The Legacy of Rush Limbaugh Will Always Be Tied to Donald Trump

The Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-458
Author(s):  
Ian Reifowitz
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
Black President ◽  
Conservative Media

Abstract This article explores Rush Limbaugh’s efforts to tribalize American politics through his racially divisive, falsehood-ridden portrayal of President Obama. By playing and preying on white anxiety, the host laid the groundwork for the election of a president who essentially adopted his view of the Obama presidency. Limbaugh’s rhetoric about Obama serves as a case study whereby the most influential part of the conservative media during those years represents the whole. “How did we get here?” is the essential question right now in American politics. How did we go from a society that relatively easily elected Barack Obama twice to one that, popular vote loss aside, elected Donald Trump, and came within a small popular vote shift in three states from doing so again in 2020? Analyzing how Limbaugh ginned up white racial anxiety about a Black president helps us understand the rise of Trump, who began his White House campaign by serving as the nation’s birther-in-chief and who, in his reaction to the white nationalist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, to name just one example, demonstrated his reliance on white identity politics. As Jamelle Bouie wrote: “You can draw a direct line to the rise of Trump from the racial hysteria of talk radio—where Rush Limbaugh, a Trump booster, warned that Obama would turn the world upside down.”

Almost “Nothing New Under the Sun”: American politics and the election of Donald Trump

Leadership ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R Goethals
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Factor ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Donald Trump’s surprising 2016 election as President of the United States was unusual both in the set of states he won and in clearly winning the electoral vote while decisively losing the popular vote. His victory is somewhat less surprising given recent Republican domination of American politics, a context which provides Trump both leadership opportunities and constraints. A large factor in Trump’s rise is the leader–follower dynamics of crowds, seen throughout time, which enabled him to win an uncritical and devoted following. An important part of that dynamic was Trump’s validation of the social identity of the white working class in the United States, especially in comparison to Hillary Clinton’s both implicit and explicit denigration of that base of Trump support. Trump’s identity story for his base is unusually exclusive, highlighted by ingroup vs. outgroup hostility. His appeal is compared to inclusive identity stories successfully related by other US presidents, which suggest how future leaders might effectively touch “the better angels of our nature.”

The Keys to the White House

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan J. Lichtman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prediction System ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The Keys to the White House are an index-based prediction system that retrospectively account for the popular-vote winners of every US presidential election from 1860 to 1980 and prospectively forecast the winners of every presidential election from 1984 through 2008. The Keys demonstrate that American presidential elections do not turn on events of the campaign, but rather on the performance of the party controlling the White House. The Keys hold important lessons for politics in the United States and worldwide. A preliminary forecast based on the Keys indicates that President Obama is a likely winner in 2012, but also reveals the specific problems at home at abroad that could thwart his re-election.

The Keys to the White House

2012 ◽  
pp. 214-225
Author(s):  
Allan J. Lichtman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prediction System ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The Keys to the White House are an index-based prediction system that retrospectively account for the popular-vote winners of every US presidential election from 1860 to 1980 and prospectively forecast the winners of every presidential election from 1984 through 2008. The Keys demonstrate that American presidential elections do not turn on events of the campaign, but rather on the performance of the party controlling the White House. The Keys hold important lessons for politics in the United States and worldwide. A preliminary forecast based on the Keys indicates that President Obama is a likely winner in 2012, but also reveals the specific problems at home at abroad that could thwart his re-election.

Donald Trump, perceptions of justice, and populism

Leadership ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 513-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R Goethals
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Economic Outcomes ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
The 1960S

The populism of Donald Trump and his supporters can be viewed as rooted in feelings of relative deprivation, whereby people feel that they are getting less than they deserve in exchanges with other groups, and perceptions of unfair procedures, whereby elites are seen to allocate outcomes in an unethical, biased, and/or disrespectful manner. Populist leaders can boost people’s self-esteem and hence their sense of what they deserve and how they should be treated by establishment decision makers. Populist leaders make intergroup comparisons salient and thereby exacerbate intergroup hostility. In the United States, populist politics has shifted from emphasizing unfair economic outcomes to exploiting racist and nativist sentiments as well as cultural antagonisms. Donald Trump’s populism can be traced most directly to George Wallace’s racist populist campaigns in the 1960s. Trump has also focused on unfair decisions made about political allies. His presidency is arguably the first to ride these elements in American politics to the White House.

