ABSTRACT

This article investigates Donald Trump’s performances of right-wing populism, contrasting these with the professional theatrical practice of US political speechwriting. The public performances of US presidents are theatrical constructions in a broad conceptual interpretation of the term: as speechwriters work to construct the presidential persona and the national audience, they abstract and fictionalize both the presidential self and the national public. The resulting presidential persona is a theatrical construction designed to appeal to an idealized national community. Much of the appeal of Trump’s populism, this article posits, lies in his efforts to eschew the professionalized theatricality of US presidential performance. Drawing on in-depth interviews the author conducted with US political speechwriters – primarily presidential speechwriters spanning administrations and campaigns from Reagan to Obama – the article seeks to account for the counter-theatrical appeal of the Trump presidency and of performances of right-wing populism more broadly. Building on the speechwriters’ specialist knowledge, the historical conditions that have allowed performances of right-wing populism to flourish are explored. The article interrogates right-wing populism’s exploitation of institutional distrust as a dominant political affect and its undermining of integrative concepts of the nation in favour of a definition of ‘the people’ in terms of white, patriarchal nativism.

摘要

本文调查了唐纳德特朗普的右翼民粹主义表演，并将其与美国政治演讲写作的专业戏剧实践进行对比。美国总统的公开表演是对该术语的广义概念解释中的戏剧结构：当演讲稿撰写人致力于构建总统形象和全国观众时，他们抽象和虚构了总统本人和全国公众。由此产生的总统形象是一种旨在吸引理想化民族社区的戏剧结构。本文假定，特朗普民粹主义的大部分吸引力在于他努力避免美国总统表演的专业化戏剧性。作者对美国政治演讲撰稿人进行了深入采访——主要是跨越政府和竞选活动的总统演讲撰稿人，从里根到奥巴马——这篇文章试图解释特朗普总统任期的反戏剧吸引力和右翼民粹主义的表现。宽广地。以演讲者的专业知识为基础，探索了使右翼民粹主义得以蓬勃发展的历史条件。这篇文章质疑右翼民粹主义利用制度性不信任作为主要政治影响及其对民族的综合概念的破坏，以支持白人父权本土主义对“人民”的定义。