Antonio Reyes. Journal of Language & Politics. Volume 19, Issue 6. 2020.

This paper contextualizes Donald Trump’s political “Message” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) within the current anti-intellectualism phenomenon in the Post-Truth era. Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech marks the beginning of the Trump era, as it introduces critical traits of his persona, message and political agenda to the general audience. From a Discourse Analysis approach, this paper considers Aristotelian modes of persuasion and the multimodal concept of “Message” (ibid.), to contribute to the literature on Trump’s political communication by focusing on the cult of personality and self-representation (i.e. non-politician, overachieving businessman, great leader). Trump built his candidacy and presidency around his persona, distancing himself from the Republican Party and traditional politicians. These strategies allowed Trump to evoke an Ethos capable of saving America. His personal fight against every enemy and threat encapsulates a simple and ingenuous dichotomy “I vs. them” with the populist intention of completing a hyperbolic task: Make America great again.

Introduction

This paper contributes to the literature on right-wing populism (RWP) and in particular to the case of Donald Trump (Trumpism; Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2017) and the discursive strategies displayed in his political communication. This study combines the multimodal notion of Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) and the rhetorical concepts of Ethos and Pathos to account for Trump’s political language and his self-representation as a leader through a cult of personality. This self-representation allows him to stand alone against the political elite and fight internal and external threats contesting, if necessary, reputable and accepted facts. His language portrays a political actor as “self-defined savior of ‘the people’ (Wodak 2017, 552), and even a prophet (the American jeremiad) (Austermuehl 2020).

In order to understand the Trump phenomenon, we need to revise the sociocultural context that was witness to and caused his rise. The global economic crisis of 2008, the refugee crisis and the increase of terrorist attacks around the world (from September 11, 2001 [Mudde 2019]) have triggered a reaction of distrust towards traditional politics and political institutions in general. This loss of trust is not around a person or political party; it surrounds the whole political system (Wodak 2017). All of those events have been constantly addressed in the media, creating uncertainty, insecurity and fear internationally. This context has led to specific policies concerning borders and immigration. Securing and controlling the borders have been associated with protecting a country’s economy (imports and exports, jobs, fair competition) and its people from outsiders (immigrants, refugees, terrorists). This has triggered the proliferation of extreme right political parties that appear as new-fresh-real problem-solvers who can keep our borders secure and put our economy “back” in our control and not in the control of a volatile global market. These goals have “propelled the rebirth of nativism and nationalism such as Trump’s ‘America First’, and earlier populist slogans such the ‘Austria First’ in the 1990s” (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017, 567). Nativism, as a combination of nationalism and xenophobia (Mudde 2007), excludes parts of the society (Wodak 2003) in a political agenda upholding an anti-pluralist approach. This situation has strengthened a nationalist view reinforced by (1) outside threats to a nation’s values, borders and people, and (2) a nostalgic imaginary past of “greatness.”

The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump distanced himself from the policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war, in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform (Rothwell and Diego-Rosell 2016). That year he became the 45th president of the US.

Post-Truth Era, Anti-Intellectualism and, Right-Wing Populism (RWP)

The loss of trust in the political system has spread to other domains such as traditional media, scientific research, facts and evidence in general. Sources traditionally related to truthful and trustworthy information, are now rejected and challenged (post-truth was considered the word of the year 2016 by the Oxford English Dictionary [Block 2019]). In this climate of distrust, bloggers, forum participants, twitter and social media users upload and comment political content competing for authenticity with traditional media, becoming highly influential in the political process of a country. In the Post-Truth Era, right-wing populist leaders have adopted an anti-intellectual political attitude, “rejecting a priori the worldviews not conforming to their own, decline any debate with differing opinions and are unable to show empathy for others” (Degani 2016, 131). In this political context, populist “political actors talk about the people [as a homogeneous category] and combine this with an explicit anti-establishment position and an exclusion of certain population categories” (Jagers and Walgrave 2007, 323-4). In this sense, populist discourse “delegitimizes established power structures and the role of elected representatives in liberal democracy while claiming that the people should rule” (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 65). In addition to traditional and conservative values and morals around family structure and gender roles, populist politicians engage in simplistic explanations and solutions based on common sense, and part of an anti-intellectualism vision (Wodak 2017, 5). They claim to “reflect the voice of the people” (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 66) while mainstream media constitutes “‘fake news’, elections are ‘fraudulent’, politicians ‘drain the swamp’, political parties are ‘dysfunctional’, judges ‘enemies of the people’, the intelligence service ‘liars and leakers’, intellectuals ‘arrogant liberals’ and the UN ‘a talking club’” (ibid.: 4).

RWP, as a product of the far-right ideology, share common “political issue clusters”: immigration, security, corruption and foreign policy (Mudde 2019, 31). Politicians present those issues as hyperbolic threats, to later emphasize thorough repetitions and catchy phrases, that as leaders, they are capable of meeting those threats, get the job done and solve the situation, without much detail about the means, but with a focus on the goal (to make the nation great again). Rightwing populist politicians create their own genre “as a mix of scandal, provocation, transgression, and passion” (Sauer, Krasteva and Saarinen 2018, 26). In this vein, Trump’s immersion in politics has been accompanied by scandals (abuse, extramarital relationships, bribes), provocation (insults and politically incorrect language) and transgression (rejecting mainstream media news as fake news and defending his views as “alternative facts”).

