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‘Presidential’ is in the ear of the beholder

The impact of rhetorical style, message tone, and voters’ ideological outlook on political perception

ORCiD logo with link | Winthrop University
ORCiD logo with link | Winthrop University
Published online: 20 March 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24030.mea
Abstract
President Donald Trump’s communication style is idiosyncratic, with a conversational but aggressive or threatening tone, hypermasculinity, and lower linguistic complexity (Reyes, Antonio. 2020. “I, Trump: The Cult of Personality, Anti-Intellectualism and the Post-Truth Era.” Journal of Language and Politics 19 (6): 869–892. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Scotto di Carlo, Giuseppina. 2020. “Trumping Twitter: Sexism in President Trump’s tweets.” Journal of Language and Politics 19 (1): 48–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Smith, Angela, and Michael Higgins. 2020. “Tough Guys and Little Rocket Men: @Realdonaldtrump’s Twitter Feed and the Normalisation of Banal Masculinity.” Social Semiotics 30 (4): 547–562. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). These unique qualities should set him apart from other US presidents, making him easily recognizable. This study tests whether Americans can recognize Trump, Bush, and Obama based on their quotations. It was predicted partisans could easily identify Trump when reviewing threatening (compared with reassuring or neutral) statements because of his signature style and because anxiety prompts greater deliberation. While liberals and moderates enjoyed some success, conservatives couldn’t distinguish Trump from Obama at any threat level. Findings indicate that partisans fail to reach the same conclusions because they perceive statements differently, suggesting that divergent partisan perspectives begin with early differences in partisan perception. Thus, what’s perceived as “normal” depends upon ideology and the degree of threat, triggered by rhetorical cues.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Parties and partisan rhetorical strategies
    • 1.2Trump and rhetoric — signature style
    • 1.3Ideology and threatening language
    • 1.4The current study
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials
    • 2.3Procedures
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Threat, ideology, and heuristics
    • 4.2Rhetorical impact
    • 4.3Limitations
    • 4.4Conclusion
  • References
References (82)
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