I, Trump

The cult of personality, anti-intellectualism and

the Post-Truth era

Antonio Reyes
Washington and Lee University

This paper contextualizes Donald Trump’s political “Message” (Lempert and

Silverstein 2012) within the current anti-intellectualism phenomenon in the
Post-Truth era. Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech marks the begin-
ning of the Trump era, as it introduces critical traits of his persona, message and
political agenda to the general audience. From a Discourse Analysis approach,
this paper considers Aristotelian modes of persuasion and the multimodal
concept of “Message” (ibid.), to contribute to the literature on Trump’s political
communication by focusing on the cult of personality and self-representation
(i.e. non-politician, overachieving businessman, great leader). Trump built
his candidacy and presidency around his persona, distancing himself from
the Republican Party and traditional politicians. These strategies allowed
Trump to evoke an Ethos capable of saving America. His personal fight against
every enemy and threat encapsulates a simple and ingenuous dichotomy
“I vs. them” with the populist intention of completing a hyperbolic task: Make
America great again.

Keywords: Trump, anti-intellectualism, Post-Truth Era, political discourse,

populism

1. Introduction

This paper contributes to the literature on right-wing populism (RWP) and in

particular to the case of Donald Trump (Trumpism; Wodak and Krzyżanowski
2017) and the discursive strategies displayed in his political communication. This
study combines the multimodal notion of Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012)
and the rhetorical concepts of Ethos and Pathos to account for Trump’s political
language and his self-representation as a leader through a cult of personality. This

Journal of Language and Politics (Published online: 4 May 2020), 1–25. doi 10.1075/jlp.20002.rey
issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
[2] Antonio Reyes

self-representation allows him to stand alone against the political elite and fight
internal and external threats contesting, if necessary, reputable and accepted facts.
His language portrays a political actor as “self-defined savior of ‘the people’ (Wodak
2017, 552), and even a prophet (the American jeremiad) (Austermuehl 2020).
In order to understand the Trump phenomenon, we need to revise the socio-
cultural context that was witness to and caused his rise. The global economic crisis
of 2008, the refugee crisis and the increase of terrorist attacks around the world
(from September 11, 2001 [Mudde 2019]) have triggered a reaction of distrust
towards traditional politics and political institutions in general. This loss of trust
is not around a person or political party; it surrounds the whole political system
(Wodak 2017). All of those events have been constantly addressed in the media,
creating uncertainty, insecurity and fear internationally. This context has led to
specific policies concerning borders and immigration. Securing and controlling
the borders have been associated with protecting a country’s economy (imports
and exports, jobs, fair competition) and its people from outsiders (immigrants,
refugees, terrorists). This has triggered the proliferation of extreme right politi-
cal parties that appear as new-fresh-real problem-solvers who can keep our bor-
ders secure and put our economy “back” in our control and not in the control
of a volatile global market. These goals have “propelled the rebirth of nativism
and nationalism such as Trump’s ‘America First’, and earlier populist slogans such
the ‘Austria First’ in the 1990s” (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017, 567). Nativism,
as a combination of nationalism and xenophobia (Mudde 2007), excludes parts
of the society (Wodak 2003) in a political agenda upholding an anti-pluralist ap-
proach. This situation has strengthened a nationalist view reinforced by (1) out-
side threats to a nation’s values, borders and people, and (2) a nostalgic imaginary
past of “greatness.”
The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump distanced himself from the
policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war,
in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform (Rothwell and Diego-Rosell
2016). That year he became the 45th president of the US.

2. Post-Truth Era, anti-intellectualism and, right-wing populism (RWP)1

The loss of trust in the political system has spread to other domains such as tra-
ditional media, scientific research, facts and evidence in general. Sources tradi-
tionally related to truthful and trustworthy information, are now rejected and

1. Although this paper focuses on RWP, it is important to emphasize that, despite particular
differences, populism (both left- and right-wing) “considers society to be ultimately separated
 Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [3]

challenged (post-truth was considered the word of the year 2016 by the Oxford
English Dictionary [Block 2019]). In this climate of distrust, bloggers, forum par-
ticipants, twitter and social media users upload and comment political content
competing for authenticity with traditional media, becoming highly influential in
the political process of a country. In the Post-Truth Era, right-wing populist leaders
have adopted an anti-intellectual political attitude, “rejecting a priori the world-
views not conforming to their own, decline any debate with differing opinions and
are unable to show empathy for others” (Degani 2016, 131). In this political con-
text, populist “political actors talk about the people [as a homogeneous category]
and combine this with an explicit anti-establishment position and an exclusion of
certain population categories” (Jagers and Walgrave 2007, 323–4). In this sense,
populist discourse “delegitimizes established power structures and the role of
elected representatives in liberal democracy while claiming that the people should
rule” (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 65). In addition to traditional and conservative
values and morals around family structure and gender roles, populist politicians
engage in simplistic explanations and solutions based on common sense, and part
of an anti-intellectualism vision (Wodak 2017, 5). They claim to “reflect the voice
of the people” (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 66) while mainstream media constitutes
“‘fake news’, elections are ‘fraudulent’, politicians ‘drain the swamp’, political parties
are ‘dysfunctional’, judges ‘enemies of the people’, the intelligence service ‘liars and
leakers’, intellectuals ‘arrogant liberals’ and the UN ‘a talking club’” (ibid.: 4).
RWP, as a product of the far-right ideology, share common “political issue
clusters”: immigration, security, corruption and foreign policy (Mudde 2019, 31).
Politicians present those issues as hyperbolic threats, to later emphasize thor-
ough repetitions and catchy phrases, that as leaders, they are capable of meeting
those threats, get the job done and solve the situation, without much detail about
the means, but with a focus on the goal (to make the nation great again). Right-
wing populist politicians create their own genre “as a mix of scandal, provoca-
tion, transgression, and passion” (Sauer, Krasteva and Saarinen 2018, 26). In this
vein, Trump’s immersion in politics has been accompanied by scandals (abuse,
extramarital relationships, bribes), provocation (insults and politically incorrect
language) and transgression (rejecting mainstream media news as fake news and
defending his views as “alternative facts”).
In this scenario of confusion and mistrust and the constant repetition of threats
has triggered fear: “[F]‍ear has emerged as a framework for developing identities
and for engaging in social life. Fear is one of the perspectives that citizens share
today” (Altheide 2002, 3). Fear materializes from threats on two fronts: firstly, by

into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’” (Mudde
and Kaltwasser 2012, 8).
[4] Antonio Reyes

an outsider threat constituted by “foreigners” of different races, religions and lan-