In this scenario of confusion and mistrust and the constant repetition of threats has triggered fear: “[F]‍ear has emerged as a framework for developing identities and for engaging in social life. Fear is one of the perspectives that citizens share today” (Altheide 2002, 3). Fear materializes from threats on two fronts: firstly, by an outsider threat constituted by “foreigners” of different races, religions and languages (Wodak 2017, 553). This fear is constantly re-activated and fed by the media in the way migratory movements are framed and connected to refuge crises and terrorist attacks around the world. Secondly, the internal threat is represented by the establishment, intellectuals and liberals. Many people’s views and beliefs were challenged in America when the first black president was elected in 2008. In fact, Trump’s victory in 2016 has been explained as a result of a resentment of the white male patriarchy being challenged by the other: African-Americans, Latinos and career women among others (Hochschild 2016). Not surprisingly, Trump’s language reinstated a largely imaginary vision of a pre-diversity America. (Austermuehl 2020, 3-4).

Nationalism, fear and general distrust of traditional politics have propelled the emergence of new political personae: “The loss of trust in the political system implies a search for alternatives – which is where right-wing populist and extreme right political parties enter the scene: We encounter new and self-defined saviors of ‘the people’ dominating the political stage, presenting themselves as authentic and trustworthy” (Wodak 2017, 552).

These self-defined saviors proudly claim to have obtained skills outside the political arena, nonetheless, these skills have prepared them to not only run a country but to turn things around, almost magically, and make a country great again, saving it from the dangers and threats that the politicians themselves present in their agendas. This way of talking matches the politicians’ personae, constructs their Message and create a distance from previous politicians. The arguments then are vague and empty of the notion “I will succeed as a president because…I am great, I am rich, etc.” Moreover, official news, facts and surveys are rejected if they do not support the politician’s course of action (see Excerpt 8).

The Discourse of Donald Trump

Studies since 2015 have explained different linguistics and non-linguistics features around the political figure of Donald Trump, from his speeches and public appearances to his interaction in social media. Trump has appeared in the public scene as a populist leader employing a colloquial language that has resonated with his electorate. Using hyperbolic language, he presents simplistic solutions for complex situations where fear (Wodak 2015) has been a constant factor to legitimize his presidential campaign, offering himself “to the nation as the new, worthy leader” (Austermuehl 2020, 21-22). His success and victory in the U.S. elections of 2016 have been associated with the support of white rural America, men and women, making race a key factor in his Message, persona and success (Austermuehl 2020). Trump’s Message has also been approached from a gender’s perspective (Harp 2019; Kolb 2019), in particular, in relation to performing a sort of “hypermasculinity” (Smith and Higgins 2020). These features have made his message more controversial, aggressive and blunt with open attacks and insults to women and immigrants depicting the “bad manners” of right-wing populist politicians (Moffitt 2016, 58).

As Trump, right-wing populist politicians present themselves as the “true representatives of the people,” while previous politicians and their opposition represented the “untrustworthy political classes” who failed to represent the people and the country (Wodak 2017, 2) (see also Hochschild 2016; Krzyżanowski and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2015). In this context, these politicians emerge and embody “a ‘saviour’ …a (more or less) charismatic leader of the respective party who oscillates between the roles of Robin Hood and ‘strict father’ (Lakoff 2004)” (Wodak 2019, 12). In the case of Trump, he will make America great again bringing the American dream back: “Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before” (Trump 2015). Trump shares certain personality traits; male, white, older, straight and authoritarian with other far-right leaders such as Le Pen and Bolsonaro (Mudde 2019, 72). These features conform Trump’s Message and legitimize a discourse where race (Austermuehl 2020) and gender (“hypermasculinity”: Smith and Higgins 2020) are at the core of his political communication. As a matter of fact, most of his supporters are white and two-thirds are men (Mudde 2019, 78).

In relation to the linguistic features employed by Trump, Degani correlates anti-intellectualism with linguistic complexity, measured by certain textual features (e.g. sentence length, word length, number of complex words) (Degani 2016, 132): “Plain, poor and unrefined forms of discourse, characterized by catchy phrases and bathetic appeals” (ibid., 131). Trump’s rhetoric promotes simple dichotomies (us vs. them), it “celebrates the cult of personality, demonizes opponents and engages in an instrumental use of fear to obtain support” (ibid.). This specific use of language constitutes a political strategy developed in Trump’s Message by a team of speech writers and communication experts to brand his persona in the political arena.

Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech 2015

This study analyses Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech (06/16/2015). This public appearance of 6,339 words was crucial to introduce Mr. Trump’s ideology, political agenda and self-positioning to a general audience. This speech marked the moment at which Trump went from being a TV phenomenon and a businessman to becoming a US presidential candidate. In his announcement, Trump reveals content about the nature of his candidacy, his persona, his agenda, goals and promises and the differences with other candidates and politicians. From Trump’s first public appearance as a presidential candidate, he proposed himself as the solution for real and imaginary threats to the US after the passivity and inefficiency of previous politicians The tone and characteristics of this speech constantly emerge in later appearances, confirming his persona and Message and the importance of Trump’s announcement in his path towards the White House. Despite the length of this speech, this public appearance is crucial and decisive in understanding the terms by which Trump become a political persona within the anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth Era. This specific speech not only “represented new extremes” (Gabbatt 2019), but in it, Trump also presented an agenda, attitude, and political persona then that engaged an important part of the electorate (Austermuehl 2020). A year and a half later, the ideological stance, objectives and goals presented in his announcement speech moved him to the White House, as the 45th President of the USA.

Theoretical Concepts: Ethos, Pathos and the Message

Anchored in the Discourse Analysis tradition, this study approaches Trump’s political identity and language’s peculiarities in relation to the Aristotelian modes of persuasion Ethos and Pathos. In order to adress the cult of personality and self-representation in Trump’s political communication, this study observes these modes of persuasion to analyze the linguistic construction of notions such as authority and expertise (Ethos), employed by Trump to legitimize his candidacy. Similarly, the mode of Pathos allows us to understand the connection and rapport with the audience, also displayed linguistically through specific linguistic choices explained in this paper.

Through these modes, politicians show authority and credibility (Ethos) and create rapport with the audience (Pathos). Ethos refers to the moral competence and authority of the speaker, evoking a politician as expert and knowledgeable and who displays command of the topics discussed. Pathos, on the other hand, constitutes the emotional appeal to the audience, the affective load of the discourse (Kennedy 1991). Pathos refers, in Aristotelian terms, to the use of human feelings to affect the judgment of a jury. Politicians can reach an emotional connection with the audience by displaying solidarity at different levels, by, for instance, speaking like them, using cultural images shared by a social class, or narrating familiar personal experiences that touch and move the audience.

Politicians aim to achieve two goals in political events to convince their audiences about their political agenda: (1) to show authority and command about the topics debated (Ethos) and (2) to appeal to the emotions of the majority of the audience (Pathos) to obtain support. Many politicians evoke Ethos by narrating events without subjective remarks or personal evaluations, hedges, or using 1st and 2nd personal pronouns in order to distance themselves from the facts narrated (Reyes 2011b). Pathos is evoked by the use of referential indexicals, questions, repetitions, vocatives, hedges and personal narrations among other features (ibid.). This study underlines the linguistic choices employed in the reenactment of Ethos and Pathos in an official speech event of Donald Trump.

Together with Ethos and Pathos, this study also considers the multimodal concept of “Message” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) to refer to the different semiotic resources involved with political events and performances that construct a specific political persona. Those resources relate to “physical, sartorial, characterological, discursive, and other biographical features” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012, 8). Message refers then to the additional information, beyond linguistic choices, that politicians communicate about their identity and personal values through selectively taking up certain issues and avoiding others (ibid., 2). Trump’s campaign and popularity occur in a time when political parties and social and mass media shape the way politicians are (re)‍presented in society, branding a candidate as a particular product in the political arena (Oates and Moe 2016). In populism, more than clearly defending or proposing specific policies on different matters (Oates and Moe 2016, 6), political groups propose a political persona, as a particular product for a specific political context branding a populist leader. For these reasons, the multimodal concept of “Message” is employed here to account for those resources relate to “physical, sartorial, characterological, discursive, and other biographical features” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012, 8). Message is then another crucial theoretical tool to understand Trump’s self-representation within the political context of that time.

Analysis: Ethos and the Construction of a Leader

In the case of Trump, he projects authority and expertise (Ethos) not through his knowledge of a specific political matter but through his personal character, his achievements and personal experiences; his success as a businessman and the cult of his personality in general. In other words, his personal narratives do not find a common ground with the audience to connect emotionally (Pathos), quite to the contrary, Trump erects his persona as an authoritative figure precisely due to his success as a businessman. His case is often built on the assumption that if “I can run a business successfully, I can run a country in similar ways.” This is different from what other politicians have done in the past to evoke Pathos and appeal to the audience. For instance, Joe Biden, in the vice-presidential debate of 2008 said “Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand…” (Biden, VP Debate 2008). Even when he was a US senator, Biden intended to appear as a person who understood the American working and middle classes’ struggles by digging in the common ground of experiences to connect with his audience through experiencing similar difficulties (Reyes 2011b). These narratives appeal to the emotion of the audience and often suggest authenticity (Ochs 2004; Ochs and Capps 1996, 2001), in the sense that speaker and audience are co-experiencer and participants of similar situations. Trump does not appeal emotionally to his audience by sharing similar experiences or backgrounds in his narratives, like other right-wing politicians in Europe do (i.e. visiting the same pubs as everybody else, travelling to similar places, driving similar cars, having similar problems in their family lives [Wodak 2015, 123]). His narratives are about the success of a multimillionaire. He shares with the audience, however, a common language, syntactically (in relation to structure) and, metaphorically (in relation to ways to understand the world). In this respect, for instance, “Trump’s South Carolina primary supporters reported seeking in a candidate [who] ‘tells it like it is’” (Jamieson and Taussig 2017, 622). These linguistic features display an aspect of “likeability” and “authenticity” in Trump’s political communication, not through a common background in life experiences, but through appealing to approachability, folksiness, informality, etc. (Sclafani 2018). Using this particular language, Trump claims authority and knowledge through personal experience, allowing Ethos and Pathos to converge in his speech. His persona interferes with national and international affairs. In other words, Trump and his policies cannot be separated, they constitute a package, an inseparable synergy that constructs his Message with idiosyncratic uses of language. In the next excerpt, Trump criticizes the creation of a website by Obama’s government, while displaying features of a casual and spontaneous conversation, a language familiar and recognizable to the audience.

