Yves here. Given Trump’s advanced age, and the eventual confirmation of suspected Biden decrepitude, the media and Trump opponents have jumped on what they depict as signs of Trump cognitive decline. One area they have harped on are his very loosely structured, extemporaneous speeches at his rallies. Lambert, who carefully parsed Trump’s presentation at a 2016 rally in Bangor, roused himself to compare that performance with a 2024 rally in Las Vegas. His bottom line:
My extremely subjective view, then, is that from Trump’s language, his mental acuity in 2024 is the same as it was in 2016: His techniques are the same; his humor is the same; the texture of his language is the same. You don’t have to respect Trump’s language, or even like it, but it has not changed. (It’s also very, very hard to imagine Biden improvising in front of a crowd for over an hour. Trump makes a lot of jokes about teleprompters, underlining this difference.)
The point here is that Trump’s much-derided rally style is a schtick. This post explains why it works and therefore why Trump keeps deploying it.
Mind you, that does not mean that there has not been or will be examples of Trump cognitive impairment, such as disorientation, losing his train of thought, or physical difficulties. But his established unstructured rally mode is not evidence of that.
By Loren D. Marsh, Research Fellow, Humboldt University of Berlin. Originally published at The Conversation
In recent news cycles, there has been a persistent and growing narrative that Trump’s appearances are undisciplined, meandering and damaging his chances in the election. Trump’s critics believe he is narcissistic and impulsive, and that there is no consistent strategy or larger plan behind his rhetoric. Indeed, in many outlets this view is ubiquitous and practically unquestioned.
However, with half of the US electorate on his side, Trump’s chaotic speaking style is clearly no barrier to success. If his public appearances are indeed so shambolic, why do they continue to fire up his supporters, and even attract new ones?
Trump’s critics are obviously missing something about how his rhetoric works. They may rationalise that many of his supporters don’t take him literally or assume that it’s “just an act”, but if this were the case, why would so many voters follow someone they don’t actually believe?
Evidently, explaining Trump’s appeal requires a different kind of tool for analysing political messaging. It is here that we can turn to ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who invented the science of storytelling, and gave us precisely the tools we need to understand Trump’s rhetorical success.
As a classics scholar, my research has cracked the code of Aristotle’s seminal narrative theory of muthos in his Poetics, written in the 4th century BC. Muthos is a timeless theoretical framework that can reveal the inner workings of any narrative – even Donald Trump’s.
Muthos in a Nutshell
Aristotle recognised that any story or narrative contains two kinds of events: muthos and episodes.
The muthos is a small, limited group of events that are tightly connected by cause and effect (lightning struck the tree, then the tree caught fire). With these events, it is necessary or probable that each will cause the next. They are the core of the story and crucial for its emotional impact.
Because each event in the muthos leads directly to the next, none of them can be changed, eliminated, or reordered without changing the essence of the story itself. You can imagine these central muthos events like billiard balls a table. A person hits the first ball, which then hits the second ball, which hits third ball, and so on until the balls come to rest. To reach their final arrangement, they must hit each other in a specific way, meaning the number of these events is inherently limited.
The “episodes” are the narrative’s other events, which are only loosely connected by cause and effect (lightning struck the tree, then it started to rain). These are related, chance or tangential events that do not necessarily have to occur as a direct effect of what happened before.
While not as central to the core story and its emotional appeal, the episodes are in no way less important or interesting. In fact, since they don’t necessarily follow from previous events or directly cause the following ones, they are often the most sensational and visible part of the story.
Both muthos and episode events are crucial for building a narrative with maximum impact. But narratives are by no means confined to the realms of fiction.
Trump’s Narrative: Episodes Feed the Muthos
A presidential campaign itself can be viewed as a story, with both muthos events and episode events that play out in the media.
Trump’s candidacy has often been criticised for its chaos and drama, featuring an endless series of sensational or suspenseful distractions: brazen lies, incendiary campaign promises and court cases, to name but a few. However, to his supporters these events are not the real story of Trump’s candidacy, they are just the episodes. Beneath all the lurid drama, Trump carefully maintains a very coherent muthos: that he is an outsider defying a corrupt establishment.
Trump’s story can be summed up as follows. The US is run by corrupt insiders (Democrats and their ilk) who attack an outsider (Trump). By defying the insiders, the outsider proves that he cannot be corrupted.
In order to defy and defeat the insiders, they have to first attack him, and Trump deliberately provokes these attacks. Much of his erratic, unpredictable behaviour serves this exact purpose. It could be something as serious as refusing to admit he lost in 2020, as offensive as insisting Haitian immigrants have an appetite for Ohio cats, or as mundane as exaggerating his crowd sizes. Those are episodes.
