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Oct 9, 2024 · In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
Jul 2, 2024 · Just yesterday, in a decision that is sending shockwaves through US politics, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents, including Trump, are entitled to some degree of immunity from...
- Emma Shortis
- Turning The Crowd Into “The People”
- A Victimized People
- An Inner Enemy
- An Existential Threat
- Virtuous Strength Versus Shameful Weakness
- The Remains of The Day
Populism is a complex and contested political concept. It is nevertheless identifiable by certain characteristics. First, of course, it often involves some form of demagoguery, a rhetorical device that Donald Trump masters perfectly, as rhetoric professor Jennifer Mercieca has shown. “You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anyb...
Another characteristic of Trump’s “people” is their victim status. They are the victims of a corrupt system and the “fake news media”. He also makes a link between “the country that has had enough” and a we who will “not take it any longer” because “that’s what this is all about.” Trump’s people identify with him through this victimization. Hence t...
This rhetoric of victimization is also illustrated by the construction of the figure of an enemy who is no longer a foreign outsider but fellow Americans, as I have analyzed thoroughly elsewhere. In Trump’s “Save America” speech, this enemy is primarily the news media. They “suppress speech,” and even “thought”. They are the “enemy of the people” a...
The populist discourse also requires the construction of a permanent crisis. The enumeration of numerous enemies leads to an implacable logic: “Our country has been under siege.” This type of war lexicon is all the more effective that the emotional charge is reinforced with the evocation of children: This threat of “indoctrination of children” vali...
By standing up and fighting, Trump’s “people” can become heroic. It is common for US presidents to rely on the trope of the hero, a figure whose strength is always kept in check by virtue. Donald Trump presents a very different narrative where heroism is exclusively defined by unchecked strength, to the point that strength is a virtue in and of its...
The tragic events of January 6 and their aftermath are now well known. Five people died, including police officer Brian Sicknick. Despite the violent attack, Congress was able to reconvene and formally recognize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. But the risk was grave and the wounds deep. All of this w...
It may thus plausibly be argued that Trump’s speech on the morning of January 6th meets the high standard for incitement that the Supreme Court set in Brandenburg. This renders moot Dershowitz’s point about constitutionally permissible speech being insufficient grounds for impeachment.
May 17, 2023 · Trump's effort to lean into a key part of his record could be an asset to him in the Republican primary, but it may hurt him in the general election, given the backlash from the majority of ...
- Senior National Political Reporter
- 2 min
Jan 12, 2021 · Did Trump incite his crowd to violence on Jan. 6? On Jan. 6, Trump gave a 70-minute speech to the crowd assembled at the Ellipse near the White House. He rambled at length about the details surrounding the supposed election steal, sounding chaotic and deluded to critics.
Donald Trump has been acquitted of a single impeachment charge that he incited a mob to storm the US Capitol. So what did the president say prior to the violence?