• And remember the $ 5 billion website? $ 5 billion we spent on a website, and to this day it doesn’t work. A $ 5 billion website. I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a website. It costs me $ 3. $ 5 billion website. Well, you need somebody, because politicians are all talk, no action. (Trump’s Presidential Announcement, 06/16/2015).

Pathos is evoked in a casual interaction where the communication seems more like a conversation between two friends than a political speech by a presidential candidate. Montgomery refers to these features as the “Trump’s conversational direct address” (Montgomery 2017, 629). Trump employs these particular semiotic resources, evoking an oral casual narrative. His announcement displays questions, repetitions, referential indexicals, hedges, incomplete sentences, evaluatory remarks and references to current self and hearers; resources that work as relationship-building features in the communication (Reyes 2008, 2011a). The excerpt above displays confirmatory questions to create solidarity (Green 1996), such as “And remember the $ 5 billion website?” Trump builds rapport with the audience since these questions feign a fictitious conversation with his listeners who have no chance to answer that question. These and other phrases such as “believe me” (16) “encourage audience participation in the context of monologic speeches” (Sclafani 2018, 41). As in casual conversations, repetitions are common in this fragment and in Trump’s discourse in general (Degani 2016; Jamieson and Taussig 2017; Montgomery 2017). The expression “$5 billion website” is repeated four times in consecutive sentences. There are referential indexicals to his persona (“I” [x3] and 1 “me” [x1]), a characteristic of his public appearances (Degani 2016). The fragment also contains the hedge “well”, which acts as a discourse marker. In addition, sentences are mostly incomplete. Pathos is reflected thorough the linguistic choices employed by Trump, the same language people would use in ordinary conversations. His political persona and Message are not characterized by sophisticated rhetorical devices, since he constantly rejects being or talking like politicians; rejection he repeats constantly in his speeches: “politicians are all talk, no action.” Nevertheless, the mode of Pathos in Trump does not only represent ordinary language familiar to the audience, it also works towards the Ethos. In this passage, Trump not only criticizes his political opponent in casual language, he also projects his Ethos with expertise, authority and knowledge about the topic discussed: “I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a website. It costs me $ 3.” Trump has many websites, and he creates them often and more inexpensively. In a simple manner, Trump displays expertise and knowledge about how better to accomplish things. His argumentation is based on the simple assumption: “I know it because I have experience with it.” His authority and command of national and international issues is based solely on expressing some type of personal relationship with the issue under discussion, similar to the “eye-witnessing experience” argumentation: “I know because I was there…” (Tusting et al. 2002).

The following fragment also shows the synergy between Ethos and Pathos in Trump’s Message. Addressing how to negotiate with the lobbyist of a company like Ford to protect jobs, he involves himself in the discussion of domestic affairs, reproducing a fictitious simple dialogue in which he takes a turn with the lobbyist of Ford and he shows himself as firm and determined and ultimately protective of jobs for Americans. The excerpt contains linguistic features depicting an interlocutor who builds on Pathos.

• Now, here’s what is going to happen. If it’s not me in the position, it’s one of these politicians that we’re running against, you know, the 400 people that we’re (inaudible). And here’s what’s going to happen. They’re not so stupid. They know it’s not a good thing, and they may even be upset by it. But then they’re going to get a call from the donors or probably from the lobbyist for Ford and say, “You can’t do that to Ford, because Ford takes care of me and I take care of you, and you can’t do that to Ford.” And guess what? No problem. They’re going to build in Mexico. They’re going to take away thousands of jobs. It’s very bad for us. So under President Trump, here’s what would happen: The head of Ford will call me back, I would say within an hour after I told them the bad news. But it could be he’d want to be cool, and he’ll wait until the next day. You know, they want to be a little cool. And he’ll say, “Please, please, please.” He’ll beg for a little while, and I’ll say, “No interest.” Then he’ll call all sorts of political people, and I’ll say, “Sorry, fellas. No interest,” because I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money. (Trump 2015)

The previous fragment displays Pathos through referential indexicals involving Trump (“I” and “me” x8 times) and the audience (“we” x2 times) in the narration, questions involving the audience such as “guess what?”, markers of modalization (Fairclough 2003) to make here-and-now comments (e.g.: “Now, here”, “and here”) and modal verbs (Hodge and Kress 1988) (e.g.: “it could be he’d want to be cool”). However, in addition to these subjective remarks and colloquial language (Pathos), the story is presented with assertion and many of his claims are about himself (Ethos) (Montgomery 2017) ̶ “here’s what is going to happen” (x3 times) ̶ and without hedges such as “I think” and “I believe”, therefore expressing conviction and commitment to the story without hesitation.

