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The power of Trump-Speak : populist crisis narratives and ontological security
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Homolar, Alexandra and Scholz, Ronny (2019) The power of Trump-Speak : populist crisis narratives and ontological security. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (3). pp. 344-364. doi:10.1080/09557571.2019.1575796 ISSN 0955-7571.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2019.1575796
Abstract
For most observers, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States (US) came as a shock. This has been widely recast as the culmination of the American public’s long-standing dissatisfaction with the political elite and deep-seated frustrations with broader socio-economic conditions. We argue that the Trump campaign’s success also stemmed from its effective use of an emotionally charged, anti-establishment crisis narrative. With insights from political psychology, we examine the socio-linguistic mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of ‘Trump-speak’ through both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Trump’s communications toolkit during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. We show that his leadership legitimation claims rest significantly upon ‘crisis talk’ that puts his audience in a loss frame with nothing to lose and explain why ‘crisis talk’ impacts on political behaviour. As we demonstrate, the crisis stories that political agents tell simultaneously instil ontological insecurity among the American public and serve to transform their anxiety into confidence that the narrator’s policy agendas are the route back to ‘normality’. Through these rhetorical mechanisms, the Trump campaign manipulated individuals’ ontological (in)security as a tool in the politics of reassurance at the broader, societal level.
Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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Subjects: | E History America > E151 United States (General) J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JK Political institutions (United States) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | |||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Political campaigns -- United States -- History, Political campaigns -- Social aspects -- United States, Populism, Communication in politics -- United States, Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 21st century, Trump, Donald, 1946- | |||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Cambridge Review of International Affairs | |||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | |||||||||
ISSN: | 0955-7571 | |||||||||
Official Date: | 20 March 2019 | |||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 32 | |||||||||
Number: | 3 | |||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 344-364 | |||||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/09557571.2019.1575796 | |||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cambridge Review of International Affairs on 20/03/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09557571.2019.1575796 | |||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
Description: | Article ID: CRIA 1575796 |
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Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 January 2019 | |||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 13 May 2019 | |||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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