Demagogue for President
The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump
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Narrated by:
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Suzie Althens
About this listen
Historic levels of polarization, a disaffected and frustrated electorate, and widespread distrust of government, the news media, and traditional political leadership set the stage in 2016 for an unexpected, unlikely, and unprecedented presidential contest. Donald Trump’s campaign speeches and other rhetoric seemed on the surface to be simplistic, repetitive, and disorganized to many. As Demagogue for President shows, Trump’s campaign strategy was anything but simple.
Political communication expert Jennifer Mercieca shows how the Trump campaign expertly used the common rhetorical techniques of a demagogue, a word with two contradictory definitions - “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” or “a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times” (Merriam-Webster, 2019). These strategies, in conjunction with post-rhetorical public relations techniques, were meant to appeal to a segment of an already distrustful electorate. It was an effective tactic.
Mercieca analyzes rhetorical strategies such as argument ad hominem, argument ad baculum, argument ad populum, reification, paralipsis, and more to reveal a campaign that was morally repugnant to some but to others a brilliant appeal to American exceptionalism. By all accounts, it fundamentally changed the discourse of the American public sphere.
©2020 Jennifer Mercieca (P)2020 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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The election of Donald Trump in 2016, like most of his campaign, came as a shock to many Americans. How could a man so lacking in capacity, so void of any intellectual heft, become the president of the United States? How could a man with no detectable personal qualities outside of resentment and the will to dominate appeal to millions of Americans, enough so that he was able to win the highest office in the land? With this book, journalist Amanda Marcotte will outline how Trump was the inevitable result of American conservatism’s degradation into an ideology of blind resentment.
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Disappointing
- By Steven Finkbeiner on 08-10-18
By: Amanda Marcotte, and others
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The Destructionists
- The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
- By: Dana Milbank
- Narrated by: Dana Milbank
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1994, more than 300 Republicans under the command of obstructionist and rabble-rouser Congressman Newt Gingrich stood outside the U.S. Capitol to sign the Contract with America and put bipartisanship on notice. Twenty-five years later, on January 6, 2021, a bloodthirsty mob incited by President Trump invaded the Capitol.
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Learned things
- By Sue on 08-23-22
By: Dana Milbank
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The Man Who Sold America
- Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story
- By: Joy-Ann Reid
- Narrated by: Joy-Ann Reid
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Candidate Trump sold Americans a vision that was seemingly at odds with their country’s founding principles. Now in office, he’s put up a "for sale" sign - on the prestige of the presidency, on America’s global stature, and on our national identity. At what cost have these deals come? Joy-Ann Reid's essential new audiobook, The Man Who Sold America, delivers an urgent accounting of our national crisis from one of our foremost political commentators.
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Good explanation of how we got to where we are
- By Caduceus26 on 07-13-19
By: Joy-Ann Reid
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Insane Clown President
- By: Matt Taibbi
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Dispatches from the 2016 election that provide an eerily prescient take on our democracy's uncertain future, by the country's most perceptive and fearless political journalist.
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Slow Motion Horror
- By Rick on 01-20-17
By: Matt Taibbi
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Talk Radio’s America
- How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States
- By: Brian Rosenwald
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Radio hosts form a deep bond with their audience, which gives them enormous political power. Unlike elected representatives, however, they must entertain their audience or watch their ratings fall. Talk radio boosted the Republican agenda in the 1990s, but two decades later, escalation in the battle for the airwaves pushed hosts toward ever more conservative, outrageous, and hyperbolic content. Donald Trump borrowed conservative radio hosts' playbook and gave Republican base voters the kind of pugnacious candidate they had been demanding for decades.
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Excellent history of our national demise
- By CommentDante on 02-20-22
By: Brian Rosenwald
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The Making of the President 2016
- How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution
- By: Roger Stone
- Narrated by: BJ Pottsworth
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early hours of November 9, 2016, one of the most contentious, polarizing, and vicious presidential races came to an abrupt and unexpected end when heavily favored presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton called Donald J. Trump to concede, shocking a nation that had, only hours before, given little credence to his chances. Donald Trump pulled the greatest upset in American political history despite a torrent of invective and dismissal of the mainstream media.
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behind the scenes
- By Rocker on 04-06-17
By: Roger Stone
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The Hardest Job in the World
- The American Presidency
- By: John Dickerson
- Narrated by: John Dickerson
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened, misunderstood, almost impossible to do. “The problems in the job unfolded before Donald Trump was elected, and the challenges of governing today will confront his successors”, writes John Dickerson. After all, the founders never intended for our system of checks and balances to have one superior Chief Magistrate, with Congress demoted to “the little brother who can’t keep up”.