His reactions to the attacks he provokes form his muthos – while his behaviour seems erratic, Trump never changes his behaviour, alters course, or apologises in the face of establishment attacks or criticisms of his own attacks. This convinces his followers that he cannot be corruptly manipulated or pressured to act as the insiders want.
Trump’s consistently defiant actions and statements are the events in his narrative that make it necessary or probable that his followers believe he is an anti-establishment outsider. They are the muthos parts that sit at the heart of his story.
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Walter Kirn has a similar observation, with a more Yankee slant than Greek: he’s been observing that Trump’s speeches stick to a consistent set of key themes, accompanied, or even decorated, by varied exaggerations, jokes, tall tales, and assorted sensational b**lsh*t that reinforce the theme while driving “fact checkers” who get hung up on the nitty gritty crazy, and he is extremely effective in old American frontier way, so to speak. Trump may not be a Mark Twain, but the basic approaches are similar. At least that’s the way I remember Kirn’s explanation.
Thanks, this is worth taking time to study. The episodes are what have reminded me of Twain’s Grandfather’s Ram, but when I think about how Trump uses muthos, I’m more reminded of how The Aristocrats joke works (link is to Wikipedia’s sanitized explanation). Reduced to an equation it seems to be muthos + [literally anything] = story.
Taibbi and Kirn also make a habit of studying another version of this communication strategy: they watch Rachel Maddow. Analyzing the news cycle they predict where Maddow is going with her unrelated news stories/commentaries that invariably take an unexpected turn and merge with the real topic. A lot like Paul Harvey’s old “…and now you know the rest of the story” schtick in that the predictability becomes reassuring to the regular audience.
The Republicans have been describing themselves as the outsiders since Reagan, so what Trump is doing is not really new, he has the added back story of being a TV star and realaltor.
The Republicans did not win this election, the Democrats lost it – as they have lost every election over the past 60 years. They have moved further to the right, with around 30% of the population disenfranchised and not voting. Yet again, ‘none of the above’ won more support than any candidate.
The Democrats also lack any in depth organization in the red states (the Republicans are organized nationwide and pick up many down ticket posts that the Democrats have long decided to be not worth the bother or cost).
If there is a reason for the Republicans to ‘win’ elections rather than the Democrats lose them, it is because the Republicans talk to the electorate and the Democrats talk to their financial backers. The Democrats can promise all they want but the electorate knows that they will never deliver because WallSt will pull the plug.
Even with the ‘Squad’ we have seen it quickly move the the right and in step with the rest of the capitalist alliance
The Republicans have often promised to dismantle the state and perhaps this time they really will and this will give the next government that replaces both parties the space to restructure the country for the people instead of for the capitalists
Your line of argument could be amended in a variety of ways, but it does bring out a problem with the writer’s line of analysis: however much Trump’s speeches correspond to this form, we still can’t be sure of the connection between the form and the affirmative voter response because the writer hasn’t talked with voters about how they view his speeches.
It might be useful to compare Trump’s speeches to the looooonnnggg speeches by Fidel Castro in the 60s. There might be a similarity in that, like hypothesis about Trump voters, Castro’s audience were primarily interested in somehow engaging with the spirit of the revolution, being buoyed up by a passionate statement of defiance against US imperialism. It bucked up their spirits as they sat in a shack out in the countryside, listening with their friends.
The guy with the big ears, funny voice and charts illustrating the exponential function was mocked by the media so here we are 30 years later.
Yeah, and three hour long form interviews proved more effective then thousands and thousands of multimedia sound bites. Hmmm…
File under Secrets Known Only to a Few, but long copy always sells better than short copy if you can hold the reader’s attention. That’s a very big if, btw. Short copy primes the pump but long copy closes the deal.
Don’t get to what you’re refering to, please explain, M.L.
Ross Perot, who ran for president as an outsider in 1992 and 1996.
Thanks for this. I’ve been telling my lib-Dem friends that while it’s true that Trump is a bull$hit artist, he is in fact a very good one. Much better than Vibes of “Joy!” ™.
Marsh’s work is on Old Comedy in Greece — for most of us, that would mean Aristophanes.
The summary at the link to his work (and he most likely didn’t write this) is: “The results of this muthos analysis indicate that in the classical period, neither formal structure nor the structure of events was determined by theatrical genre, but by the specific combination of tone and plot type. Marsh concludes that the category of genre itself may be less helpful for classifying these plays than is typically assumed.”
So he is critiquing genre. Anyone who has seen plays by Shakespeare, which is much of the English-speaking world, already knows that genre doesn’t always apply to Shakespeare. Hamlet has humorous scenes.
