Rhetoric and Governance under Trump

Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit analyzes the rhetoric of Donald Trump to argue that Trump’s deeply illiberal rhetoric, cruel policies, corruption, disruptive foreign policy, and disdain for the rule of law makes him a textbook populist. However, his embrace of mainstream conservative policies and the culture war narratives that come with them made him a rather conventional Republican. Being more plutocrat than populist, Trump had to bridge this fundamental contradiction by employing populist and polarizing rhetoric, alongside fabricated crises, to uphold the veneer of being an anti-status quo politician. Bernd Kaussler, Lars J. Kristiansen, and Jeffrey Delbert argue that, for Trump, bullshit, confrontational politics, and fear has emerged as a vital political strategy. Through an analysis of Trump’s first three years in office, the authors find that President Trump governed using a communication strategy that a) denied facts, relied heavily on bullshit, lies, and fabricated counter-narratives; b) attacked news outlets and the opposition to foster identity-based polarization in order to sideline critics and stir up factions for specific political ends; and c) dismissed legitimate criticism of policies and the conduct of the administration and the president himself as “fake news.” Kaussler, Kristiansen, and Delbert argue that the repeated use of this strategy, along with a mixture of public complacency and concerted efforts on the part of his own party, has allowed Trump to work toward normalizing these lies and cover-ups throughout his tenure, only further exacerbating the highly polarized and partisan political environment in the United States. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, political science, and media studies will find this book particularly useful.

The title, and especially the subtitle, of this book by political scientist Kaussler (James Madison Univ.) and two communications professors, Kristiansen (also James Madison Univ.) and Delbert (Lenoir-Rhyne Univ.), pretty much says it all. Building on Harry G. Frankfurt's best-selling treatise On Bullshit (2005), these authors identify the genre in question with inflated and hyperbolic rhetoric, akin to 'humbug' and lacking in substance. They further link it to a president whom they describe as overconfident, uninformed, and uninterested in truth. They illustrate with specific chapters involving Trump's response to racist actions in Charlottesville, Virginia; his attempts to polarize rather than unify the electorate; his populist attacks on the media; his contradictory defenses during his impeachment hearings; and his erratic foreign policies. This book provides an insightful, sobering account of the corrosive effects of a completely transactional view of truth that, as Mettler and Lieberman have documented in Four Threats (2020), is steadily undermining democracy in the US. . . The authors conclude that if we remain without better crap detection, other politicians will adopt similar rhetorical forms. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. General readers.-- "Choice"

Bernd Kaussler is professor of political science at James Madison University.Lars J. Kristiansen is assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University.Jeffrey Delbert is associate professor in the College of Fine Arts and Communication at Lenoir-Rhyne University.