guages (Wodak 2017, 553). This fear is constantly re-activated and fed by the me-
dia in the way migratory movements are framed and connected to refuge crises
and terrorist attacks around the world. Secondly, the internal threat is represented
by the establishment, intellectuals and liberals. Many people’s views and beliefs
were challenged in America when the first black president was elected in 2008.
In fact, Trump’s victory in 2016 has been explained as a result of a resentment
of the white male patriarchy being challenged by the other: African-Americans,
Latinos and career women among others (Hochschild 2016). Not surprisingly,
Trump’s language reinstated a largely imaginary vision of a pre-diversity America.
(Austermuehl 2020, 3–4).
Nationalism, fear and general distrust of traditional politics have propelled
the emergence of new political personae: “The loss of trust in the political system
implies a search for alternatives – which is where right-wing populist and extreme
right political parties enter the scene: We encounter new and self-defined saviors
of ‘the people’ dominating the political stage, presenting themselves as authentic
and trustworthy” (Wodak 2017, 552).
These self-defined saviors proudly claim to have obtained skills outside the po-
litical arena, nonetheless, these skills have prepared them to not only run a coun-
try but to turn things around, almost magically, and make a country great again,
saving it from the dangers and threats that the politicians themselves present in
their agendas. This way of talking matches the politicians’ personae, constructs
their Message and create a distance from previous politicians. The arguments then
are vague and empty of the notion “I will succeed as a president because…I am
great, I am rich, etc.” Moreover, official news, facts and surveys are rejected if they
do not support the politician’s course of action (see Excerpt 8).

3. The discourse of Donald Trump

Studies since 2015 have explained different linguistics and non-linguistics fea-
tures around the political figure of Donald Trump, from his speeches and public
appearances to his interaction in social media. Trump has appeared in the pub-
lic scene as a populist leader employing a colloquial language that has resonated
with his electorate.2 Using hyperbolic language, he presents simplistic solutions
for complex situations where fear (Wodak 2015) has been a constant factor to
legitimize his presidential campaign, offering himself “to the nation as the new,

2. “This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.” Retrieve
from https://‍www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpxCl8ylJgE

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [5]

worthy leader” (Austermuehl 2020, 21–22). His success and victory in the U.S.
elections of 2016 have been associated with the support of white rural America,
men and women, making race a key factor in his Message, persona and success
(Austermuehl 2020). Trump’s Message has also been approached from a gender’s
perspective (Harp 2019; Kolb 2019), in particular, in relation to performing a sort
of “hypermasculinity” (Smith and Higgins 2020). These features have made his
message more controversial, aggressive and blunt with open attacks and insults
to women and immigrants depicting the “bad manners” of right-wing populist
politicians (Moffitt 2016, 58).
As Trump, right-wing populist politicians present themselves as the “true rep-
resentatives of the people,” while previous politicians and their opposition rep-
resented the “untrustworthy political classes” who failed to represent the people
and the country (Wodak 2017, 2) (see also Hochschild 2016; Krzyżanowski and
Wodak 2009; Wodak 2015). In this context, these politicians emerge and embody
“a ‘saviour’ …a (more or less) charismatic leader of the respective party who oscil-
lates between the roles of Robin Hood and ‘strict father’ (Lakoff 2004)” (Wodak
2019, 12). In the case of Trump, he will make America great again bringing the
American dream back: “Sadly, the American dream is dead.3 But if I get elected
president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before”
(Trump 2015). Trump shares certain personality traits; male, white, older, straight
and authoritarian with other far-right leaders such as Le Pen and Bolsonaro
(Mudde 2019, 72). These features conform Trump’s Message and legitimize a dis-
course where race (Austermuehl 2020) and gender (“hypermasculinity”: Smith
and Higgins 2020) are at the core of his political communication. As a matter of
fact, most of his supporters are white and two-thirds are men (Mudde 2019, 78).
In relation to the linguistic features employed by Trump, Degani correlates an-
ti-intellectualism with linguistic complexity, measured by certain textual features
(e.g. sentence length, word length, number of complex words) (Degani 2016, 132):
“Plain, poor and unrefined forms of discourse, characterized by catchy phrases
and bathetic appeals” (ibid., 131). Trump’s rhetoric promotes simple dichoto-
mies (us vs. them), it “celebrates the cult of personality, demonizes opponents
and engages in an instrumental use of fear to obtain support” (ibid.). This spe-
cific use of language constitutes a political strategy developed in Trump’s Message
by a team of speech writers and communication experts to brand his persona in
the political arena.

3. I use bolded text throughout this paper to emphasize crucial fragments of the analysis.
[6] Antonio Reyes

4. Trump’s presidential announcement speech 2015

This study analyses Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech (06/16/2015).4

This public appearance of 6,339 words was crucial to introduce Mr. Trump’s ide-
ology, political agenda and self-positioning to a general audience. This speech
marked the moment at which Trump went from being a TV phenomenon and
a businessman to becoming a US presidential candidate. In his announcement,
Trump reveals content about the nature of his candidacy, his persona, his agen-
da, goals and promises and the differences with other candidates and politicians.
From Trump’s first public appearance as a presidential candidate, he proposed
himself as the solution for real and imaginary threats to the US after the passivity
and inefficiency of previous politicians The tone and characteristics of this speech
constantly emerge in later appearances, confirming his persona and Message and
the importance of Trump’s announcement in his path towards the White House.
Despite the length of this speech, this public appearance is crucial and decisive in
understanding the terms by which Trump become a political persona within the
anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth Era. This specific speech not only “repre-
sented new extremes" (Gabbatt 2019), but in it, Trump also presented an agenda,
attitude, and political persona then that engaged an important part of the elector-
ate (Austermuehl 2020). A year and a half later, the ideological stance, objectives
and goals presented in his announcement speech moved him to the White House,
as the 45th President of the USA.

5. Theoretical concepts: Ethos, Pathos and the Message

Anchored in the Discourse Analysis tradition, this study approaches Trump’s po-
litical identity and language’s peculiarities in relation to the Aristotelian modes
of persuasion Ethos and Pathos.5 In order to adress the cult of personality and
self-representation in Trump’s political communication, this study observes these
modes of persuasion to analyze the linguistic construction of notions such as au-
thority and expertise (Ethos), employed by Trump to legitimize his candidacy.
Similarly, the mode of Pathos allows us to understand the connection and rapport

