Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Primary Major
Political Science
Second Major
History
Thesis Advisor
Alison Howard, MA
Abstract
Many Americans can still recall James Madison’s warning against mob rule in The Federalist Papers. What Madison did not articulate as memorably, however, was that it is not the mob we need to fear, but the demagogue. Who is the one fueling the fire through their use of sensational rhetoric? A term from ancient Greek mythology, a demagogue generally means a persuasive orator and leader of the people. The historical demagogue has many iterations in modern American politics that continue to undermine democracy and justice. However, there has not been a comprehensive study comparing two of the arguably most influential and publicized political agitators of their times. My thesis will discuss the research question: To what extent does the rhetoric Trump uses in his speeches compare to that of historical figure Father Charles Coughlin? Although Coughlin was mainly a religious radio personality, and Trump a US presidential candidate, and they operated in separate historical contexts, both figures used similar fundamental methods that demagogues employ like blame and personal attacks to spread false information and gain political clout. Using content analysis, my thesis analyzed speeches and radio broadcasts to demonstrate that Father Coughlin and Donald Trump used powerful rhetoric to agitate and infiltrate American politics by embodying the image of the demagogue. The findings showed that Donald Trump used demagogic rhetoric in 63.2% of his speeches coded for this project, while Father Coughlin used demagogic rhetoric in 20.6% of his speeches coded for this project. Both Trump and Coughlin used the demagogic strategies of personal attacks most in their speeches, followed by false narratives.
Included in
American Politics Commons, Models and Methods Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons