A rhetoric expert on how Biden can hit Trump where it hurts
"Biden's base wants a competent leader; Trump's base wants a strong man authoritarian. Trump is neither," Jennifer Mercieca says.
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With Trump increasingly sounding like a zooted-out Hitler on the stump, it can be hard for anything President Biden says to break through. But political rhetoric expert Jennifer Mercieca thinks it’s smart for the president to emphasize that the former guy doesn’t have many victories to speak off since he squeaked into the White House in January 2017.
“When Biden calls him out for being a loser, it absolutely attacks the central characteristic that those right-wing authoritarians are looking for, which is a strong leader who can take care of the chaos,” Mercieca told us.
Mercieca is a professor at Texas A&M and author of the book, “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.” She’s been sounding an alarm about the 2024 version of Trump being even more desperate and dangerous than previous incarnations, citing among other things his use of “war rhetoric” against the United States in the lead up to the January 6 insurrection.
“There’s an incredibly important difference between Trump's 2016/2020 rhetorical strategy and his 2024 rhetorical strategy: in his previous campaigns Trump presented himself as a demagogue who would work within the system to achieve the MAGA agenda,” Mercieca said. “In 2024 he's running as a dictator — a totalitarian leader — who will destroy the system and Constitution to achieve the MAGA agenda. If there is a second Trump presidency it won't be at all like the first. He's determined to destroy the Constitution.”
With Biden and Trump this week officially becoming the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, we thought it’d be timely to connect with Mercieca to discuss why she thinks Trump is a rhetorical “genius,” what especially alarms her about what he’s saying on the stump these days, and what Biden can say to best position himself to defeat the orange menace once again. (Spoiler alert: It depends on the audience.)
A full transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.
Public Notice
You wrote a book about the "rhetorical genius" of Donald Trump — framing that might seem odd to people who watch his speeches and mostly hear him hurling insults and trying to scare the bejesus out of folks. What do you mean by describing Trump as a genius? And have you noticed that he's added any new tricks this election cycle, or from a rhetorical standpoint is he just re-running his 2016 and 2020 campaigns?
Jennifer Mercieca
During the 2016 election Donald Trump exploited crisis levels of preexisting distrust, polarization, and frustration to attack America. He used rhetoric like a weapon to increase tension for his own benefit. His insults and fear appeals were calculated to attract a loyal base of supporters and separate him and his followers from the rest of the nation.
A "demagogue" is an unaccountable leader, and Donald Trump has used language strategies that are designed to prevent the nation from holding him accountable, for both his words and actions. He's incredibly good at attracting and keeping the nation's attention with outrage and conspiracy. Basically, he's a "rhetorical genius" at using language as a weapon.
In 1939 rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke wrote a review of Hitler's Mein Kampf in which he described Hitler's "demagogic effectiveness" — the way that Hitler's rhetoric was diabolical and effective on the German people — which is what I mean here. I've just updated it for modern ears.
There is an incredibly important difference between Trump's 2016/2020 rhetorical strategy and his 2024 rhetorical strategy: in his previous campaigns Trump presented himself as a demagogue who would work within the system to achieve the MAGA agenda. In 2024 he's running as a dictator — a totalitarian leader — who will destroy the system and Constitution to achieve the MAGA agenda. If there is a second Trump presidency it won't be at all like the first. He's determined to destroy the Constitution.
Public Notice
How worried are you more broadly how people on the right are talking about democracy and authoritarianism these days?
Jennifer Mercieca
Things are concerning over there. I’ve seen dark enlightenment stuff where they say liberalism was a mistake and we should go back to a monarchy or a strong leader-type authoritarian regime. They say our moral decay shows we’re not fit for democracy.
Joe Biden has framed the 2024 election as democracy vs. autocracy, and Trump has said, “Well, I’ll be a dictator, but only on day one.” Once he was criticized for saying that, he clarified that actually he’s the one who’s good for democracy, and Joe Biden is bad for it. I thought that was fascinating because it means that Joe Biden’s frame is the one that dominates that conversation.
That’s unusual for Donald Trump. He doesn’t usually accept other people’s framing like that. He’s typically fighting the frame wars as much as he’s fighting anything else. For the right-wing fringe of his party to be saying dark enlightenment stuff and saying liberalism is bad and for Trump to accept Biden’s framing that the election is about democracy vs. autocracy shows some weakness to me.
Public Notice
Do you think Trump’s rhetoric has actually gotten worse lately? His comments about his political opponents being “vermin” seem quite bad.
Jennifer Mercieca
There’s been an intensification of his language strategies. He used the same strategy in 2016 — treating people as objects — but calling them vermin is new. In 2016, he called immigrants “snakes” or a “trojan horse,” but “vermin” is different because it’s a term of disgust. Scholars who study genocide and things like that have done a lot of research into at what point you cross a line, and it’s usually invoking disgust responses in people.
First of all, you treat your enemies as objects, and objects don’t have the rights or the same value as people. Secondarily, to call them objects of disgust means that you have an innate response which says to push those things away or kill them or destroy them. That’s part of eliminationist rhetoric, and it frequently leads to genocide when it’s used by political leaders.
Public Notice
In terms of Biden’s rhetoric around democracy, what do you think about what he’s been saying, and are there ways in which he could improve how he talks about it?
Jennifer Mercieca
Biden recently in some of his recent speeches has done something I’ve been wanting him to do, which is that he’s been observing that Donald Trump is a loser. You wouldn’t naturally think that that fits into a conversation about democracy, but it does.
