Trump’s Rhetorical Power
I found a recent paper by Timothy Haverda and Jeffery Halley (H&H) helpful in trying to understand Trump’s nomination and election. More implicitly, it may also help understand Trump’s base of support.
H&H base their paper on Theodor Adorno’s (1903 – 1969) analysis of a 1930s preacher in California, Martin Luther Thomas.* Based on Thomas’ radio addresses, Adorno identified 33 rhetorical devices that characterized Thomas’s speeches. The paper uses three of these devices (1) lone wolf, (2) movement, and (3) exactitude of error to analyze 16 Trump speeches. The speeches cover June 16, 2015 (Trump’s presidential announcement speech) to January 2017 (Trump’s Inaugural Address). In between they cover the 12 Republican Party debates and the three presidential debates.
The lone wolf device
Trump uses the lone wolf device, which H&H describe as one that within Adorno’s research on authoritarian populism promotes anti-statism or pseudo-conservatism. Trump uses this device to engender political anxieties about our country’s political structure. In doing so, Trump encourages his audience to identify with him. Once that identification occurs, Trump can influence these anxieties so that his supporters direct their anger at the country’s political structure.
More specifically, Trump especially encourages his supporters to distrust what might be called the professional politicians along with their financial donors, lobbyists, and the bureaucrats that keep the corrupt political system functioning. Using the lone wolf device, Trump frames the political structure as being the important problem of the country. Once the political system is fixed social and economic life will improve for everyone. The country will be made great again.
Trump not only criticizes the country’s politics but also positions himself as being opposed to these special interests. In this way Trump is branding himself as someone who is alone in the political field and ruthless enough to successfully take on the political structure/special interests. This what Trump probably meant by his claim that he will “drain the swamp.” His draining the swamp rhetoric engenders in his followers a belief that Trump is following the will of the people, who want someone powerful enough to execute their will in this regard. He is also demystifying the country’s political system (professional politicians, special interests, and lobbyists) without being specific or detailed.
In labeling the political system in this way, Trump’s lets his follower know that this political structure is one of individual choice. The political structure is comprised of people, it is not an abstract structure. This is important because Trump also lets it be known that he himself is a politician. And as a politician he knows the game, which gives him the skill and experience to destroy the swamp. His experience as a businessman forced him into working with politicians. Thus, he personally understands politicians, donors, special interests, and the relationships among these people.
Trump constructs an insider/outsider status. He brands himself as someone who can step outside of politics and ignore the special interests make America great again. To accomplish this insider/outsider status Trump has to convince his supporters that he can be both an insider and an outsider. He does this by repeating his claim that he is self-financing his own campaign. He is not accepting donor money; he is not being corrupted by the political system. In fact, he is losing money by running for president. He says that he is reluctantly running for office and is doing so only in order to make America great again. His presidential bid testifies to his indefatigability. He points out that he has worked tirelessly to amass a fortune and now he will endlessly toil to work for the American people.
It would take too much time and space to lay out all the speeches wherein he uses each of these rhetorical devices, so I will limit the examples.
- “I’m spending all of my money . . . I turn down so much, I could have from special interests and donors . . . I turned down last week $5 million from somebody. So, I will tell you I understand the game. I’ve been on the other side all my life. And they have a lot of control over our politicians . . . Nobody has control of me other than the people of this country.” [2nd Republican debate]
- “I’ve created tens of thousands of jobs and a great company . . . I’m self-funding my campaign. I’m putting up my own money.” [4th Republican debate]
- “There is total control of the candidates. I know it better than anybody that probably ever lived . . . And frankly I know the system better than anybody else and I’m the only one up here that’s going to be able to fix that system because that system is wrong.” [12th Republican debate]
The movement device
The movement device encompasses (1) the vagueness of political objectives and (2) the glorification of action. The movement is an end in itself. The movement appeals to the negative; it has no detailed characteristics. No concrete details are proposed. The appeal of the movement is defined more by what it is not. The movement’s negative approach reinforces social anxieties because it focuses on distrusted individuals. Accusations are made about specific people. Action is lauded, talk is denigrated.
- “Obamacare is going to be repealed and replaced . . . We’re going to have something much better . . . We have to get rid of Obamacare . . . I will get it done.” [10th Republican debate]
- “Politicians are all talk, no action.” [ Presidential Announcement Speech]
- “We need people that know what the hell they’re doing. And politicians, they’re all talk, they’re no action. And that is why people are supporting me.” [9th Republican debate]
- “No one knows politicians better than I do. They’re all talk, they’re no action, nothing gets done.” [10th Republican debate]
- “We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action – constantly complaining but never doing anything about it. The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.” [Inaugural Address]
- “You are all talk and no action.” [directed to Ted Cruz, 10th Republican debate]
- “Typical politician. All talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn’t work. Never going to happen.” [directed to Hillary Clinton, 1st Presidential debate]
The exactitude of error device
The exactitude of error device refers to the constant use of hyperbole, to the constant repetition of exaggeration and mischaracterization, almost if not to the point. The use of exaggeration in Adorno’s study is usually related to the fear of outsiders, racism, and ethnocentrism. In Trump’s case H&H relate ethnocentrism to white supremacy and nationalism.
Trump’s exactitude of error rhetorical device focuses on fear of outsiders, white supremacy, and law-and-order politics. Through this device Trump “creates a nostalgic narrative that frames what he believes to the United States’ decline.” His narratives of nostalgia contain notions of victories/success and violence/beatings. Trump uses hyperbole and exaggeration to demonstrate the terrible position the United States is in today. He repeats often his exaggerations and usually with a rapid-fire use of statistics and numbers, which seem to grow in seconds.
- “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best . . . They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with [to?] us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” [Presidential Announcement Speech]
- “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them . . . The United States has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.” [Presidential Announcement Speech]
- “We spent $2 trillion in Iraq, $2 trillion. We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq . . . Last week, I read 2,300 Humvees – these are big vehicles – we’re left behind for the enemy. 2,000? You could say maybe two, maybe four . . . the enemy just took them . . . Our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. Don’t believe the 5.6. don’t believe it. That’s right. A lot of people up there can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs. But the real number, the real number is anywhere from 18 to 19 and maybe even 21 percent . . . Yesterday, it came out that [healthcare] costs are going up for people up 29, 39, 49, and even 55 percent, and deductibles are through the roof. You have to be hit by a tractor, literally a tractor, to use it, because deductibles are so high, it’s virtually useless. It’s virtually useless. It is a disaster. [Presidential Announcement Speech]
- “We have a situation where we have our inner cities, African-Americans, Hispanics, are living in hell, because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot. In Chicago, they’ve had thousands of shootings, thousands, since January 1st. Thousands of shootings. And I say, where is this? Is this a war-torn country? What are we doing? And we have to stop the violence, we have to bring back law and order, in a place like Chicago, where thousands of people have been killed.” [1st Presidential debate]
- “Our policemen and women are disrespected. We need law and order, but we need justice, too. Our inner cities are a disaster. You get shot walking to the store. They have no education. They have no jobs. I will do more for African Americans and Latinos than she [referring to Hillary Clinton] can ever do in ten lifetimes.” [3rd Presidential debate]
Comment
I found the Haverda and Halley paper stimulating and helpful in understanding Trump’s success. I will use an extended comment section to explore further the paper’s findings relative to Trump.
Plausible arguments can be made that the Trump has a relatively low IQ. Nearly certainly his lack of impulse control and empathy suggest someone of low emotional intelligence. Yet, there is little doubt that he has a certain kind of intuitive intelligence honed by his long experience in selling, marketing, and branding. That kind of intuitive intelligence lends itself to propaganda in the sense of being able to influence a mass of people.
Adorno identified 33 rhetorical devices used by Martin Luther Thomas. H&H use only three because the others referred to or dealt with religion and Trump is essentially secular. They make no claim that the three they use are the only rhetorical devices Trump uses. And they do not try to prioritize the weight or effectiveness of each of the devices.
