Donald Trump and the Return of the Paranoid Style

• In Event: Donald Trump’s Public Discourse and its Impact on His Leadership and the Polity

Abstract

This paper explores Donald Trump’s use of what historian Richard Hofstadter described in the early 1960s as the paranoid style of argument. Those using that style included the Anti-Masonic movement of the late 1820s, Anti-Catholics in the late nineteenth century, opponents to FDR’s New Dealism in the 1930s, the devotees of the John Birch Society and McCarthyism in the 1950s, and members of both the White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims in the 1960s. In this study, the paranoid style was operationalized with DICTION software, keying on three sub-elements: (1) a sense of isolation, (2) a feeling of affliction, and (3) a sense of indignation. After sampling a considerable amount of Trump’s rhetorical output, I find that he tapped those feelings more aggressively than any major party candidate between 1948 and 2016. He also doubled Hillary Clinton’s use of the style, outdid all of his Republican rivals during the primaries, and scored equally highly on that style in speeches, ads, and campaign debates. The paranoid style, I argue, was Donald Trump’s signature move and, perhaps, a sign of the times.

Author

• Roderick P. Hart, University of Texas, Austin