Analysis Of Propaganda And Donald Trump's Persuasive Language Techniques

Following the study of Propaganda and persuasive language in Part 2 of the course – Language and Mass Media, I wish to express, how these techniques were used by Mr. Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential Elections for the 45th President of America. Hence, I decided to write a Blog on this topic since I felt that a blog would allow me to express my opinions freely i.e. with a personal touch to it and to communicate with my audiences successfully.

My Primary Stimulus is the 1st Presidential Debate since I felt it was an effective medium to show the Propaganda used. Using the blog I will not only analyze the speech patterns during the debate but also during his general rallies and this will act as my secondary stimulus. The date of my Blog will be October 1st , 2016 after the 1st presidential debate. The political context will consist of the number of controversies that Mr. Trump was in during the election period as well as his attack on media outlets.

My target audience will consist of those American citizens who subscribe to my blog and who would like to hear an interpretation or understand the news that they have been hearing lately, allowing them to make a better decision on which candidate they should vote for

.From this I wish to show and understand the role of mass media to persuade, textual bias, deliberate manipulation of audience, Language and Presentation of speeches and use of Persuasive language. I will achieve the following by focusing on the political language used by Mr. Trump, undermining the authority of media outlets, as well as deliberate manipulation of the audience using persuasive language, propaganda and emotion while showcasing sometimes, presentation matters more than the content. Trump is neither the best politician nor the best business man but he is the best salesman and I bet Trump has a 99% chance of becoming the 45th President of America. Trump has mastered the art of persuasion. Trump understands that even negative publicity is publicity at the end of the day.

Trump has never abided by political correctness and has often been criticized by the moral police for his controversial sometimes outright ridiculous remarks but Trump did all this deliberately. He was always one step ahead. It was like a chess game where he knew exactly what his opponent’s next move was. Take the 1st Presidential Debate for instance. Whenever Trump was asked to release his tax returns he replied by saying “I will release my tax returns – against my lawyer's wishes – when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release”.

He successfully changed the topic while attacking the democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton in the process. Trump knew exactly what the American people wanted to hear. Trump made them aware of their vulnerabilities, frailties and used this as a platform to criticize the current position of America but also show the people what America could be like with him at the top. He managed to prove that presentation matters more than the content. Trump understands that people emotions play a big role in decision making. Trump followed a simple formula, he claimed something was true and justified it using either his personal experience or his intuition. Take this for instance, “So we're losing our good jobs. When you look at what's happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants said it's the eighth wonder of the world. They're building some of the biggest plants anywhere in the world. With the United States, as he said, not so much.” Trump Is justifying why America is losing jobs by giving an example of his friend (not really a reliable source). Though, this does not make a strong justification, I do understand as to why people believe it to be true. If Trump had said – “In the past 10 years unemployment has increased by x%...”, it would have just become boring and tedious to listen to. Trump manages to captivate his audience using this style, to an extent where Trump does not need to justify his facts. Trump is a master persuader. He wants the media to focus on topics that he wants to address. He wanted to draw people’s attention to border security and illegal immigration so he spoke about building a ‘wall’ between America and Mexico. While the media was busy talking about how building such a wall was too impractical, they indirectly and unknowingly started to focus on border security. Trump deliberately gave no details about his wall. Similarly by not abiding by the social rules of being politically correct, he managed to gain the attention of social media. He attacked media outlets…claimed all they bring to our notice is ‘Fake News’ and this made the general public question the authenticity of the news given. Trump made it seem as though he was victim in these scenario. Trump’s outrageous statements made him the center attention while news outlets didn’t even realize that they were just playing by Trump’s rule. Trump then took to Twitter to voice his opinions and the public started to follow his posts, since they now felt news outlets were not credible enough to report on matters they choose to believe. This gave Trump a platform to speak directly with the public allowing him to mobilize their emotions.

Love Or Hate him, Trump is a successfully business man. Trump knew how to use that to his advantage. On multiple occasions he transferred the traits of running a business to running a government implying that his business experience will assist him run a successful government. In spite of this being a false analogy, he managed to disguise this by criticizing Hillary, saying that in spite of having 30 years’ experience, she was unable to solve any issue of great importance. Trump knew that this would draw the attention to Hillary’s incompetence as well as mask his own false analogy. Trump uses name calling very commonly. He used this on his opponent Hillary, by calling her a, ‘crooked woman’, ‘Heartless Hillary’ and ‘Lyin’ Hillary’. He does this do undermine Hillary’s authority as well as dispute any information given by her by implying that she is not trustworthy. He successfully managed to create this impression in peoples mind by constantly focusing on the fact that Hillary Deleted 33,000 Emails on Her Private Email Server as Secretary Of State. Trump very commonly manipulates the interpretation of the question, so that he can answer the question on his terms. For instance when he was asked how will he bring back business’s that have left America and moved overseas for cheap labor, he responded by saying under his administration business’s won’t leave America due to the tax policy, adopted by his administration. It does not answer the question however allows Trump to answer a question that he wants to answer. The public will probably not remember the question, they will however, remember Trump’s response to the question.

I can keep going on about how he was able to mobilize his audiences emotions but I also feel the American people themselves have started to feel constrained by the influx of social correctness. People started to feel that their right to freedom of speech is severely restricted. People felt that they could no longer speak their minds without having to be answerable to someone whose feelings were hurt by what they said. When Trump came this changed. Trump spoke his mind, though what he said was not politically correct, hence managed to garner the trust and faith of the American People.