What are the three characteristics of Trumpism?: A Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Four Major Campaign Speeches

Political Analysis Volume 19 Volume XIX (2018) Article 2 2018 What are the three characteristics of Trumpism?: A Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Four Major Campaign Speeches Rachel D. Beeman Seton Hall University, Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.shu.edu/pa Part of the American Politics Commons Recommended Citation Beeman, Rachel D. (2018) "What are the three characteristics of Trumpism?: A Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Four Major Campaign Speeches," Political Analysis: Vol. 19 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarship.shu.edu/pa/vol19/iss1/2 POLITICAL ANALYSIS · VOLUME XIX · 2018 What are the three characteristics of Trumpism?: A Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Four Major Campaign Speeches Rachel D. Beeman Rachel's goal in this paper is to advance a moderate voice on a controversial presidency. She uses text analysis techniques and a program outside her comfort zone called ATLAS.ti, with the help of her faculty mentor Dr. Roseanne Mirabella, to analyze four campaign speeches by President Trump. She hopes future research will take advantage of text analysis to explore how rhetorical patterns and cues might provide insight into the characteristics of leaders and elected officials. “T oday we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.” 1 Millions of American’s listened to President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address, and their emotional responses ranged from anger and despair to elation and hope for a prosperous future. President Trump ran his campaign as a man of the people and as an executive. This presidential election represents one of the most contentious in history. Citizens continue to worry about President Trump’s connection with the Trump brand. There is also a national worry over whether or not this connection motivates his decisions’ as president. Are there any common themes behind his various campaign promises? Do these themes represent Trump as an individual or are they representative of the Republican Party? Will establishing these themes help citizens in understanding President Trump’s executive decisions? This paper will explore the ideology of President Donald J. Trump, in order to give insight into the potential answers to these questions. The author of this paper, hereafter referred to simply as ‘the author,’ asks the question, what are the three characteristics of Trumpism? The three characteristics are an appeal to populism, a business-like approach to politics, and an anti-establishment attitude. This paper will use an empirical and pragmatic study of speeches given during the campaign to illustrate the overarching ideological themes— populism, business-like approach to politics, and an anti-establishment attitude. The timeline of this paper begins when President Trump announced his campaign on June 16, 2015, and concludes its analysis with the Inaugural Address on January 20, 2017. The author performed a discourse analysis using qualitative data compiled from four major campaign speeches. The author has chosen to analyze his presidential announcement, his acceptance of the Republican National Committee’s nomination, the speech on election night after the election results, and his Inaugural Address. Only using four speeches allows the author to perform a focused and in-depth study on the language within each. The timeline of these speeches also offers insight into whether or not President Trump transformed the way he speaks to the nation over the course of the campaign. The author focuses on how President Trump presented key policy problems, the language he used to connect with his audience, and his business-like jargon to conclude the characteristics of Trumpism. Trumpism represents the ideology of President Trump. This ideology relies on his background as an executive and an entrepreneur, referred to within the paper as a business-like approach to politics. This reliance on his background as an executive draws on four key literature references The United States Government. “The Inaugural Address.” The White House: Press Office, 20 January 2017, Web. https://www.whitehouse.gov/inauguraladdress. 1 4 POLITICAL ANALYSIS · VOLUME XIX · 2018 for this paper. One of these references is his book The Art of The Deal. Two other important sources drawn on include an article written by Jayson Demers in The Entrepreneur on “10 Ways Entrepreneurs Think differently,” and a scholarly article published by a successful corporate leader Richard E. Byrd “Corporate Leadership Skills: A New Synthesis.” A study done on entrepreneurs by Associate Professor Sarah Sarvanthsy, “What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial,” influences the author’s inclusion of effectual reasoning as a main aspect of President Trump’s business-like approach. This paper’s research method relies on a computer software program called Atlas.ti, and using qualitative analysis, shows the prevalence of each characteristic within the speeches chosen. The author used Atlas.ti to create codes reliant on the operational definitions of each of the characteristics of Trumpism. There are three main codes: business-like approach, populism, and antiestablishment. The analysis portion of this paper discusses the implications of the Trump Administration on the Republican Party. Specifically, the author asks the question of how the Republican Party will be shaped by the Trump Administration, based off the ideology presented and described in this paper. The first operational definition is for populism. Populism is a complex ideology, usually associated with radicalism and socialist movements. This paper will combine Ernesto Laclau’s definition from A Short introduction to Populism, and Michael Kazin’s definition from The Populist Persuasion: An American History to illustrate the definition this paper utilizes for the code ‘populism’. Ernesto Laclau provides an approach that explains how populist leaders think rather than a definition for the word itself. Populism “is considered not only as the essence of politics, but also as an emancipatory force” highlighting “liberal democracy as the problem and radical democracy as the solution.” 2 Ernesto Laclau was the founder and director for the Graduate program in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex in London. He was best known for his book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, in which he discusses the importance of populism within the socialist movement. Michael Kazin focuses on the linguistic aspect of populism. The definition he provides is “a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic, and seek to mobilize the former against the latter.” 3 Michael Kazin is a professor of History at American University, and his definition focuses on ho (...truncated)