The power of Trump-speak: populist crisis narratives and ontological security

Abstract

For most observers, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States (US) came as a shock. This has been widely recast as the culmination of the American public's long-standing dissatisfaction with the political elite and deep-seated frustrations with broader socioeconomic conditions. We argue that the Trump campaign's success also stemmed from its effective use of an emotionally charged, anti-establishment crisis narrative. With insights from political psychology, we examine the socio-linguistic mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of 'Trump-speak' through both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Trump's communications toolkit during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. We show that his leadership legitimation claims rest significantly upon 'crisis talk' that puts his audience in a loss frame with nothing to lose and explain why 'crisis talk' impacts on political behaviour. As we demonstrate, the crisis stories that political agents tell simultaneously instil ontological insecurity among the American public and serve to transform their anxiety into confidence that the narrator's policy agendas are the route back to 'normality'. Through these rhetorical mechanisms, the Trump campaign manipulated individuals' ontological (in)security as a tool in the politics of reassurance at the broader, societal level. 'There is an eager political market for that which pleases and reassures.' (Galbraith 1992: 2) 'For those suffering and hurting, I say: give Donald J. Trump a chance. I will fix it. What do you have to lose?'

Symbolic politics and government response to a national emergency: Narrating the COVID-19 crisis

“…The high frequency of the word president denotes both how many times his persona was referred to and how many times he spoke, also how his personality completely overpowered the events (astonishingly, even when he was absent). The relatively high frequency of the words people, country, states, governor/s, American in combination with great and good almost completely matches the numerous previously vastly studied Trump presidential (campaign) style rhetoric (see Homolar & Scholz, 2019). The "rhetorical identification with America" (Homolar & Scholz, 2019, p. 348) complemented with grandiose narrative is not surprising, the president thrives in crises as they secure his "leadership legitimation" (p. 355).…”

“…The communicative aspect of these events includes regular health and virus alleviation updates complemented by elaborate presentations of Coronavirus contagion statistics, invariably mixed with policy discourse seeking meaning-making in the unforeseen situation. The fragmented (postmodern) narratives tested and circulated by the government exhibit a rhetorical style that seeks to quell ontological insecurity (Homolar & Scholz, 2019) through cognition (denial and bargaining) but eventually resorts to emotive appeal (anger and depression) that ultimately completes the process of coming to terms with the crisis that COVID-19 has become to be. In this context, it is argued that a government without a practical solution to an emergent crisis resorts to largely symbolic acts.…”

“…The forty-nine televised White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings 1 held between February 25, 2020 and April 24, 2020 are examined using the K€ ubler-Ross frame as a coding matrix with predefined peak themes. With the help of a qualitative software (NVivo12), the narratives are first explored through content analysis via generating word frequency counts that illuminate pronounced occurrences and collocations (Homolar & Scholz, 2019). Ranking word frequency is instrumental for determining a particular rhetorical technique, it also helps to further identify themes.…”

“…Ranking word frequency is instrumental for determining a particular rhetorical technique, it also helps to further identify themes. In addition to informing an initial idea of the briefings' discursive style, this outlines the level of thematic concentration which is indicative of complexity reduction inherent to particular communicative practices (Jessop, 2010;Homolar & Scholz, 2019). A higher concentration of themes which reduces problems to effective but simple buzzwords, Homolar and Scholz (2019) assert, is a characteristic of "undemocratic discursive leadership styles" (p. 347).…”

“…Similarly, Jones and McBeth (2020) classify the Trump presidency as postmodern, albeit under a rather misguided premise. In the same vein, Homolar and Scholz (2019) find that political speak as crisis narratives deliberately advances ontological insecurity among citizens by virtue of manipulative rhetorical mechanisms with the aim to promote specific policy agendas (p. 344). In all those instances, the circumscribing characteristics are narratives that defy logic while contesting prior traditions.…”