Fun fact: last year I graduated Uni with a thesis on the communication techniques used by Donald Trump in the third presidential debate (2016).
[before I start explaining, I don’t consider myself an expert in political sciences or linguistic strategies. I find them interesting and I’ve studied both a bit in the past, but my main focus is translation. So if you have corrections I’m more than happy to read them, but please avoid insults :)]
This topic was a wild idea I got back in 2018 and I was lucky enough that my professor found it interesting and I got to research it for a couple of months.
I focused my thesis on one specific field of communication strategies, the “impoliteness theory” (Jonathan Culpeper). To put it simple, it’s a set of strategies that are used to put the interlocutor (or in this case the political opponent) in a bad light.
When it comes to Trump, he seems to be a natural at this, which is why most of his attacks are so bold and plain rude, as opposed to the more classical and subtle strategies used in the political discourse. For example, whenever he direclty attacked Clinton in 2016 (e.g. at one point he told her “You’re a puppet”), he was using a bald on-record impoliteness strategy, which is defined as “a FTA performed in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way in circumstances where face is not irrelevant or minimized.” (Face Threatening Acts: it’s the fancy name linguists use to point a linguistic act that could be seen as threat to the interlocutor). Basically it’s when you insult somebody without even trying to make it less obvious.
One of the others strategies that Trump loves is positive impoliteness, which can be found in a number of acts, including for example the use of taboos, or disrespecting your opponent by ignoring them, and maybe even interrupting them, just like he did with Biden in yesterday’s debate (29.09.2020). Even with Clinton, he did interrupt her quite a few times in 2016, usually to stop her from spreading “fake news”.
Interrupting an opponent is not just disrespectful to them (and generally a rude and child-like behaviour), but it can also send a very strong and clear message to the audience. “Look at that, if they aren’t even able to finish a sentence, how could they lead our country?”. That’s the aim. It’s to make you doubt the skills and the abilities of the person being interrupted. To make you believe that if they can’t share their opinions without being interrupted, well maybe they aren’t worthy of being heard.
Now, all of this was researched and theorised under the assumption that Trump actually has some sort of strategy and isn’t just talking without thinking, which is something I’ve always found more likely. But even if this was Trump’s “natural” way of debating, I think it’s still tells us something really important. It would mean that he instinctively chooses to attack his opponent to discredit them, instead of doing his best at proving how good his plans and ideologies are. In my opinion that’s somehting a politician would do when they don’t think that their skills alone are enough to win. It doesn’t mean that Trump doens’t think that he is the best POTUS possible, just that he actually perceives Biden as a threat.
[p.s. it was so satisfying to hear Biden tell Trump to shut up. While I was reading the transcription of the 2016 debate while prepping the thesis, I was rooting for Clinton to do the same]
