earned close to $2 billion worth of media attention, about twice the all-in price of the most expensive presidential campaigns in history”. Of course, not all media attention was positive, but the real perception is unpredictable; it can change from voter to voter and its impact is difficult to assess. What matters is being there and to dominate the news cycle. And this same attention has been easily translated into his first two years as president. Since November 2016, things have become even easier: the presidency itself is naturally worth covering. According to Silver (2016), the trend of Trump “hacking” the media environment was visible even in the early months of his primary campaign: Trump has been able to disrupt the news pretty much any time he wants, whether by being newsworthy, offensive, salacious or entertaining. The media has almost always played along and [he was] very often dictating the terms of his coverage, both by threatening to withdraw access from outlets that treat him unfavourably and by pre-empting other stories that might be unfavourable to him.

Trump has not only dominated television coverage but also digital media outlets. Again, according to Silver (2016), during the Republican primaries campaign, “of the days when a story about the Republican campaign led the digital news, it was a Trump-related story 68 percent of the time”. The point is that media themselves have changed, their nature hybridized. On the one hand, the technological development stripped them of having the exclusivity of news and political coverage; on the other hand, social media force traditional media to a 24/7 news cycle, which inevitably feeds off permanent coverage of politicians and celebrities’ social media. The early signs of this transformation were already visible some time ago. Indeed, more than 25 years ago, in an article written for Wired, Michael Crichton (1993) predicted the decline of newspapers and the advent of customized information across social media. He compared newspapers to dinosaurs, forecasting their extinction in ten years. While newspapers are still alive, it is relevant to observe how—in Crichton’s words—the development of the digital environment was already clear:

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Today’s mass media is tomorrow’s fossil fuel (…) I will have artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page, or a nightly news show, that addresses my interests. I’ll have the twelve top stories that I want, I’ll have short summaries available, and I’ll be able to double-click for more detail.

In 1971, sociologist Niklas Luhmann argued that a democratic political system is not integrated by the rules governing the decision but by the rules which govern the attention of public opinion. And public opinion should be the one selecting the topics that have to be tackled and impose them to the political arena. Is that still true? The formation process of public opinion is anything but spontaneous, and the topic has been debated for almost a century. Writings from Walter Lippmann (1922) were already investigating the dimension of the inter-­ relation between public opinion and the political sphere. The formation of public opinion is the result of a fight for the symbolic supremacy, in which media play a key role (Lippmann, 1980). And media are subjected to several types of conditioning: formats, technological support, genres, and news gathering routines. Their agenda-setting power is far different from the past and it is influenced by their relation with the political power. It has also been dramatically changed since the advent of social media, which have allowed policymakers to by-pass the traditional media’s filtering activity. The agenda-setting theory was born in the late 1960s and concerns the “ability (of the news media) to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda” (McCombs & Shaw, 1972: 176). Later, further research showed how the concept was too narrow and that the process also involves the active role of the public and of the policymakers (Berkowitz, 1992; Erbring, Goldenberg, & Miller, 1980). Building an agenda includes “some degree of reciprocity” between media, politicians, and society (Dearing & Rogers, 1988). More recently, it became also evident that the transformation of the media environment, symbolized by social media relevance and trends toward disintermediation, is reinforcing the policymakers’ power of building the agenda (Aruguete, 2017). Until a few decades ago, the line of demarcation between journalists and politicians was defined as the one between guards and thieves, between Indians and cowboys. What was not considered yet were the partisan media (conservative and liberal networks) and what US observers call the “revolving door”: journalists who entered politics (and vice versa) (Shepard, 1997: 19). According to Larry Sabato, this has been one of the

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first causes for the traditional media’s loss of credibility, “people are not stupid, they know that the ones who go back and forth [between journalism and politics] are doing it just for their personal interests. They are not journalists nor civil servants” (Shepard, 1997: 20). Criticism was present at different levels of analysis: Postman harshly argued that American TV news media produced the “least well-informed people in the Western world” by packaging news as entertainment (Postman, 1985: 106–107). Among the millions of events happening every day, only very few become “news” and even a smaller part of them becomes important news. Traditional media have developed a rigid system of selection focused on the organization of news production which goes back to James Gordon Bennett Jr. in the 1800s. Newspapers, magazines, TV news are industrial products which need a constant availability of raw materials: news. And because the availability of news cannot be predicted, they have developed a supply system based on a very rigid scheme, focused on institutions. Already Walter Lippmann observed how “media are not keeping an eye on all humanity” and John Given explained how newspapers are in contact with a relatively small number of places where “someone’s life exits from daily routines: police stations, hospitals, parliaments, judiciary courts” (Lippmann, 1922: 307). That was true in 1835 when the first one-penny paper started spreading around, in 1922 when Lippmann wrote his seminal book on public opinion, in the mid-1960s when media were covering the beginning of the Vietnam War; and it is true today when Donald Trump tweets and all news media follow. We are so used to read and listen to politicians’ statements that we have forgotten the conventional characteristic of this choice. A key moment in the transformation of the relation between media and politics came from the rise of the so-called fast-food journalism: characterized by speed, repetition (especially of images), and predictability. It is a trend which was born more than two decades ago with the first Gulf war, the death of Princess Diana, and the O.J. Simpson case. Behind this transformation there have been two men: Allan Neuhart, the founder of USA Today, and Ted Turner, the founder of CNN. They both decided to innovate in their field, aiming to create products that were completely different from what was on the market at the time. USA Today did not want to compete with The New York Times, nor was it the CNN’s goal to replace the non-specialist top national broadcasters ABC, CBS, and NBC. Instead, they changed the entire landscape of American journalism with the introduction of the continuous cycle. CNN was able to suppress the traditional

