The Twitter Presidency by Brian L. Ott & Greg Dickinson

Author:Brian L. Ott & Greg Dickinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Notes

1. In Trump’s words, “I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don’t have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way. I don’t change—well, I do change. And I am flexible” (Schulberg et al. 2017).

2. By white male privilege, we mean the unearned assets that accrue from simply being white and male. As white males, we too benefit from such privilege. For instance, we can write an essay highlighting the racist and sexist character of Trump’s rhetoric largely without fear of violence being visited upon our bodies or having our argument challenged or dismissed because of our bodies.

3. Carol Anderson (2016) offers a powerful historical analysis of US American white rage. She demonstrates that at every turn in US history where blacks or other people of color stake a larger claim to promises of freedom, white rage creates a powerful and lasting backlash such that many if not all of the gains are erased.

4. Hook (2006) writes, “Discourse as such, in the regularity of its categories, in the surety of its reiterated demarcations, is an ally in the attempt to fend off and objectify the abject even though such efforts never prove completely effective. This is why discursive forms of engagement are both absolutely crucial to the analysis of racism but also in and of themselves inadequate to the task” (p. 223).

5. Much of what we find in Trump’s rhetoric enacts Roberts-Miller’s understanding of demagogic rhetoric. Her wonderful pocket book Demagoguery and Democracy names many of the rhetorical patterns we are exploring here. As she writes, however, we need to study particular instances of demagoguery. We are adding a detailed analysis of affect through a broader understand of aesthetics to Roberts-Miller’s understanding of demagoguery.

6. See Karrin Vasby Anderson’s (2017) work on Hillary Clinton and gender, and presidential politics more broadly.

7. For the full speech, see Trump TV Network (2017).

8. Trump “state[s] his position of the moment (whatever it is) with absolute conviction. (When he adopts a different position the next day, he invariably states that with just as much certainty and assurance)” (Linker 2016).

9. As Trudy Rubin (2016) observes, “In their anger at a system that appears broken, many Americans embrace[d] Trump’s autocratic values.”

10. It is fitting that Trump has been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame (Donald Trump 2018).

11. Crucially, Trump performs this clown-like stunt as a distraction regarding his debunked claim on the campaign trail that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks. This is a classic example of demagoguery where genuine concerns are dismissed without engagement, nearly always through some form of us/them discourse.

12. See, for example, the comparison between the handshake between Trump and Macron after Macron greeted many other NATO leaders in Brussels before greeting Trump and then the handshake Trump and Macron shared not long after. In the first, Trump pulls Macron hand so hard, that Macron appears to stumble, reaching up to Trump with his right hand to stabilize himself.

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