Populist Leadership: The Superhero Donald Trump as Savior in Times of Crisis

Abstract

The current debate on populism is mainly concerned with populist parties and movements. Less is written about populist leadership. Yet, political scientists need to pay more attention to populist leadership, especially in order to understand how populism functions in the absence of a populist party. In situations in which a political leader adopts a populist way of exercising political power without the backing of what is considered a populist party, populism is often reduced to a particular style of acting and speaking of that particular politician. By formulating a theory-based concept of political leadership based on the literature of celebrity politicians—the superhero—I show that populist leadership is not limited to a particular style, but also allows to explain particular policy choices. The concept of the superhero goes beyond that of charismatic leadership, because it explains how the leader’s exceptionality is performed and how this performance can be analyzed.

Keywords

populism leadership celebrity politicians Donald Trump

Introduction

In the current burgeoning wave of literature on populism, the discussion focuses much more on populist parties and movements than on populist leadership. However, more attention needs to be paid to the latter in order to assess the populist quality of situations in which political leaders are not backed by what is considered a populist party (Weyland, 2001). In such cases, there might seem to be a gap between the populist style of a politician and the politics enacted, which may not easily be placed into one populist camp or another or may not even be considered populist at all. Here, I formulate a theory-based concept of populist leadership that allows this seeming mismatch between style and content to be reconciled: that of the populist superhero as a savior in times of crisis.

Authors concerned with populist leadership generally start from the assumption that populism, in addition to being anti-elitist and anti-pluralist (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 5–16; Müller, 2017a: 2–3), is “a specific way of competing for and exercising political power” (Weyland, 2001: 11). According to Moffitt, “populism’s reliance on new media technologies, its relationship to shifting modes of political representation and identification, and its increased ubiquity have seen the phenomenon transform in nuanced ways” (Moffitt, 2016: 3), and he suggests to conceive of populism “as a political style that is performed, embodied and enacted across a variety of political and cultural contexts” (Moffitt, 2016: 3; emphasis in original). Based thereon, in addition to a particular discourse, a leader’s performance and the particular relationship between the leader and her support base are considered the central elements of populism (Moffitt, 2016: 83–87; see also Weyland, 2001: 12). Casullo, for example, argues that repertoires (defined as “socially shared discursive templates”) act as “possible paths to leadership” in that they “determine legitimate or accepted ways for populist leaders to act, talk, dress” (Casullo, 2019: 56). Yet, the literature on populist leadership does not tell us where to find relevant repertoires. Acknowledging the importance of performance for populist leadership, I, therefore, turn to the literature on political branding of politicians—and specifically to the literature on celebrity politicians—because it discusses relevant repertoires of action (Van Zoonen, 2005; Wood et al., 2016). Celebrity, like populism, “is a potentially important phenomenon that politicians can use to connect better with a disaffected public” (Wood et al., 2016: 582, referring to Street, 2004). Based on studies of celebrity politicians, I formulate a new type of populist leadership—the populist superhero—and show that such a conceptualization allows us to understand not only the tone but also the substance of populist leaders’ policies. From this perspective, the ideational flexibility of populist leaders is neither discretionary nor solely the result of the constraints of the political system, but instead follows a pattern.

The populist superhero has some commonalities with the ideal type of the charismatic leader as it was originally formulated by Max Weber (1947). The concept of charismatic leadership relies on “exceptional [. . .] qualities” of the leader (Weber, 1947: 358) who needs to have some objective success as proof of her exceptionality and to be recognized as exceptional by her followers (Weber 1947). In addition, some argue that “a situation of crisis” (Trice and Beyer, 1991: 151) is needed for a leader to be considered charismatic because ordinary situations do not require exceptional qualities of a leader. The populist superhero “is a version of charismatic leadership for the 21^st century”¹ that relies on social media and on techniques from entertainment. Populist leaders can “be superb masters of political showmanship, whose theatrics provide welcome entertainment to a voting public often bored by conventional politics” (Heinisch, 2003: 95). In this sense, the populist superhero fits Moffitt’s understanding of populism as “a performative political style” whereby “the leader is seen as the performer, ‘the people’ as the audience, and crisis and media as the stage on which populism plays out upon” (Moffitt, 2016: 5, emphasis in original). The present analysis thereby goes beyond Weber’s concept of charismatic leadership by specifically explaining how the situation of crisis and the leader’s exceptionality are performed and how these performances can be analyzed.