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news cycle, a feature of journalism which existed since the invention of the press and that continued throughout radio and TV.  Nowadays, every media is competing for news against each other, 24 hours a day, independently from the material support that they use. As Reeves (1998) correctly described more than 20 years ago: journalism is becoming a slighter part of something much bigger, the supply of every kind of information and infotainment to paying consumers. The success of CNN was largely due to its 24-hour news cycle, its standardization and how fast the news appeared on screen. CNN legitimized repetition over explanation and it was the first channel which inflated “average” events to make them look like extremely important news—anticipating the longtime disguised passion of American journalism for celebrities, gossip, and scandals (Robinson, 2002). In other words, what is now called infotainment. The traditional journalistic criteria for news have been replaced by the obsession for repeating images. CNN and later MSNBC and Fox News are obliged by their elementary economic reality: they are on air 24/7; they need to have news and to label them as sensational (Hemmer, 2016). The 24-hour news cycle has the goal to always update viewers, no matter if they watch TV or connect online at midnight; news will always be on. On the other hand, the success of USA Today affected the distinction between “high-quality” press and gossip news, providing a homogenization of the two fields. Carl Jensen coined an interesting definition for fast-food journalism: “the typical diet of rotten news is based on useless banalities made sensational, personalized, homogenized and served to the public every day. Although is not nutrient for the audience, the diet is inexpensive for producers and profitable for media owners” (1996: 161). Like burgers in fast-food restaurants are prepared following a standardized protocol which rationalizes costs and offer customers always the same product they like, modern news media prepare and pack news in an assembly line, offering viewers their preferred contents every minute of the day. And scholars already considered TV as a critical factor in citizens’ opinion formation. Postman (1985), for instance, argued that the medium of television substantially undermined the quality of public discourse in America. Another key factor in the transformation of the relation between media and politics has to do with the business model. Treating media and publishing houses as any other business means they are in need of profit and of growing their sales/views/advertising costs. They are not a separate domain anymore; they are not something in between industry, intellectual

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activity, political power, and civil service. They are just another business. People invest their time in them and expect a return. Some media companies are even listed on stock markets. They are not charitable organizations, and even non-profit ones are exceptions. Therefore, business managers started wondering if it was in the companies’ interest to pay foreign correspondents, to keep expensive offices abroad open, to have a well-rooted national network of collaborators. Media is one of the US industrial sectors which suffered a rationalization of workforce: “Less reporters, more profits”. It is a trend that already started in the late 1980s, with the cut of offices abroad and foreign correspondents. In 1995, when Mark Willes bought the Los Angeles Times, he cut 6200 workers and in less than a year he doubled the gross profits (Voakes, 1997). Massive closures of foreign US news offices marked the last two decades of the past century: first it begun with local and regional newspapers: The Philadelphia Enquirer (which has won 18 Pulitzer prizes), The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Baltimore Sun. They simply decided to leave the autonomous coverage of international events to the national and international press. In the 1980s, CBS had 38 foreign correspondents; in 2011 they had just 5. In the period from 2000 to 2005, The Washington Post closed 11 of its foreign offices. Over the same period, ABC closed its offices in Moscow, Paris, and Tokyo. In 1999, NBC had a permanent presence in Beijing, Cairo, and Johannesburg. Ten years later all these three cities were abandoned. With the Internet, cuts in workforce further increase: why should we have so many journalists on payroll, when we just need a few people on the computer? The rationalization of workforce also brought a news source rationalization: fewer professionals looking for news, more people relying on the same sources. Institutional sources are central again: official press releases, reports from Congress and the White House. And within institutions, now are also included the policymakers’ official social media profiles, which are free and available 24/7. The digital revolution has destroyed any barriers that were previously set to distinguish from radio to cable to press. And the Internet has even further unified the media environment: all news media outlets are now in tough competition with each other—but with the journalistic criteria modified. As already explained, it was in the pre-Internet era that the distinction between high-quality papers and sensationalist media was already vanishing. Together with the economic crisis, the Internet competition and the constantly diminishing interest for big

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international stories—replaced by the obsessive attention for local news and gossip—brought the triumph of infotainment. Rutenberg (2016) describes the current state of US news media as follows: News organizations old and new are jockeying for survival in a changing order, awash in information and content but absent the pillars they could always rely upon, like reliable advertising models, secure places on the cable dial or old-fashioned newsstand sales. We take those standards as a given, but they were established during more economically secure times, when the traditional media was flush and could dictate the terms of news coverage to advertisers, the people it covered and its audience. That leverage is slipping away. In that environment, Trump brings a welcome, if temporary, salve. He delivers ratings and clicks, and therefore revenue, which makes him the seller in a seller’s market. “I go on one of these shows and the ratings double, they triple,” Trump accurately told Time “And that gives you power.”

Trump’s communication is benefiting from the current weakness in US journalism. American traditional media are experiencing structural changes such as the technological challenge, the role of social media as first news source for many citizens, the journalists’ increasing job insecurity, and the media’s inevitable growing reliance on news agencies and secondary sources. Furthermore, the 24-hour news cycle competition “obliges” news media to cover any event, or any communication related to the president. With his skillful prerogative to make news any time he wants with a tweet, news conference, or inflammatory public rally, Trump has challenged news organizations’ traditional editorial rules. In the past, US traditional news media were seen as a “political institution functioning within a symbiotic relationship with the government” (Cook, 1998: 1). From a theoretical perspective, media depend on the government for information subsidies. On the other hand, the government needs media for publicity. That’s how the relation between media and politics functioned for centuries (Tuchman, 1978). And, until the early 2000s, some scholars have argued that the approach remained useful in a fragmented ecosystem because “public and officials still relied on the mainstream press for their central function of political communication” (Cook, 2006: 161). While others already observed how the fragmentation of the informational environment contributes to the power of politicians when it comes to building the agenda with increased competition and a

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push to “tailor political communication to particular identities, conditions, and tastes” (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999: 213). President Trump’s White House increasingly subverts this model by restricting access to the mainstream press, attacking its legitimacy (“not you CNN, you’re fake news”), by-passing mainstream channels by using social media, second-screening live during certain shows (e.g. Fox & Friends), and giving non-mainstream outlets access to press credentials (Maza, 2018). Rutenberg (2016) observed how: Newspapers and online news organizations got a click-worthy story line tailor-made for a fast read on the iPhone. And, finally, there were the viewers and the readers, who are benefiting from a transitioning media industry’s desire to give them what they want, where they want it, as fast as possible. As the people have made clear, they want Trump (…) Trump is unique. His pedigree, his demagoguery and his inscrutable platform (…) make him a giant story.