4. Retrieved from: https://‍www.c-span.org/video/?326473-1/‍donald-trump-presidential-cam-

paign-announcement

5. Many classical authors such as Plato, Cicero and Quintilian have addressed the notion of
Ethos, but Aristotle broadened its definition to encompass knowledge and expertise (McCroskey
and Young 1981).
 Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [7]

with the audience, also displayed linguistically through specific linguistic choices
explained in this paper.
Through these modes, politicians show authority and credibility (Ethos) and
create rapport with the audience (Pathos). Ethos refers to the moral competence
and authority of the speaker, evoking a politician as expert and knowledgeable
and who displays command of the topics discussed. Pathos, on the other hand,
constitutes the emotional appeal to the audience, the affective load of the discourse
(Kennedy 1991). Pathos refers, in Aristotelian terms, to the use of human feel-
ings to affect the judgment of a jury. Politicians can reach an emotional connec-
tion with the audience by displaying solidarity at different levels, by, for instance,
speaking like them, using cultural images shared by a social class, or narrating
familiar personal experiences that touch and move the audience.
Politicians aim to achieve two goals in political events to convince their audi-
ences about their political agenda:6 (1) to show authority and command about the
topics debated (Ethos) and (2) to appeal to the emotions of the majority of the
audience (Pathos) to obtain support. Many politicians evoke Ethos by narrating
events without subjective remarks or personal evaluations, hedges, or using 1st
and 2nd personal pronouns in order to distance themselves from the facts nar-
rated (Reyes 2011b). Pathos is evoked by the use of referential indexicals, ques-
tions, repetitions, vocatives, hedges and personal narrations among other features
(ibid.). This study underlines the linguistic choices employed in the reenactment
of Ethos and Pathos in an official speech event of Donald Trump.7
Together with Ethos and Pathos, this study also considers the multimodal
concept of “Message” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) to refer to the different se-
miotic resources involved with political events and performances that construct
a specific political persona. Those resources relate to “physical, sartorial, charac-
terological, discursive, and other biographical features” (Lempert and Silverstein

6. Even if Trump’s persona is often associated with unpredictability, there is a whole team cal-
culating intentions and goals. Political discourse is pre-planned discourse with intentionality
(Capone 2010, 2965), and political actors and their teams attempt to calculate (to the best of
their ability) the effect and reception of the message. In this sense, the question of addressiv-
ity in political communication is crucial and related to recognition (Taylor 1994): “Political
communication requires ‘recognizing’ and thereby establishing co-membership” with specific
identities and its demographic realizations (i.e., age, class, sex, religion) of the diverse electorate
and simultaneously excluding others (Lempert and Silverstein 2012, 111).

7. This study does not imply that specific politicians purposely reenacted the Ethos or Pathos
mode being aware of it per se. However, their teams of speech writers or “spin doctors” (Wodak
2009, 2) are aware of the importance of showing expertise, knowledge and command (Ethos),
and to display a connection with the audience through rapport by, for instance, inhabiting pop-
ular identities (Pathos).
[8] Antonio Reyes

2012, 8). Message refers then to the additional information, beyond linguistic
choices, that politicians communicate about their identity and personal values
through selectively taking up certain issues and avoiding others (ibid., 2). Trump’s
campaign and popularity occur in a time when political parties and social and
mass media shape the way politicians are (re)‍presented in society, branding a
candidate as a particular product in the political arena (Oates and Moe 2016). In
populism, more than clearly defending or proposing specific policies on different
matters (Oates and Moe 2016, 6), political groups propose a political persona, as
a particular product for a specific political context branding a populist leader. For
these reasons, the multimodal concept of “Message” is employed here to account
for those resources relate to “physical, sartorial, characterological, discursive, and
other biographical features” (Lempert and Silverstein 2012, 8). Message is then
another crucial theoretical tool to understand Trump’s self-representation within
the political context of that time.

6. Analysis: Ethos and the construction of a leader

In the case of Trump, he projects authority and expertise (Ethos) not through his
knowledge of a specific political matter but through his personal character, his
achievements and personal experiences; his success as a businessman and the cult
of his personality in general. In other words, his personal narratives do not find a
common ground with the audience to connect emotionally (Pathos), quite to the
contrary, Trump erects his persona as an authoritative figure precisely due to his
success as a businessman. His case is often built on the assumption that if “I can
run a business successfully, I can run a country in similar ways.” This is different
from what other politicians have done in the past to evoke Pathos and appeal to
the audience. For instance, Joe Biden, in the vice-presidential debate of 2008 said
“Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daugh-
ter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand…” (Biden, VP Debate
2008). Even when he was a US senator, Biden intended to appear as a person who
understood the American working and middle classes’ struggles by digging in the
common ground of experiences to connect with his audience through experienc-
ing similar difficulties (Reyes 2011b). These narratives appeal to the emotion of
the audience and often suggest authenticity (Ochs 2004; Ochs and Capps 1996,
2001), in the sense that speaker and audience are co-experiencer and participants
of similar situations. Trump does not appeal emotionally to his audience by shar-
ing similar experiences or backgrounds in his narratives, like other right-wing
politicians in Europe do (i.e. visiting the same pubs as everybody else, travelling
to similar places, driving similar cars, having similar problems in their family lives
 Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [9]

[Wodak 2015, 123]). His narratives are about the success of a multimillionaire. He
shares with the audience, however, a common language, syntactically (in relation
to structure) and, metaphorically (in relation to ways to understand the world).
In this respect, for instance, “Trump’s South Carolina primary supporters report-
ed seeking in a candidate [who] ‘tells it like it is’”8 (Jamieson and Taussig 2017,
622). These linguistic features display an aspect of “likeability” and “authentic-
ity” in Trump’s political communication, not through a common background in
life experiences, but through appealing to approachability, folksiness, informality,
etc. (Sclafani 2018). Using this particular language, Trump claims authority and
knowledge through personal experience, allowing Ethos and Pathos to converge
in his speech. His persona interferes with national and international affairs. In oth-
er words, Trump and his policies cannot be separated, they constitute a package,
an inseparable synergy that constructs his Message with idiosyncratic uses of lan-
guage. In the next excerpt, Trump criticizes the creation of a website by Obama’s
government, while displaying features of a casual and spontaneous conversation, a
language familiar and recognizable to the audience.
(1) And remember the $ 5 billion website? $ 5 billion we spent on a website,
and to this day it doesn’t work. A $ 5 billion website.
I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do
a website. It costs me $ 3. $ 5 billion website.
Well, you need somebody, because politicians are all talk, no action.
 (Trump’s Presidential Announcement, 06/16/2015).9

Pathos is evoked in a casual interaction where the communication seems more

like a conversation between two friends than a political speech by a presidential
candidate. Montgomery refers to these features as the “Trump’s conversational
direct address” (Montgomery 2017, 629). Trump employs these particular semi-
otic resources, evoking an oral casual narrative. His announcement displays ques-
tions, repetitions, referential indexicals, hedges, incomplete sentences, evaluatory
remarks and references to current self and hearers; resources that work as rela-
tionship-building features in the communication (Reyes 2008, 2011a). The excerpt
above displays confirmatory questions to create solidarity (Green 1996), such as
“And remember the $ 5 billion website?” Trump builds rapport with the audi-
ence since these questions feign a fictitious conversation with his listeners who
have no chance to answer that question. These and other phrases such as “believe

8. Lazaro Gamio and Scott Clement, “South Carolina Republican Primary Exit Poll Results,”
Washington Post, 20 February 2016, accessed at https://‍www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/
politics/2016-election/primaries/south-carolina-exit-poll/, 17 March 2017

9. From here onwards (Trump 2015)

[10] Antonio Reyes

me” (16) “encourage audience participation in the context of monologic speeches”

