From the initial stages of his campaign to his office in the White House, Donald Trump has facilitated no shortage of controversy over his usage of name-calling and insults when responding to his opponents and critics.
The tactic is not particularly new as it is simply more blunt; it is best akin to the mudslinging campaigns that presidential candidates have used for more than 200 years to attack their competition with degrading slogans, rumors and gibes generally unrelated to politics whatsoever as opposed to focusing on the promotion of their own merits in office. In short, such campaigns can be understood as, “You should vote for me because the other option is a problem for this reason.”
Presidential candidates in the United States have used insults and replies that imbue the ad hominem logical fallacy, which is an attack on an opponent’s character in place of a response to that opponent’s argument, as early as the second presidential election. John Adams, who ultimately won the race of 1796, regularly participated in combative mudslinging campaigns with Jefferson, with Adams’s camp elaborating upon a Thomas Jefferson presidency as resulting in “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest (being) openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood and the nation black with crimes.” His camp even called Jefferson “a mean-spirited low-lived fellow,” without context behind their characterization.
Likewise in the present day, we still see the usage of slanderous language in our elections; however, Trump escalated the strategy to new blows during the most recent presidential election. During both the primaries and the general election, Trump would refer to his opposition with “nicknames,” like Lil’ Marco, Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted and Low Energy Jeb, just to name a few.
This recurring tactic may not seem profound to some; however, Trump’s usage of demeaning name-calling was not just a playful taunt, but moreover, an act to discredit his opposition—especially when he paled in comparison for meeting similar qualifications in the political sphere. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in economics, as he was on track to join his family’s business. His competitors arguably had the most directly relevant education and background in the race: Hillary Clinton graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in political science and went on to Yale Law School for a graduate degree, Ted Cruz obtained public policy and law degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, respectively, and Marco Rubio also earned political science and law degrees.
Not to mention their education, each of the aforementioned opponents of Trump also had prior experience working in law, politics and policy, or both fields. Yet, when responding to them with such seemingly childish nicknames, he broadcasted to his supporters that those candidates are illegitimate; a technique he fell back on in order to make up for his own lack of experience in government and politics and overall ethos in the presidential race.
Trump’s overuse of name-calling became so commonplace that the reference of them with those nicknames was not even shocking anymore, but rather just part of who those candidates were in the public spotlight.
Moreover, digital political strategist Alan Rosenblatt recognized in an article for Medium that Trump used Karl Rove’s political campaign theory “attack the strength,” which essentially means one discredits the strengths of their opposition to simultaneously distract from one’s own weaknesses regarding the same matter. Trump throughout his campaign would further distance himself from his lack of qualifications and even personal contradictions and scandals by placing emphasis on his opponents instead.
For instance, Trump had put out a plethora of tweets and statements regarding Clinton’s husband’s affair—which is not an event that occurred from her own actions—before, amidst and after the scandal that revealed audio of his degrading, sexist comments about women. Despite Hillary Clinton’s decades of work that has included fighting for paid family leave and the close of the wage gap, creating the first ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues and leading a U.N. resolution to prevent sexual assault in conflict zones, Trump still attempted to discredit Hillary Clinton’s role in supporting women—as if her years of women’s advocacy and his extensive list of sexist statements and actions were not relevant.
Amazing that Crooked Hillary can do a hit ad on me concerning women when her husband was the WORST abuser of woman in U.S. political history
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 17, 2016
I hope Bill Clinton starts talking about women's issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary abused those women!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2016
If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015
Aside from his accusations and insults to discredit opposing candidates, much of the “factual” arguments that he has presented have been, for the most part, inaccurate. PolitiFact, an organization dedicated to analyzing the accuracy of politicians’ and organizations’ statements, uses their Truth-O-Meter to measure how truthful statements are. On Donald Trump’s Politifact scorecard as of Sept. 24, the vast majority of his statements are false, with only 17% of his statements on Politifact yielding a “True” or “Mostly True” rating. For a quick comparison to another president with a similar amount of analyzed statements, 44th president Barack Obama has a 49% rating of “True” and “Mostly True” statements. Of course, this machine has not covered every statement that Trump has made, however, it clues the public into an important phenomenon on the evolution of statements and facts in politics during an era of Trump’s—supposed “fake news”—as the news is, coincidentally, a fact-checking body for politicians. Though it is not all-encompassing, a fact-checker is informative on the general trends of how a politician tends to speak and develop their arguments.
Today, Trump appears to be continuing with such name-calling rhetoric in an effort to delegitimize his opposition. Even months after winning the general election, Trump is still calling Clinton “Crooked Hillary,” with several references occurring over just the past few days.
The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2017
However, one of the major developments of late is his use of nicknames and threats in foreign relations, most notably “Little Rocket Man” regarding leader Kim Jong Un of North Korea. During a week of exchanges between the president and North Korea, Trump has recently said at a U.N. General Assembly that if the United States “is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” and suggested in a tweet that there is potential that “. . . They [North Korea] won’t be around much longer!”
While some may have considered his insults during the election as simply unprofessional yet in-line with the American political campaign tradition, Trump is now going head-to-head with an authoritarian regime—one known for ever-growing tests of nuclear weapons—who has said in response to Trump’s statements this week that they will reduce the United States to “ashes and darkness” and that “our rockets’ visit to the U.S. mainland” is “inevitable.”
Regardless if one feels personally threatened or not by the words of North Korea, it is still a viable role of the public to hold the president accountable for his rhetoric and actions. In an age of rapid social media organization and collective initiatives that allow the public to hold influence over governmental bodies through public opinion, sending letters and petitions to our political bodies and voting on the basis of the country’s best interest, it is negligent to believe that the average citizen doesn’t have any sway in the operations of their government. The question has simply become now, when will we hold the president responsible for his rhetoric and actions?
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