Donald Trump is a case in point. Whereas “we can hardly call the Republican Party a populist radical right party” (Fenger, 2018: 193), Trump’s presidential campaign was widely considered to be populist (Nai and Maier, 2018; Oliver and Rahn, 2016; White, 2016) and candidate Trump to be “the populist par excellence” (Oliver and Rahn, 2016: 189). But the assessment of his presidency is more ambiguous. On the one hand, his policies cannot be classified into one single category of populist politics (Norris and Inglehart, 2019; Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017). On the other hand, with the shift from his campaign to the presidency, the populist quality of Trump is argued to be constrained and limited by the US political system (Dombrovski and Reich, 2017; Pierson, 2017). I argue that the difficulties in assessing the populist nature of the Trump presidency stem from the focus on structure and the neglect of agency. Yet, if we conceive of Trump as a populist superhero in times of crisis, the populist nature of his policy choices becomes evident. This perspective also allows for situating Trump in comparison with other US Presidents. Although “populism in American politics is far from a new development” (Bimes and Mulroy, 2004; Stewart, 2018: 95) and other presidents have been charismatic as well, Trump is outstanding (Lieberman et al., 2019; Nai et al., 2019: 634).

This article is organized as follows. Based on my review of the current literature on populism, I first show that this literature does not permit a full explanation of Trump’s policies. I then turn to the literature on political branding, and on celebrity politicians, in particular, to formulate a new type of populist leadership—the populist superhero—before applying this concept to Trump. The article ends with a discussion of my findings.

Situating Donald Trump’s Policy in the Populist Universe

In the current wave of literature on populism, there seems to be a consensus that populism always contains the following two elements: anti-elitism and anti-pluralism (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 5–16; Müller, 2017a: 2–3). According to Mudde, populists conceive of society as being divided “into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’” (Mudde, 2004: 543). The latter camp is seen as not acting according to, or even acting against, the interests of the people (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 11–16; Müller, 2017a: 3). In addition to their view of political elites, populists also disapprove of economic or cultural elites, as well as the established media channels (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 11–12). Positions and ideas that differ from those ascribed to the “pure people” are considered to be illegitimate by populists. But populism is often considered to be more than just a communication strategy or a rhetorical instrument (Rooduijn, 2018: 354) because it comprises some ideas beyond anti-elitism and anti-pluralism. Yet, given that these ideas do not represent a comprehensive ideology, populism is called a “thin-centred ideology” (Mudde, 2004) and thus can be attached to other ideologies ranging from the far left to the far right (Rooduijn, 2018: 354). In order to differentiate the various types of populism, authors distinguish between different ideological positions. When one tries to situate Trump’s policies as President within this realm, it becomes clear that they do not fit into one sole category.

Verbeek and Zaslove (2017), for example, have developed a typology of populist parties, depending on how the latter conceive of the pure people. According to this typology, Trump combines elements of the radical right that “takes a nativist approach to the pure people” (Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017), on the one hand, and of the “market liberal creed [that] locates the pure people in the honest, hardworking citizens who are endangered by the elite-run state” (Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017), on the other. With regard to the first type, Trump claims to defend the interests of the American people against the interests of non-American people. For example, he has announced his intention to “end the right to U.S. citizenship for children born in the United States to noncitizens” (Wagner et al., 2018). With regard to the market-liberal ideas, he seeks to bring back jobs to hardworking people by, for example, implementing tax reform and tax cuts (White House, 2017a). Similar to his domestic politics, Trump’s foreign policy, according to the typology developed by Verbeek and Zaslove, can be situated somewhere between ideological approaches of the radical right and those of market liberalism.

Regarding trade issues, on the one hand, Trump is in favor of protectionist measures, as populists from the radical right would be, having increased tariffs on steel imports and announced tariffs on car imports from Europe. On the other hand, he signed a new free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico in 2018, replacing NAFTA, the so-called United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Not only is this agreement in favor of free trade, but it is also a multilateral agreement, whereas Trump has often rejected multilateralism, not just with respect to trade. To name only a few of his anti-multilateral actions, he withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (January 2017), quit UNESCO (October 2017) and the UN Human Rights Council (June 2018), and pulled out of the so-called Iran Deal (June 2018).

