Talk:Rhetoric of Donald Trump

Note

I've made a note about this page on the Donald Trump talk page. I don't know if there are any procedures for this, but I would suggest letting it stay online for at least at week and then see how much is has developed. Marginataen (talk) 13:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Article name

This is a fairly new page. So if anyone wants to suggest re-naming it, via the RM route? Go for it. GoodDay (talk) 02:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think Rhetoric of Donald Trump is probably more attuned to our naming policies. ––FormalDude (talk) 03:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 03:49, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

the scope is waaay too broad

I encourage you to pause soibangla (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

This article was supposed to be about authoritarianism; if that's the scope, the title is so whitewashed it's unworkable (and as several people said elsewhere, authoritarianism goes beyond rhetoric).

FormalDude has built up the article by taking its title at face value though; that's fine, as his rhetoric is also notable (at least as much as his handshakes). So I think we can treat this page as its own thing and not as "the authoritarianism article". DFlhb (talk) 06:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

taking its title at face value will be a bottomless abyss of contention, the mother of all CT articles, the ultimate time sink soibangla (talk) 07:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

If the article title needs a change? You're free to open an RM on the matter. PS - There's actually an article about Trump handshaking style? GoodDay (talk) 14:27, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Why I did this

I would just like to elaborate on my thoughts behind making this article. I did not to it for covering something with DT and authoritarianism. I did it because there's been numerous detalied analysies by scholars and others about his rhetoric. I do not have much to add to the article myself but was expecting headings or sub-heading among the lines of (to give to something to work with): "Language completely level", "speech rithem", "vocabulary", "Way on talking about/to women", "idioms", "Speech writers during prisidency", special sayings (e.g. You're fired), "Linguistic/Rhetorical analysis of famous speeches/statements by him. E.g.:

1. the one in which he announced his candidacy in 2016.
2. His GOP, Clinton and Biden debates
3. His inaurgual adress
4. His state of the Union adresses
5. His January 6 "Fight like hell" speech
6. Campaign rally spreeches
11. Style in campaign rallies

Marginataen (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be familiar with lots of prospective RS content, so if you quickly beef it up a bit, the AfD can be quelled. SPECIFICO talk 18:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Good. Now next time you're tempted to create an article, add that stuff before you go public with it. "Knowing" that a subject is notable enough for an article is not good enough for actually creating it. The creation must contain the necessary content to prove notability. Otherwise, it will definitely get nominated for deletion, and if not quickly brought up to date with the necessary content and sourcing, it will get deleted. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this can be a good article that other aspects of Donald Trump's rhetoric can be linked to. For instance, False or misleading statements by Donald Trump which can be considered part of his "rhetoric" can be mentioned in a section here, along with List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump and Social media use by Donald Trump. This page can also serve as a place to put recent concerns about his authoritarian and violent rhetoric by the media until there is enough content and coverage that its own page could be warranted. A great start and I encourage you to rapidly expand it before it is nominated for deletion. BootsED (talk) 02:20, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposed first section major themes

I suggest that the first section should be a summary of major themes in his speaking, perhaps 1) himself 2) denigration of everyone who is not himself 3) tough actions he promises to take 3) claims about tough things he already did 4) outright attacks and slander of various public figures and institutions. SPECIFICO talk 18:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposed second section methods of persuasion and insinuation

Sources have discussed some of the phrases Trump uses to off-handedly make assertions that in fact are highly implausible:

1. "A lot of people are saying" "Everybody knows it"
2. "Probably the most we've ever seen" opponents "probably the most corrupt..."
3. "People have asked me to do this"
4. Crisis narratives. "criminals rapists drugs coming over the border..."
5. Branding and normalizing unevidenced claims by repetition

I don't have sources at my fingertips, but these and many others have been identified and discussed in various sources as uniquely effective ways in which he promotes various statements without quite taking responsibility for them such that he might need to defend whatever the statement. SPECIFICO talk 02:53, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Roy Cohn, an extremely unethical lawyer for New York's Mafia families, and also Trump's lawyer, taught Donald how to behave and avoid anything incriminating by maintaining plausible deniability. He's smooth as Teflon, and knows how to fly under the radar, which is evidence that he knows where the radar is located (knows what is wrong). Trump's biographers have described Cohn's influence, teachings, and the methods he taught Donald. There you'll find several methods that can be mentioned here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Other methods (some of these may not be "persuasion"):

