The Qualitative Power of a Crowd: Trump’s Rallies, Public Opinion, Attention Economy

Abstract

Journalists, pundits, and pollsters critiqued President Donald J. Trump’s fixation on his crowds—often suggesting they were smaller than he boasted or meaningless in connection to electoral or legislative outcomes. This project takes a qualitative rather than a quantitative stance to interpreting the meaning of Trump’s crowds. In doing so, we find messages presented his rallies as (1) engaging multiple audiences, (2) eliciting feedback from his base to sharpen his talking points, and (3) enraging his devotees to act on his behalf. These types of communications did two things that traditional polling data are unlikely to do: they garnered attention and vast recirculation in the contemporary media environment and have been linked to the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This article draws from scholarship on Trump, news coverage, and social media posts to advance these themes, invites a more nuanced look at crowds as a complement to traditional understandings of public opinion, and closes by posing paths for future discussions of them.