The Twitter Monster: How the President Weaponized Social Media
Photo credit to Lazaro Gamio via axios.com
I'm just going to get down to brass tacks; it will not come as a surprise to many that President Donald Trump is infamous for his divisive vernacular. Since 1973 when he bashed living with nonwhites in reference to housing discrimination charges to his recent Tweets about “the left” stealing the election, Trump’s controversial words have always had traction with his followers. Trumpers themselves will say they like the way he “says it like it is,” implying an almost noble and unapologetic straightforwardness. However, though Trump claims he is “the least racist person you will ever meet,” documentation of his derogatory rhetoric towards minorities and people of color belies his feigned impartiality. In fact, I would argue that Donald Trump weaponized this vile diction to kindle animosity and incite violence via social media during his presidency, culminating most recently in the attack on the Capitol.
Those of you who know me know I am a linguist; I not only passionately study language and its many forms and uses, but I teach it. In the last eight years, I have taught beginner, intermediate, and advanced ESL (English as a second language) as well as ninth grade English and beginner and intermediate Spanish. I hold a Bachelor’s degree from SUNY Geneseo in Literature and a Master’s degree from the University of Rochester in Education. I have traveled the world refining my own skills in my second language, learning about other cultures, and am currently studying Portuguese and Italian to achieve my lifelong goal of being a polyglot.
Now, I hope you’ll excuse my blatant magniloquence here, but I want it to be abundantly clear that I am not only writing this article as an opinion piece, but as a certified professional whose literal forte is picking apart language constituents. It is impossible to silence my analytical brain when I spend all day (every day) working with language learners, encouraging the use of just the right word in persuasive essays and prompting the analysis of character development in novels. I have been watching Donald Trump during the last half-decade with open eyes and I can say with absolute clarity, one thing is for certain: his use of hateful rhetoric is both immoral and dangerous.
Over the past five years since Trump began running for office, we, as a nation, have witnessed firsthand how he feels about people who are “other.” We have listened to him make sweeping generalizations about Mexicans by promising to get “bad men,” “rapists,” and “drug-traffickers” deported. We have heard him call Haiti a “shit-hole country” and we have watched as he ordered “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” In each case, of course, Trump acted under the guise of protecting citizens from “illegal” immigrants who somehow threaten the American way of life and against radical, religious extremists who seek to perform acts of terrorism. If you ask me, though, Trump’s real goal, was much more insidious. By utilizing language that unifies white supremacists in the disdain for “others” and by simultaneously acting against these groups politically, the president was able to galvanize a cult-like fan base and strengthen his position of power.
You see, while Trump dissembles complete idiocy, he employs several key tactics when it comes to persuasive speech, three of which are word association, repetition, and hyperbole. Recently, we have seen the president use all three while addressing the world about Coronavirus. For example, when Covid-19 first became a national issue, Trump was eager to associate blame with China. In fact, he spoke several times on video faulting China directly for the widespread outbreak, exacerbating a feeling of distrust among his followers. He then continued to repeat this idea until it was commonplace, greatly exaggerating China’s culpability and downplaying his own slow reaction to intelligence regarding the virus.
Comic by Daryl Cagle, political cartoonist
This process does not take a genius to carry out, but it does take a person who knows his audience and a little something about influencing people’s often irrational feelings. Psychology has shown that if you can elicit a certain emotional response in someone, it is often possible to elicit a physical response as well. It is in this way that Trump’s thinly veiled scheme of amassing power unfolds. First, he uses simple language and emotive expressions (like onomatopoeia) to establish likeability among middle class outsiders who feel both shafted and unheard by typical politicians. Then, he tells anecdotes about his life and uses inclusive language to make these aforementioned “outsiders” feel part of a larger community. Lastly, he uses diversion tactics (by constantly interjecting within his own sentences with tangential information or opinions) before finalizing the manipulation with some word association, repetition, and hyperbole.
As educated people, we know words can be classified into three main categories based on their inherent connotations and meanings: positive, neutral, and negative. Positive words, like “patriotic,” “brave,” and “strong” are used to describe Trump’s fan base while negative words like “disease,” “death,” and “pandemic,” are used alongside the constant interjection of “China” to solidify the notion that a group of “others” are to blame for a disease that evolved independently of United States politics. Since repetition and hyperbole are used both to emphasize important ideas and as rhetorical tools of persuasion, we start to see millions of people begin to believe that China released Covid-19 like a lab specimen to intentionally harm Americans, no matter how fucking ethnocentric that is.
