"Believe Me": Political Propaganda in the Age of Trump

It goes without saying that our Edward Elgar Research Handbook of Political Propaganda had to include a chapter on President Donald Trump, and I accepted the challenge of writing it. It took a while to find the correct angle of approach. After all, so many books and articles - academic and otherwise - had already analysed Trump's use of propaganda, what could I add? Finally I settled on the fascinating way Trump's propaganda seemed to follow down to the very last detail the Institute of Propaganda Analysis so-called 'seven devices', first published in the 1930s. Indeed, it seemed that Trump was often following a road map, ticking off each technique as he went along. This gave me the framework to sort through his words, mainly on Twitter, and provided the structure of the chapter. 

Two further observations were important. First, that Trump's propaganda did not create the political and social environment which gave him his election victory. As all students of propaganda understand - and in his histories of Nazi propaganda David Welch has done far more than most to emphasise this point - propaganda does not and cannot operate in a vacuum. It is fed by, and in turn feeds, the context in which it operates. Trump identified and exploited a particular turn in American politics, especially one that called for 'America first', and encouraged such slogans as 'drain the swamp' and 'build the wall'. Trump did not create this climate, but he certainly profited from it and gave it a voice and visibility.

The second realisation was his relationship with the media. It was depressing to read the many excellent accounts by journalists who covered the Trump campaign and the White House. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, and to label them as such in a democratic system gives succour to those regimes across the world that routinely imprison, torture, and execute journalists for doing their job. However, the news value of first candidate then President Trump meant that news organisations had to question their complicity in building the Trump phenomenon.       

The subject was a moving target. Every day of his presidency provided yet more clear examples of propaganda (there was absolutely no subtlety involved) and it was unfortunate that I had to complete the chapter before the full effects of Covid were felt, and before the final dramatic days of his administration - from the election of November 2020 through the storming of Congress and Joe Biden's inauguration in January 2021. Twitter has deleted Trump's posts, but they can still be found via several on-line archives. The one I found most useful is https://www.thetrumparchive.com/ 

"Believe Me": Political Propaganda in the Age of Trump

President Trump called on his listeners to believe him, his use of this epistrophe revealing a need to emphasise his credentials and experience. Trump was president in a post-truth environment, characterised by claims of 'alternative facts' and 'fake news', circulating faster than ever before through social media networks and distributed by 'mainstream media' that exist in a symbiotic relationship with both the political culture and the information found on social media platforms. Using the framework offered by the Seven Propaganda Devices, first categorised by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis in 1937, this chapter analyses the 'weaponisation' of information by President Trump and his administration and their war on the media, concluding that news journalism in America is as responsible for the rise of Trump as the voters who elected him.