Here I will suggest that the rhetorical devices had to be used in a certain progression or sequence to be successful. I am not suggesting that Trump uses the rhetorical devices in only a sequential way. H&H’s data show that Trump mixed all three devices in his speeches. What I am suggesting is that the rhetorical devices had to be successful in a certain order. That is, I see them on building blocks, where one device could be successful only if the other device was successful first.
The empirical work I have read on Trump’s election identifies two major reasons why people voted for Trump. Probably the foremost one is a general fear of the “other” and more specifically, immigration. The other one is either more generally a sense the economy was not improving or not improving fast enough and more particularly the lack of job growth, especially in the goods producing industries (especially manufacturing and natural resources extraction). Not far behind these two is the desire or felt need by Trump voters for a strongman, someone who can take control and turn the country around. This desire for a strongman blends with nostalgia for a past better time in America. [See post and post]
The rhetorical devices as building blocks
Given this background it seems the three rhetorical devices reinforce one another. They are much more powerful together than if each acted independently. Trump created a strong fear about immigration where almost none existed by his use of hyperbole, mischaracterization, and exaggeration connected to racism.
Once he tapped into this latent fear and grew it significantly, he was able to generate in his potential voters the idea that he would act to protect them from their fears. He would much more than just talk about handling the situation, he was a person of action. Additionally, he possessed the skills and know-how to take on and solve these problems. He made people aware they could not trust the swamp (the professional politicians, the lobbyists, the donors, the bureaucrats who were locked into the system and could not change it.) But they could trust him, Trump, because he was outside the swamp and beholden to no one except the people.
From this perspective (that is, within the perspective of the paper) Trump’s necessary first step was to create fear of the other, a latent fear tinted with racism and connected to job loss. Accomplishing this required the effective use of the rhetorical error of exactitude device. Trump had to exaggerate the threat of the other to make it real and powerful. To make this threat real and powerful he had to polemically exaggerate the threat again, again, and again. The repetition had to be permanent. Fantastical and misleading hyperbole pushed this along.
Trump’s next move was to convince people that the political system created and sustained this threat. For this he used the lone wolf rhetorical device. The corrupt political system, the swamp, could not solve this threat, was incapable of acting on it. For this rhetorical device to be effective it had to have three parts. Frist, the swamp could not be an abstract structure, it had to be insidious individuals and groups. Second, the corrupt political system was fully responsible for all the country’s ills. Non-white immigration and job loss were just part of the damaging outcome of the corrupt political system.
Finally, to make the key rationale for this rhetorical device to work, Trump had to picture himself as the outsider/insider. He knew the political system because he was part of it. He gave money to politicians. He understood the dominant role of donors and lobbyists because he himself was one. He knew the corrupt political system was transactional. Those who gave money to the politicians received favorable treatment; those who received money provided favors to the donors. He experientially knew the corrupt political system. He knew how this corrupt system worked.
At the same time, he was not of the swamp. He was different. He made a fortune through his own skills and intelligence. Nobody owned him. He was self-financing his own campaign. He was refusing donor offers. He was losing money by campaigning for the presidency. He was running for the presidency because he wanted to help those who were being harmed by the swamp, those whom the political system had ignored for decades, those for whom the political system had always expressed condescension. The people running for the presidency in opposition to Trump were running to defeat Trump because he was not of the swamp.
Trump used the lone wolf rhetorical device to convince the population that he could take on the swamp and win. But he also had to convince people that he would take on the swamp and win. For this Trump used the movement rhetorical device. Here, he presented himself as a person of action.
Part of the way he did this was by differentiating himself from members of the corrupt political system. Swamp creatures were all talk and no action. They never really did anything; they accomplished nothing. They were all talk, full of empty talk. All his primary contenders were swamp creatures. They were part of the corrupt political system. Yet they accomplished nothing. Hillary had been around for decades – what had she done to solve the problems of the country? She was all talk and no action.
He, Trump, on the other hand, was a mover. He actually did things. He built great companies. He created jobs. He was a self-made man who made his own fortune. He was the swordsman charging in on a white horse coming to save the country.