(Sclafani 2018, 41). As in casual conversations, repetitions are common in this
fragment and in Trump’s discourse in general (Degani 2016; Jamieson and Taussig
2017; Montgomery 2017). The expression “$ 5 billion website” is repeated four
times in consecutive sentences. There are referential indexicals to his persona (“I”
[x3] and 1 “me” [x1]), a characteristic of his public appearances (Degani 2016).
The fragment also contains the hedge “well”, which acts as a discourse marker. In
addition, sentences are mostly incomplete. Pathos is reflected thorough the lin-
guistic choices employed by Trump, the same language people would use in or-
dinary conversations. His political persona and Message are not characterized by
sophisticated rhetorical devices, since he constantly rejects being or talking like
politicians; rejection he repeats constantly in his speeches: “politicians are all talk,
no action.” Nevertheless, the mode of Pathos in Trump does not only represent
ordinary language familiar to the audience, it also works towards the Ethos. In
this passage, Trump not only criticizes his political opponent in casual language,
he also projects his Ethos with expertise, authority and knowledge about the topic
discussed: “I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people,
they do a website. It costs me $ 3.” Trump has many websites, and he creates them
often and more inexpensively. In a simple manner, Trump displays expertise and
knowledge about how better to accomplish things. His argumentation is based on
the simple assumption: “I know it because I have experience with it.” His author-
ity and command of national and international issues is based solely on express-
ing some type of personal relationship with the issue under discussion, similar to
the “eye-witnessing experience” argumentation: “I know because I was there…”
(Tusting et al. 2002).
The following fragment also shows the synergy between Ethos and Pathos in
Trump’s Message. Addressing how to negotiate with the lobbyist of a company
like Ford to protect jobs, he involves himself in the discussion of domestic affairs,
reproducing a fictitious simple dialogue in which he takes a turn with the lobbyist
of Ford and he shows himself as firm and determined and ultimately protective
of jobs for Americans. The excerpt contains linguistic features depicting an inter-
locutor who builds on Pathos.
(2) Now, here’s what is going to happen. If it’s not me in the position, it’s one of
these politicians that we’re running against, you know, the 400 people that
we’re (inaudible). And here’s what’s going to happen. They’re not so stupid.
They know it’s not a good thing, and they may even be upset by it. But then
they’re going to get a call from the donors or probably from the lobbyist for
Ford and say, “You can’t do that to Ford, because Ford takes care of me
and I take care of you, and you can’t do that to Ford." And guess what?

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [11]

No problem. They’re going to build in Mexico. They’re going to take away

thousands of jobs. It’s very bad for us. So under President Trump, here’s
what would happen:
The head of Ford will call me back, I would say within an hour after I told
them the bad news. But it could be he’d want to be cool, and he’ll wait until
the next day. You know, they want to be a little cool.
And he’ll say, “Please, please, please.” He’ll beg for a little while, and I’ll say,
“No interest.” Then he’ll call all sorts of political people, and I’ll say, “Sorry,
fellas. No interest," because I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t
need anybody’s money.  (Trump 2015)

The previous fragment displays Pathos through referential indexicals involving

Trump (“I” and “me” x8 times) and the audience (“we” x2 times) in the narra-
tion, questions involving the audience such as “guess what?”, markers of modaliza-
tion (Fairclough 2003) to make here-and-now comments (e.g.: “Now, here”, “and
here”) and modal verbs (Hodge and Kress 1988) (e.g.: “it could be he’d want to be
cool”). However, in addition to these subjective remarks and colloquial language
(Pathos), the story is presented with assertion and many of his claims are about
himself (Ethos) (Montgomery 2017) ̶ “here’s what is going to happen” (x3 times) ̶
and without hedges such as “I think” and “I believe”, therefore expressing convic-
tion and commitment to the story without hesitation.
Through the reproduction of a casual conversation (Pathos) with the lobbyist of
multinational Ford, Trump displays the knowledge and expertise of a person who
knows how to be in charge (Ethos), a person who will challenge big corporations
to benefit American workers. This legitimization of his expertise is simplistic and
lacking in substance; characteristics of discourses in the era of anti-intellectualism
(Degani 2016). However, these features can be effective; a dialogue with turn-tak-
ings can display dynamism and therefore action and “doing”, not just “talking” as
other politicians. In addition, he seems to know what he is talking about because
he reproduces a dialogue with a lobbyist representing a multinational corpora-
tion. His own persona appears when discussing national and international affairs.
Trump, his words and his position on policies cannot be separated; they constitute
a package: his Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012). Trump connects with the
audience (Pathos) in his style. It is inaccurate, interrupted, repetitive, casual seem-
ing unorganized, unplanned and more authentic and real: “Trump’s overall mes-
saging is neither deliberate nor cautious, and to an unusual degree it appears to
be impromptu, reactive, situational, and improvisational” (Jamieson and Taussig
2017, 622). These characteristics present a candidate whose rhetoric introduces a
political figure different from his antecessors and therefore responds to the request
of those citizens tired of traditional politics in the Post-Truth era. At the same time,
[12] Antonio Reyes

these features are also more entertaining (not predictable) and consequently more
marketable in news and media constructing a political product whose Message
and persona are closer to reality TV and a media sensation than previous presi-
dents of the USA. In fact, some authors affirm that Trump is “entertaining – not
just for the white rural underclass, not just for conservatives, but also for the public
at large, even those who strongly oppose his candidacy. Whether understood as
pleasing or offensive, Trump’s ongoing show was compelling” (Hall et al. 2016,
72). And, as an entertainer, Trump “has license to disobey rules” (ibid., 73) and he
does that almost daily. The uncertainty of the content of his next tweet, declaration
or reaction keeps both followers and detractors in suspense and therefore enter-
tained. In that sense, “Trump’s unconventional political style receives attention
that helps rather than harms his candidacy because it is absorbed as entertainment
by a heavily mediatized public sphere” (ibid. 2016: 75).
Simultaneously, he creates his Ethos by presenting a person who has experi-
ence and knows what to do and how to act in order to solve all the political chal-
lenges ahead. In his own words, he appears as the great leader this nation needs:
“our country needs a truly great leader” (x3) (Trump 2015). That leader (Ethos) is
constructed through the cult of personality. A characteristic of far-right politics is
the emphasis on the figure of leader (Führerprinzip [leadership principle]) where
the leader represents the people and stands “as an exceptional human being”
(Mudde 2019, 104) and a self-defined savior (Wodak 2017) (see excerpts 6 and 7).

