The rhetoric and political communication of the 2016 Presidential Election was arguably unconventional, partisan, and polarizing—becoming a defining characteristic of the tone and feel of the campaign. In this volume we examine how rhetoric and various political communication strategies influenced and shaped the contours of the election and ultimately its outcome. Witnessing the most diverse electorate in U.S. political history, we look at how voters were primed for an anti-establishment/outsider candidate and how various rhetorical and communication appeals were used to strategically engage different groups of voters and at times, leave out or even scapegoat others. We also analyze how rhetoric and political communication shaped the debate on key issues such as climate change, immigration, national security, gender, and representation. In an age where having a social media presence is an essential campaign tool, we examine how Twitter was used by candidates and its impact on the electorate and news coverage. Overall, we demonstrate that political rhetoric and communication is impactful, bearing electoral consequences and the potential for policy outcomes, giving the reader much to consider as we approach the next midterm and general election.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

Rhetoric and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era offers a timely examination of public communication and political culture in the United States and the systemic feedback loops that have amplified democratic dysfunction and violence. Informed by both deductive and inductive analysis of four key perils (post-truth; polarization; [social media] platform; and populism) in the interplay of complex systems, Joshua J. Frye and Steven R. Goldzwig examine rhetorical traditions and trajectories to synoptically explain both how we got to this point and how we can fix it. Exploring salient and increasingly important issues affecting the public life and culture of American democracy and democracies worldwide, this work expands public understanding of the current political landscape, reveals what effective democratic citizenship requires, and identifies communication practices that can be used to better engage with these contemporary challenges. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and political science will find this book of particular interest.

This volume examines the interplay between affect theory and rhetorical persuasion in mass communication. The essays collected here draw connections between affect theory, rhetorical studies, mass communication theory, cultural studies, political science, sociology, and a host of other disciplines. Contributions from a wide range of scholars feature theoretical overviews and critical perspectives on the movement commonly referred to as "the affective turn" as well as case studies. Critical investigations of the rhetorical strategies behind the 2016 United States presidential election, public health and antiterrorism mass media campaigns, television commercials, and the digital spread of fake news, among other issues, will prove to be both timely and of enduring value. This book will be of use to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and active researchers in communication, rhetoric, political science, social psychology, sociology, and cultural studies.

The psychology behind political partisanship: “The kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world but how you think about yourself.” —Ezra Klein, Vox Political polarization in America has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in decades, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of “us versus them” tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment. With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one other with distrust and to work for party victory over all else. Although the polarizing effects of social divisions have simplified our electoral choices and increased political engagement, they have not been a force that is, on balance, helpful for American democracy. Bringing together theory from political science and social psychology, Uncivil Agreement clearly describes this increasingly “social” type of polarization, and adds much to our understanding of contemporary politics.

This second edition explores the relationship between politics and media, with a particular emphasis on the significant disruptive changes to media and technology that have faced journalists, campaigners, and the public in recent years. The first edition, in 2014, described the earliest elements of social and online media: Web 2.0, the ‘information economy,’ and the changes from traditional broadcast media to the early online world. With the rise of TikTok, the ‘fake news’ claims of Donald Trump, the decline of local news, and the anti-democratic impulses that drove the January 6, 2021 coup attempts, the last decade has provided a rich and sometimes confounding set of disruptions to political communication that deserve attention. Technology has disrupted political communication in the online environment exceptionally quickly over the last decade, and this book provides a framework for understanding the intersections of these disruptions and their effect on an already-fragile democratic circumstance in the United States.

Democratic Disunity: Rhetorical Tribalism in 2020 addresses that while attention has recently and rightly been paid to the tribal bifurcation of the GOP, the Democratic Party is similarly divided. Americans live in a democratic republic rather than a direct democracy and choices regarding governing concerns are configured through communicative action. These choices include those made between and within American political parties. Without rhetorical mediation and intervention, toxic partisan tribalism within the two major American political parties is likely to destabilize the nations’ federalist system of government. Kelley argues that intraparty tribalism poisons public life and consumes public space within which electoral politics, including discussion, deliberation and compromise, should be thriving. Democratic Disunity considers intraparty tribalism as a rhetorical form, uniquely positioned within the twenty-first century. Details are provided regarding language-in-use strategies with which to anchor a rhetoric of governing through a mindful, deliberative dialogue which diminishes the effect of political partisanship, including its toxic variations both between and within American political parties. Scholars and students of rhetoric, political communication, and political science will find this book particularly interesting.