I am not suggesting that Trump used the exactitude of error rhetoric, then stopped and used the lone wolf rhetoric, and then stopped and used the movement rhetoric. The Haverda and Halley paper show that he used all three rhetorical devices during the study period. What I am suggesting is that the three rhetorical devices were used as building blocks. If he wasn’t successful with the first device, he probably would not have been effective with the second, and so on. That he used all three relatively simultaneously made the efficacy of each stronger.
Vague objectives?
I express one uncertainty I have with the paper. The authors indicate that the movement rhetoric consisted of two elements, vague political objectives and the glorification of action. I disagree to an extent with the vague political objectives portion. They state that Trump’s political objectives lacked detail and appealed to the negative. Some negative examples are clear: repeal Obamacare, stop the Trans Pacific Partnership, get out of the Iran nuclear deal, and get out of the Paris Climate Accord. Trump had no idea with what to replace these negative accomplishments. He had only a negative focus
Probably Trump’s most significant political objective was stop non-white immigration by building a wall. He talked about a tall, big, beautiful concrete wall paid for by Mexico. That seems specific to me. It was only much later that controversy occurred over how the word “wall” was defined. His proposal with the least detail (no detail really) was his great infrastructure proposal.
Regarding his other policy objectives, he would strengthen the economy and produce jobs by (1) stopping non-white immigration, (2) rewriting NAFTA, (3) getting out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, (4) deregulating the economy, (5) dropping out of the Paris Climate accord, (6) putting tariffs on international trade, especially with China, (7) moving to bilateral trade negotiations, where the U.S. would just about always be the most powerful party, (8) cutting taxes, and (9) jawboning industries to slow if not stop employment from moving abroad. Perhaps none of these were spelled out in detail, but they were specific enough and did form a coherent approach to improving the economy and increasing jobs, especially in the goods producing industries.
Why was Trump’s rhetoric successful?
Why did so many people either believe Trump or end up voting for him? Undoubtedly the reasons are many and may never be fully known. Nonetheless I suggest a few that may be important within the context of the H&H paper.
Adorno suggests that the rhetorical devices were effective for Martin Luther Thomas in his bid to attract followers. More generally, Adorno believed these kinds of rhetorical devices were successful for most authoritarian populist leaders. My sense is that Trump made great use of rhetorical devices in his selling, marketing, and branding efforts. He knew before he announced his intention to run for president what devices would be effective in his political campaign. In other words, even before he ran for the presidency Trump was an experienced and effective propagandist.
Second, the rhetorical devices seem most relevant to people who saw themselves as victims, people who through no fault of their own believed they were losing social and/or economic status. They perceived themselves as losing this status because others, many of whom they might consider less deserving, were winning at their expense. They were losing because they had little or no political power compared to those who were winning. The politicians did not only not care about them, they treated them with condescension. These people were angry.
They saw Trump as taking their side. Not only did Trump attack these corrupt politicians he often attacked them directly by name. Importantly, I think, they applauded Trump’s political incorrectness. Trump disrespected people in public. He called them names. He said things in public that others may have said in private. Trump thumbed his nose at the establishment, and then stuck them in the eye, and enjoyed doing it. They loved his visceral attack on the establishment. Trump expressed negativity about abortion, about the way the establishment treated Christianity. He said the establishment favored the global elite and international trade; they did not care about people losing their jobs because of it.
Perhaps some Trump supporters went along for the ride. They did not necessarily care about politics, about government, about policies. What they did enjoy was the show Trump was putting on. It was a circus, and they had front row seats. There were no consequences for enjoying the circus. His lies and fantasies had no consequences, they were just part of the show. They perhaps loved the fact that the establishment did not love the circus.
Third, Trump the showman talked in ways the people understood. He told stories, anecdotes; He wove, spun, and rewove and re-spun narratives. Most people learn through stories and narratives. While experts and specialists may communicate with one another and learn through expository argument and logical-scientific communication, most people learn through narratives and stories. And Trump is a master storyteller in his own way.
