Jennifer Mercieca

This is an academic argument with appeal to the general public, heavily footnoted, showing through exhaustive detailing of Trump's campaign how he masterfully used weaponized versions of basically 6 classic rhetorical techniques to win the presidency. Although he averaged only about a 33% favorable polling throughout his campaign, he was able to win because of polarization and widespread distrust of all democratic institutions in the electorate. This is a very detailed and precise analysis show more using the academic terminology of rhetoric.
My interpretation is that about one third of the American voting-eligible public loves a bully and/or a con man and that is enough to elect one as president in a weak democracy. Our democracy is very weak thanks to gerrymandering; the electoral college; polarization enhanced by dishonest media; PACs and uncontrolled political spending and lobbying; continuing inability to deal with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid; and low voter turnout due to both apathy and deliberate obstacles to voting. show less

Mercieca is an American scholar of rhetoric writing here about the rhetorical style of Donald Trump. She steps back and exhibits this style as purposeful, effective, and exemplary of successful demagogue. She part particularly highlights with multiple examples Trump's use of argumentum ad baculum (Latin for "argument to the cudgel" or "appeal to the stick"), a type of argument made when one attempts to appeal to force and threats. She also points out his apophasis, a rhetorical device show more wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up. Accordingly, it can be seen as a rhetorical relative of irony. Here she refers to this saying-but-not saying as paralipsis. show less