Why Trump Lost and How? A Rhetorical Explanation

Discovering why the 2020 election turned out as it did will, given the complexities of American politics, take considerable time. Discovering how Trump lost and how Biden won will take longer. This article presents an initial foray in the latter direction by subjecting the rhetoric of the campaign to computerized language analysis via the DICTION program. In doing so, this study is the most recent outgrowth of the Campaign Mapping Project, begun at the University of Texas in Austin in 1995 and designed to produce comparative rhetorical data about presidential campaigns from 1948 to the present. The argument being made here is that Donald Trump lost the election by making excessive use of what Richard Hofstadter calls the Paranoid Style. In addition, Trump made exaggerated claims about abstract and unprovable conspiracies, all of which seemed derivative to voters worried about their health and their jobs in 2020. Joe Biden, in contrast, stressed Commonality—the need for shared purpose during a dangerous and dispiriting time. Biden also spoke directly of and to the people, thereby taking a page out of Trump’s own 2016 playbook. In many ways, Donald Trump’s self-preoccupations made him blind to the needs of the electorate, a habit that developed over the course of his presidency and that ultimately cost him his job.

A Discussion of Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum’s A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy

Charge: More than a half-century ago, Richard Hofstadter identified the “paranoid style” as an important feature of American politics. However, in A Lot of People are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum argue that a “new” form of conspiracism has begun to infect contemporary American political life. Whereas “old” conspiracy theorists sought hidden evidence to describe why things are not as they seem, Muirhead and Rosenblum argue that purveyors of the new conspiracism make no attempt to substantiate their theories. In light of this fact-free approach, the authors thus warn that contemporary conspiracy theorists pose an unprecedented danger to foundational elements of American democracy, including political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. Moreover, Muirhead and Rosenblum assert, “The new conspiracism moved into the White House with the inauguration of Donald Trump” (p. 1), “the conspiracist in chief” (p. ix). If there is merit to this argument, then the fate of Trump’s reelection bid carries monumental consequences for the future of American democracy, as well as the way in which the United States responds to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. We therefore asked a range of scholars to comment on Muirhead’s and Rosenblum’s bold set of claims.