The declining audience for traditional news is well documented and creates pressures (Swart, Peters, & Broersma, 2017). In a well-rooted logic of profit seeking, news media need to increase their viewers’ ratings: then what better way than fully covering eccentric statements coming from a celebrity who entered politics and eventually became president? An example of Trump’s impact on media and on his leverage on them comes from CNN.  Once dominating the news cycle and, as above-­ mentioned, being a symbol of the transitioning to a 24/7 news cycle dominated by images and repetition  (Robinson, 2002); in 2014 Wall Street analysts questioned whether the network, then at its 20-year ratings low, had a place in the new ecosystem of unlimited real-time information. But only two years later, “with CNN’s debates and heavy coverage of Trump, the network’s ratings have increased about 170 per cent in prime time in 2016” (Rutenberg, 2016). Journalism is the by-product of the cultural, social, and political conditions of a country—and of an era. In the United States, communication has always marked American civilization since its origin, and it has been characterized by a strong connection between communication and the idea of freedom. “Why writing? [Because] it is a question of freedom” (Enzensberger, 1994: 18). In 1896, Adolph Simon Ochs bought The New  York Times, and, on August 19 of the same year, he wrote his ­manifesto on the newspaper’s first page. He aimed to set forth his goals for

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the respectable yet failing newspaper he had just taken over. Particularly, he was afraid of losing the daily battle against best-selling sensationalistic competitors in the heyday of yellow journalism (Campbell, 2001): It will be my earnest aim that The New-York Times give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is parliamentary in good society (…) to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved; to make of the columns of The New-­ York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion (…) The New-York Times as a non-partisan newspaper (…) is absolutely necessary to protect society, maintain individual and vested rights, and assure the free exercise of a sound conscience. (Dunlap, 2015)

Investigative journalism is often considered a symbol of good reporting. Its origin dates back to 1902, when a group of reporters, nicknamed as muckrakers, started working on investigative stories during the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt (Mott, 1957). This relatively narrow pool of journalists scored significant success in the first years of the twentieth century, publishing detailed investigations on corruption and abuses of power. They were talking straight, they had a militant spirit, and they did not accept compromises. Figures such as William Shepard, Edwin Markham, and John Mathews had an effect on politics, on legislation, and on the removal of corrupted public officials. Their activities, which required extensive, detailed, and expensive investigation, are at the basis of what later has been called “precision journalism”. And the same work philosophy is what several decades later brought other colleagues to unveil stories such as the Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and many others. However, the muckrakers’ heritage has been passed to just a limited number of renowned national media: the routines of commercial journalism, the invisible censorship of top advertisers, and the close relation with institutional sources have inevitably narrowed down the proliferation of in-depth investigative stories in the American media. WWI demonstrated how citizens could be extraordinarily manipulated by the government propaganda. And it is not a coincidence that the science of public relations was born in those years (Gans, 1980). Part of the US journalism reacted to that situation, and Walter Lippmann famously wrote on the necessity of scientificity and objectivity, calling for a deontological code of journalism. Lippmann believed that the reporter’s work

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should be above sides, only at the service of the self-governed community (Lippmann, 1922). But in calling for objectivity and for a scientific approach, Lippmann once again undervalued journalists’ daily routines and their almost symbiotic relation with their sources. And one clear—yet unexpected—example comes from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s story. He developed his pre-political career becoming a radio star, improving his rhetorical abilities. During his first campaign and while already elected, Roosevelt knew all the journalists, he talked to them in confidence, he often played poker with them. He represented a primary and confidential news source, developing a relation from which he significantly benefited, being able to put himself in a position of influencing and controlling a vast part of the news cycle (Gans, 2003: 51). Far from the times of muckraking journalism, the role of mediating journalism was already threatened from above. The reputation of US journalism reached its peak in the late 1970s: it was in these years that Lippmann’s goal of objective and scientific journalism seemed almost realized. After the coverage of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and several other successes, media credibility was very high. With solid economic bases and an undisputed quality, US media were giving citizens the impression of very high levels of professionalism of journalism, similar to those of engineers and doctors (Isaacson & Thomas, 1986). Until 1985, 72 percent of Americans considered media as “highly professional” organizations (Hallin, 1989). The media development of the twentieth century gave origin to well-­ separated industries: books were books, newspapers were newspapers, and movies were movies. This separation provided journalism with a status: collecting news was considered as a complete different activity than producing entertainment or realizing commercial contents. But, since the 1980s, the transformation of the work conditions brought journalism inside a big global machine where the borders of genres became increasingly blurred. The search for audience ratings, the need for profits, and the growing importance of advertising paved the way for infotainment, which rapidly became the favored genre for generalist networks as well as for all-news TV channels (Bagdikian, 2000). Presidential campaigns, Wall Street ratings, celebrities, weather forecasts, and scandals of any kind became part of the same news cycle, forged on the style of consumption of larger ­audiences (Kalb, 2001). Soft news became the ideal type of content and newsworthiness criteria changed forever.