The important thing to note is that we are talking about Trump on stage and Trump as a rhetorician. Yes, Trump may present himself as the put-upon outsider, much as Antigone presents herself as the dutiful sister insisting on what is due her brothers (burial).
These actions work on stage. As Lambert Strether keeps reminding us, Trump has a side to him that is all borsht-belt comedian. And when he goes “dark,” he can be like someone out of Beckett — Lucky and Pozzo.
So the word “narrative,” a post-modern trap, is a trap.
As anyone who has worked on stage knows, the standard is that what works on stage remains on stage. What you can’t get to work on stage, you have to cut from the show. Trump knows this after years of work on TV.
“Narrative” doesn’t take these things into account. It seems instead like another symptom of how postmodernism and its advocates just don’t get anything. I’ll stick with the Rule of Three.
Adding, as an aside, here’s a review of Marsh’s book:
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2022/2022.03.07/
Not mentioned in the review, is that Marsh’s argument is based on a close reading of Aristotle’s Poetics, which he then uses primarily to interpret Old Comedy (e.g., Aristophanes). However, the surviving first book Poetics is chiefly concerned with tragedy, while the second book on comedy is considered lost (and, btw, its imagined recovery plays an important role in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose).
It may also worth noting that “genre” in the time of Aristotle is a more basic and rudimentary concept than we understand it today, i.e., it covers drama (tragedy, comedy, satyr plays), epic, and lyric poetry. This claim is important for Marsh’s argument as he wants to use the extant book of the Poetics to read plays that were more properly the subject of the second book that is lost.
Marsh’s reading of Trump’s discourse gets to something important about his appeal — because millions of USians now clearly feel themselves to be disenfranchised outsiders to our putative “democracy” —, though I’m not persuaded that we need such a sophisticated analysis to surface it. A basic thematic analysis of Trump’s story brings us to the same conclusion.
Thus, I agree with DJG that speaking of “narrative” here is likely to lead us astray.
JD Vance and Joe Rogan even talked about this…”the weave” in Trump’s 3-hr talk with Rogan during Vance’s 3+ hour talk with Rogan.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyyTAs1XY8&pp=
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMoPUAeLnY&pp=
Dems. violate Sun Tzu 101 constantly: know your enemy, know yourself, and victory is yours.
Shocker: people crave authenticity (even if it can be crude) when the media is chock full of “narratives” , white lies, full-blown lies, and gaslighting
I remember the mentions of “the weave” and Trump getting slightly perturbed at Rogan breaking it up with comments. As Rogan was butting in I recognized myself from countless backyard BBQs trying to head someone off as they launched into a stemwinder.
In a conversational setting, cooperation is necessary as the very nature of a “weave” requires transitions each of which is an opportunity to interrupt. More of a stage act, imo.
Ted Gioia has an interesting take on communications:
“Not long ago, those endless three-hour Joe Rogan podcasts seemed bizarre.
“Even more to the point, they ran against the conventional wisdom. The audience wanted short soundbites—the ‘experts’ all agreed on this. Nobody had time to listen to a three-hour podcast.
“But now every media outlet is shifting to conversational formats. Podcasting is thriving because of this approach. Many successful YouTubers are doing the exact same thing. Writers (on Substack and elsewhere) are also embracing a more conversational tone.”
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-6-new-rules-of-communicating
A diatribe might be the right term.
Good stuff. While I lack the patience to sit through Trump’s style this analysis sounds convincing .
One should say that if it’s all a story, a narrative, a play then you need an effective performer. Obviously this is where Kamala fell by the wayside.
Ironically, the Dems. crafted-facilitated a Joseph Campbell-ian “Hero’s Journey” for Trump ever since 2014-15, complete with an Act II “low point” (impeachments, and ’22m midterms) and an Act III return.
Hiĺlary, Obama, and DC machinations were/are the best things that ever happened to Trump.
Trump doesn’t just bait attacks, he provokes self-immolating truth-revealing behavior from his enemies. Many “episodes” (e.g. 2016 campaign wires were tapped) appear carefully curated to unveil rival secrets.
The election is over, and for some it was a tragedy, for others a comedy. So yes, why not bring in the great Greek Philosopher to weigh in on all this drama? From the article’s title, however, I was expecting this to be a discussion of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which actually deals with the study of persuasive speech. Instead, the author is talking about the Poetics, which treats of tragedy and comedy in the ancient Greek theater. The author’s key sentence explains this approach: “A presidential campaign itself can be viewed as a story.” Well … I’m feeling grumpy today, so I will point out that this is only a metaphor, and in fact a campaign is not a story, it is a human action. We might later try to turn it into a story, but that would be history, not theater ( …unless you call the campaigns a “Theater of the Absurd.” Then I might agree with you… ) But the question I’m getting at is, I would be careful about assuming that you can use the same analytical tools to study human events as you can to study literature. Can you? I’m not so sure about that! I’m also kind of sick of the idea that everything in modern politics has to be reduced to some narrative or other.