Similar to the assessment of Trump’s policies based on the typology offered by Verbeek and Zaslove, Norris and Inglehart argue that

the President’s speeches, tweets, and executive actions mix together advocacy of inconsistent principles across the conventional left-right spectrum. Some economic priorities are right-wing: this includes supporting small-states laissez faire economic policies, which reflect the mainstream Republican Congressional leadership and the role of the GOP Freedom Caucus on issues such as the aggressive deregulation of environmental protection, [. . .] and rolling back corporate taxes. [. . .] But Trump has also followed economic protectionism for American industry, imposing tariffs on trade, renegotiating NAFTA, and seeking to restore coal-mining jobs (Norris and Inglehart, 2019: 219–220).

Hence, Trump’s policies seem to lack coherence, whether in terms of substance (free trade vs protectionism) or in terms of form (multilateral or unilateral). His behavior seems even to be erratic. For example, at the G7 summit in Canada in June 2018, he initially participated in the negotiations with the other heads of state, but on his way home he decided to abandon the joint statement.

Pierson even classifies Trump’s policies as mainly non-populist and serving the “interests and concerns of plutocrats” (Pierson, 2017: 106):

On the big economic issues of taxes, spending and regulation—ones that have animated conservative elites for a generation—he has pursued, or supported, an agenda that is extremely friendly to large corporations, wealthy families, and well-positioned rent-seekers. His budgetary policies [. . .] will, if enacted, be devastating to the same rural and moderate-income communities that helped him win office (Pierson, 2017: 106).

As a consequence, Pierson estimates that, as President, “Trump has continued to present himself in populist garb, but it has rarely carried over to policy” (Pierson, 2017: 106). This is explained by the structure of the US political system, which constrains a President’s powers, and by the socio-economic structure of a society in which a very small elite of very wealthy Americans have a disproportional influence on political decision-making (Pierson, 2017: 106). Similarly, concerning the military, Dombrovski and Reich argue that Trump’s actions as President are constrained by the requirements of “field operations and policy implementation” (Dombrovski and Reich, 2017: 1014), so that there “is a significant gap between what the political leadership often says [. . .] and the way in which the military operates; between rhetoric and behavior” (Dombrovski and Reich, 2017: 1015).

In sum, not only Trump’s policies seem to lack coherence. There also seems to be a contradiction between Trump’s style and speech, on the one hand, and his policies, on the other. Yet, and as Kurt Weyland shows based on a study of populism in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, such divergence between political leaders who follow a populist style but “deviate to varying degrees from classical populist policies” (Weyland, 2001: 7) is neither a new empirical phenomenon nor a new conceptual challenge. Similarly, there have been previous cases in which populists exhibit some flexibility regarding the adoption of different policies and positions (Weyland, 2001: 10). Although Weyland does not formulate a theory of populist leadership, he acknowledges the relevance of leadership for understanding populism, which is why, in the following section, I refer to his understanding of populism as a particular way of ruling. Based thereon, I approach Trump’s policies in terms of populist leadership. From this perspective, his policies seem to follow a populist pattern.

Populist Leadership: The Superhero

Although “leadership is one of the most important elements of political life” (Blondel, 1993: 5), the literature on populist leadership is still limited (e.g. Casullo, 2019; De Beus, 2009; Weyland, 2001). Yet, according to authors such as Weyland, leadership is an important component of populism if one conceives of populism as a technique or way of ruling (Weyland, 2001: 11; see also Moffitt, 2016). This perspective is not in opposition to the conception of populism as being based on anti-elitism and anti-pluralism. In contrast, scholars agree that “a central feature of populist leaders’ discourse is that they always present themselves as outsiders” (Casullo, 2019: 57) and thereby are “espousing antielite rhetoric” (Weyland, 2001: 11). Moreover, populist leaders base their discourse on anti-pluralist positions based “on the distinction of friend versus foe” (Weyland, 2001: 11). But conceiving of populism as a way of ruling focuses on the “basic goal of populist leaders, to win and exercise power while using economic and social policy as an instrument for this purpose” (Weyland, 2001: 11). Hence, this perspective does not refer to particular ideological positions to make sense of populism but rather “is most attuned to the opportunism of populist leaders and their weak commitment to substantive policies, ideas, and ideologies” (Weyland, 2001: 11). It requires that we pay attention to the techniques by which populist leaders seek to convince their followers of their anti-elitism and anti-pluralism and therefore acknowledges that performance is a key element of populist leadership (Casullo, 2019; De Beus, 2009; Hall et al., 2016; Moffitt, 2016: 83–87). However, the literature on populist leadership lacks a theoretically informed framework that allows us to identify various forms of populist leadership. Instead, relevant studies generally proceed inductively (Casullo, 2019; De Beus, 2009), arguing that “there seem to be an infinite number of paths to becoming a populist leader” (Casullo, 2019: 58).