6.1 The cult of personality: I, Trump

Trump constantly narrates about himself involving himself and his personal ex-
periences when addressing national and international politics and affairs. In his
presidential announcement of 6,339 words, there are 198 instances of the first-
person singular pronoun “I.” A reference to himself as subject of an active sentence
occurs every 32 words. In addition, the announcement contains 11 direct refer-
ences to himself by using the referential word “Trump.” Ahmadian et al. (2017)
found that of the top nine Republican contenders competing for the republican
nomination in 2015, Trump was the candidate using first-person pronouns the
most. He creates a leader based on himself, praising personal achievements and
experience, concentrating on himself the resources needed to manage and lead the
most powerful country in the world.
The following excerpt displays personal narrations about Trump himself and
how he accumulated wealth. His point about taking initiatives in the real estate
market is presented theatrically with a simple dialogue reproducing in direct
speech of turn-takings between his father and himself. These features “construct a
dialog in a monologic context” (Sclafani 2018, 48). There are constant references

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [13]

to himself in order to feed and construct an Ethos, authority through experience

and expertise. His presentation of this personal episode is presented in familiar
ways (Pathos): simple syntax and repetitions in a casual dialogue.
(3) I’m proud of my net worth. I’ve done an amazing job.
I started off – thank you – I started off in a small office with my father in
Brooklyn and Queens, and my father said – and I love my father. I learned
so much. He was a great negotiator. I learned so much just sitting at his
feet playing with blocks listening to him negotiate with subcontractors.
But I learned a lot.
But he used to say, “Donald, don’t go into Manhattan. That’s the big
leagues. We don’t know anything about that. Don’t do it.”
I said, “I gotta go into Manhattan. I gotta build those big buildings. I gotta
do it, Dad. I’ve gotta do it.”
And after four or five years in Brooklyn, I ventured into Manhattan and
did a lot of great deals – the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I was responsible for the
convention center on the west side. “I did a lot of great deals, and I did
them early and young. And now I’m building all over the world, and I love
what I’m doing”.  (Trump 2015)

Trump does not develop a Pathos to connect with his audience through person-
al narrations to find a common ground and build solidarity with his audience.
Trump’s narrations of personal experiences rebuild his identity as a rich business-
man whose life experiences have little to do with common people. When Trump
narrates about himself, he distances himself from common average people and,
at the same time, these narrations legitimize the Ethos of his candidacy. Trump
presents politics in economic terms: everything is about trading and negotiat-
ing. In that world, he is at his best because he is a businessman who has done
very well: “a truly successful person, a really, really successful person” (Trump
2015). And he knows the best negotiators: “I know the smartest negotiators in the
world” (Trump 2015).
In the next fragment, Trump keeps building a cult for his personality by shar-
ing how much money he is worth.
(4) And I have assets – big accounting firm, one of the most highly respected –
9 billion 240 million dollars.
And I have liabilities of about $ 500 million. That’s long-term debt, very low
interest rates. In fact, one of the big banks came to me and said, “Donald,
you don’t have enough borrowings. Could we loan you $ 4 billion”? I said, “I
don’t need it. I don’t want it. And I’ve been there. I don’t want it."
[14] Antonio Reyes

But in two seconds, they give me whatever I wanted. So I have a total net
worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well-over $ 10 billion. 
 (Trump 2015)

His credentials and assets open a bigger gap with his followers, especially with the
middle class and blue-collar America. The audience cannot feel an identify with
a multimillionaire who has this kind of wealth, his personal narrations do not
resonate with the audience. Trump and his persona do not appear as a mirror for
his followers, at least not as a synchronic mirror for the audience (He is like me).
His rhetoric is however reminiscent of the American dream “Self-made man” in
the land of opportunities, another key element in the mythological construction
of the US.
In the next fragment, Trump links the previous statement about his wealth
with being president of the US. According to him, that is what the country needs:
a rich person who can make the country rich.
(5) I don’t have to brag. I don’t have to, believe it or not.
I’m doing that to say that that’s the kind of thinking our country needs.
We need that thinking… because we got to make the country rich. 
 (Trump 2015)

These linguistic choices build Trump’s persona and Message. His constant refer-
ences to his persona (not a politician), success, achievements, expertise and ex-
perience as a businessman constitute a constant tribute to himself. The cult of
personality allows him to fashion a political figure from a simple candidate for the
presidency to a self-proclaimed leader and savior who would protect and liber-
ate us from two main threats: an inside threat represented by the establishment
(politicians and liberals) and an outside threat represented by immigration, terror-
ists and foreign powers that sustain unfair trade with us. Trump’s announcement
speech was titled “Our Country Needs a Truly Great Leader” (Trump 2015). This
truly great leader would confront issues by himself like a true savior in his own
terms, not as a politician or diplomatic but with hostility in a “Trumpian” way, as a
Super hero ready to solve by himself all the problems, nationally and internation-
ally. The construction of a truly great leader goes from being right about future
prediction: “And I’m the one that made all of the right predictions about Iraq” to
being “the greatest jobs president God ever created” (Trump 2015):
(6) I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you
that. I’ll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan,
from so many places. I’ll bring back our jobs, and I’ll bring back our
money.  (Trump 2015)

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [15]

At the end of the speech, there is no evidence of political strategy or expertise in

global or national affairs and the main argument of his candidacy and Message
seems to be: “I will make America great again because I am great.”
As the greatest creation of God (job-wise), he will resurrect the American
dream, and then make it bigger, better and stronger.
(7) Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring
it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make
America great again.  (Trump 2015)

His language is hyperbolic, unrealistic and part of a deceptive language full of big
claims (Galasinski 2000, 42). All this characterizes the Message of right-wing pop-
ulist leaders, described by Wodak as “new and self-defined saviors of ‘the people’
dominating the political stage, presenting themselves as authentic and trustwor-
thy” (Wodak 2017, 552). Through the cult to his personality, Trump has self-pro-
claimed his persona as able to save America, the American dream and American
jobs. The way he deals with issues is not much different; he does not make alliances
or address threats with a team of experts. As a hero, he stands alone against the
issues and obstacles.

6.2 Trump vs. issues

Trump presents himself as a self-proclaimed “truly great leader” who will fight
on fronts inside and outside the US borders. In addition to domestic and foreign
threats, Trump is also known for contesting scientific evidence and official facts.
In his presidential announcement of 2015, he displays his future attitude towards
scientific or official facts that do not align with his political agenda.

a. Trump vs. facts

In the following excerpt, Trump rejects the results of official surveys, make ups
new results without citing his sources and, based on his results, constructs the
guilty party, blaming and demonizing China and Mexico for the large number of
unemployment that he just presented about the US. If he would have used the of-
ficial numbers from surveys, there will be no one to blame. However, he constructs
the enemy and the threat basing his speech against China and Mexico on numbers
he previously had fabricated.
(8) And our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. Don’t
believe the 5.6. Don’t believe it. That’s right. A lot of people up there can’t
get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has
our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs. But the real number,
[16] Antonio Reyes

the real number is anywhere from 18 to 19 and maybe even 21 percent,

and nobody talks about it, because it’s a statistic that’s full of nonsense.
 (Trump 2015)

Trump proposes “real” numbers of unemployment without a source or explana-

tion to reject the official numbers. He simply proposes first a range from 18% to
20%, then from 18% to 19%, and then maybe even 21% as the real numbers. This
example shows the behavior of populist politicians “who reject a priori the world-
views not conforming to their own” (Degani 2016, 131).
Trump’s political persona represents the anti-intellectual politician who con-
stantly questions factual truths and scientific evidences (i.e. Global Warming).
Trump’s speeches display “an alarming combination of hyperbole seemly oriented
to incite, along with numerous statements of ‘fact’ without any support, that is,
argument by affirmation” (Block 2019, 74). Instead, an alternative truth is often
fabricated with fake news seeking to control the dominant narrative. Those un-
substantiated claims are produced and legitimized as “alternative facts” (see Blake
2017) while the mainstream media is considered “fake news” and the “enemies of
the people” (Norris and Inglehart 2019).