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The decline of the original function of journalism as watchdog for democracy has become visible in the first years of the new millennium. In a famous speech at the Society of Professional Journalists (September 11, 2004), PBS documentary film director, Bill Moyers (2004) staked out the importance of scrutinizing governments and political activities: “Well, it’s government that can pick our pockets, slap us into jail, run a highway through our back yard, or send us to war”. The myth of watchdog journalism has always faced a subtle but effective opposition from the political institutions. Already in the 1950s, James Reston, who later became the editor of The New York Times, coined the term “news management” to describe the White House’s tendency of managing the information produced about the presidency. Additionally, the introduction of the figure of the spokesperson (the very first one was James C. Hagerty, during the Eisenhower’s first term), who was in charge of responding to journalists replacing the president, represented an additional institutional control over the news cycle. For journalism, the glorious days have been the ones of the 1970s: wide campaigns of recruitment (+62 percent in about ten years), a strong increase in the female workforce, a consistent growth of salaries. Journalism had the key role of holding government accountable in public for how public policy is made. This golden era remained stable until 1981/1982. Then, personnel rationalization and the concentration of media ownership changed the picture (Entman, 1989). What is now under stress is the rationality of public debate. Overwhelmed by gossip, celebrity politics, infotainment, and tons of useless information, voters are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult condition of forming their political opinions. Covering election campaigns as any other form of showbiz or horse race tends to concentrate the focus on the actors’ quality and not on the political contents, leaving additional room for marketing consultants to play and manipulate the environment with images of candidates. Every journalist is nested within an organization which has a final aim of realizing a product (Hallin, 1989). It does not matter if this is a newspaper, TV news, radio, website, or a social media feed. News has to be produced in an assembly line, as in any other industrial process. And this assembly line is characterized by a high degree of standardization, selectivity, and velocity. Timing is crucial: despite all the differences, the n ­ ewspaper has to be ready at late night; TV news is going on air at a pre-established time. Online newsfeeds have to be constantly updated with new stories.

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Under these constraints, which have been tightened in times of workforce rationalization and economic crisis, media are often inevitably conformist: they rely on official sources, they “buy” institutional stories, and they often do not have time and resources to guarantee their original role of news filters. In more recent years, this same cliché concerns media reporting from candidates’ and celebrities’ social media accounts: no filters, no debate, and no contradictory opinions. Communication gets vertical, with almost nothing in between the sender and the message’s receivers. Media can still apply some pre-selection on the stories to publish or release. However, their criteria have to check for the audience’s familiarity with the topic. Stories have to be simple, understandable. Current formats do not facilitate the spread of complex and long reports. The role of journalist as a filter, mediator, editor, and verifier is weakened. Since its origin, journalism has been threatened and besieged by four rivals: lack of news sources, the strength of political power, the risk of censorship, and the moods of the public opinion. And the work of professional journalists has been crafted by the codes of political correctness, unwritten rules which were born to guarantee gender rights and minorities. An excessive application of these moral codes can bring to a sort of subtle censorship which many “average” readers can feel. The rise and success of social media has also to do with the apparent overrun of this political correctness, brought by phenomena such as the ones of citizen journalists, of bloggers, and of video-makers. The de-professionalization of journalism is also favored by the accessibility of the Web. When news is “pouring like rain” from the Internet, journalists are perceived to become less necessary, bringing a re-definition of the role of professional news providers. We are experiencing the multiplication of the spaces of communication, but where does the news editor go to find news to put on the page? And how should sources be ranked? Without having direct correspondents, foreign offices, trustworthy insider sources—cultivated by reporters in years of profession, there is almost no alternative than copy-and-paste secondary sourced information and only, eventually, comment on the president’s tweets. And that is even more visible when these pieces of information contain eccentric and inflammatory contents which are, by nature, newsworthy. It is true that in some cases social media can boost bottom-up movements that are difficult to be controlled by established—if not

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a­ uthoritarian—regimes (the major cited example is the one related to the Arab Springs uprisings). They can also be a megaphone of promotion, revendication, and organization of terrorist groups—and the example goes to Al Qaeda and later Daesh (Nacos, 2007). However, they can also be interpreted in the opposite sense: social media as a good tool for rulers to communicate their point of view, to set the common sense, to maintain order, to strongly influence media (Morozov, 2011). And sometimes, the need is just to have full coverage that implicitly overshadows other potentially threatening stories. While social media are playing a key role in political communication, national TV networks remain central. TV and the Web are two pillars of the same globalized media environment, and they are strongly inter-­ related and influencing each other. In general, all-news TV channels are still very effective because all decision-makers are part of their audiences. And Trump is not an exception: the difference is that he is just an avid Fox News viewer, instead of relying on CNN as many of his predecessors did. The relation between TV and politics in the pre-Internet era can be summarized in a brief story: during the Cuban missiles crisis, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, said that for the two crucial weeks of the crisis, he did not watch TV for the whole period. In 1991, Dick Cheney, who was holding the same post during the Iraq Gulf war, said that “it was impossible not to watch CNN” (Ammon, 2001). In an industry largely supported by advertising, broadcasters live and die by ratings. And quality has never been a priority for TV producers. In fact, the first surveys to test audiences’ opinions came in 1930: the earliest national ratings service was the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting (CAB), which used the most advanced technology of the day, the telephone (Beville, 1988: 5). TV’s impact on newsworthiness rules was significant, and the US coverage of presidential campaigns was already changing long ago (Prichard, 1989). In 1992, Ross Perot attracted relevant media attention just because of his bizarre statements and behavior (Norris, 2001). Four years later, 48 percent of all TV reports were focused on who was ahead in the opinion polls, a topic which is completely irrelevant for a fair political debate. In 2000, this same percentage skyrocketed to 71 percent. The horse-racing style of covering political campaigns was finally at full pace (Center for Media and Public Affairs, 2004); the methodical and rational political debate was fading. Playwright Arthur Miller (2001: 1), in reflecting on politics and acting and focusing on the 2000 presidential campaign, concluded on the