Following Weyland’s conception of populism as a way of ruling, Moffitt’s understanding of populism as a “performative style” (Moffitt, 2016: 5) and Casullo’s approach to populist leadership in terms of repertoires, I turn to the literature on political branding in general and on celebrity politicians in particular to conceptualize repertoires of discourse and action that populist leaders can draw on. Repertoires in this sense “are resonant with social groups at given time and places and [. . .] they can be used by individuals to present themselves as prospective leaders” (Casullo, 2019: 56). While “the ability of the individual to [. . .] utilize these repertoires is a personal feature, the repertoires themselves are nonetheless social” (Casullo, 2019: 56). This understanding of repertoires corresponds to the concept of political branding that distinguishes between the “human brand,” which is “the actual personality of the person,” and the “brand persona,” which is “the image that the human brand seeks to project” (Speed et al., 2015: 141–142). Although a person’s projected image is not identical to that person’s personality, it must correspond to the latter in order to allow for authenticity, which, in turn, is necessary to establish credibility in the eyes of the voters (Speed et al., 2015: 142–143). In short, a political product in terms of a brand, in the case of a politician, is convincing if the performance of the person “is not perceived as acting” (Tolson, 2001: 445, as cited in Speed et al., 2015: 143).

Celebrity politicians are a particular type of political brand that politicians may seek to project. They are often seen as a type of leadership that has emerged in response to anti-political sentiments and that relies on extensive use of the media. In this sense, “celebrity is a potentially important phenomenon that politicians can use to connect better with a disaffected public” (Wood et al., 2016: 582, referring to Street, 2004). The literature on celebrity politicians has identified various types of celebrity politicians (Marsh et al., 2010; Street, 2004, 2018; Wood et al., 2016), but there is one type that can be considered a populist type of leadership because its features correspond to the populist characteristics of anti-elitism and anti-pluralism: the superhero (Schneiker, 2018).

The populist superhero presents herself as having superpowers and as the only one being able to save others (i.e. her country) in case of an emergency. This is in line with the populist “leader’s promise to protect the people from a pernicious enemy” (Weyland, 2001: 11). Such promise, according to Weyland, is especially made by populist leaders who are not backed by a populist party and who have to “compensate for the fragility of their mass support” and therefore “seek to create a particular intense connection to their followers” (Weyland, 2001: 13). This is exactly what the figure of the superhero offers because

such intensity requires [. . .] a supernatural capacity to represent and lead the people, rescue them from adversity, and usher in progress. Therefore, populist leaders constantly demonstrate their closeness to common people and stimulate popular identification with their leadership. They seek frequent face-to-face contacts with the masses, now often through television, act in ways that embody and live out the dreams of the common man, promise to include the long neglected populace in the mainstream of development and protect it from sinister forces, and instill in their followers a sense of mission to transform the status quo and transcend the confines of the established institutional framework in order to find redemption under their savior’s guidance (Weyland, 2001: 14).

In this sense, the populist superhero shares some commonalities with the ideal type of charismatic leader originally formulated by Max Weber (1947). Weber defined charisma as the quality in an individual “by virtue of which he is set apart from other men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (Weber, 1947: 358). Charismatic leadership requires followers who believe in the exceptionality of the leader. This belief is sustained by successful performances or policies whereby success is assessed based on the well-being of the followers which the latter attribute to the influence of the leader (Weber, 1947). The concept of charismatic leadership has been widely discussed in the social sciences with some arguing that charismatic leadership not only involves the qualities of an individual and the leader’s relation to her followers but also requires “a situation of crisis” and a vision of the leader on how to solve the crisis (Trice and Beyer, 1991: 151–152). Thereby, a crisis is defined as “a serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental values and norms of a social system” (Rosenthal et al., 1989: 10).

I argue that the populist superhero, similar to the concept of charismatic leadership, is believed to have some exceptional qualities that allow her to solve a crisis and to save her followers from an emergency. In the following, I explain how a populist superhero—that could also be called a charismatic leader 2.0—relies on techniques from entertainment and on social media to perform herself as successful problem-solver in times of crisis. By theorizing the populists’ performances, the article offers a concept of leadership that goes beyond the one of charismatic leadership.

