MAGA: An (Extra-) Linguistic Analysis of Donald Trump’s Speeches in the 2016 US Presidential Campaign

Author(s):  
Krisztina Németh

The article deals with the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States and aims to point out the linguistic and non-linguistic factors that led to the victory. The election results came as a surprise to a large proportion of the world, but looking back, it was intriguing to analyse whether the reasons for his victory had been present in his speeches, and whether his triumph could have been predicted using discourse analysis.

Author(s):  
M. Share

On April 30 the United States and the World marked the 100th day in office of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The first 100 days are considered as a key indicator of the fortunes for a new President’s program. This article briefly reviews the 2016 campaign and election, the 11 week transition period, his first 100 days, a brief examination of both American-Russian relations and Sino-American relations, and lastly, what the future bodes for each under a Trump Presidency. The 100 Day period has been chaotic, shifting, and at times incoherent. He has made 180 degree shifts toward many major issues, including Russia and China, which has only confused numerous world leaders, including Presidents Putin and Xi. There has been a definite disconnection between what Trump says about Russia, and what his advisors and cabinet officials say. So far Trump has conducted a highly personalized and transactional foreign policy. All is up for negotiation at this a huge turning point in American foreign policy, the greatest one since 1945. Given all the world’s instabilities today, a rapprochement between the United States and Russia is a truly worthwhile objective, and should be strongly pursued.


Author(s):  
N. Gegelashvili ◽  
◽  
I. Modnikova ◽  

The article analyzes the US policy towards Ukraine dating back from the time before the reunification of Crimea with Russia and up to Donald Trump coming to power. The spectrum of Washington’s interests towards this country being of particular strategic interest to the United States are disclosed. It should be noted that since the disintegration of the Soviet Union Washington’s interest in this country on the whole has not been very much different from its stand on all post-Soviet states whose significance was defined by the U,S depending on their location on the world map as well as on the value of their natural resources. However, after the reunification of Crimea with Russia Washington’s stand on this country underwent significant changes, causing a radical transformation of the U,S attitude in their Ukrainian policy. During the presidency of Barack Obama the American policy towards Ukraine was carried out rather sluggishly being basically declarative in its nature. When President D. Trump took his office Washington’s policy towards Ukraine became increasingly more offensive and was characterized by a rather proactive stance not only because Ukraine became the principal arena of confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation, but also because it became a part of the US domestic political context. Therefore, an outcome of the “battle” for Ukraine is currently very important for the United States in order to prove to the world its role of the main helmsman in the context of a diminishing US capability of maintaining their global superiority.


Author(s):  
Rodney A. Smolla

This chapter begins with an account of Anna Anderson, an immigrant to the United States who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia that was exposed to be fake after a DNA test. It discusses the collusive connections between Russia and the American radical alt-right. It also identifies several figures that were prominent in the Unite the Right events in Charlottesville in 2017 and strongly supported the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump. The chapter highlights how alt-right groups idolize Russia's leader Vladimir Putin, seeing him as the sort of strong-willed authoritarian dedicated to “traditional values” that the world needs. It discloses how Russia has been the hospitable home and host of American right-wing extremists, such as David Duke who moved to Russia in 1999.


Author(s):  
Todd Scribner

After descending an escalator of his hotel at Central Park West on a June day in 2015, Donald Trump ascended a podium and proceeded to accuse Mexico of "sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us (sic). They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists" (Time 2015). It was a moment that marked the launch of his bid for president of the United States. From that point forward, Trump made immigration restriction one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Paired with an economically populist message, the nativist rhetoric shaped a narrative that helped launch him to the White House. His effectiveness partly lay in his ability to understand and exploit preexisting insecurities, partly in his outsider status, and partly in his willingness to tap into apparently widespread public sentiment that is uneasy with, if not overtly hostile to, migrants.This paper will try to make sense of the restrictionist logic that informs the Trump administration’s worldview, alongside some of the underlying cultural, philosophical, and political conditions that inspired support for Trump by millions of Americans. This paper contends that the Clash of Civilizations (CoC) paradigm is a useful lens to help understand the positions that President Trump has taken with respect to international affairs broadly, and specifically in his approach to migration policy. This paradigm, originally coined by the historian Bernard Lewis but popularized by the political theorist Samuel Huntington (Hirsh 2016), provides a conceptual framework for understanding international relations following the end of the Cold War.  It is a framework that emphasizes the importance of culture, rather than political ideology, as the primary fault line along which future conflicts will occur. Whether Trump ever consciously embraced such a framework in the early days of his candidacy is doubtful. He has been candid about the fact that he has never spent much time reading and generally responds to problems on instinct and "common sense" rather than a conceptually defined worldview developed by academics and intellectuals (Fisher 2016).  Nevertheless, during the presidential campaign, and continuing after his victory, Trump surrounded himself with high-level advisers, political appointees, and staff who, if they have nothing else in common, embrace something roughly akin to the Clash of Civilizations perspective (Ashford 2016).[1]The paper will focus primarily on Trump’s approach to refugee resettlement. One might think that refugees would elicit an almost knee-jerk sympathy given the tragic circumstances that drove their migration, but perceptions of refugees are often tied up with geopolitical considerations and domestic political realities. Following 9/11, the threat of Islamic-inspired terrorism emerged as a national security priority. With the onset of the Syrian Civil War and the significant refugee crisis that ensued in its wake, paired with some high-profile terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe, the “Islamic threat” became even more pronounced.The perception that Islamic-inspired terrorism is a real and imminent threat has contributed to a growing antagonism toward the resettlement of refugees, and particularly Muslims. When viewed through the lens of the CoC paradigm, victims of persecution can easily be transformed into potential threats. Insofar as Islam is understood as an external and even existential threat to the American way life, the admission of these migrants and refugees could be deemed a serious threat to national security.This paper will begin by examining some of Trump’s campaign promises and his efforts to implement them during the early days of his administration. Although the underlying rationale feeding into the contemporary reaction against refugee resettlement is unique in many respects, it is rooted in a much longer history that extends back to the World War II period. It was during this period that a more formal effort to admit refugees began, and it was over the next half century that the program developed. Understanding the historical backdrop, particularly insofar as its development was influenced by the Cold War context, will help to clarify some of the transitions that influenced the reception of refugees in the decades after the fall of the Soviet Union.Such an exploration also helps to explain how and why a CoC paradigm has become ascendant. The decline of the ideologically driven conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union has, according Huntington’s thesis, been superseded by culturally based conflicts that occur when competing civilizations come into contact. The conceptual framework that the CoC framework embodies meshes well with the cultural and economic dislocation felt by millions of Trump supporters who are concerned about the continued dissolution of a shared cultural and political heritage. It is important to keep in mind that the CoC paradigm, as a conceptual framework for understanding Donald Trump and his approach to refugee resettlement and migration more broadly, is at its core pre-political; it helps to define the cultural matrix that people use to make sense of the world. The policy prescriptions that follow from it are more effect than cause.[1] It is worth noting that proponents of the CoC worldview are just one bloc within the Trump administration, albeit at the moment an influential one. Other competing blocs (e.g., establishment Republicans) are also in the mix.