In 2021, it is devastating to see the United States president instigating prejudice and violence by employing negative word association to demonize minorities. It is equally devastating to watch as he actively works to intensify the sensation among his followers that a communal enemy intends to rob them of their freedom, privilege, and power. Over the last several weeks especially, we have witnessed one of the greatest crimes in modern history as our own President has purposefully bolstered the audacity of right-wing extremists in attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. In fact, Trump’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests in comparison to his reaction to the insurrection at the Capitol speaks volumes. When groups of opportunists corrupted what were primarily peaceful protests across the country, Trump lambasted Black Lives Matter supporters, calling them “the unhinged left-wing mob,” “thugs,” and “rioters,” and justifying the cute little rhyme, “When there’s looting, there’s shooting.”
In contrast, after delaying an official, spoken response for hours after the assault on the Capitol first began, Trump finally uploaded a brief video to Twitter reluctantly asking supporters to “Go home.” Now, as someone who routinely emphasizes the importance of a topic sentence when helping her students write essays, I have to admit Trump’s first words stood out to me. He said, “I know your pain; I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen.” These are not the words of someone who wishes to condemn the egregious actions of a mob, but the words of someone who sympathizes with his subjects. Based on this topic sentence, if I read Trump’s speech like one of my student’s essays, I would presume his main idea is to justify his followers’ behaviors and deepen their feelings of exasperation. Understandably, as an adult and President of the United States, Trump will not receive my benefit of the doubt that he merely organized his words and ideas poorly, as would one of my students.
In fact, if we are to look a little more closely at his speech, it is evident President Trump made sure to say all the required mumbo-jumbo, including “We need peace,” in the effort to loosely conceal his underlying motives. However, his overall tone and diction in the video all but scream doublespeak. He outwardly acknowledges the indignation of his followers and continues to push the false narrative that the election was illegitimate, despite state recounts and the dismissal of his allegations by the Supreme Court. While using lukewarm language to quell the uproar in D.C., he simultaneously tells rioters, “You are very special” and “I love you.” Personally, these words seem far too kind for a group including the Proud Boys, Groypers, and other Neo-Nazis.
Image by Win McNamee via USA Today
That being said, I must admit I actively support the decision of popular social media platforms to permanently deactivate Donald Trump’s accounts. The First Amendment has always been very clear that free speech does not protect an individual from inciting panic and violence, nor does it condone instigating seditious conspiracy or treasonous acts, particularly as the highest, elected government official. In truth, the president has been making loosely disguised threats against democracy for a long time, most recently in his proclamation that “if Mike Pence doesn’t come through for us, it will be a very sad day in America,” and it’s time measures are taken to reduce the fallout.
On December 19th, Trump wrote a tweet inviting supporters to show up at the Capitol on January 6th, promising the “big protest in D.C.” would be “wild.” After Wednesday’s events, it is inarguable that there really is a cult following of people on Parler and other pro-Trump online platforms scheming to overturn election results, a plot which manifested itself in the attempt to prevent the ratification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Somehow, though, even without these social platforms, I feel pretty confident Trump will still be able to direct his minions using subtext alone.
Markedly, the first presidential debate comes to mind. On September 29th, 2020 when moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Donald Trump to denounce white supremacy, Trump was noticeably evasive. He called on the Proud Boys in particular and twisted Wallace’s terminology, telling them to “stand back” and “stand by,” phrases which anyone who has seen a Hollywood movie can testify mean to wait for a signal to attack. Trump could have easily parroted Wallace’s words, demonstrating both active listening and agreement, yet he chose to eliminate the phrase “stand down” entirely. There is no doubt in my mind that this message was coded and the Proud Boys heard it loud and clear. Almost immediately, they created and posted images on social media of their emblem with Trump’s words stamped beneath like a medal. When viewing the insurgency at the Capitol through this lens, it seems the president’s followers knew exactly what they were waiting for.
Photo by Michael Nigro via theundefeated.com
As a pretentious English major and an experienced educator, I perhaps have the skills to read between the lines better than most, yet this gives me little comfort as I continue to watch current events unfold. I fear the attempted insurrection on January 6th was only a precursor for a more serious strike on inauguration day and I am dismayed to see so many Americans misguided by a narcissistic fool wearing a faux coat of armor and carrying a United States flag. I hope one day soon, more people will realize he is not a knight in shining armor for the middle class, but a fascist dictator with an army of Neo-Nazis. Only then, slowly, will our country begin to heal.