Through the reproduction of a casual conversation (Pathos) with the lobbyist of multinational Ford, Trump displays the knowledge and expertise of a person who knows how to be in charge (Ethos), a person who will challenge big corporations to benefit American workers. This legitimization of his expertise is simplistic and lacking in substance; characteristics of discourses in the era of anti-intellectualism (Degani 2016). However, these features can be effective; a dialogue with turn-takings can display dynamism and therefore action and “doing”, not just “talking” as other politicians. In addition, he seems to know what he is talking about because he reproduces a dialogue with a lobbyist representing a multinational corporation. His own persona appears when discussing national and international affairs. Trump, his words and his position on policies cannot be separated; they constitute a package: his Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012). Trump connects with the audience (Pathos) in his style. It is inaccurate, interrupted, repetitive, casual seeming unorganized, unplanned and more authentic and real: “Trump’s overall messaging is neither deliberate nor cautious, and to an unusual degree it appears to be impromptu, reactive, situational, and improvisational” (Jamieson and Taussig 2017, 622). These characteristics present a candidate whose rhetoric introduces a political figure different from his antecessors and therefore responds to the request of those citizens tired of traditional politics in the Post-Truth era. At the same time, these features are also more entertaining (not predictable) and consequently more marketable in news and media constructing a political product whose Message and persona are closer to reality TV and a media sensation than previous presidents of the USA. In fact, some authors affirm that Trump is “entertaining – not just for the white rural underclass, not just for conservatives, but also for the public at large, even those who strongly oppose his candidacy. Whether understood as pleasing or offensive, Trump’s ongoing show was compelling” (Hall et al. 2016, 72). And, as an entertainer, Trump “has license to disobey rules” (ibid., 73) and he does that almost daily. The uncertainty of the content of his next tweet, declaration or reaction keeps both followers and detractors in suspense and therefore entertained. In that sense, “Trump’s unconventional political style receives attention that helps rather than harms his candidacy because it is absorbed as entertainment by a heavily mediatized public sphere” (ibid. 2016: 75).

Simultaneously, he creates his Ethos by presenting a person who has experience and knows what to do and how to act in order to solve all the political challenges ahead. In his own words, he appears as the great leader this nation needs: “our country needs a truly great leader” (x3) (Trump 2015). That leader (Ethos) is constructed through the cult of personality. A characteristic of far-right politics is the emphasis on the figure of leader (Führerprinzip [leadership principle]) where the leader represents the people and stands “as an exceptional human being” (Mudde 2019, 104) and a self-defined savior (Wodak 2017) (see excerpts 6 and 7).

The Cult of Personality: I, Trump

Trump constantly narrates about himself involving himself and his personal experiences when addressing national and international politics and affairs. In his presidential announcement of 6,339 words, there are 198 instances of the firstperson singular pronoun “I.” A reference to himself as subject of an active sentence occurs every 32 words. In addition, the announcement contains 11 direct references to himself by using the referential word “Trump.” Ahmadian et al. (2017) found that of the top nine Republican contenders competing for the republican nomination in 2015, Trump was the candidate using first-person pronouns the most. He creates a leader based on himself, praising personal achievements and experience, concentrating on himself the resources needed to manage and lead the most powerful country in the world.

The following excerpt displays personal narrations about Trump himself and how he accumulated wealth. His point about taking initiatives in the real estate market is presented theatrically with a simple dialogue reproducing in direct speech of turn-takings between his father and himself. These features “construct a dialog in a monologic context” (Sclafani 2018, 48). There are constant references to himself in order to feed and construct an Ethos, authority through experience and expertise. His presentation of this personal episode is presented in familiar ways (Pathos): simple syntax and repetitions in a casual dialogue.

• I’m proud of my net worth. I’ve done an amazing job. I started off – thank you – I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens, and my father said – and I love my father. I learned so much. He was a great negotiator. I learned so much just sitting at his feet playing with blocks listening to him negotiate with subcontractors. But I learned a lot. But he used to say, “Donald, don’t go into Manhattan. That’s the big leagues. We don’t know anything about that. Don’t do it.” I said, “I gotta go into Manhattan. I gotta build those big buildings. I gotta do it, Dad. I’ve gotta do it.” And after four or five years in Brooklyn, I ventured into Manhattan and did a lot of great deals – the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I was responsible for the convention center on the west side. “I did a lot of great deals, and I did them early and young. And now I’m building all over the world, and I love what I’m doing”. (Trump 2015)

Trump does not develop a Pathos to connect with his audience through personal narrations to find a common ground and build solidarity with his audience. Trump’s narrations of personal experiences rebuild his identity as a rich businessman whose life experiences have little to do with common people. When Trump narrates about himself, he distances himself from common average people and, at the same time, these narrations legitimize the Ethos of his candidacy. Trump presents politics in economic terms: everything is about trading and negotiating. In that world, he is at his best because he is a businessman who has done very well: “a truly successful person, a really, really successful person” (Trump 2015). And he knows the best negotiators: “I know the smartest negotiators in the world” (Trump 2015).