Author(s):  
Mary Gilmartin ◽  
Patricia Wood ◽  
Cian O'Callaghan

Questions of migration and citizenship are at the heart of global political debate with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump having ripple effects around the world. Providing new insights into the politics of migration and citizenship in the United Kingdom and the United States, this book challenges the increasingly prevalent view of migration and migrants as threats and of formal citizenship as a necessary marker of belonging. Instead the book offers an analysis of migration and citizenship in practice, as a counterpoint to simplistic discourses. It uses cutting-edge academic work on migration and citizenship to address three themes central to current debates: borders and walls, mobility and travel, and belonging. Through this analysis, a clearer picture of the roots of these politics emerges as well as of the consequences for mobility, political participation and belonging in the 21st century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-45
Author(s):  
Paulina Sefrinta Indah Ivana ◽  
Suprayogi Suprayogi

Speech plays an important role to shape public perception as it is delivered by an influential figure and reflects the points of view of its speaker. This study discusses a speech delivered by the United States President, Donald Trump, which discusses the conflict between Iran and America. This study was conducted to reveal the representation of Iran and the United States in one of Donald Trump’s speeches. The method used in this study is the descriptive qualitative method. The data in this study are in the form of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences that indicate the position of Iran and the United States taken from the speech transcript from the official website of The White House. Data were analyzed under the framework of Van Djik’s Socio-Cognitive Approach, consisting of text, socio-cognitive, and social context. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that Iran is described as a country that has nuclear ambitions and acts of terror that support the existence of terrorists. On the other hand, America is described as having an invincible power. At a socio-cognitive level, Donald Trump is considered a knowledgeable figure on his country’s political condition because he knows the weaknesses of Iran and can properly take every decision. Donald Trump also has the authority as a President to make The United States and the countries of the world can work together for peace world. Thus, from the level of social context, countries in the world support the actions taken by America and are very alarming about what Iran has done. The finding suggests that the Socio-cognitive approach is practical to analyze the representation of an issue in speech reflected in linguistics expression and the discourse structure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Dominick Spano

Abstract The 2008 Financial Recession was one of the most significant fiscal downturns in the history of the United States. Considering that the world is in the midst of a global pandemic which may lead to another adverse economic climate, I believe that looking back at the causes of the 2008 Financial Recession is recommended. This may assist administrators to avoid the missteps which sparked this down economy in the future. By reading this paper, readers will also learn about the demographics effected by the recession and the Dodd-Frank Act, which was drafted to combat future occurrences of this nature.


2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-215
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Barilleaux

The American political system has many features that set it apart from other governments of the world, but not all are equally apparent. One distinctive aspect is the length and importance of the transition period from one presidential administration to another. In most countries the passage of power occurs almost as soon as the election results are known (consider, e.g., the rapid assumption of power by President Kostunica after Slobodan Milosevic admitted defeat in the September 2000 Yugoslav election), but in the United States roughly ten weeks elapse between the election and inaugu- ration. The American approach, as Charles Jones puts it in this outstanding book, is to transfer power at a "leisurely pace."


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (04) ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Weixing CHEN

The rise of China has shaken, to some extent, the pillars sustaining the US dominance in the world. Facing structural challenges from China, the United States has responded on three levels: political, strategic and policy. The Donald Trump administration has adopted a hard-line approach while attempting to engage China at the structural level. The China–US relationship is entering uncertain times, and the reconstruction of the relationship could take a decade.


Leadership ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 757-764
Author(s):  
Sverre Spoelstra

Over the last three years, the idea of a ‘post-truth society’ has become a common talking point. Politicians from around the world, from Europe to South America to the United States, have been labelled as ‘post-truth leaders’, with Donald Trump being portrayed as the standard bearer for this new kind of political discourse. This article suggests that post-truth leadership is nothing new. Ever since Max Weber developed his notion of charismatic leadership in the early 20th century, Western societies have been infatuated with the idea that leaders ought not concern themselves too much with factual reality. In a sense, leadership has been post-truth all along.


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