This post and comments discussion are excellent. As I have previously commented, the Democrats preach, but Trump listens and creates the illusion that he has heard.
What is the murthos driving the current American zeitgeist? After the 9/11 attacks and amorphous GWOT; the collapse of industrial employment and rise of gig work; the 2008 GFC and impunity of its perpetrators; the police killings of Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, George Floyd, and others; Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and climate-driven wildfires; and the rise of the American Billionaire caste from 60 in 1992 to nearly 800 in 2024 the public correctly perceive themselves to be the “victims” of corrupt “insiders” who have looted their patrimony and their future. Victimhood is the muthos of our time.
The episodes which make up Trump’s praxis appear to have been adopted whole from Ronald Reagan’s “There they go again” narrative in response to criticism from the “mainstream” eastern-liberal news media. This is a problem for the post-Obama DNC — they kowtow to their billionaire donors and refuse to acknowledge the zeitgeist of victimization rightly or wrongly felt by voters — instead denying and belittling it.
I think the term, “victimhood” may apply to some supporters but it seems to be very specific. I think it can best be explained by widespread generalised feeling of unfairness and/or being oppressed by forces beyond your control.
I also think his approach to oracy is common to very effective negotiators who blur issues by talking aound them and then bring them into focus through a back door in a slightly different context. It’s also a highly effective teaching technique which enables you to repeat and drive home the key points three or four times whilst keeping a class engaged and, indeed, entertained.
I think of Trump as a master showman. Politics is nothing if not a show. This explains his success.
It’s more elementary than all that─Trump’s a Gemini (with Moon opposite in Sagittarius)
IMO, instead of studying an opponent and learning, the Democrats make contemptuous statements about the person. and dismiss him or her for lack of merit. Unless he has changed completely, IMO, Trump is a natural born con artist at the genius level and is capable of ‘reading’ individuals in order to ingratiate himself with them. This was demonstrated during his first run when he co-opted twitter. He, in effect took ownership of the company, used it’s platform to communicate and unite his cadres. 9and the press). In addition, it seemed that his subscribers took his tweets to be communications directly from thie leader to them personally. The 2024 lection seemed to be a referendum in which ‘the people’ voiced their displeasure with one party and made a demand/statement that the Federal Government pay attention to their needs. Trump made this connection. Harris (faux Biden) did not. In the last election, did the Dems pay attention to Joe Rogan’s subscribership?
Aristotle has some good idea. Another instructive perspective is given by Gustave le Bon in his (1895) book, “The Crowd, a Study of the Group Mind.” Apparently, Hitler used this work as a manual for his oratory. Trump might as well have studied it. E.G Trump conveys to his audience: “I feel your needs and I will respond to them.” Whereas the Dems imperiously say: “Be happy, don’t worry.
The statistics show you are doing well.” An interesting point that Le Bon makes in his book is about the exertion of power. “Prestige’, but it has to be backed up with substance to be effective. E.G. In his first run, Trump used his “prestige (as a successful business man) but it was hollow. Now Trump has both that venner of prestige but also the backing of a populart vote. What remains to be seen is whether Trump can exercise his ‘power’ effectively or if he is still at heart a con artist.
There’s more than muthos. Aristotle in his Rhetoric lists three traits necessary for a speech: (1) the speaker must be a person deserving of the audience’s respect (if the speaker is disreputable no one will begin paying any attention), (2) the speaker must appear to have the audience’s interests, to further their objectives, biases, and prejudices, and (3) last and least important, the speaker must appear logical, or at least be able to twist logic so as to appeal to the audience’s interest.
Trump gets an A+ on (1) and (2), and really doesn’t do poorly on (3)
Chaotic?
I guess it’s what you get in a Citizens United election, where “money is speech”
Citizens United
Citizens United struck down restrictions on the amounts of money spent in the political arena by corporations, oligarchs, etc by declaring that “money is speech”
Trump used For the Love of Money by the The O’Jays for the Apprentice
Where a key line is “Money money money money, money”,
e.g.
“Money, money, money, money, money
Money, money, money, money, money
Money, money, money, money, money
Money, money, money, money, money
Money, money, money, money, money
Money, money, money, money, money”
Looks like Trump is in tune with the American establishment, even though they don’t want to admit it in the public facing ‘media’ that they control.
I believe Trump is senile and cannot stand on a subject and illuminate the issues. Even if he can motivate away his, age Os an and idempotent ,time is not on his side.
He will be a bumbling idiot in a few years, just as Biden is today.