b. Trump vs. domestic threats (Politicians)

The construction of Trump’s Message and political persona is paradoxically de-
fined from a Trump vs. Politicians standpoint, wherein he criticizes traditional
politicians, the political system in general, and Washington as the political capital
of the US. He is not a politician and therefore, he does not have to talk or behave
like one. This detachment has made him popular among the anti-government and
anti-establishment people. He refers to politicians as “all talk, no action” (Trump
2015). He therefore does not have to follow the protocol or political rules or con-
sider science or facts as a valid reference in his speeches. This political attitude
succeeds in the climate of anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth Era. In the fol-
lowing example, Trump criticizes the language of previous politicians for being
empty and vague and not addressing important issues such as the creation of jobs.
(9) I watch the speeches of these people, and they say the sun will rise, the
moon will set, all sorts of wonderful things will happen. And people are
saying, “What’s going on? I just want a job. Just get me a job. I don’t need
the rhetoric. I want a job”.  (Trump 2015)

Previous politicians are associated with rhetoric and Trump wants to be associated
with job creation. He also distances himself, at least when he presents his candi-
dacy, from republican politicians:

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [17]

(10) … and I hear my fellow Republicans…I like them. And I hear their
speeches. And they don’t talk jobs and they don’t talk China. When was the
last time you heard China is killing us? They’re devaluing their currency to a
level that you wouldn’t believe. It makes it impossible for our companies to
compete, impossible. They’re killing us.  (Trump 2015)

Even when he shows sympathy for the republicans, he accuses them of not talking
about jobs or China, which is “killing us.” Trump emerges as a new political actor,
one with no affiliation to recognize parties. He is an outsider, his political program
is based on his persona and his political Message is unique, different and about “I,
Trump.” He insults current leaders calling them stupid three times for not acting
on the threats he describes.
(11) How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to
happen? How stupid are they?.  (Trump 2015)

In the next expert, Trump continues to discredit politicians thereby distancing

himself from them. They cannot make America great again and therefore Trump,
free of the lobbyist influence, is proposing himself as a “truly great leader” who
knows how to negotiate “The Art of the Deal”:
(12) So I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with them all my life…
They will never make America great again. They don’t even have a chance.
They’re controlled fully – they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the
donors, and by the special interests, fully… Now, our country needs – our
country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We
need a leader that wrote “The Art of the Deal”.  (Trump 2015)

Politics and political enemies are addressed in terms of business. Trump is not a
politician, he is a successful businessman displayed throughout his Message, not
only by his linguistic repertoire but also by his attire choices (Austermuehl 2020,
23). He equates running a country to running a business. He is rich, he does not
need money from corporations or lobbyists because he is rich: “I’m using my own
money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really
rich” (Trump 2015).
Ethos is built around his persona and success; his authority to be president
is based on his credentials as a businessman, attested by his wealth. However, his
credentials are based on a never-proven success (he never released his tax returns,
for instance).

c. Trump vs. Foreign threats: Mexico, China, migration

Trump underlines outside threats in his Presidential Announcement Speech,
and they became crucial points in his later foreign affair agenda when he became
[18] Antonio Reyes

president. These threats reactivate fear, a necessary emotion for legitimizing his
coming as a savior, as a strong president who can stand up to those threats. The
appeal to emotions allows political actors to skew the opinion of their audiences
regarding a specific matter (Reyes 2011c). Fear based on the construction of “the
other” in the form of outsiders threating our values (freedom), our way of living
(economy) and our very lives (with terrorism) stand as the backbone of RWP.
Trump evokes fear also in economic terms with metaphorical references to the
field of business (i.e. they’re killing us economically [in relation to Mexico, Trump
2015]). These threats have allowed Trump to evoke an Ethos capable of saving
America due to his expertise and self-proclaimed success in the field of business
and negotiations. Fear and a savior constitute two sides of the same coin. In the
following excerpt, Trump describes immigrants (outsiders) as a “they” bringing
problems, drugs and crimes and being rapists.
(13) “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.
They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people
that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some,
I assume, are good people”.  (Trump 2015)

The picture of outsiders coming to our country is alarming and scary. In addition,
ISIS continues to be a threat that cannot be confronted by the current politicians:
“How are they going to beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen” (Trump 2015).
And the president connects both threats and enemies with the adverb “probably”
in the following fragment.
(14) It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and
Latin America, and it’s coming probably – probably – from the Middle
East.  (Trump 2015)

RWP has semantically charged the phenomenon of immigration with a new set
of connotations (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017), connecting immigrants, refuges
and terrorists with outside threats trying to enter our country. These semantic as-
sociations appeal to fear and, when repeated over and over, become normalized
(Wodak 2015) and therefore constitute a new understanding of migration that
promotes anti-pluralist discourses and favors “us” above “them” realities.
Below, Trump connects all the external threats in three simple sentences:
(15) You have a problem with ISIS. You have a bigger problem with China. And,
in my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade, is Mexico.
 (Trump 2015)

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [19]

The worst-case scenario is constructed by connecting threats and employing

powerful metaphorical uses. The economic threat is constantly brought up in
Trump’s speeches metaphorically (State as a Person) on two fronts: China and
Mexico, by means of personifications where those countries “laugh” at the USA
and “kill” its economy.
(16) When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a
trade deal? They kill us…When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re
laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically.
They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.
 (Trump 2015)

Immigrants, ISIS, China and Mexico have created a dramatic fearful situation that
Trumps presents and reactivates in his discourse, repeating that “Our country is
in serious trouble” and that “Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger”
(Trump 2015). Trump projects fear into speeches depicting the worst-case sce-
nario as an imminent catastrophe. In the next excerpt, Trump suggests that “very
soon” (x2) we will be “unsalvageable”, like Greece. Again, the threat and compari-
son are posed in economic terms.
(17) That’s when we become Greece. That’s when we become a country that’s
unsalvageable. And we’re gonna be there very soon. We’re gonna be there
very soon.  (Trump 2015)

In a fast–paced world of sound bytes and headlines as the often-sole sources of in-
formation for many persons, this single-sentence structure becomes a very power-
ful communication strategy for the politician. Metaphors about killing and death,
and images of immigrants as rapists, evoke strong emotions that seem more im-
portant for speech writers and communication advisers than the commitment to
truth or accuracy in the Post-Truth Era. The anti-pluralist discourses favoring ‘us’
above ‘them’ become the acceptable norm in a ‘normalized’ discourse (see Wodak
2015; Krzyżanowski 2014) that represents the world in populist terms: “[R]‍ight-
wing populist parties instrumentalize some kind of ethnic/religious/linguistic/
political minority as a scapegoat for most if not all current woes and subsequently
construe the respective group as dangerous and a threat ‘ to us ’, to ‘our’ nation; this
phenomenon manifests itself as a ‘politics of fear’” (Wodak 2015, 23).
And there is one person capable of fighting and beating these threats; a savior,
a great leader, and a problem solver: Trump, who, for instance, beats China “all the
time”: “They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time” (Trump 2015).
Even Islamic terrorists are presented in economic terms for Trump, and he
himself is in competition with them. Again, he presents himself vs. the enemy (I
vs. them = Trump vs. Islamic terrorists) in economic terms.
[20] Antonio Reyes

(18) Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East.