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t­ransformed nature of media: “The American press is made up of disguised theatre critics; substance counts for next to nothing compared to style and inventive characterization”. Nowadays, the deposit and the formation of available news are much bigger than the structures of distribution and the average chances of consumption. The accumulation of news is non-stop. The disintermediation of communication and the news media’s reliance on social media are stripping off the responsibility from the source. Instead of embedded journalists reporting from warfronts, there are now militaries who describe themselves. Viewers and readers are considered the primary asset for news media, in terms of sales and as the most important number to attract advertising. However, readers’ consumer rights are not fully granted: if news is imprecise or falsified, nobody is punished for that. For any other consumer good, in case of willful misconduct, there are rules, penalties, and fines— for fake news there is no such thing. Citizens simply have the right to believe them or not. It is also not to be forgotten that the World Wide Web itself has significantly changed since the advent of social media. As Derakhshan (2015) noted, before social media, the Web was a large tool of knowledge and information which favored diversity and pluralism. Now social media platforms dominate it, and the more we use them, the more we feed algorithms of machine learning working on our preferences, online behavior, desires, emotions. The better these algorithms know us, the more they select for us news and information—increasingly narrowing our choice. This phenomenon, defined by Eli Pariser (2012) as the one of the “filter bubble”, is invisible and scarcely known by the user—but it is at the base of our online news diet. In general, the advent of the Internet, the increasing media business concentration, and the search for profits do not go toward the myth of objective journalism, which aims to be characterized by precision and contextualization. Instead, it goes toward infotainment—namely, the tendency of mixing information and entertainment. Even more dangerous is the fact that the democratic function of journalism is endangered: politics seems to be a variant of celebrity news. Its media coverage is focused on scandals and controversies, not on issues and proposals. Moreover, contemporary news media are losing their political and civil function. For about two centuries, journalism was the activity of collecting and selecting information and opinions to be presented to the general public,

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with the aim of enabling decisions over the community’s public affairs. This was also the reason behind the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of press and the freedom of speech. In times of infotainment and disintermediation, this aspect of communication has become secondary, marginal. Another crucial variable in the relationship between media and politics is that many American citizens consider traditional mass media as part of the elite and journalists as privileged people. Not as their representatives or their watchdogs. And Donald Trump seems to know it very well as he is clearly benefiting from the situation. In 2016, a Gallup poll showed that “Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media ‘to report the news fully, accurately and fairly’ has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with [only] 32 per cent saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media” (Swift, 2016). Even though, the situation has improved in the following two years: “Republicans have typically placed less trust in the media than independents and especially Democrats, but the gap between Republicans and Democrats has grown […] and President Donald Trump’s attacks on the ‘mainstream media’ are likely a factor in the increasingly polarized views of the media” (Swift, 2016). Republicans agree with his assertions that the media unfairly covers his administration, while Democrats may see the media as the institution primarily checking the president’s power (Jones, 2018). However, the lower classes’ mistrust for “elitarian” media is nothing new: in 1910, the Los Angeles Times’ headquarter was assaulted and devastated by a group of steel trade unionists (Adamic, 1931). In 1919, Upton Sinclair wrote an incendiary essay against the newspapers entitled The Brass Check, comparing them with the plaque that clients would collect at the brothel’s cashier to pay prostitutes (Goldstein, 1989: 151). In the pre-Internet era, the media atmosphere was that news was believed to mostly tell the truth, while nowadays “people who watch the news within the Republican-aligned media are being fed a nonstop diet of conspiracy theories and phony scare stories. And a lot of people believe that those crazy conspiracy theories and phony scare stories are true” (Bernstein, 2018). According to Thompson (2018): Trump made more than 1,500 false or misleading claims […] that’s roughly six lies, exaggerations, or omissions per day. Trump and Fox News have together formed an axis of epistemic insanity, encouraging base voters who

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crave conspiracy theories and dismiss all negative news stories. It is the president’s words, delivered often via Twitter and amplified on Fox News, that have exploded the very notion of a shared political truth.

And that accounts for several media networks, not for conservative ones only. From media managers’ perspective, it seems that the truth of a piece of content is “less important than whether it is shared, liked, and monetized” (Solon, 2016). According to the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of US adults get their news on social media (Gottfried & Shearer, 2016). However, in a very interesting Gallup research, Newport (2018) found that while only 8 percent of Americans say they follow Trump directly on Twitter, 76 percent of Americans see, read, or hear about Trump’s tweets—and Democrats actually hear more about Trump’s tweets than Republicans do. Thanks to the media eco-chamber, Trump’s unprecedented use of the social media platform Twitter as one of his primary means of presidential communication appears to be effective from a big-picture perspective. Over three-­ quarters of Americans say they see, read, or hear about his tweets a lot or a fair amount. The rise of Twitter, along with other social media, typically transformed the existing media. Twitter, for instance, had a “largely symbiotic relationship with television […] particularly as a cross-promotion platform” (Brouder & Brookey, 2015). Table  5.1 highlights how Twitter increasingly performs an agenda-setting function in politics that was once ­dominated by TV.  And TV now follows the lead of social media, with news media consistently treating Trump’s Twitter feeds as news.

Table 5.1  Number of US adults who read/hear/see Donald Trump’s tweets All US adults (%) A lot A fair amount Not much Nothing at all

53 23 13 11

Source: Author’s elaboration on Newport (2018) Notes: Gallup interviews held on May 1–13, 2018. Full question asked: “Thinking about the tweets themselves and discussion of his tweets in the news, how much do you see, read or hear about Donald Trump’s tweets—a lot, a fair amount, not much or nothing at all?”

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Choosing Twitter as the favorite social media is definitely not a coincidence. As argued by scholars and journalistic reports, Twitter is considered “media oriented”; while Facebook, for instance, is more “public oriented” (McCombs, Shaw, & Weaver, 2014). In other words: Facebook for leisure, Twitter for politics. With the latest being the ideal tool to influence media coverage. Trump considers his use of Twitter as a way of sending statements and opinions directly to the public. In June 2017 he tweeted: “The FAKE MSM [mainstream media] is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out”. But while a large majority of Americans ultimately hear about his tweets and the news they generate, few Americans say they read Trump’s tweets directly from Twitter. Instead, many appear to read or learn about them indirectly, through either other social media or the broader news media— especially TV networks. American citizens’ awareness of Trump’s tweets is often the result of an indirect dissemination. According to Newport’s research (2018): Only 26% of Americans have a Twitter account, and 30% of that group—or 8% of the overall U.S. population—personally follow Trump’s official Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump). Fifty-five percent of those who follow Trump on Twitter say they read all or most of his tweets, with another 25% saying they read some. Taking all of this into account, 4% of Americans overall have a Twitter account, follow Trump’s account and read all or most of his tweets. The percentage reading Trump’s tweets directly rises to 6% when including those who say they read some of his postings.