1. When accused of something, immediately accuse your accuser of the same thing.
2. Never admit defeat or failure. Claim every defeat and failure was a victory.
3. "Flood the zone with shit" (from Steve Bannon) That's what Trump does. He creates chaos for people to deal with while he moves on and gets done whatever nefarious things he wants to get done.
4. Always remain the center of attention. The easiest way is to deny commonly known facts. That automatically draws attention to his denials and lies, making him, once again, the center of attention.
5. It matters not what the facts are as long as you repeat, repeat, repeat what you're saying. He taught this method to his aides.
6. Repetion of lies, IOW the Big Lie propaganda technique
7. Uses the illusory truth effect
8. Redefine terms: In May 2021, Trump released a statement asserting, "The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!" The move was described as an effort to "redefine the term", just as he had done with the term "fake news".
9. Use the legal system to tie up opposers and bankrupt them
10. Destruction of evidence
11. Obstruction of justice
12. Staging the scene. He's an expert TV self-promoter. Everything has to be perfect.

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:13, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Neville Hoad and Environmental Deregulation

I removed the following line since she doesn't describe his rhetoric as violent (or even explicitly talk about his rhetoric) and it is awkwardly written, implying that "locker room", "joke", and sexual misconduct are all examples of violent rhetoric.

Neville Hoad, an expert on gender studies, described Trump's rhetoric as violent, listing examples such as "grab them by the pussy" "locker room" "jokes" to misogynist insults, philandering, and even sexual predatory behavior where Trump is able to turn allegations of groping and raping into political assets rather than liabilities.

I wasn't sure how to fix this line, so I am moving it here in case anyone wanted to keep the source and rewrite something else from it to put into the article.Photos of Japan (talk) 09:16, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I have also removed the following lines.

One study suggests that significant environmental deregulation occurred during the first year of the Trump administration due to its concurrent use of spectacular racist rhetoric but escaped much media attention. According to the authors, this served political objectives of dehumanizing its targets, eroding democratic norms, and consolidating power by emotionally connecting with and inflaming resentments among the base of followers, but most importantly served to distract media attention from deregulatory policymaking by igniting intense media coverage of the distractions, precisely due to their radically transgressive nature.

The line as currently written misrepresents the article (rather than arguing that environmental deregulation occurred due to racist rhetoric, it is arguing more that such rhetoric distracted people from the deregulation going on), but more importantly the analysis section currently talks about how Trump's rhetoric is dehumanizing, discusses the emotionality of it, and compares it to fascists, but it is broken up by this line awkwardly injected into the middle of it, taking up 1/3 of the analysis section to discuss a very niche point about environmental deregulation occurring during the first year of Trump's administration and people being distracted by racist rhetoric so they don't notice it. I'm moving this line here in case someone wants to find some other way to use this source for the article.Photos of Japan (talk) 09:33, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Your second objection doesn't make much sense to me.

You say it misrepresents the article (rather than arguing that environmental deregulation occurred due to racist rhetoric, it is arguing more that such rhetoric distracted people from the deregulation going on), but the text in question acknowledges that it "most importantly served to distract media attention". Additionally, the source does indeed say that the deregulation occurred in part due to racist rhetoric, stating that "one of the many outcomes of spectacular racism has been to facilitate deregulation."

You also claim that this content is awkwardly injected into the analysis section which talks about Trump's dehumanizing rhetoric and the emotionalism of it and that this content is out of place because it is a very niche point about environmental deregulation. However, this content specifically talks about Trump's rhetoric "dehumanizing its targets" and "and consolidating power by emotionally connecting with and inflaming resentments among the base of followers".

For these reasons I've restored that content to the article. ––FormalDude (talk) 13:08, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Saying that something happened "due" to something is different than saying something "facilitated" it. Sharing a very large land border with Ukraine "facilitated" Russia's invasion because it is difficult to spread out defenses across such a large border, but it would be incorrect to say that Russia invaded Ukraine "due" to it sharing a large land border. The text you have restored misrepresents what the authors are saying by implying causation that they were careful not to imply.

The text also weakens the entire passage by giving undue weight to a point that is much less prominent and significant. Reducing it to a single, short line about how its been argued that his rhetoric distracts the media from the actions of his administration, such as the environment deregulation that occurred during his first year in office, would make this passage more effective. As its currently written I think most readers will lose interest at this line and stop reading the analysis section before scrolling down to the next sections. Photos of Japan (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I see your first point. I've changed the wording from "due to" to "aided in".

I'm not really following you on how the passage is undue weight, but if you have a specific suggestion as to how to improve it, please feel free to share. ––FormalDude (talk) 16:07, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

"January 6 hostage crisis" listed at Redirects for discussion

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"Donald Trump as rhetorician" listed at Redirects for discussion

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