This chapter uses Socio-Cognitive Model of Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the cognitive and discourse structures inherent in Trump’s espousal of conspiracy and gossip to make ‘America Great Again’.
Author
Prashant Rastogi, Doctoral Candidate, Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Summary
The chapter aims to examine the way populists employ foreign policy narratives to reconstruct the domestic beliefs. Taking the case of the former US President Donald Trump, the chapter argues that Trump’s foreign policy has influenced American society through the transition of the many available international conspiracy theories into gossip mongering among the people. Based on a shift from conspiracy theories to gossip, such predispositions have assisted in formulating domestic narratives of xenophobia and racism, muscular populism, and securitization each linked to his foreign policy adoptions.
This has led to firstly, bringing Trump’s personal beliefs into the public whereby a correlation has occurred between mobilization of conspiracies at the international level and polarization of gossip at the domestic level. Secondly, the ‘constant need of crisis’ as suggested by different perspectives on populism to reorient and refashion the society according to the fancies of the leader remains its precursor.
And lastly, this has directed America towards the Trumpian variety of populism that emanates more from the malleability of ideology based on situational contexts rather than the advocacy of universal categories. In process, the chapter will use Socio-Cognitive Model of Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the cognitive and discourse structures inherent in Trump’s espousal of conspiracy and gossip to make ‘America Great Again’.
Published in: McDonnell, A., Silver, A. (eds) A Gossip Politic. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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