Table 5.2 reinforces and confirms the findings presented in Table 5.1: not many Americans follow Trump’s Twitter account but many more have heard of it and its contents. Twitter is the ideal tool to speak directly to people and get the message reported unfiltered also to several other media outlets. In some ways, then, Twitter functions for Trump much like an old-fashioned press release or press conference statement. Again, according to Newport (2018), Democrats pay more attention than Republicans to Trump’s tweets (64 percent vs. 50 percent, respectively). And when including those citizens who read “a fair amount” of his tweets, the percentages go to 84 percent for Democrats and 77 percent for Republicans (and 71 percent for voters who declared themselves “independents”).

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Table 5.2  US citizens’ habits on Twitter and Trump’s official Twitter account All US adults (%) Who have an active Twitter account Who have an active Twitter account and follow @realDonaldTrump Who have a Twitter account, follow @realDonaldTrump, and read all or most of Trump’s tweets

26 8 4

Source: Author’s elaboration on Newport (2018) Note: Interviews held on May 1–13, 2018

That again reinforces the idea that Trump’s use of Twitter serves him well as a mechanism to get his messages out to a broad majority of the American public. His tweets do not just follow a direct pathway to most Americans by virtue of their subscribing to his Twitter feed. Instead, as Newport clearly stated (2018): “it appears that Trump’s tweets reach Americans because news and social media gatekeepers propagate, rebroadcast and incorporate them into news and social media streams”. Trump’s strategies were already clear during the 2016 campaign. And that is also why, in January 2017, the AISNE (American Association of News Editors) sent an “open letter” to President Trump, concerning the core freedoms of speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion. It seems that the association was well aware of Trump’s communication tactics and of his ability of building the agenda: Trump’s ongoing “fireside tweets” are both new to American politics and an echo of FDR’s similar mastery of the new medium of his era, radio, to speak directly to voters. We, the people, should endorse that call to coverage by our independent “watchdogs on government.” In turn, journalists must take action to reverse a widespread view—74% in the latest State of the First Amendment survey—that the news media is failing to live up to its responsibility to be accurate and unbiased in news reports—or to, at the least—be transparent in declaring bias. We may disagree—and often do—on how those five core freedoms of the First Amendment apply to any given set of facts. But we should all stand behind them against any attempt to limit, weaken or ignore them on the basis of the variable political winds, the power of fear—or even the impact of the occasional Presidential tweet. (Policinski, 2017)

President Trump continued his tones and styles of disintermediated communication, manufacturing a permanent campaign climate based on

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strong and inflammatory language which attracted stable and decisive media coverage. Trump’s dominance of the news cycle also reflects a physiological desire for higher TV ratings and Web traffic numbers. He critically exploited the media’s news logics and took advantage of the lack of trust the American public has in journalism. All around it remains the phenomenon of “fake news” that is characterizing the current relation between media, audience, and politics. Trump has often been accused by mainstream media to spread—or at least share— fake news. On the other hand, he vigorously overrules the charge, saying that are those news media which deliver fake news against him. All in all, it seems that part of the electorate—and Trump’s core supporters especially—are not affected by these accusations: since its entering into politics, Trump seems to benefit from a unique credibility bonus which protects him against backfire. The explanation for that comes from Chap.  3: the repeated clowning performances make Trump to be perceived like an actor. And because actors, by definition, play; audiences are more prone to forgive them if they lie, if they recite. This is crucial for understanding why Trump’s core electorate is not much affected by all the accusations concerning his supposed tendency to lie or to inflate certain stories. So far, Trump’s political communication strategies have proved to be successful. As a total outsider, he won the 2016 Republican primaries. As underdog candidate, he surprisingly defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections. He kept control of the Senate in 2018, and he has great chances to be confirmed as president for a second term in 2020. He has also completely transformed the Republican Party. No more than four years ago, the Republican establishment was doing everything to block his presidential run, struggling to support candidates such as Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and others—everyone but Trump. As soon as he entered office, he undoubtedly became the leader of the Republicans. His incendiary rhetoric has divided the country and polarized the electorate. According to a November 2019 Gallup survey (Jones, 2019): Trump’s job approval ratings continue to be marked by extreme partisan polarization, with 91% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats approving of the job he is doing. Thirty-eight percent of independents evaluate Trump’s performance positively (…) The 86-point gap in Republican and Democratic ratings of the president ties the highest Gallup has measured in a single ­survey. This is the third time Trump’s approval ratings have reached this level of polarization.

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In comparing the yearly average approval ratings by party president-by-­ president, Trump’s second year in office marked the biggest gap in approval rating by party in the US history, while Trump’s 2017 tied in polarization with Obama’s and George W.  Bush fourth years in office. Table 5.3 also shows a consistent trend toward increasingly partisan evaluTable 5.3  Most polarized presidential approval ratings, by party President

Year in office

Trump

2

Obama

4

George G.W. Bush

4

Trump

1

George G.W. Bush

5

George G.W. Bush

6

Obama

2

Obama

3

Clinton

4

George G.W. Bush

8

Dates January 2018–January 2019 January 2012–January 2013 January 2004–January 2005 January 2017–January 2018 January 2005–January 2006 January 2006–January 2007 January 2010–January 2011 January 2011–January 2012 January 1996–January 1997 January 2008–January 2009

Republican approval (%)

Democratic approval (%)

Gap

89

8

81

10

86

76

91

15

76

84

8

76

86

14

72

79

9

70

13

81

69

12

80

68

24

85

61

67

6

61

Source: Author’s elaboration on Jones (2013) and Gallup (2019) Notes: Chart based on averages for each presidential year (presidential years run from January 20 through January 19)