The populist superhero’s claim of being the only one able to solve a crisis is based on an ambiguous anti-elitism. On the one hand, the populist superhero presents herself as an ordinary citizen who is part of the common people, no matter whether the leader is actually an outsider to the establishment or part of it (Casullo, 2019: 57). Based thereon, the populist superhero can claim to dispose of the “common sense” (Mudde, 2004: 547) that populists refer to in their formulation of solutions to solve pressing problems. In this sense, the populist superhero claims to see the problems that ordinary citizens are concerned with, to know what has to be done in order to solve these problems, and to have the ability to fix the situation (Schneiker, 2018). On the other hand, this everyday knowledge is what makes the populist leader exceptional in comparison with politicians who are said to belong to the elite and who dispose only of exclusive knowledge. As a consequence, politicians are not able to solve a crisis and the related problems of citizens. Only the populist superhero is. Hence, the populist superhero is by definition an anti-politician (Schneiker, 2018). The populist superhero is also anti-pluralist in that she dismisses alternative opinions and positions (Schneiker, 2018).

In order to differentiate herself from her competitors and politicians, the populist superhero must convince the audience, especially her electorate, that she is better suited than anyone else to deliver on her promise (Needham, 2005: 348), that is, to solve problems. Hence, the populist superhero needs the world to know that she, and only she, can fix and has fixed a situation. Otherwise, she could not use this alleged exceptional problem-solving capacity as a unique selling point. Consequently, populist superhero leaders have to communicate to their (potential) supporters that they are superb in this role. Social media are communication channels that perfectly fit this requirement of such populist leadership (Moffitt, 2016). They are seemingly anti-elitist in that they are not only easily accessible but also allow for direct communication and interaction between the leader and her followers (Engesser et al., 2017: 1113). Hence, through social media and especially network services such as Twitter, the populist superhero can directly tell her followers about her exceptional problem-solving capacity without any mediator. The public, in turn, does not have to buy a newspaper or attend an official press conference in order to learn about the performance of the leader but can connect to the leader through wireless technology anytime and anywhere.

But populist superheroes not only have to present themselves as successful problem-solver. Given that they might lack a populist political party that supports them, they also need to provide evidence of their popular support. Thus, according to Weyland,

elections, plebiscites, mass demonstrations, and most recently opinion polls are the crucial instruments with which populist leaders mobilize and demonstrate their distinctive power capability. Populist aspirants whip up support from largely unorganized masses to win office. Populist chief executives constantly invoke their broad mass support to boost their own influence and overpower their opponents’ institutional bastions (Weyland, 2001: 12).

In times of the web 2.0, one needs to add likes, shares, retweets, and followers as indicators of popular support, although they might only give evidence of the attention that populists receive (Engesser et al., 2017: 1113; Klinger and Svensson, 2016). Such attention can be garnered, on the one hand, based on entertainment techniques such as “agitation, spectacular acts, exaggeration, calculated provocations, and the intended breech of political and socio-cultural taboos” (Heinisch, 2003: 94). On the other hand, it can be achieved based on “personal action frames” (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012: 743). Given that “these frames are highly inclusive and align people with different personal backgrounds and motives under a common cause” (Engesser et al., 2017: 1114; referring to Bennett and Segerberg, 2012: 744) and are based on “flexible political identifications” (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012: 744), they fit the populist criteria of a thin ideology (Engesser et al., 2017: 1114). In the following section, I will show, first, that Trump can be considered as a populist superhero, and second, that this concept will help us understand his policy choices.

Donald Trump: The Populist Superhero

Donald Trump presents himself as being in opposition to the establishment and as being anti-elite. According to Norris and Inglehart, “his populism is rooted in claims that he is an outsider to DC politics, a self-made billionaire leading an insurgency movement on behalf of ordinary Americans” (Norris and Inglehart, 2019: 349). The self-presentation of presidential candidates and Presidents as outsiders is not a new phenomenon in American politics. Given the “distaste” of US citizens “for the inner workings of Washington, D.C.” (Stewart, 2018: 94), presidential candidates have often used an outsider rhetoric to distance themselves from the establishment in Washington (Stewart, 2018: 93). But elected Presidents are also said to have regularly claimed to represent the people “against a special interest” (Bimes and Mulroy, 2004: 139). Yet, Trump is an outlier.

