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).… Read the rest