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ations of presidents over time: all 12 most polarized yearly presidential approval ratings belong to the last four presidents. Concerning previous presidents’ most polarized years, Jones (2013) measured 45-point gap in Eisenhower’s sixth year in office, 32-point gap for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, 44-point margin for Nixon’s fourth year, 29-point gap in 1980 for Carter, 60-point margin in Reagan’s fourth year in office, and a 54-point gap in approval ratings by party for George H.W.  Bush’s fourth year. Because all past presidents (except for Eisenhower) had the fourth as their most polarized year, it may be possible that Trump’s 2020 will soon mark a new record of polarization. Voters’ polarization is also reflected in Congressional polarization. In November 2019, a vehemently divided House of Representatives voted to endorse the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The vote to approve a resolution that sets out rules for the impeachment process was 232 to 196: the unanimous Republican opposition voted against the resolution and only two Democrats deflected from party line vote. Though it is not a perfect comparison to votes taken to authorize impeachment investigations into presidents Nixon and Clinton, this result highlighted the seriousness of partisan polarization that is affecting US politics. On February 6, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee was authorized to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Nixon, and the House almost unanimously approved the resolution 410–4. On December 19, 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached on grounds of perjury by a 228–206 vote and obstruction of justice by a 221–212 vote (Miller, 1998). Two other articles of impeachment failed—a second count of perjury (by a 205–229 vote) and the one accusing Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote). Five Democrats voted in favor of three of the four articles of impeachment. Five Republicans voted against the first perjury charge. Eight more Republicans voted against the obstruction charge. Twentyeight Republicans voted against the second perjury charge, sending it to defeat, and 81 voted against the abuse of power charge (CNN, 1998). Polarization at party level is confirmed by several studies focused on voting behavior in Congress (Farina, 2019). The phenomenon is often measured throughout the DW-nominate score, and scholarly evidence has also shown how the increase in congressional voting by party lines started way before Trump (McCarty, 2016). However, several other signs witness a Trump’s effect in this massively increasing polarization. Senate confirmations of Trump’s Supreme Court

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nominees are one example: on April 7, 2017, the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch by a 54–45 vote, with only three Democrats joining all the Republicans in favor of Gorsuch (Liptak & Flegenheimer, 2017). Even more radicalized and controversial was the Senate’s ratification of Brett Kavanaugh: on October 6, 2018, the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court with a 50–48 vote. All Republicans but two voted to approve the nomination, and all Democrats except one voted in opposition (Helsel & Thorp, 2018). The only precedent in history with such a close confirmation was the vote on Stanley Matthews, nominated by President James A. Garfield in 1881 (Keller, 2018). Matthews was confirmed by the margin of a single vote (24–23) (Phillips, 2018). Other early proofs of growing radicalization were also visible during the 2016 campaign: in the final televised debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump threatened to break a long-standing “gentleman’s agreement” existing between presidential candidates, refusing to say whether or not he will accept the outcome of the election: “I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now, I’ll keep you in suspense” (Rhodan, 2016). Trump also refused to release his tax returns, making him the first major party nominee since 1976 not to make his tax returns public (Blake, 2016). He also decided not to reveal them in his first two years as president, breaking another long-standing presidential habit (Davison & Talev, 2019). Furthermore, in just a few years, Trump has not only moved the Republican Party to the right, but—by reaction—he has also produced consequences in the Democratic Party, which has now become more socially liberal and secular compared to how it was only ten years ago (Cillizza, 2019). Trump is reshaping the nation’s political landscape and he is impacting communication strategies overseas. His disintermediated and violent communication style has influenced foreign policymakers: from British PM Boris Johnson to Italian Lega’s leader Matteo Salvini, there are several European right-wing politicians who are literally mimicking Trump’s Twitter style and his informal way of communication. Trump’s imitators can also be found among Eastern European “illiberal” leaders and in South America (one name for all: the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro). In investigating Trump’s political communication, this book has argued how the 45th US president is dominating the media system and “building the agenda” by means of five specific strategies. And, it has often been highlighted how Trump’s instinct and impulsive character has forged his distinctive style and influenced his strategies. However, something else

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might also contribute to explain his capacity to intercept and interpret voters’ feelings. In a fascinating book (2016), Mark Lilla leads readers on a tour of the modern reactionary mind, shining a fresh light on the now-called “populist” ideas that are gaining strength in the United States and in Europe. He argues that: the reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. (2016: 1)

It’s a description that brilliantly fits Trump’s rhetoric. Trump has understood that nostalgia is a powerful political motivator, perhaps even stronger than hope: hopes can be disappointed; nostalgia is indisputable. In such a challenging political environment, can there really be a better (permanent) campaign slogan than “Make America Great Again”?

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Keller, C. (2018, October 6). Senate Vote on Kavanaugh Was Historically Close. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-pol-scotus-confirmation-votes-over-the-years-20181005htmlstory.html Lilla, M. (2016). The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction. New  York: New York Review of Books. Lippmann, W. (1922). Public Opinion. New York: Macmillan. Lippmann, W. (1980). Liberty and the News. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe. Liptak, A., & Flegenheimer, M. (2017, April 8). Neil Gorsuch Confirmed by Senate as Supreme Court Justice. The New York Times, A1. Luhmann, N. (1971). Politische Planung: Aufsätze Soziologie von Politik un Verwaltung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Maza, C. (2018, February 8). The Trump-Fox & Friends Feedback Loop, Explained. Vox. Retrieved August 1, 2019, from https://www.vox. com/2018/2/9/16997022/strikethrough-trump-fox-friends-feedback-loopexplained-tweet McCarty, N. (2016). In Defense of DW-NOMINATE. Studies in American Political Development, 30(2), 172–184. McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176. McCombs, M.  E., Shaw, D.  L., & Weaver, D.  H. (2014). New Directions in Agenda-Setting Theory and Research. Mass Communication & Society, 17(6), 781–802. Miller, A. (2001). On Politics and the Art of Acting. London: Viking Penguin. Miller, L. C. (1998, December 19). Final Vote Results for Roll Call 546. Office of the Clerk. Retrieved November 20, 2019, from http://clerk.house.gov/ evs/1998/roll546.xml Mindich, D. (2016, July 15). For Journalists Covering Trump, a Murrow Moment. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved January 6, 2019, from https://www. cjr.org/analysis/trump_inspires_murrow_moment_for_journalism.php Morozov, E. (2011). The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Public Affairs. Mott, F. (1957). A History of American Magazines, 1885–1905. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Moyers, B. (2004). Journalism Under Fire: A Speech by Bill Moyers. Retrieved March 1, 2019, from http://52.38.63.81/en/2004/09/297711.shtml Nacos, B.  L. (2007). Mass Mediated Terrorism: The Central Role of Media in Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield. Newport, F. (2018). Deconstructing Trump’s Use of Twitter. Gallup. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/234509/deconstructing-trump-twitter.aspx