They’ve become rich. I’m in competition with them. They just built a hotel
in Syria. Can you believe this? They built a hotel. When I have to build a
hotel, I pay interest. They don’t have to pay interest, because they took the
oil that, when we left Iraq, I said we should’ve taken.  (Trump 2015)

Trump presents his credentials to combat ISIS also in economic terms ̶ “They don’t
pay interest and I pay interest” ̶ to underline that they don’t play fair, but he does.
That summarizes his expertise for combatting ISIS, a comparison about building
hotels and paying interest on them. Trump is addressing global problems and pro-
posing to solve them using his personal experience presenting simplistic explana-
tions and solutions” (Wodak 2017, 5).

7. Conclusions

This paper analyses Trump’s political strategies around self-representation as a

leader through a cult of personality. This analysis combines the multimodal notion
of Message (Lempert and Silverstein 2012) and the rhetorical concepts of Ethos
and Pathos, contributing to the literature on Trump’s political communication
(Trumpism; Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2017). In addition, this work contributes
to the literature on right-wing populism (RWP) allowing a better understanding
of this political phenomenon. This paper argues that Trump’s self-representation
allows him to stand alone against the traditional political elite and fight domes-
tic and foreign threats rejecting, if necessary, reputable and accepted facts. His
Presidential Announcement of June of 2015 stands as a political event that marked,
defined and catapulted Trump as a political phenomenon and possibly present-
ed a new way of making and understanding politics (Gabbatt 2019). Trump’s
Announcement contains personal and linguistic traits that created Trump’s po-
litical Message, a Message that took him to the Oval office a year and a half later.
As a businessman, a millionaire and an anti-politician, Trump presents author-
ity (Ethos) through experience, projecting a savior who is able to make America
great again. He represents a new political actor, different from the political elite
established in D. C. Trump is Trump. Through his political communication, he
reproduces imaginary scenarios as casual conversations (Pathos) to recreate his
skills to deal successfully with political challenges. He recreates conversations in a
theatrical manner and insults and mocks people, even with disabilities (Harnish
2017). As a ventriloquist and a performer, Trump accommodates numerous voices
(polyphony, [Bakhtin 1981]) into the here-and-now moment of discourse, creat-
 Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [21]

ing a dynamic message that correlates with his non-politician identity (actions vs.
talking) and evoking authenticity through these semiotics choices.
In addition to those imaginary conversations where he will stand heroically to
defend American interests against threats (politicians, immigration, terrorism and
economical powers such a China or Mexico), Trump also fabricates his own truth
and facts while displaying situations that legitimize his political agenda in order
to make America great again, bring back the American dream, bigger, better and
stronger, and to stand as “the greatest jobs president God ever created” (Trump
2015). As a self-proclaimed hero in an exercise of fiction, Trump creates imaginary
scenarios that he resolves simplistically, mainly due to his previous experiences as
a businessman and a millionaire. Through the reiteration of words, Trump trans-
forms “certain subjective interpretations of reality into the most ‘natural’ ways of
looking at reality” (Degani 2016, 136).
Trump’s language around self-representation and the cult of personality is cru-
cial to understand Trump’s success within anti-intellectualism in the Post-Truth
era. These fictional characteristics, more common in the entertainment industry,
constitute a spectacle for the American public in general.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Michał Krzyżanowski, and the editors and reviewers of the Journal of
Language and Politics for comments and suggestions to previous drafts of the manuscript.

References

Ahmadian, Sara, Sara Azarshahi, and Delroy L. Paulhus. 2017. “Explaining Donald Trump via
communication style: Grandiosity, informality, and dynamism.” Personality and Individual
Differences 107: 49–53. https://‍doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.018
Altheide, David L. 2002. Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. Hawthorne, NY:
Aldine de Gruyter.
Austermuehl, Frank. 2020. “The normalization of exclusion through a revival of whiteness in
Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign discourse.” In Strategies of “Normalisation” in
Public Discourse: Paradoxes of Populism, Neoliberalism and the Politics of Exclusion. Social
Semiotics (Special issue) edited by Michal Krzyżanowski, 30 (4).
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Blake, Aaron. 2017. “Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump’s team has ‘alternative facts.’ Which
pretty much says it all.” The Washington Post. January 22. https://‍www.washingtonpost.
com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/kellyanne-conway-says-donald-trumps-team-has-
alternate-facts-which-pretty-much-says-it-all/?utm_term=.f4647c0aa6ad
[22] Antonio Reyes

Block, David. 2019. Post-Truth and Political Discourse. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://‍doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00497-2
Capone, Alessandro. 2010. “Barack Obama’s South Carolina speech.” Journal of Pragmatics: 42,
2964–2977. https://‍doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.011
Degani, Marta. 2016. “Endangered intellect: A case study of Clinton vs. Trump campaign dis-
course.” Iperstoria – Testi Letterature Linguaggi (8).
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analyzing Discourse. London: Routledge.
https://‍doi.org/10.4324/9780203697078
Gabbatt, Adam. 2019. “Golden escalator ride: The surreal day Trump kicked off his bid for
President.” The Guardian. June 14. https://‍www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/13/
donald-trump-presidential-campaign-speech-eyewitness-memories
Galasiński, Dariusz. 2000. The Language of Deception: A Discourse Analytical Study. Thousand
Oaks. California. USA: Sage Publications.
Green, Georgia M. 1996. Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. (2nd ed.). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Hall, Kira, Donna M. Goldstein, and Matthew B. Ingram. 2016. “The hands of Donald Trump:
Entertainment, gesture, spectacle.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (2), 71–100.
https://‍doi.org/10.14318/hau6.2.009
Harnish, Andrew. 2017. “Ableism and the Trump phenomenon.” Disability and Society 32 (3),
423–428. https://‍doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1288684
Harp, Dustin. 2019. Gender in the 2016 Presidential Election: Trump, Clinton and Media Dis-
course. London: Routledge. https://‍doi.org/10.4324/9781315167916
Hochschild, Arlie Russel. 2016. Strangers in their own Land. Anger and Mourning on the Ameri-
can Right. New York: The New Press.
Hodge, Robert, and Gunther Kress. 1988. Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jagers, Jan, and Stefaan Walgrave. 2007. “Populism as political communication style: An empiri-
cal study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium.” European Journal of Political Research
46, 319–345. https://‍doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2006.00690.x
Jamieson, Kathleen H., and Doron Taussig. 2017. “Disruption, demonization, deliverance, and
norm destruction: The rhetorical signature of Donald J. Trump.” Political Science Quarterly
132 (4), 618–649. https://‍doi.org/10.1002/polq.12699
Kennedy, George A. 1991. Aristotle, on Rhetoric: A theory of Civic Discourse. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kolb, Deborah M. 2019. “Her place at the table: gender and negotiation after Trump.” Negotia-
tion Journal 35 (1), 185–189. https://‍doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12266
Krzyżanowski, Michal. 2014. “Values, imaginaries and templates of journalistic practice: A criti-
cal discourse analysis.” Social Semiotics 24 (3).
https://‍doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2014.930607
Krzyżanowski, Michal, and Ruth Wodak. 2009. The Politics of Exclusion: Debating Migration in
Austria. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Krzyżanowski, Michal, and Per Ledin. 2017. “Uncivility on the web: Populism in/and the bor-
derline discourses of exclusion.” Journal of Language and Politics 16 (4), 1–16.
https://‍doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17028.krz
Lakoff, George. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green.
Lempert, Michael, and Michael Silverstein. 2012. Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the
American Presidency. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
 Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [23]