In his inauguration speech, Trump stated that “today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another—but we are transferring power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, the people” (White House, 2017c). Thereby, Trump presents himself as part of the people in the populist sense of anti-elitism. Yet, the statements made by Trump in his inauguration speech go beyond previous “presidential populism” (Bimes and Mulroy, 2004) and reveal that he sees himself not only as part of the people but as embodying the “pure people,” in the sense of the populist criterion of anti-pluralism: “As Trump explained, because he now controls the executive, the people control the government. By implication, all opposition is illegitimate—if you oppose Trump, you oppose the people” (Müller, 2017b).

Trump’s definition of who “the people” are is also without precedent because it is based on racism, nativism, and misogyny (Lieberman et al., 2019: 471–474). Yet, this discourse is considered to be successful for at least three reasons. First, such discourse draws on “racial, ethnic, and religious cleavages” (Lieberman et al., 2019, 474) that have become increasingly salient in US politics. Second, this discourse is successful because it is presented based on techniques from entertainment:

When Trump promises to tell the truth (Muslims are terrorists; some women are uglier than others; Mexicans are rapists), he aligns himself with opposition to political correctness, with a stance that rejects rhetorical caution regarding minority religions, genders, and ethnicities. Yet as entertainment, his gestures intensify the force of his words, attracting and holding the attention of the wider public as they dominate the news cycle (Hall et al., 2016: 74).

Although some consider Trump’s language to be in bad taste and disgusting, “Trump’s entertaining, sensational, inflammatory words and actions make him the kind of phenomenon we just can’t look away from” (Lawrence and Boydstun, 2017: 150). As an entertainer, Trump has the “license to disobey rules” (Hall et al., 2016: 73) so that “relations between form and meaning established in one discursive field (entertainment) excuse[.] behavior in another (politics)” (Hall et al., 2016: 76). Although Trump is not the first US politician or even President with a past in show business, “Trump’s dense use of a derisive form of comedic entertainment to attract media attention [. . .] is a strategy that previous entertainer candidates such as Ronald Reagan did not pursue” (Hall et al., 2016: 75). Thus, it is Trump’s past as an entertainer in the Wrestling business, in beauty pageants and especially in the NBC game show The Apprentice that provides the populist superhero Trump with credibility and authenticity. Similar to reality TV that succeeds in “manufacturing ‘authenticity’” (Hall et al., 2016: 76) in that those who are depicted are not perceived as acting, so does Trump create authenticity by copying his political personality from his persona in The Apprentice (Hall et al., 2016: 76).

Third, and relatedly, scholars of social psychology argue that it is “in part because of his politically incorrect rhetoric that [Trump] garnered support” (Conway et al., 2017: 246, emphasis in original). In the words of a commentator from the Washington Post, “It’s not just that Trump is willing to be provocative—he’s exciting to many people because he says things they feel they can’t say” (Guo, 2015). According to social psychologists, this paradox can be explained with the salience of political correctness (PC) norms in the United States that restrict communication and “explicitly attempt[.] to remove negative group-relevant language” (Conway et al., 2017: 246). As these norms became “ever more salient and heavy-handed” (Conway et al., 2017: 255), they were considered as a “forced consensus” (Conway et al., 2017: 254). Yet, such a consensus “is psychologically fragile and prone to break” (Conway et al., 2017: 254). As a consequence, the PC norms “ultimately backfire and instead produce long-term deviance” (Conway et al., 2017: 245; emphasis in original) in the sense of having an effect that is in opposition to the original goals. Hence, Trump’s use of politically incorrect language is welcomed by his followers, because he thereby breaks rules that those followers conceive of as being imposed on them and no longer want to accept. This explanation is supported by findings according to which people like Trump’s provocative language. According to a survey carried out by RAND corporation, it was especially voters who felt powerless and voiceless who supported Trump in the election campaign in 2016 (Pollard and Mendelsohn, 2016).

Whether during the election campaign or as President, Trump’s performances are placed within a “situation of crisis” (Trice and Beyer, 1991: 151). Analyzing the 2016 presidential election, Aswad finds that Trump used a crisis rhetoric more often than Clinton (Aswad, 2019: 66). As an example, she cites from Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in which he accepted the presidential nomination. In that speech, Trump states that

Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. [. . .] Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps. [. . .] Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have lived through one international humiliation after another (Trump cited in Politico, 2016).

