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Trump as Troll: Personae and Persuasive Inoculation in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

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Book cover The 2016 US Presidential Campaign

Part of the book series: Political Campaigning and Communication ((PCC))

Abstract

This chapter explores the candidate persona of Donald Trump. It specifically describes how Trump’s campaign persona inoculated him from attacks from opponents. The analysis demonstrates how Trump used persuasive inoculation to imprint his version of the other Republican candidates’ personae on the public and to enfeeble the influence from the candidates themselves. During the presidential campaign of 2016, while Trump’s rivals carefully scripted their own personae, Trump effortlessly and offhandedly destroyed each in turn. Trump’s persona assignment against his rivals operated best at the emotional level, vitiating his opponents with his swamp-draining caricatures of them and raising the capital of his own celebrity billionaire belligerence in the process.

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Notes

  1. 1.

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  4. 4.

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  11. 11.

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  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    John Cassidy, “Joy Behar Is Right: Chris Christie Is ‘Toast,’” New Yorker, April 7, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/joy-behar-is-right-chris-christie-is-toastDaniel Strauss, “Chris Christie Warns Iowans Against Trump,” Politico.com, December 5, 2015, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/christie-trump-iowa-216460.

  17. 17.

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  18. 18.

    Ray Sanchez, “Bridgegate Trial: What’s Next for Chris Christie?” CNNPolitics.com, November 4, 2016, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/04/politics/bridgegate-trial-chris-christie/.

  19. 19.

    David Horsey, “Chris Christie Is the Tea Party’s Newest Nightmare,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2013, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-chris-christie-nightmare-20131107-story.html.

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  21. 21.

    Jeremy Diamond, Jake Tapper, Phil Mattingly and Stephen Collinson, “Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump,” CNNPolitics.com, February 26, 2016, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/politics/chris-christie-endorses-donald-trump/.

  22. 22.

    Strauss, “Chris Christie Warns Iowans.”

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

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    Colin Campbell, “Donald Trump Unloads on Chris Christie with Multipronged Attack,” Business Insider, December 7, 2015, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-chris-christie-muslim-immigration-bridgegate-2015-12.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

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  42. 42.

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  43. 43.

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  44. 44.

    Jonathan Martin and Ashley Parker, “Marco Rubio’s Immigrant Story, and an Aging Party in Search of a Spark,” New York Times, May 7, 2015, accessed November 30, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/us/politics/marco-rubio-campaigns-on-his-immigrant-story-cautiously.html?_r=0.

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  46. 46.

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  47. 47.

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  48. 48.

    Phil Mattingly and Cassie Spodak, “Christie Attacks Rubio as a ‘Boy in the Bubble,’” CNN.com, February 2, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/02/politics/marco-rubio-attacks-chris-christie/.

  49. 49.

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  50. 50.

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  1. Communication Department, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Deronda Baughman & Dennis D. Cali

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  1. Deronda Baughman
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  2. Dennis D. Cali
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Correspondence to Deronda Baughman .

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  1. Department of Communication, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

    Robert E. Denton Jr

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Baughman, D., Cali, D.D. (2017). Trump as Troll: Personae and Persuasive Inoculation in the 2016 Presidential Campaign. In: Denton Jr, R. (eds) The 2016 US Presidential Campaign. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52599-0_6

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