Brian L. Ott - The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage

In his 1935 novel It Cant Happen Here , Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis stories the unlikely political rise of Berzelius Buzz Windrip, whose angry rhetoric, populist platform, and anti-foreigner sentiment win him the US presidency. A number of commentators have, of course, drawn parallels between the story of Windrip, a cautionary tale about fascism, and the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump (Harris 2015; Beale 2016; Stewart 2017). Frankly, it is hard not to, especially given Lewiss (1935) uncanny depiction of Windrip as vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ideas almost idiotic (p. 86). But perhaps most presciently of all, Lewis (1935) observes that, in addition to being a master entertainer, Windrip possesses an uncommon natural ability to be authentically excited by and with his audience, and they by and with him (p. 87). It is no exaggeration to say that Trump genuinely excited a term that signals his distinctively affective appeala significant segment of the American electorate, or to note that he did so and continues to do so in spite of an overwhelming array of obstacles. Consider what we know.

Despite having no prior political experience, despite being temperamentally unfit (LeTourneau 2017), psychologically unstable (Bulman 2017; Gartner 2017; Morris 2017), a sexist (Cohen 2017; Robbins 2017), a racist (Milbank 2015; Coates 2017; Marcotte 2017a; OConnor 2017), a xenophobe (Milbank 2016), a conspiracy theorist (Cillizza 2017a; Marcotte 2017), and a serial liar (Cillizza 2017b; Kessler et. al 2017; Los Angeles Times 2017; Moye 2017), and despite having committed grave misstepsmissteps that would have surely ended a more conventional candidacyduring the campaign (Kirk et al. 2016; Kruse and Gee 2016), Trump eked out a narrow electoral victory to become the 45th president of the United States. At the much-hyped 100-day mark of his presidency, despite failing to accomplish or even advance many of his signature campaign promises (i.e., to repeal Obamacare and to build a wall on the southern border) and reversing himself on others (i.e., NATO and labeling China a currency manipulator) (Garrett 2017), 96 percent of those who voted for him still supported him (Langer 2017). And perhaps most remarkably that support continued largely unabated even after President Trump began to be investigated for obstructing justice in the FBIs investigation into his campaigns potential collusion with a foreign power to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election (Tesfamichael 2017).

Given the unwavering loyalty of his base, one cannot help but wonder what makes Trump so appealing to his followers. Understanding this appeal is the province of rhetoric and, thus, rhetorical scholars are uniquely well positioned and equipped to assess Trumps improbable political success. But doing so effectively requires an approach as unconventional as President Trump himself, for his appeal cannot be accounted for through reference to traditional categories or modes of analysis. In fact, as a preliminary critical step, it is useful to eliminate a few well-known rhetorical appeals. Trumps success lies not in well-reasoned arguments, as he is clearly neither articulate nor cogent. But if conventional factors such as rational discourse, personal ethos, and ideological disposition offer little basis for understanding Trumps rhetorical appeal, then what explains it?

We maintain throughout this book that it is primarily Trumps style. In fact, style may be the only aspect of Trumps rhetoric consistent enough to account for his appeal. Reflecting on the first five months of the Trump presidency, Rich Lowry (2017) observed for Politico , the only unquestioned constant is Trumps demeanor. Or to put it another way, Trumps content may be subject to change, but never his style. Consequently, our chief aim in this book is to explicate and assess Trumps material embodiment and enactment of an emergent populist style, which drawing inspiration from Carol Anderson (2016), we refer to as white rage. For us, style combines Trumps general manner of speaking with his preferred modality of speaking. To ensure that each of these elements receives adequate attention, we analyze Trumps rhetorical style across both registers. In rhetoric, it is crucial to ground our analysis in the extant literature on style, campaign communication, and presidential discourse, as well as to highlight the stakes of the presidents rhetorical style.