McCroskey, James C., and Thomas J. Young. 1981. “Ethos and credibility: The Construct and its
measurement after three decades.” Central States Speech 32, 24–34.
https://‍doi.org/10.1080/10510978109368075
Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Represen-
tation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Montgomery, Martin. 2017. “Post-truth politics? Authenticity, populism and the electoral dis-
courses of Donald Trump.” Journal of Language and Politics 16 (4), 619–639.
https://‍doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17023.mon
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. https://‍doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492037
Mudde, Cas. 2019. The Far Right Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Mudde, Cass, and Cristóbal R. Kaltwasser. 2012. Populism in Europe and the Americas. Threat or
Corrective for Democracy? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
https://‍doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139152365
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. 2019. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian
Populism. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Oates, Sarah, and Wendy W. Moe. 2016. “Donald Trump and the ‘Oxygen of Publicity’: Branding,
social media, and mass media in the 2016 presidential primary elections.” Paper prepared for
the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting Political Communication Sec-
tion. August 31, 2016.
Ochs, Elinor. 2004. “Narrative lessons.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, edited by,
Alessandro Duranti, 269–289. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Ochs, Elinor, and Capps, Lisa. 1996. “Narrating the self.” Annual Review of Anthropology 25,
19–43. https://‍doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.19
Ochs, Elinor, and Capps, Lisa. 2001. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Reyes, Antonio. 2008. “Discursive strategies in Chávez’s political discourse: Voicing, distancing
and, shifting.” Critical Discourse Studies 5 (2), 133–152.
https://‍doi.org/10.1080/17405900801990074
Reyes, Antonio. 2011a. Voice in Political Discourse: Castro, Chavez, Bush and their Strategic Use
of Language. London: Continuum.
Reyes, Antonio. 2011b. “Palin v. Biden: The fight for credibility in political discourse.” Issues in
Political Discourse Analysis 3 (1), 75–94.
Reyes, Antonio. 2011c. “Strategies of legitimization in political discourse: From words to ac-
tions.” Discourse and Society 22 (6), 781–807. https://‍doi.org/10.1177/0957926511419927
Rothwell, Jonathan T. and Pablo Diego-Rosell. 2016. “Explaining nationalist political views: The
case of Donald Trump.” SSRN. November 2. https://‍doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2822059
Sauer, Birgit, Anna Krasteva, and Aino Saarinen. 2018. “Post-democracy, party politics and
right-wing populist communication.” In Populism and the Web: Communicative Practices of
Parties and Movements in Europe, edited by Mojca Pajnik, and Birgit Sauer, 14–35.
Sclafani, Jennifer. 2018. Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse,
and Political Identity. New York, NY: Routledge.
Smith, Angela, and Michael Higgins. 2020. “Tough guys and little rocket men: @RealDon-
aldTrump’s Twitter feed and the normalisation of banal masculinity.” In Strategies of
“Normalisation” in Public Discourse: Paradoxes of Populism, Neoliberalism and the Politics of
Exclusion. Social Semiotics (Special issue) edited by Michal Krzyżanowski, 30 (4).
[24] Antonio Reyes

Taylor, Charles. 1994. “The politics of recognition.” In Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of
Recognition, edited by Charles Taylor, and Amy Gutmann, 25–73. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. https://‍doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7snkj.6
Trump, Donald. 2015. “Donald Trump Presidential Campaign Announcement.” C-Span. Video.
June 16, 2015. https://‍www.c-span.org/video/?326473-1/‍donald-trump-presidential-
campaign-announcement
Tusting, Karin, Robert Crawshaw, and Beth Callen. 2002. “I know, ‘cos I was There’: How
residence abroad students use personal experience to legitimate cultural generalizations.”
Discourse and Society 13 (5), 651–672. https://‍doi.org/10.1177/0957926502013005278
Wodak, Ruth. 2003. “Populist discourses: The rhetoric of exclusion in written genres.” Document
Design 4 (2), 132–148. https://‍doi.org/10.1075/dd.4.2.04wod
Wodak, Ruth. 2009. The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London:
Sage. https://‍doi.org/10.4135/9781446270073
Wodak, Ruth. 2017. “The ‘Establishment’, the ‘Élites’, and the ‘People’ Who’s who?” Journal of
Language and Politics 16 (4), 1–15. https://‍doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17030.wod
Wodak, Ruth. 2019. “The Micro-Politics of Right-Wing Populism.” In Populism and the Crisis
of Democracy: Politics, Social Movements and Extremism, edited by Gregor Fitzi, Juergen
Mackert, and Bryan S. Turner 2, 11–29. London: Routledge.
Wodak, Ruth, and Michal Krzyżanowski. 2017. “Right-wing populism in Europe and USA:
Contesting politics and discourse beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism.’” Journal of Language
and Politics 16 (4), 471–484. https://‍doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17042.krz

Address for correspondence

Antonio Reyes
Washington and Lee University
Romance Languages
Tucker Hall, Room 312
204 W. Washington Street
Lexington, VA 24450
USA
reyesa@wlu.edu
https://‍orcid.org/0000-0002-3785-7345

Biographical notes
Antonio Reyes is an Associate Professor at Washington and Lee University. His research focuses
on the relationship between language and society, and the way they intertwine and shape each
other to create new contexts of meaning and new realities. He has published in Language and
Communication, Discourse and Society, Journal of Language and Politics, Text and Talk, and a
monograph Voice in Political Discourse: Castro, Chavez, Bush and their Strategic Use of Language
(Bloomsbury, London).

Trump, anti-intellectualism and the Post-Truth era [25]

Publication history

Date received: 13 January 2020

Date accepted: 10 March 2020
Published online: 4 May 2020