In the next fragment, Trump keeps building a cult for his personality by sharing how much money he is worth.

• And I have assets – big accounting firm, one of the most highly respected – 9 billion 240 million dollars. And I have liabilities of about $ 500 million. That’s long-term debt, very low interest rates. In fact, one of the big banks came to me and said, “Donald, you don’t have enough borrowings. Could we loan you $ 4 billion”? I said, “I don’t need it. I don’t want it. And I’ve been there. I don’t want it.” But in two seconds, they give me whatever I wanted. So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well-over $ 10 billion. (Trump 2015)

His credentials and assets open a bigger gap with his followers, especially with the middle class and blue-collar America. The audience cannot feel an identify with a multimillionaire who has this kind of wealth, his personal narrations do not resonate with the audience. Trump and his persona do not appear as a mirror for his followers, at least not as a synchronic mirror for the audience (He is like me). His rhetoric is however reminiscent of the American dream “Self-made man” in the land of opportunities, another key element in the mythological construction of the US.

In the next fragment, Trump links the previous statement about his wealth with being president of the US. According to him, that is what the country needs: a rich person who can make the country rich.

• I don’t have to brag. I don’t have to, believe it or not. I’m doing that to say that that’s the kind of thinking our country needs. We need that thinking… because we got to make the country rich. (Trump 2015)

These linguistic choices build Trump’s persona and Message. His constant references to his persona (not a politician), success, achievements, expertise and experience as a businessman constitute a constant tribute to himself. The cult of personality allows him to fashion a political figure from a simple candidate for the presidency to a self-proclaimed leader and savior who would protect and liberate us from two main threats: an inside threat represented by the establishment (politicians and liberals) and an outside threat represented by immigration, terrorists and foreign powers that sustain unfair trade with us. Trump’s announcement speech was titled “Our Country Needs a Truly Great Leader” (Trump 2015). This truly great leader would confront issues by himself like a true savior in his own terms, not as a politician or diplomatic but with hostility in a “Trumpian” way, as a Super hero ready to solve by himself all the problems, nationally and internationally. The construction of a truly great leader goes from being right about future prediction: “And I’m the one that made all of the right predictions about Iraq” to being “the greatest jobs president God ever created” (Trump 2015):

• I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that. I’ll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I’ll bring back our jobs, and I’ll bring back our money. (Trump 2015)

At the end of the speech, there is no evidence of political strategy or expertise in global or national affairs and the main argument of his candidacy and Message seems to be: “I will make America great again because I am great.”

As the greatest creation of God (job-wise), he will resurrect the American dream, and then make it bigger, better and stronger.

• Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again. (Trump 2015)

His language is hyperbolic, unrealistic and part of a deceptive language full of big claims (Galasinski 2000, 42). All this characterizes the Message of right-wing populist leaders, described by Wodak as “new and self-defined saviors of ‘the people’ dominating the political stage, presenting themselves as authentic and trustworthy” (Wodak 2017, 552). Through the cult to his personality, Trump has self-proclaimed his persona as able to save America, the American dream and American jobs. The way he deals with issues is not much different; he does not make alliances or address threats with a team of experts. As a hero, he stands alone against the issues and obstacles.

Trump vs. Issues

Trump presents himself as a self-proclaimed “truly great leader” who will fight on fronts inside and outside the US borders. In addition to domestic and foreign threats, Trump is also known for contesting scientific evidence and official facts. In his presidential announcement of 2015, he displays his future attitude towards scientific or official facts that do not align with his political agenda.

Trump vs. Facts

In the following excerpt, Trump rejects the results of official surveys, make ups new results without citing his sources and, based on his results, constructs the guilty party, blaming and demonizing China and Mexico for the large number of unemployment that he just presented about the US. If he would have used the official numbers from surveys, there will be no one to blame. However, he constructs the enemy and the threat basing his speech against China and Mexico on numbers he previously had fabricated.

• And 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, and nobody talks about it, because it’s a statistic that’s full of nonsense. (Trump 2015)

Trump proposes “real” numbers of unemployment without a source or explanation to reject the official numbers. He simply proposes first a range from 18% to 20%, then from 18% to 19%, and then maybe even 21% as the real numbers. This example shows the behavior of populist politicians “who reject a priori the worldviews not conforming to their own” (Degani 2016, 131).

