Victory From Division
There are three main parts to any narrative: exposition, climax, and resolution. In this model, the state of affairs is first introduced in the exposition. Then, the main conflict of the story is presented in the climax, and it is generally up to the main character to offer some sort of resolution. This structure is very effective in storytelling because it presents a problem and a solution. Donald Trump’s team took advantage of this model to garner political support from millions of Americans, even though he was only a Wall Street businessman with no prior experience holding a political office. By using different rhetorical devices in his speeches and writing, such as diction and metonymy, Donald Trump was able to push a narrative that painted voters as victims of the Democratic Party’s beliefs and leadership and presented himself as their savior. This is evident in specific moments leading up to the general election in 2016.
Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016 is a primary example of how he crafted his narrative. This can serve as the exposition. Donald Trump first established that America was in a dangerously unstable state by relying on statistics to incite fear and anger in his audience. Trump said, “Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities” immediately followed by “That’s the largest increase in 25 years.” In these frank sentences, Trump refrained from divulging his own opinion in order to appear objective and therefore was able to control the emotional narrative. With none of the relevant contextual information, Trump led the audience to believe that they were no longer safe, suggesting that changes needed to be made. In reality, for the past two decades, public safety has been improving. Twice as many people were killed in 1991 as in 2015 and compared the rates of other violent crimes did not increase. In the places where homicide rates did rise people were not currently protesting law enforcement policies. This suggests that the change in homicide rates did not necessarily mean that Americans were any less safe, and that police reform was not the cause of this.
After Trump established the United States’ vulnerability his diction further instilled a victim complex in his audience, creating enemies for them to channel their fear toward. Trump specifically directed this fear at undocumented immigrants. By labeling immigrants as the reason for the United States’ “critical” state, he effectively made this the climax of his narrative. In the same speech from 2016, he retold the story of Sarah Root who was killed by an illegal immigrant. Trump blamed Obama’s leadership for this injustice: “to this Administration, [Sarah] was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting.” Saying that Sarah’s life “wasn’t worth protecting,” Trump portrayed Sarah as a victim of Obama’s carelessness. He then generalized this story to make the American people, not just Sarah, victims of illegal immigrants by saying that she was a “sacrifice on the altar of open borders” In choosing the word “sacrifice,” Trump describes her death as a cost of Obama’s immigration policies, or “open borders,” and not just the results of one person’s actions. Trump extended the blame to all illegal immigrants, whether they were connected to the crime or not. He implies that all Americans are victims of illegal immigrants. This dynamic between the American people and the policies of the Democratic Party was representative of the conflict that appeared in the climax of Trump’s narrative.
Trump then presented the resolution, portraying himself as the hero in his narrative, through the juxtaposition of himself and the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans,'' Trump exclaimed. He alludes to Hillary Clinton’s stance on police reform when he said, “an attack on law enforcement.” Equating police reform to “an attack on all Americans,” Trump made Hillary Clinton synonymous with danger. He then contrasts this by saying, “I am the law and order candidate.” By linking the “law and order” metonymy with “Republican,” Trump presented himself as the “safe” alternative to Clinton. The choice that the voters needed to make was not between the Republican or Democratic candidate, but rather, the law and order candidate or the dangerous candidate. The hero of this story had to be the one who could “protect” Americans, and that hero could only be him.
The story that Trump crafted is also evident throughout his tweets leading up to the 2016 election. On July 23, 2016, Donald Trump tweeted, “just saw Crooked Hillary and Tim Kaine together. ISIS and our other enemies are drooling. They don't look presidential to me!” Trump tweeted. By using the same structure from his speech at the Republican National Convention in this tweet, Trump insinuated that Hillary Clinton’s election would increase America’s susceptibility to terrorism. The label “crooked,” made Clinton sound dishonest and weak. He then made the claim, “ISIS and our other enemies are drooling.” The word “drooling,” which connotes feelings of extreme desire, implied that extremist organizations and other groups wanted Hillary Clinton to win as she would allow groups like ISIS to attack America. By placing this sentence after the Democratic candidate “Crooked Hillary,” Trump further implied that the reason for this was Clinton’s personality. Trump’s degradation of Hillary Clinton served as another climax of his narrative because he pinned her as a threat to American safety.
This tweet also worked to bolster Trump’s “heroic” image through the contrast he created between him and Clinton. In only 125 characters, Trump used rhetorical devices to craft the story that Americans would be victims should he not be granted the presidency. The three-part narrative structure seen in both his 2016 speech and his tweet established their tactics. Even in an informal setting like Twitter, Trump maintained his rhetorical strategy from his speech at the Republican National Convention.
Contrarily, there are statistics that support how Trump’s rhetoric did not help him win the presidential election. In 2016, Clinton won 71 percent of the Jewish vote. While Jews have historically leaned Democratic, only 69 percent of Jewish voters voted for Obama in 2012 It is plausible to conclude that one reason for the increase could have been because of Trump’s careless promotion of anti-Semitic content. Clinton won 66 percent of the Latino vote in 2016, and 78 percent of Hispanic voters believed that illegal immigrants should be offered a path to citizenship. Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric did not appeal to the 68% of Hispanic voters who opposed Trump’s campaign to build a wall along the border of the United States and Mexico. It is safe to assume that Trump’s actions may have cost him support from the Jewish and Latino communities.
However, Trump was still able to win the presidency because he was keenly aware of his target audience, regardless of the negative effects his rhetoric had on Hispanics and other minority voters. His divisive ideas were never meant to appeal to those groups in large numbers. Instead, his rhetoric that reflected the American people as victims of undocumented immigrants appealed to those who felt that immigration was an issue. Seventy-nine percent of voters who voted for Trump viewed immigration as a deciding issue, and 50 percent of his supporters believed that illegal immigrants were more likely than citizens to be responsible for serious crimes. Additionally, nearly 32 percent of those who voted for Trump in the primary were people who supported deportation.
The rhetoric that painted the American people as victims of undocumented immigrants was very effective at appealing to those who felt that immigration was an important issue. By ostracizing certain groups, he was successful at convincing voters in the states where it mattered. This ultimately worked in his favor, because it capitalized on people’s fear.
Donald Trump’s rhetoric was not one of unity, but rather one of divisiveness. As he crafted his narrative, he pinpointed people and ideologies as the roots of certain problems in the United States. His use of the classic structure in not only his speeches but uniquely also on Twitter set a dangerous precedent for media manipulation in the 21st century. This story that he constantly promoted appealed to voters who resented the Obama Administration and feared illegal immigrants. Those were the people who voted for Donald Trump in the states that ultimately decided the election. Although Donald Trump divided the American people by using rhetorical devices to capitalize on feelings of hate, Trump was able to win the election because of his acute awareness of his audience. What critics thought would be his downfall, his rhetoric that created an immeasurable rift between Americans, was actually one of the reasons why he won the election.
By Gar Bi Chan
Illustrations were done in collaboration with the New Media Artspace at Baruch College. The New Media Artspace is a teaching exhibition space in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College, CUNY. Housed in the Newman Library, the New Media Artspace showcases curated experimental media and interdisciplinary artworks by international artists, students, alumni, and faculty. Special thanks to docent Yasmeen Collins for creating artwork for this piece.
Check the New Media Artspace out at http://www.newmediartspace.info/