Promises of the Elusive Golden Age

7.1.3.2 Delivering Great Health Care

Another topic on Trump’s list of future achievements is healthcare. Frequently, Trump approaches the topic by stating his intention to repeal and replace Obamacare, and by comparing the Republican plan to Obamacare. However, he is often somewhat hazy on the details. For example, in Speech 2 he declares,

(30) The end result is when you have phase one, phase two, phase three. It is going to be great.

This statement does not have any meaningful details on what the new healthcare plan is like. In the first sentence Trump just declares that there will be three phases, and the second sentence only describes the plan only with a positive predicative adjective great. Similarly, in Speech 6, Trump states,

(31) We’re now one step closer to liberating our citizens from this Obamacare nightmare, and delivering great health care for the American people.

Again, Trump describes the Republican plan with the attributive adjective great, while Obamacare is referenced by the graphic noun phrase this Obamacare nightmare, in which the noun nightmare carries extremely negative connotations. In addition, Trump describes the process of repealing and replacing Obamacare as liberating our citizens. The phrasing carries associations of people being held hostage or under siege, and with the use of the possessive pronoun our as a modifier, the suggestion is that the one keeping the people hostage or under siege is not one of us. The end result is that the Democrats with their nightmare-like healthcare plan are the enemy while Trump and the Republicans are presented as saviours, who will make healthcare great.

7.1.3.3 Promises of the Elusive Golden Age

Frequently, towards the end of the speech, Trump spends a few moments describing a conservative golden age that is about to dawn. These passages appear to be scripted, since Trump’s phrasing is fairly similar at the closing of most speeches. Therefore, it appears that the purpose of these passages is to serve as an uplifting ending to the rally and leave the audience with a sense of hope and expectation. For example, in Speech 4 Trump reads the following passage from the teleprompter:

(32) Just imagine what we could accomplish, if we all started working together to rebuild this nation, the nation that we so dearly love. Our jobs will come back home, our dying factories will come roaring back to life. It will be a beautiful thing to watch. And this is what’s going to happen in the United States of America, and it’s going to happen soon. And it’s actually already happening.

Cities small and large will see a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity. America’s children will be taught to love their country and take pride in our great American flag. And other countries (and you see that happening) will finally treat America, and our citizens, with the respect that our country and our citizens deserve.

Trump begins this passage by directly addressing the audience and asking them to imagine this golden era that he connects with patriotism (the nation that we so dearly love). Next, Trump presents the future almost as a fact waiting to happen by forming the future tense with the auxiliary verb will, which includes no hedging. When he declares, Our jobs will come back home, the possessive pronoun our as a modifier for jobs suggests that the jobs of the people – the in-group – have been given to the others – the out-group – but this injustice is about to be corrected. The same strategy is used in the following sentence, with the addition of the participle dying as an adjective attribute to the noun factories, signalling even higher involvement in the narrative. Moreover, the contrast between the participle dying and the verb phrase will come roaring back to life gives the clause a poetic, animalistic nature, which emotionally involves the audience with the message. Trump continues with several affirmative sentences that employ adjectives and adverbs that assert that the future will be beautiful, and the promises will turn into reality soon. Interestingly, he suddenly switches from the future tense to the present continuous, when he declares, And it’s actually already happening. This could possibly be an attempt to present himself as an effective leader, who is all about action. In addition, for those in the audience, who have not yet seen any change in their lives, this statement is an expression of prosperity manifesting somewhere close to them, giving them hope, that they are just on the cusp of that beautiful future.

Trump continues his message by promising a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity, and extends these positive developments to everyone by employing the toponym cities to represent the people in those places. In addition, by referring to this development as rebirth, that the people will experience, he suggests that currently there is no hope, safety and opportunity, but their antonyms despair, danger and adversity. Thus, Trump is implicitly attempting to present his predecessors negatively. Next, Trump promises a future where patriotic values are held in high regard, with the education system teaching America’s children to love their country and take pride in our great American flag. He emphasizes the homogeneity of the people by using the toponym America’s as a modifier for children, and referring to our great American flag, implying that those who do not respect the flag are not Americans. It should be noted that this statement is a reference to NFL players protesting social injustice and police brutality against African Americans by kneeling during the National Anthem. Trump visits this topic in many of his rallies, and it be discussed more extensively in section 7.4.2. Finally, Trump’s vision of the future includes other countries respecting America again. The use of the adverb finally implies that America has not been previously respected on the world stage. Moreover, by adding

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the interjection and you see that happening in the middle of the sentence, Trump argues that his statement must be true, because the people see the increasing respect for America with their own eyes.

Finally, in all but one of the speeches, Trump recites an oath-like passage together with the audience. The content and the phrasing have little variation from speech to speech. For example, in Speech 4, the passage goes as follows:

(33) Together, we will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America prosper again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again!

The overall message of the oath is that if the people support Trump, the future of America will be bright. In the oath Trump uses the collectivizing pronoun we, which suggests homogeneity and unity among the people. In addition, the pronoun aligns Trump with the people: he presents himself as the person who will deliver these common wants, if the people keep supporting him.

The goals cited in the oath are to make America strong / wealthy / prosper / proud / safe and great. The adjective strong most likely implies military strength, since the quantitative portion of this study showed Trump scoring highest in the sub-theme of Patriotism and Military within the populist theme of Conservative Values (see section 7.2.2). Similarly, the goals to make America wealthy and prosper relate to his economic policies in terms of lower taxes and trade deals (see sections 7.2.3 and 7.3). However, when Trump states, We will make America safe again, it begs the question, safe from whom? According to the quantitative portion of this study, Trump represented immigrants and citizens who do not support him as the dangerous others (discussed in detail in section 7.4.2). Thus, when Trump vows to make America safe, he perpetuates the idea that right now his supporters are in danger from those dangerous others.

Similarly, the adjective proud is perhaps intentionally vague. It may refer to pride of all the wealth and prosperity Trump is promising or, on the other hand, pride of American nationality, which in populist discourse refers to white, Christian identity. Interestingly, in example (33) Trump ends every sentence with the adverb again. The word choice suggests that at some point in the past America has been all these things he has just recited. Therefore, he attempts to evoke the conservative myth of the golden age that has been lost, but which he as the saviour will bring back.

Interestingly, example (33) has echoes of an authoritarian sub-move-set, wishing further success, identified by Khany and Hamzelou (2014: 919). The oath is usually preceded a sequence that describes conservative ideals like patriotism and the golden era that conservatives long for, as shown in example (32) and includes a racist dog-whistle, as discussed above.

Therefore, similar to Mussolini’s call to arms “People of Italy! Rush to arms and show your tenacity, your courage, your valour!”, Trump’s call to make America great again is encouraging his supporters to stand for their common values and to fight for their common goal to make the country great the way Trump’s white base understands it.

In section 7.1.3, I have analysed the most prominent topics in Trump’s speeches that he uses to promise further success under his leadership from the perspective of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. Trump frequently uses referential strategies that carry features of predication. This means that he employs nouns that carry positive or negative connotations in order to present an individual or a group in a positive or negative way. He also uses toponyms as a referential strategy to over-represent unity among the in-group. As strategies of involvement, Trump employs discourse representation and frequently uses adverbs and adjectives to engage the audience and bring more colour to the topic. Furthermore, Trump creates polarization through lexical choices. He assigns verbs and nouns with positive connotations to his administration’s actions and negative connotations to those of his predecessors’. In addition, all but one of the speeches include a sequence similar to a sub-move-set called “wishing further, which can be found in dictator’s speeches success (Khany and Hamzelou 2014: 919).