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Index

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS 9/11, 43 @POTUS, 8 A Activity of governing, 28 Adorno, Theodor, 56 Advertising, 108 Agenda-setting, 110 Aggressive populism, 52 Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media, 109 American value system, 72 Android, 18 The Apprentice, 54 Average readers, 106 B Barthes, Roland, 62 Big data, 31 Birtherism, 80

Blumenthal, 29 Boxing, 77 Brown, Jerry, 22 Building the agenda, 97 Bully pulpit, 23 C Caddell, Patrick, 27 Campaign slogans, 38 Campaign style, 36 Candidate Trump, 80 Celebrity, 61 Checks and balances, 57 Clinton, Hillary, 14 Clown, 49 Clowning mask, 64 CNN, 11 Collective sense maker, 63 Communities, 17 Company men, 33 Conference statement, 111 Consensus, 27

© The Author(s) 2020 M. Morini, Lessons from Trump’s Political Communication, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39010-5

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INDEX

Crazy Bernie, 40 Credibility bonus, 113 Crooked, 59 Customized information, 96 D Dangerous speeches, 72 de Tocqueville, A., 59 Democratic lawmakers, 20 Depersonalizes interactions, 5 De-politicization, 50 Discourse, 5 Disintermediation, 1 Disliked journalists, 60 Disruptive force, 2 Divisive language, 68 Doesn’t have a clue!, 83 E Earned media, 96 Elites, 63 Emotional contagion, 87 Emotional dimension, 23 Emotions, 56 Entering into politics, 113 Entertaining politics, 51 F Fake News, 8 Federal government shutdown, 38 Filter bubble, 108 Fitness for office, 49 Form 2, 43 Fox News, 9 Fragmentation, 101 Freedom, 102 Free media coverage, 95 Freud, Sigmund, 57

G Going Public, 30 Governing, 28 H Hardline conservatives, 53 “High-quality” press, 99 Hyper-simplified language, 85 I Immigrants, 79 Incendiary rhetoric, 67 Independents, 111 Infotainment, 99 Insider sources, 106 International press, 100 iPhone, 18 J Jewish, 75 Jokes, 54 L Laughing, 84 Legitimacy, 102 Lippmann, W., 104 Loser, 73 Low-cost campaign, 95 M MAGA, 17 Marketing consultants, 105 Mass distraction, 44 Media criticism, 6 Merchandise, 38 Middleton, R., 51

 INDEX 

Miller, Arthur, 52 Mobilizing effect, 68 Modern method of communication, 6 Muslims, 42 N NAFTA, 85 Nazi-Fascist rhetoric, 69 NBC, 12 News credibility, 13 News gathering routines, 97 The New York Times, 12 Nicknames, 59 O Obama, Barack, 16 Obama’s administration, 3 Objectivity, 103 Opinion polls, 33 P Partisanship, 14 Permanent campaign, 27 Personalization of politics, 51 Pocahontas, 40 Poisoning, 43 Poisson test, 19 Political and civil function, 108 Political communication, 88 Political consultants, 32 (Politically) correct/incorrect, 58 Political marketing, 7 Politics of disposability, 79 Popular leadership, 31 Populist appeals, 31 Populist rhetoric, 89 Populist strategy, 87 Populist style, 85 Power of laughter, 50

Pre-Internet era, 107 Pre-political celebrity, 55 Presidential communication, 110 Press briefings, 3 Prima-donna behavior, 50 Primary campaign, 96 “Promotional” tweets, 19 Pro-Trump Super Pacs, 36 Public discourse, 99 Public sphere, 70 R Rallies, 71 Rational, 70 Rationalization of workforce, 100 Re-election campaign, 37 Republican-aligned media, 109 Republican President, 42 Republican primaries, 11 Reputation, 104 Retweeting, 7 Rhetorical strategy, 80 Romney, Mitt, 76 Russia, 9 S Sartre, Jean-Paul, 67 Schumpeter, Joseph, 62 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 54 Self-celebration, 23 Semantics, 72 Shock jock, 88 Slanderous, 75 Social media, 33 Solo press conferences, 3 Solving issues, 83 Spokesperson, 105 Statesmanlike, 44 Superlatives, 71 Supply-system, 98 Syntactic complexity, 53

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INDEX

T Third Reich’s language, 70 Totalitarian language, 82 Traditional fundraising, 35 Traditional media filter, 1 Traditional news cycle, 98 Trump, Donald, 2 language, 82 racist comments, 67 speeches, 81 tweets, 78, 111 Trust in politics, 55 Twitter account, 2 Twitter attacks, 20 Twitter feed, 112 2018 midterm elections, 42

U Unfiltered communication, 89 Unhealthy relationship, 14 Unlimited money, 35 US news media, 101 W Watchdog for democracy, 105 White supremacist groups, 73 Witch Hunt, 78 Y Yellow journalism, 103