While Trump is referring to existing problems, he is exaggerating them and presenting them as an acute crisis, “using the verbiage of victimhood to galvanize support for his presidency while enacting himself as the savior” (Aswad, 2019: 67). Such discourse continues after Trump was elected President. At the occasion of the signing of the US–China Phase One Trade Agreement on 15 January 2020, Ambassador Lighthizer declared that “solving the trade crisis was a major objective of [Trump’s] campaign and of [Trump’s] administration” (White House, 2020a). But Trump not only claims that the country is in a situation of crisis, he simultaneously blames others (the elite, politicians) for being responsible for it.

In order to differentiate himself from his competitors and to present himself as a successful problem-solver, Trump has to convince the audience that he is better suited than any of his rivals to deliver on this promise, which is to save the nation (Needham, 2005: 348). Trump has done so by presenting himself as an anti-establishment candidate and President, which in an age of “anti-politics” (Boswell and Corbett, 2015) resonates well with audiences. This allows Trump to claim, as Schneiker (2018) has shown based on an analysis of his tweets, that he knows what “everyday people [are] worried about”—namely “rising crime, failing schools and vanishing jobs” (1 August 2016), another characteristic of the superhero. According to Chou and Ondaatje, the “Make America Great Again” campaign that can be understood as a “personal action frame” (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012) has been about “championing the rights of ‘everyday’ Americans” (Chou and Ondaatje, 2017: 201). This is in reference to Anker, who has argued that Trump’s promise to the American public was, “you may feel weak and injured now, but my state policies will soon overcome terrifying villains and allow you to experience your rightful, and unbound, power” (Anker, as cited in Chou et al., 2016).

Furthermore, by presenting himself as an average citizen, Trump can claim to dispense the “everyday knowledge” or “common sense” (Mudde, 2004: 547) that populists evoke to set themselves apart from the elite and, hence, from politicians, who are considered to be incapable and incompetent. For example, in the speech in which Trump accepts his nomination as presidential candidate, he blames his competitor Hillary Clinton for having committed

terrible crimes. [. . .] When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the time for action has come. I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it (Trump cited in Politico, 2016).

Regarding unemployment and jobs, Trump declares that “since my election, America has gained over 7 million jobs—a number unthinkable. [. . .] The average unemployment rate for my administration is the lowest for any U.S. President in recorded history” (White House, 2020c). Thereby, Trump claims that positive developments, such as a low unemployment rate, are the result of his exceptional problem-solving capacity whereby differing opinions and contradictory facts, especially those published by established media (representing the “elite”), are dismissed by Trump as “fake news”.

Trump excessively relies on Twitter to evoke a crisis and to present himself as savior. Twitter as a communication channel is perfectly suited for such purpose. In order to find out what Trump is doing, will do, or has done, people do not have to read the newspaper—they just need to access Twitter. People can also “follow” Trump or even address him directly by using his @username reference—@realDonaldTrump—in their tweets. Hence, Twitter allows for direct communication between President Trump and ordinary citizens, making intermediate channels such as newspapers or TV superfluous. Furthermore, the fact that Twitter limits the number of characters in a tweet also forces users to rely on abbreviations or entirely new forms of communication such as emojis. These shorthands make Twitter “decidedly informal” (Ott, 2017: 62) and further colloquial language. All these features create an impression of proximity between President Trump and ordinary citizens, which is a requirement of the populist superhero.

In addition, the accessibility and availability of Twitter allows Trump to persistently let his followers know that he is delivering on his promises. That way, he can inform his electorate and the rest of the world about his superiority. Regarding the wall on the US–Mexico border, for example, President Trump tweeted:

I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet. When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN! (11 February 2017).

He also regularly tweets about his success with respect to the creation of jobs, such as “Record 157,005,000 Employed; 19th Record of Trump Era” (5 July 2019). In addition, he claims to be successful with respect to any other policy field: “We have the Best Economy in History, the Best Employment Numbers in History, Most People Working in History, Highest Stock Market in History, Biggest Tax and Regulation Cuts in History, . . .” (23 July 2019) and calls himself “great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!” (11 July 2019). In addition, Trump tweeted that he, unlike politicians, would have saved the US from evil such as the attacks on the World Trade Center: “Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot” (19 November 2018).

His use of Twitter also allows Trump to provide the world with evidence of his “broad mass support” (Weyland, 2001: 12). He therefore frequently refers to opinion polls or ratings in his tweets: “Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago” (22 January 2017); “94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, an all time high. Ronald Reagan was 87%. Thank you!” (13 July 2019). He also tweets pictures of large numbers of supporters gathering to listen to him, with headlines such as “massive crowd in NC for President Trump” (18 July 2019). Next to mass support, pictures showing Trump amid a crowd of people also evoke a sense of closeness between the President and the popular masses.

