From Politics as Vocation to Politics as Business: Populist Social Performance and Narrative Fusion in Trump Rallies. (22nd December 2021)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- From Politics as Vocation to Politics as Business: Populist Social Performance and Narrative Fusion in Trump Rallies. (22nd December 2021)
- Main Title:
- From Politics as Vocation to Politics as Business: Populist Social Performance and Narrative Fusion in Trump Rallies
- Authors:
- Karakaya, Yagmur
Edgell, Penny - Abstract:
- Abstract: Populist movements seek to bolster the power of "the people" and undermine elites. In the United States a businessman, Donald Trump, has convinced a significant portion of the population that he is a man of the people. We answer three inter-related questions about what may be Trump's biggest "win": the transformation of populist discourse for a new century. How does Trump embed himself inside his followers' own deep story? How does he fuse their story with a tale of American restoration? And how does he delegitimize politics as a vocation and valorize politics as business? Drawing on a systematic analysis of Trump/MAGA rallies held in four different regions from 2015 to 2021, we analyze how Trump used his performance to crystalize a distinctly American style of populism. We focus on the cultural accomplishment of his performance, particularly the creation of a business-friendly rhetoric that leverages popular cultural idioms to legitimate politics not as a vocation, but as a business. We find that Trump uses the popular idioms of standup comedy and competitive sports culture. This performance contributed to his 2016 win, yet framing politics as a game to be won runs the risk of reducing deliberative democratic process to election-night outcomes, makes political parties into opposing teams, and divides voters into winners and losers.
- Is Part Of:
- Social forces. Volume 101:Number 2(2022)
- Journal:
- Social forces
- Issue:
- Volume 101:Number 2(2022)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 101, Issue 2 (2022)
- Year:
- 2022
- Volume:
- 101
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2022-0101-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 890
- Page End:
- 912
- Publication Date:
- 2021-12-22
- Subjects:
- Social change -- Periodicals
Social history -- Periodicals
Sociology -- Research -- Periodicals
301.05 - Journal URLs:
- http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sof ↗
http://sf.oxfordjournals.org ↗
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/ ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1093/sf/soab150 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0037-7732
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 8318.089000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 24098.xml