Red, white, and blues: The rise and reign of an American demagogue

This project investigates the fascist demagoguery and propaganda of Donald Trump throughout his life, with special focus on the years since he announced his candidacy for President in June 2015. While a wealth of scholarly attention has been paid to various elements of Donald Trump’s rhetoric, this project pays special attention to areas that, to date, have been understudied in Rhetoric and Writing Studies (RWS): visual rhetoric and his defense of the culture of Whiteness through his use of the rhetoric of Lynching, as informed by Dr. Ersula Ore’s book, <i>Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity</i>. In order to accomplish these goals, I first examine the visual rhetoric of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign. This examination is followed by an analysis of various written and spoken texts made by Trump throughout his career in the spotlight. Finally, this dissertation features an analysis of the propaganda of one of the most prominent right-wing political think tanks, The Heritage Foundation, and their propaganda arm, Project 2025 through an examination of their <i>Mandate for Leadership</i> text. Ultimately, it was the goal of this project to conduct an investigation of the rise, reign, and future results of a modern, American demagogue. By studying the rise, continued popularity, and future policy proposals of Donald Trump and his far-right political allies, this dissertation serves as an in-depth look into the rhetorical strategies, tools, and displays that enable(d) Trump’s rise. As a result of the analyses made in this work, I introduce a new term for Rhetoric and Writing Studies, Proximity Demagoguery, which I define as the defense of an identity that is not held by an individual, but is still defended and used as a cultural binding agent to promote the creation of identity groups in the pursuit of identity politics.