A Rhetoric of Divisive Partisanship: The 2016 American Presidential Campaign Discourse of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

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A Rhetoric of Divisive Partisanship: The 2016 American Presidential Campaign Discourse of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump examines the campaign speeches of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as they targeted members of the American public that were ideologically different but equally emotionally vulnerable. Each appealed to marginalized segments of the electorate, groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum, joined through a shared distrust and fear of politics instead of political or even party affiliation. Both Sanders and Trump polarized and reinforced their respective bases as outsiders. Both relied on anti-establishment arguments and discussions grounded in personal attacks against enemies during which they joined their target audiences as marginalized outsiders united through a desire to overthrow the status quo and re-claim America. The book expands on previous ideas about dialogue and political talk and asserts that rather than serving as a model of civic and civil discourse, the rhetoric of Sanders and Trump was reactionary and divisive, begun with different intentions and producing different results.

Reviews

This is a splendid if sobering account of the 2016 elections, through the specific lens of the outsider and ultimately divisive rhetoric of two strange bedfellows, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, contributing jointly, if inadvertently, to the corrosion of American democracy. -- Elvin T. Lim, Singapore Management University

Author Bio

Colleen Elizabeth Kelley is associate professor of rhetorical communication at Penn State Erie.