Book contents
- Language in the Trump Era
- Language in the Trump Era
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transcription Conventions
- Note on Ethnonyms and Phenotypic Descriptors
- Introduction: The Trump Era as a Linguistic Emergency
- Part I Dividing the American Public
- Part II Performance and Falsehood
- 5 Part II Introduction: The Show Must Go On: Hyperbole and Falsehood in Trump’s Performance
- 6 Trump’s Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon
- 7 45 as a Bullshit Artist: Straining for Charisma
- 8 Plausible Deniability
- Part III The Interactive Making of the Trumpian World
- Part IV Language, White Nationalism, and International Responses to Trump
- Index
- References
5 - Part II Introduction: The Show Must Go On: Hyperbole and Falsehood in Trump’s Performance
from Part II - Performance and Falsehood
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
- Language in the Trump Era
- Language in the Trump Era
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transcription Conventions
- Note on Ethnonyms and Phenotypic Descriptors
- Introduction: The Trump Era as a Linguistic Emergency
- Part I Dividing the American Public
- Part II Performance and Falsehood
- 5 Part II Introduction: The Show Must Go On: Hyperbole and Falsehood in Trump’s Performance
- 6 Trump’s Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon
- 7 45 as a Bullshit Artist: Straining for Charisma
- 8 Plausible Deniability
- Part III The Interactive Making of the Trumpian World
- Part IV Language, White Nationalism, and International Responses to Trump
- Index
- References
Summary
This section introduction furnishes an overview of Trump’s verbal behavior when it verges on or crosses into falsehood, by way of innuendo, gaslighting, and plausible deniability. It compares the Trump administration’s symbolic practices with those of Nazi Germany, including the use of superlatives and hyperbole so extreme it takes on a “fairy tale quality.” The chapter further identifies a favorite Trump discourse sequence here termed “reactive reversal,” related to the concept of “plausible deniability” discussed in a later chapter. First, Trump stakes out a hyperbolic claim, and if a public outcry follows, Trump reacts by reversing his claim and blaming others for their inference. Then he may triumphantly declare victory over whoever “really” claimed/did what he originally claimed. This is one of Trump’s methods of gauging reaction from the public.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language in the Trump EraScandals and Emergencies, pp. 91 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
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