Trump’s political persona represents the anti-intellectual politician who constantly questions factual truths and scientific evidences (i.e. Global Warming). Trump’s speeches display “an alarming combination of hyperbole seemly oriented to incite, along with numerous statements of ‘fact’ without any support, that is, argument by affirmation” (Block 2019, 74). Instead, an alternative truth is often fabricated with fake news seeking to control the dominant narrative. Those unsubstantiated claims are produced and legitimized as “alternative facts” (see Blake 2017) while the mainstream media is considered “fake news” and the “enemies of the people” (Norris and Inglehart 2019).

Trump vs. Domestic Threats (Politicians)

The construction of Trump’s Message and political persona is paradoxically defined from a Trump vs. Politicians standpoint, wherein he criticizes traditional politicians, the political system in general, and Washington as the political capital of the US. He is not a politician and therefore, he does not have to talk or behave like one. This detachment has made him popular among the anti-government and anti-establishment people. He refers to politicians as “all talk, no action” (Trump 2015). He therefore does not have to follow the protocol or political rules or consider science or facts as a valid reference in his speeches. This political attitude succeeds in the climate of anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth Era. In the following example, Trump criticizes the language of previous politicians for being empty and vague and not addressing important issues such as the creation of jobs.

• I watch the speeches of these people, and they say the sun will rise, the moon will set, all sorts of wonderful things will happen. And people are saying, “What’s going on? I just want a job. Just get me a job. I don’t need the rhetoric. I want a job”. (Trump 2015)

Previous politicians are associated with rhetoric and Trump wants to be associated with job creation. He also distances himself, at least when he presents his candidacy, from republican politicians:

• … and I hear my fellow Republicans…I like them. And I hear their speeches. And they don’t talk jobs and they don’t talk China. When was the last time you heard China is killing us? They’re devaluing their currency to a level that you wouldn’t believe. It makes it impossible for our companies to compete, impossible. They’re killing us. (Trump 2015)

Even when he shows sympathy for the republicans, he accuses them of not talking about jobs or China, which is “killing us.” Trump emerges as a new political actor, one with no affiliation to recognize parties. He is an outsider, his political program is based on his persona and his political Message is unique, different and about “I, Trump.” He insults current leaders calling them stupid three times for not acting on the threats he describes.

• How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?. (Trump 2015)

In the next expert, Trump continues to discredit politicians thereby distancing himself from them. They cannot make America great again and therefore Trump, free of the lobbyist influence, is proposing himself as a “truly great leader” who knows how to negotiate “The Art of the Deal”:

• So I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with them all my life… They will never make America great again. They don’t even have a chance. They’re controlled fully – they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully… Now, our country needs – our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote “The Art of the Deal”. (Trump 2015)

Politics and political enemies are addressed in terms of business. Trump is not a politician, he is a successful businessman displayed throughout his Message, not only by his linguistic repertoire but also by his attire choices (Austermuehl 2020, 23). He equates running a country to running a business. He is rich, he does not need money from corporations or lobbyists because he is rich: “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich” (Trump 2015).

Ethos is built around his persona and success; his authority to be president is based on his credentials as a businessman, attested by his wealth. However, his credentials are based on a never-proven success (he never released his tax returns, for instance).

Trump vs. Foreign Threats: Mexico, China, Migration

Trump underlines outside threats in his Presidential Announcement Speech, and they became crucial points in his later foreign affair agenda when he became president. These threats reactivate fear, a necessary emotion for legitimizing his coming as a savior, as a strong president who can stand up to those threats. The appeal to emotions allows political actors to skew the opinion of their audiences regarding a specific matter (Reyes 2011c). Fear based on the construction of “the other” in the form of outsiders threating our values (freedom), our way of living (economy) and our very lives (with terrorism) stand as the backbone of RWP. Trump evokes fear also in economic terms with metaphorical references to the field of business (i.e. they’re killing us economically [in relation to Mexico, Trump 2015]). These threats have allowed Trump to evoke an Ethos capable of saving America due to his expertise and self-proclaimed success in the field of business and negotiations. Fear and a savior constitute two sides of the same coin. In the following excerpt, Trump describes immigrants (outsiders) as a “they” bringing problems, drugs and crimes and being rapists.

• “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”. (Trump 2015)

The picture of outsiders coming to our country is alarming and scary. In addition, ISIS continues to be a threat that cannot be confronted by the current politicians: “How are they going to beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen” (Trump 2015). And the president connects both threats and enemies with the adverb “probably” in the following fragment.

• It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably – probably – from the Middle East. (Trump 2015)

RWP has semantically charged the phenomenon of immigration with a new set of connotations (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017), connecting immigrants, refuges and terrorists with outside threats trying to enter our country. These semantic associations appeal to fear and, when repeated over and over, become normalized (Wodak 2015) and therefore constitute a new understanding of migration that promotes anti-pluralist discourses and favors “us” above “them” realities.

Below, Trump connects all the external threats in three simple sentences:

• You have a problem with ISIS. You have a bigger problem with China. And, in my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade, is Mexico. (Trump 2015)

The worst-case scenario is constructed by connecting threats and employing powerful metaphorical uses. The economic threat is constantly brought up in Trump’s speeches metaphorically (State as a Person) on two fronts: China and Mexico, by means of personifications where those countries “laugh” at the USA and “kill” its economy.