Documents and Source Material

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The West ◽  
White House ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
Annotated List ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Government ◽  
Source Materials

This section comprises international, Arab, Israeli, and U.S. documents and source materials, as well as an annotated list of recommended reports. Significant developments this quarter: In the international diplomatic arena, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 2334, reaffirming the illegality of Israeli settlements and calling for a return to peace negotiations. Additionally, former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry delivered a final address on the Israel-Palestine conflict, outlining a groundwork for negotiations. Two weeks later, international diplomats met in Paris to establish incentives for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table. Despite international discussions of peace talks and the impediment settlements pose to a two-state solution, the Israeli Knesset passed the controversial Regulation Law, enabling the government to retroactively legalize settlements and confiscate Palestinian land throughout the West Bank. Meanwhile, U.S. president Donald Trump took office on 20 January 2017, and he wasted no time before inviting Netanyahu to the White House for their first meeting, in February.

Putting Donald Trump in Historical Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug McAdam
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
And Behavior

The tumultuous onset of Donald Trump’s administration has so riveted public attention that observers are in danger of losing a historical perspective. Trump’s rhetoric and behavior are so extreme that the tendency is to see him and the divisions he embodies as something new in American politics. Instead, Trump is only the most extreme expression of a brand of racial politics practiced ever more brazenly by the Republican Party since the 1960s. His unexpected rise to power was aided by a number of institutional developments in American politics that also have older roots. In the spirit of trying to understand these historical forces, the chapter describes (a) the origins and evolution of the exclusionary brand of racial politics characteristic of the Republican Party since the 1960s, and (b) three illiberal institutions that aided Trump’s rise to power, and that, if left unchanged, will continue to threaten the survival of American democracy.

scholarly journals Europe Abhors Donald Trump: The Opinion on the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections and Their Candidates in the European Newspapers

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110055
Author(s):  
Marçal Sintes-Olivella ◽  
Pere Franch ◽  
Elena Yeste-Piquer ◽  
Klaus Zilles
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
White House ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Common ◽  
The U.S

What is the opinion held by the European press on the U.S. election campaign and the candidates running for president? What are the predominant issues that attract the attention of European print media? Does Europe detest Donald Trump? The objective of the present study is to analyze the perception European commentators had of the 2020 race for the White House. The media, the audience, and European governments were captivated more than ever before by how the U.S. election campaign unfolded, fixing their gaze on the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology, a combination of content analysis and the application of framing theory (hitherto scarcely applied to opinion pieces), our research centers on exploring the views, opinions, and analyses published in eight leading newspapers from four European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) as expressed in their editorials and opinion articles. This study observes how the televised presidential debates were commented on, interpreted, and assessed by commentators from the eight newspapers we selected. The goal was to identify the common issues and frames that affected European public opinion on the U.S. presidential campaign and the aspirants to the White House.

“I’m Not going to the f***ing White House”: Twitter Users React to Donald Trump and Megan Rapinoe

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952095077
Author(s):  
Evan L. Frederick ◽  
Ann Pegoraro ◽  
Samuel Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Inductive Analysis

When asked if she would go to the White House if invited, Megan Rapinoe stated, “I’m not going to the fucking White House.” The next morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of tweets in which he criticized Rapinoe’s statements. In his tweets, Trump introduced issues around race in the United States and brought forth his own notion of nationalism. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of users’ tweets to determine how individuals employed Twitter to craft a narrative and discuss the ongoing Rapinoe and Trump feud within and outside the bounds of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and nationalism. An inductive analysis of 16,137 users’ tweets revealed three primary themes: a) Refuse, Refute, & Redirect Racist Rhetoric b) Stand Up vs. Know your Rights, and c) #ShutUpAndBeALeader. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that the dialogue regarding racism in the United States is quickly evolving. Instead of reciting the same refrain (i.e., racism no longer exists and systematic racism is constructed by Black people) seen in previous works, individuals in the current dataset refuted those talking points and clearly labeled the President as a racist. Additionally, though discussions of nationalism were evident in this dataset, the Stand Up vs. Know Your Rights theme was on the periphery in comparison to discussions of race. Perhaps, this indicates that some have grown tired of Trump utilizing nationalism as a means to stoke racism.

scholarly journals Make Canada Great Again: The Influence of Donald Trump on the Canadian Right Wing Identity

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Parul Singh Kanwar
Keyword(s):  
American Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

This essay examines how the election of Donald Trump and the Ring Wing sentiments in American politics affect the Right-Wing extremist identity in Canada. This is significant because, through an analysis of the impact of American politics and identity on Canadians and their experiences as Anti-American, with focus on superiority and multiculturalism. 

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