The Monstrous Discourse in the Donald Trump Campaign

Implications for National Discourse

By (author) Debbie Jay Williams, Kalyn L. Prince

Publication date:

15 November 2017

Length of book:

168 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

242x159mm
6x10"

ISBN-13: 9781498546997

The Monstrous Discourse in the Donald Trump Campaign: Implications for National Discourse provides a lens through which to explore the implications of the monster metaphor as applied to Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Analyzing the overt and buried usages of the monster metaphor in the media’s and Trump’s discourse, as well as the structure of the monster narrative generally, offers connections between the metaphor and the actions incited by its narrative. This book explores the ways in which this language also serves as a metaphor to understand the ecology of Trump’s candidacy and the polarized responses drawn by his campaign, and considers its troubling implications for the future direction of national discourse.

Contents

Introduction
Chapter One: Our Metaphors, Our Selves
Chapter Two: The Monster Narrative
Chapter Three: The Media and the Monster
Chapter Four: The Buried Metaphor: Donald Trump’s Construction of Monsters
Chapter Five: Monster (Metaphor) Mash
Chapter Six: When the Abyss Gazes Back
Bibliography
Appendices
About the Authors

To this day, the 2016 presidential campaign seems an exercise in horror and the uncanny. Thus Williams and Prince treat it as a struggle over who was the metaphorical monster, and to what effect. They show how efforts to cast Donald Trump as monstrous mostly succumbed in the media to his own mini-narratives of monstrosity—by the media, migrants, politicians, Hillary Clinton or women in general, and many others. Especially helpful is the authors’ explanation of audience contributions to making potent metaphors. Whether you’re a fan or foe of metaphors—or monsters—Williams and Prince provide an engaging analysis.