• When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us…When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. (Trump 2015)

Immigrants, ISIS, China and Mexico have created a dramatic fearful situation that Trumps presents and reactivates in his discourse, repeating that “Our country is in serious trouble” and that “Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger” (Trump 2015). Trump projects fear into speeches depicting the worst-case scenario as an imminent catastrophe. In the next excerpt, Trump suggests that “very soon” (x2) we will be “unsalvageable”, like Greece. Again, the threat and comparison are posed in economic terms.

• That’s when we become Greece. That’s when we become a country that’s unsalvageable. And we’re gonna be there very soon. We’re gonna be there very soon. (Trump 2015)

In a fast-paced world of sound bytes and headlines as the often-sole sources of information for many persons, this single-sentence structure becomes a very powerful communication strategy for the politician. Metaphors about killing and death, and images of immigrants as rapists, evoke strong emotions that seem more important for speech writers and communication advisers than the commitment to truth or accuracy in the Post-Truth Era. The anti-pluralist discourses favoring ‘us’ above ‘them’ become the acceptable norm in a ‘normalized’ discourse (see Wodak 2015; Krzyżanowski 2014) that represents the world in populist terms: “[R]‍ightwing populist parties instrumentalize some kind of ethnic/religious/linguistic/ political minority as a scapegoat for most if not all current woes and subsequently construe the respective group as dangerous and a threat ‘ to us ’, to ‘our’ nation; this phenomenon manifests itself as a ‘politics of fear’” (Wodak 2015, 23).

And there is one person capable of fighting and beating these threats; a savior, a great leader, and a problem solver: Trump, who, for instance, beats China “all the time”: “They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time” (Trump 2015).

Even Islamic terrorists are presented in economic terms for Trump, and he himself is in competition with them. Again, he presents himself vs. the enemy (I vs. them = Trump vs. Islamic terrorists) in economic terms.

• Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East. They’ve become rich. I’m in competition with them. They just built a hotel in Syria. Can you believe this? They built a hotel. When I have to build a hotel, I pay interest. They don’t have to pay interest, because they took the oil that, when we left Iraq, I said we should’ve taken. (Trump 2015)

Trump presents his credentials to combat ISIS also in economic terms ̶ “They don’t pay interest and I pay interest” ̶ to underline that they don’t play fair, but he does. That summarizes his expertise for combatting ISIS, a comparison about building hotels and paying interest on them. Trump is addressing global problems and proposing to solve them using his personal experience presenting simplistic explanations and solutions” (Wodak 2017, 5).

Conclusions

This paper analyses Trump’s political strategies around self-representation as a leader through a cult of personality. This analysis combines the multimodal notion of Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) and the rhetorical concepts of Ethos and Pathos, contributing to the literature on Trump’s political communication (Trumpism; Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2017). In addition, this work contributes to the literature on right-wing populism (RWP) allowing a better understanding of this political phenomenon. This paper argues that Trump’s self-representation allows him to stand alone against the traditional political elite and fight domestic and foreign threats rejecting, if necessary, reputable and accepted facts. His Presidential Announcement of June of 2015 stands as a political event that marked, defined and catapulted Trump as a political phenomenon and possibly presented a new way of making and understanding politics (Gabbatt 2019). Trump’s Announcement contains personal and linguistic traits that created Trump’s political Message, a Message that took him to the Oval office a year and a half later. As a businessman, a millionaire and an anti-politician, Trump presents authority (Ethos) through experience, projecting a savior who is able to make America great again. He represents a new political actor, different from the political elite established in D. C. Trump is Trump. Through his political communication, he reproduces imaginary scenarios as casual conversations (Pathos) to recreate his skills to deal successfully with political challenges. He recreates conversations in a theatrical manner and insults and mocks people, even with disabilities (Harnish 2017). As a ventriloquist and a performer, Trump accommodates numerous voices (polyphony, [Bakhtin 1981]) into the here-and-now moment of discourse, creating a dynamic message that correlates with his non-politician identity (actions vs. talking) and evoking authenticity through these semiotics choices.

In addition to those imaginary conversations where he will stand heroically to defend American interests against threats (politicians, immigration, terrorism and economical powers such a China or Mexico), Trump also fabricates his own truth and facts while displaying situations that legitimize his political agenda in order to make America great again, bring back the American dream, bigger, better and stronger, and to stand as “the greatest jobs president God ever created” (Trump 2015). As a self-proclaimed hero in an exercise of fiction, Trump creates imaginary scenarios that he resolves simplistically, mainly due to his previous experiences as a businessman and a millionaire. Through the reiteration of words, Trump transforms “certain subjective interpretations of reality into the most ‘natural’ ways of looking at reality” (Degani 2016, 136).

Trump’s language around self-representation and the cult of personality is crucial to understand Trump’s success within anti-intellectualism in the Post-Truth era. These fictional characteristics, more common in the entertainment industry, constitute a spectacle for the American public in general.