I am a Popularist': A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Populist Rhetoric of Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign

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dc.contributor.advisorDesser, Daphne
dc.contributor.authorRubsamen, Cornelius
dc.contributor.departmentEnglish
dc.date.accessioned2020-11-25T18:20:41Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.description.abstractThe recent global rise of right-wing populism, as illustrated by the Brexit referendum in Great Britain and the election of Donald Trump in the United States, has become the subject of intense debate among academics. How can we explain this phenomenon? Employing a critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach, this dissertation considers the question from the perspective of rhetorical studies. It first defines populism as a rhetorical style that mobilizes “the people” against “the elite” and engages in a rhetorical performance of permanent crisis. It then performs a textual analysis of three Trump campaign speeches in order to first operationalize the definition of populism and subsequently to answer the question, is Trump a populist? The dissertation then analyzes Trump’s populist style as observed at his campaign rallies, prior to examining social media in general and Trump’s preferred medium of Twitter specifically. The results indicate that Trump does not appear to be a populist by conviction because he initially failed to show proper reverence for “the people”; nevertheless, with the addition of Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon to his campaign team, this omission was addressed and from that point onward the thematic content of Trump’s speeches fulfills all the requirements of populist rhetoric. Trump’s populist style, on the other hand, appears to be genuine as many of its elements are an expression of his habitus. This style was instrumental in Trump’s efforts to position himself as the outside insider and to forge a Burkean sense of identification with his base. Finally, Trump skillfully leveraged the affordances of social media to engage directly with his followers and to provoke scandals, which resulted in earned media coverage and enabled Trump to set the media agenda and frame issues in a way that served his political campaign. Ultimately, Trump successfully employed populist rhetoric to win the 2016 presidential campaign, to the detriment of American democracy, as well as to the health and prosperity of Americans. This dissertation contributes to the work of rhetorical scholars by providing a model for the implementation of a critical discourse analysis and by advocating for an increased engagement with the concept of “populism” in rhetorical studies.
dc.description.degreePh.D.
dc.embargo.liftdate2022-11-23
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10125/70335
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa
dc.subjectRhetoric
dc.titleI am a Popularist': A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Populist Rhetoric of Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign
dc.typeThesis
dc.type.dcmiText
local.identifier.alturihttp://dissertations.umi.com/hawii:10798

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