The core of Donald Trump supporters are what scholars who study political psychology call “right-wing authoritarian personalities.” Scholars estimate that 40 percent of the nation has a right-wing authoritarian personality. It’s not always active. It can be activated by certain circumstances — the kind of rhetoric that Trump uses, frankly.
Since 2016, scholars have found that when they give Trump supporters the right-wing authoritarian questionnaire they find a high correlation among these people. Right-wing authoritarians are looking for strong leaders. They are people who like hierarchy. They want their leader to show strength and authority. They are very defensive of group norms. They don’t like cognitive complexity.
They look for what’s called a “socially dominant personality” to be their leader. That’s the kind of person that Trump is. These people tend to have subclinical levels of narcissism, machiavellianism, sadism. Nasty qualities. They like to be in charge. They like to be leaders. Scholars call that a toxic combination.
So the socially dominant personality is constantly trying to show dominance. One way they do that is by looking virile and young — if you’ve ever wondered why Trump wears orange makeup. They talk loud. They talk fast. They tell others they’re winners, and everyone else is weak, but they’re strong. If you think of the way Trump asserts himself, it’s as a socially dominant personality, which appeals to these right-wing authoritarians.
He’s not, though. He’s a loser. He’s pretending to be dominant. He lost the popular vote in 2016. His party — with him as the head of it — lost in 2018. He lost the popular vote and the electoral college vote in 2020, which he’ll never admit, because it shows he’s a liar and not a winner. His party lost again in 2022. Donald Trump is a lifelong loser, but he won’t ever admit it. When Biden calls him out for being a loser, it absolutely attacks the central characteristic that those right-wing authoritarians are looking for, which is a strong leader who can take care of the chaos.
Public Notice
You mentioned the efficacy of Biden calling Trump a loser and how it undercuts his appeal to authoritarian personality types. What in your expert opinion are some other rhetorical tactics Biden could use that would be effective against Trump in the general campaign?
Jennifer Mercieca
This is an interesting campaign because both candidates are well known and both have a record of policies in office, so there isn't much to "learn" for voters this time around. Biden's best rhetorical strategy is to attack Trump for his weaknesses, but those weaknesses look different depending on which audience you're trying to win over.
For Biden's base — anti-Trump Republicans, moderate Independents, and Democrats — Biden needs to position Trump as a calamitous failure of a president, someone who took our freedoms away, and who threatens American peace worldwide. But, for Trump supporters, the attacks and framing have to show Trump's weaknesses in a different way: show Trump capitulating to Putin and other autocrats, Trump's failure to take responsibility for the pandemic, Trump's failure to lead his party to victory. Biden's base wants a competent leader; Trump's base wants a strong man authoritarian. Trump is neither.
Public Notice
What do you think is unique about Trump’s rhetoric relative to other American politicians?
Jennifer Mercieca
Trump has given people permission in a way that they didn’t have prior to his campaign in 2016. A whole part of his campaign was that he wasn’t going to be poll-tested or teleprompted or guided by political consultants. He was supposed to be authentic and a truth teller. You knew that because he didn’t use politically correct language. That was the strategy. His whole strategy was to say, “You know I’m telling the truth, because I use bad words.”
People believed that. They believed he was more authentic and more truthful because he used a strategy that was dirty, basically. They would go to his rallies, and they would say terrible things that they had been wanting to say for so long but never had permission to say. Donald Trump gave them permission to say these things, and then he modeled that on the public stage as if that was okay. In fact, better than okay, because it was real.
He seemed authentic, and he was allowing people to be their true selves. I think if political leaders emerge that are not like that, perhaps people will stop being so free with their willingness to say offensive things. And to be honest, if everybody talks like Trump, then it’s not interesting when people do it.
Public Notice
Biden is getting a lot of praise for his SOTU speech. From your standpoint, is this mostly a product of Republicans setting expectations so ludicrously low, or does Biden have skills as a rhetorician that are underappreciated? If so, what are they?
Jennifer Mercieca
His speech was great. President Biden approached it with equal parts "president delivering the SOTU" and "the nation's cheerleader" and "Comedy Central Roast." It was a good fit for him and the moment. He addressed the issue of his age with humor, he took shots at Congress with humor, he even roasted Trump and his policies with humor. Between his speech performance and their enthusiastic reception it received, the Democratic Party had great night.
Biden's speech was fun to watch, at least for Democrats, and that's important because it attracts audiences and helps him to break through the news cycle. His campaign and related groups have already put together clips from the SOTU as ads. But the speech wasn't just fun, it was substantive. He gave a very "presidential" speech that fulfilled the mandates of the SOTU genre while also showing that he's the leader of his party.
But even more than a funny speech from a party leader, Biden was optimistic about the state of the nation and its future. He’s been in politics a long time and his speech shows that despite everything he’s been through, he loves this nation and sees the best in us. It's an important contrast with Trump who only sees the worst in the nation.
Biden has always been good at talking about American values and connecting our values to his policies. He did it again in the STOU and I think the nation needs that right now.
That’s it for today
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This is a very important conversation as words have value and connotations deliver the "vibe". I also think that it's important that we don't succumb to personal insults. Insult Republicans' thinking, policies, way of talking, but we should stay away from personal name calling. I'm 71 but when I was growing up it was recognized that if you had to resort to name calling you've lost your argument and you don't have the ability to make an argument. We can draw attention to Republican name calling rhetoric by not using that tactic. I know that name calling is easy (they almost write themselves) and gives some personal satisfaction but it also validates their approach. Trump gave people permission to be their worst self; we don't want to copy that.
The nation definitely needs President Biden to come out and talk the way he did at the State of the Union.