The fourth is more speculative and plums underneath some of the above reasons. Why do people enjoy Trump’s kind of behavior, his kind of language? I wrote two earlier posts on leadership and immaturity. In the first of these two posts, from the literature I suggested that Trump may be an immature leader.
The literature reviewed in the second post suggests that immature leaders attract immature followers. The authors of the article in this second post say that an immature leader can only appeal to our lower angels, not our better angels. They suggest that these kinds of appeal are more likely to be triggered in people who desire clear messages and who are motivated to see themselves as better and more deserving of better outcomes than others. Such followers may suppress their better angels due in part to their need for a positive social identity, such as a white racial identity. In sum, an immature, charismatic leader can turn followers into what he is rather than elevating them.
Will Trump’s rhetoric still work in the 2020 campaign?
The final part of this comment section speculates on Trump’s campaign rhetoric subsequent to his election as president. I think he has continued to use these three rhetorical devices. The question is whether they are as effective three or so years into his administration as they were when he was campaigning. Will they be effective in his 2020 presidential campaign? Polls suggest that his approval rating generally runs from 38% to 45%, settling mostly in the low 40s. This is a lower percentage, but not by much, than the percentage of voters who voted for him. Right now his rhetoric appears a bit less successful than in 2015-2016.
Perhaps his most used and most important rhetorical device is the exactitude of error. He continually lies, exaggerates, mischaracterizes, and dabbles in fantasy. Trump needs to ensure that the other remains the source of the nation’s problems. So his focus remains on ensuring his base is the victim of the other. The intensity of his description of the other seems to be increasing. This may intensify the support among his hard-core base but may loosen his support among those more peripheral to his base while simultaneously firing up his opposition. He may be maxed out on the effectiveness of this rhetorical device.
The effectiveness of his rhetoric may also be diminished because Trump is now part of the political establishment. Therefore, he must convince his base that he still is the lone wolf, that remnants of the swamp are still out to get him and cannot let him fully do the job he was elected to do. So, he attacks the mainstream media (even Fox News at times), the Federal Reserve, the intelligence community, the FBI, the judiciary, Democrats, and, when need be, Republicans. He attacks the NATO countries. I think he has been somewhat successful in continuing to be seen by his base as the lone wolf.
The most troublesome of the three rhetorical devices appears to be the movement rhetoric. His movement, his action, is now largely talk, and talk has largely become his action. His constant tweet storms and his ability to control the news cycle and make it focus on him is a form of action. The notion that rhetoric is action and action is rhetoric may have limits. Obamacare has not been repealed and its repeal does not seem to be the priority of either the general public or Congress. He has not built a wall or slowed immigration, must less stop it. The new NAFTA has yet to be enacted and it appears it is close to the old NAFTA. There is no trade deal with China, no nuclear deal with North Korea, and no revised nuclear deal with Iran. The economy seems increasingly shaky as the sugar high of the tax cut wears off and the trade wars continue.
If this quick assessment is reasonably accurate, Trump may need to adjust his rhetoric. He can intensify his rhetoric, which he seems to be doing over the past weeks. He can find others to blame for his ineffectiveness and broaden the net he casts for identifying those who are victimizing his base. However, adjusting his rhetoric can only go so far before the overall returns are negative. He probably does have a hard-core base of perhaps 25% or so of the voters who will stick with him either because they believe Trump is the only person on their side or because they only care about the entertainment he provides, the show he puts on. But he cannot win election with only his hard-core voters.
It seems Trump has only two options. One option is to become a more effective president in the traditional sense, such as winning the trade war with China, or negotiating a better nuclear deal with Iran than Obama did, and so on. But Trump is not a traditional president and seems to lack the tools, or even the desire, to become one. His other option is to take more control and authority,to heighten his power through much less conventional means. This is the track he seems to be taking. He ignores and even overrides Congress and ignores or tries workarounds over judicial decisions. He may become much more authoritarian in his presidential actions and much less ethical or even much less lawful in his campaign activities. Time will tell.
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