The third most frequently occurring populist theme in Trump’s discourse was Simplistic Explanations and Solutions. The number of occurrences of the sub-theme Simplistic Solutions was quite consistent throughout the speeches, but the sub-theme Simplistic explanations peaked considerably in the last speech of the year. This anomaly can be explained by Trump’s attempt to recap everything he had done during his first year in office, and his attempt to explain his successes and failures in simplistic terms, either crediting himself or blaming others respectively.
The theme of Simplistic Explanations and Solutions frequently overlapped with other populist themes, which indicates that Trump attempts to represent every issue as a common sense, clear cut, either or -type of polarized explanation or solution. Trump’s remarks on immigration, employment, and trade and defence-cooperation policies provided clear examples of Trump’s strategy of oversimplifying and mischaracterizing issues to create polarization between us and them.
Trump approaches immigration mainly from two perspectives. Firstly, Trump presents it as an invasion that must prevented. He uses militaristic language to describe immigration. For instance, in example (62) he talks about defending our borders, as if there is an invasion coming, creating an us versus them situation, and suggests the simplistic solution of building the wall to defend the nation against this threat. Indeed, in February 2019 Trump issued a Proclamation, in which he declared a national emergency on the southern border, which gave him the authority to divert funding from the military to build his wall (Federal Register 2019).
As Reisgl and Wodak (2001: 36-40) suggest, political rhetoric transitions across different fields of action and may result in concrete consequences. In this case the rhetoric of defending the country in the field of political advertising transitioned to the field of political executive and manifested as an executive action.
Secondly, Trump presents immigrants as a burden to the American people. In example (63), he employs the topoi of finances and usefulness to argue for a merit-based immigration system that would prevent immigrants from using the welfare system. Just like Trump’s rhetoric on defending the southern border by building the wall transitioned from the field of political
133
advertising to the field of political executive, Trump’s immigration as a financial burden manifested as an official policy in August 2019 when the Trump administration announced a new policy to limit legal immigration by imposing restrictions on who can apply for a Green Card (The White House 2019d). According to the policy, those who themselves or whose family members benefit from social security programs funded by the government, who, for example, use Medicare of receive foods stamps no longer qualify for residency. When the Acting Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, defended this policy on NPR, he went as far as to rewrite the poem by Emma Lazarus that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty, which is emblematic of the values that the United States has stood for as a nation of immigrants (Ingber and Martin 2019). In that interview Cuccinelli rephrased the line “Give me your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free” as “Give me your tired who can stand on their own two feet and don’t become public charges”. Later, Cuccinelli appeared on CNN explaining his comments and added that the poem was originally supposed to apply to Europeans – in other words white people (CNN Politics 2019). Cuccinelli’s rationale exposes the racist implications of the policy change, to keep people of colour from entering the United States, just like Trump’s wall on the southern border would stop people from Central America, in other words, people of colour from poor conditions from entering the United States.
Trump’s view of immigrants taking advantage of the United States appears to be a part of his fundamental world view – everyone else is taking advantage of the United States. This view also manifests in his discourse on trade agreements and military alliances, NATO in particular.
Firstly, in terms of trade and employment, Trump’s views reflect a protectionist ideology that he appears to have adopted from Henry Clay, an influential policymaker in the 1800s, as shown in example (65). Trump represents both the North American Trade agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership negatively, while presenting American workers as victims of those agreements and him and his administration as a defender of the American people (example (64)). This is another example of Trump utilizing the same tripolar strategy that Rooyackers and Verkuyten (2012:
130) found Geert Wilders to use. He represents himself as the defender of the people aligning himself with them while suggesting that the rest of the world is only attempting to harm the people through unfair trade practices. It should be noted that in the past, Republicans have been in favour of free trade. Trump’s economic patriotism and protectionist views on trade are leading the party to a new direction.
Secondly, in terms of NATO, Trump employs a similar rhetoric of abuse and victimization.
Through examples (68) to (72), Trump makes the case that United States is there to protect all
other countries, while other countries are essentially freeloaders who are not paying their bills as he states in example (68). Trump appears to be heavily invested in this issue, since he uses constructed dialogue to involve the audience, as shown in example (71). Furthermore, contrary to many other topics he discusses, he provides numerical data – some of which he appears to exaggerate – to support his argument. Trump’s mischaracterization of how NATO works and how it is funded negatively presents the organization as an organization that only benefits other countries at the expense of the United States. This suggests that Trump is not committed to the alliance and the common western values and interests it was founded to protect. Instead, he appears to view NATO as a transactional partnership that should financially benefit the United States. The most disconcerting example of this transactional view was demonstrated in example (72)
(72) So we'll have a nation that doesn't pay. Then the nation gets frisky with whoever, Russia. So, we have a nation doesn't pay. The nation gets aggressive. We end up in World War III for somebody that doesn't even pay.
Trump expresses deep reservations about whether the United States should adhere to the collective defence principle expressed in Article 5 (North Atlantic treaty Organization 2018c).
Firstly, Trump appears to condition the joint protection on payments, as if NATO a protection racket; pay up or you are one your own. Secondly, the fact that Trump frames the allied nation as the aggressor attempts to delegitimize the principle of attack on one is an attack on all, in other words, if the conflict is self-inflicted, why should the United States take any part in it.
Trumps rhetoric raises serious concerns about his commitment to NATO or any other allies. In fact, on October 9, 2019, Trump made the decision, to withdraw American troops from the Turkish-Syrian border leaving American allies, the Kurds, vulnerable to attacks from the Turkish military (Graham 2019, The White House 2019a). Trump explained his reasoning in an official White House event as follows.
[…] we have spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds — in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. With all of that being said, we like the Kurds.
Now you have different factions in there. Again, you have PKK — that’s a different faction. And they worked with us. It’s a rough group, but they worked with us. But we’ve spent a tremendous — and they’re fighting for their lands. So when you say, “They’re fighting with us” — yes, but they’re fighting for their land. (The White House 2019b)
Trump’s remarks display a complete lack of commitment to American allies. The Kurds helped the United States military to fight ISIS, sacrificing 11 000 lives in the battle (Ignatius 2019).
But when the physical caliphate was defeated and the Kurds became from Trump’s perspective no longer useful, he chose to disregard the threat that Turkey posed to the Kurds and withdrew the American troops that helped stabilize the region. In his remarks Trump argues that the Kurds were not really fighting for us but for their land. Furthermore, he points out that the United
135
States has spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds — in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. This is the very same rationale that Trump uses in example (72) – he frames the ally under attack as the aggressor and points out that the United States is losing money because of the conflict. Thus, both Trump’s discourse and his actions demonstrate that under his leadership the United States is no longer a reliable partner.
Overall, Trump’s simplistic explanations and solutions reflect his America First -ideology.
According to him, Americans should be the ones to benefit from immigration, trade and military alliances, and if the others are not financially useful to us, there is no value in allowing them into the country or forming trade agreements or adhering to military alliances. His discourse suggests that if the rest of the world does not conform to his demands, Trump will redefine his America First -policy as “America Alone – Who Cares about the Rest”.