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Couldn’t wait for this book!
- By David H. Lawrence XVII on 06-17-20
By: John Dickerson
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The Manipulators
- Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Tech's War on Conservatives
- By: Peter Hasson
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For better or for worse, Google and social media - “Big Tech”, collectively - have become the new public square. Unfortunately, this public square has a watchful referee standing behind them, ready and waiting to blow the whistle if they veer too far from the preferred narrative. Americans have given these companies enormous power to select the information they read, share and discuss with their neighbors and friends.
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Good Content....Run 1.2x Speed or You'll Go Crazy
- By Peter on 05-17-20
By: Peter Hasson
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For God and Country
- The Christian Case for Trump
- By: Ralph Reed
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2016, many Christian leaders opposed candidate Donald Trump. He was a social liberal, and his vulgarity, divorces, affairs, and scandals made it impossible for him to defend Christian values in public life. Or so they thought. Trump nevertheless won an overwhelming majority of the Evangelical vote in 2016, as well as the Catholic vote. And in 2020, the idea that he can’t represent Christians is demonstrably false.
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OUTSTANDING!
- By A. Brown on 12-13-20
By: Ralph Reed
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Resistance
- How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump
- By: Jennifer Rubin
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Shattered and Game Change, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin provides an insider’s look at how women across the political spectrum carried a revolution to the ballot box and defeated Donald Trump, based on interviews with key figures such as Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Stacey Abrams, Nancy Pelosi, and many more.
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An excellent book
- By Gary on 02-02-22
By: Jennifer Rubin
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Under Fire
- Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House
- By: April Ryan, Tamron Hall - foreword
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.
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- By Deborah on 09-03-18
By: April Ryan, and others
What listeners say about Demagogue for President
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- LFY
- 07-21-20
A Summer 2020 Must Read
Before the 2020 election rhetoric heats up (did it ever cool down?), pick up Mercieca’s latest in order to spot the ways in which Trump’s use of language polarizes the electorate, often in his favor.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 04-12-23
Excellent Analysis
I love that this book gets straight to the point. Right to the specific techniques of persuasive speaking and gives tons of real world examples. Couldn’t put the book down.
The only areas for improvement that you will notice right away:
1) The tons and cadence of the narrator doesn’t match with what is being said. That being said, it helps break down the speeches so you can focus on the rhetorical techniques taught in the book.
2) The author used the word “Demagogue” ad infinitum. I would recommend using a synonym for that word, because it was used multiple times a sentence which made it hard to focus on the message at times.
Overall, this is by far one of the top books on Rhetorical Persuasion and is non-stop. The book focuses entirely in what was said in speeches and interviews and why each technique was the perfect fit for each situation. Really well done!
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- CommentDante
- 08-29-24
Excellence
From subject, to exposition, persuasion, production this book is excellent. Resisting our dangerous demagogue and his weaponized rhetoric of despair and division is essential. This book is sturdy armor for this fight
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-02-21
Biased and a struggle to read
struggled to read. lack of balance. wanted to use with students but too biased to share.
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- Cleve
- 04-03-24
Only partly about rhetoric  
The non-rhetorical parts of the book I could do without. It would’ve been nice, for example, if there was more about rhetorical techniques the Democrats could employ. Concerning the non-rhetorical parts, I wish I were smart enough to figure out how to fix the problems the author addresses but if her solution is everybody getting better at critical thinking, we’re probably all in trouble.  While Trump moved things along considerably, years of divisive tactics employed by minions of the ultrawealthy for their own gain made Trump possible.  Ditto, for those in power who ignored the interests and concerns of what became Trump’s base.
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Overall
- Anonymous User
- 08-03-20
Reductio ad Hitlerum?
I'm anti-Trump but was hoping for something more than a partisan screed here.
This book contains rhetoric like comparing Trump to Hitler in the conclusion, and the old fallacy of linking that scientific study finding a correlation between erectile dysfunction and Trump voters to fear of women when an academic should spot confounding with older voters voting Republican.
I'm fascinated by Trump's ability to drive his opponents bonkers while his supporters view him like a self-satirizing WWE star, and wonder how much self awareness he has while balancing that feat, but this book doesn't dig that deep and is more a topic-by-topic overview of pedestrian politics with the occasional insight from her field. Which may be what sells, but won't scratch your profundity bone if you've got one.
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2 people found this helpful