Yet, this proximity is just an illusion, because both the superhero type of populist leadership and the use of Twitter to communicate it denigrate democratic politics. The populist political superhero reflects an understanding of political decision-making as an authoritative establishment of “the truth” by one supposedly competent individual instead of through a deliberative process based on pluralistic ideas and interests. In this sense, Twitter offers a stage for Trump (Moffitt, 2016: 5) on which he can present himself the way he wants to; it also provides him with a huge audience (72.3 million followers as of 19 February 2020). Furthermore, claims that current problems are the fault of incompetent politicians (rather than the result of complex political decision-making and interdependencies in a globalized world) oversimplify the issue. Trump can post such simplifications on Twitter without having to engage in a dialogue and without taking into account different opinions because questions and comments need not be addressed in the digital sphere. Twitter even provides technical provisions for blocking certain users who are then unable to read messages or reply to them—a practice that is said to have been applied by Trump but that was declared illegal by a New York judge because it violates the users’ right to free speech (Sabur, 2018). This example shows that Twitter fits the populist requirement of anti-pluralism.

After having explained that Trump can be considered a populist superhero, I will now show how this translates into his policy choices.

The Superhero’s Policies

The anti-elitist superhero—that is, the superhero emanating from and embodying the pure people—which Trump represents, leads to preferences for certain political structures, procedures, and policies over others. Conceiving Trump as a populist superhero allows us to understand his policy choices that otherwise seem to be contradictory. Furthermore, based on the examples of trade and multilateralism, I show that, compared with his predecessors, Trump’s policies and behavior as President represent a change, not only in tone from having acquired a populist quality but also in substance. This change can be explained in terms of the concept of the populist superhero.

In line with his understanding that he is not only the embodiment of the American people (Müller, 2017b) but also the only one able to solve the latter’s problems, Trump often acts unilaterally. Regarding immigration, he, for example, relies on executive orders, such as those related to building a wall on the US–Mexico border, increasing the number of border patrol forces and immigration enforcement officers. According to Trump, all this has been done because of him and despite lacking support from Congress (White House, 2019b). “Like many populist leaders, Trump chafes at institutional constraints on his authority, and he projects the belief that he alone can embody the popular will (‘I alone can fix it’)” (Lieberman et al., 2019: 471). In February 2019, Trump “declared a national emergency” (Levine, 2019) to build a wall along the southern border after Congress refused to provide money for it. The following month, Congress passed a resolution that would have blocked the President from funding the wall without Congressional approval, but Trump vetoed this resolution and the House failed to override the veto (Zanona, 2019). Such unilateral action is considered as an expression of “Trump’s mantra ‘I alone can fix it’” (Collinson, 2019), a requirement of the populist superhero. Trump justifies such unilateral actions with his exceptional problem-solving capacity (White House, 2020c).

His exceptional problem-solving capacity can also explain seemingly contradictory decisions, for example, regarding economics. Rather liberal policies such as cutting corporate taxes and deregulation policies as well as protectionist trade measures that harm US farmers and the government subsidies meant to help them are all presented as necessary personal interventions by the President as a means to increase jobs (Crooks, 2019; White House, 2019a, 2020b). Although the tariffs levied by the Trump Administration on goods from the European Union, China, and other countries have led these countries to impose tariffs on US goods causing severe damage to US farmers (Quinton, 2019) and subsequent frustration among the latter, a majority of US farmers is still said to support Trump (Lemon, 2019). Relevant figures providing information on popular support are used by Trump as a means to demonstrate his success. According to Trump, the Wall Street Journal found that “farmer Approval of Trump Hits Record, Poll Shows . . . 83 percent of the farmers and ranchers approve of the President’s job performance” (White House, 2020b).

The original concept of charismatic leadership would lead us to suggest a decline in people’s support for a leader if that leader’s policies have negative effects on the well-being of the people. The concept of the populist superhero, in turn, allows for the explanation of the “disconnect between the negative effect of Trump’s policies on his voters in farm country and their unwavering support for him” (Cassella, 2018). As a populist superhero, Trump relies on techniques from entertainment and on social media to perform himself as savior who his defending the interests of the people—no matter whether he objectively does—and to blame others for any decline in people’s well-being. For example, according to Trump, the reason for the decreasing price of soybeans is not his trade policy, but “bad (terrible) Trade Deals with other countries” (Tweet 20 July 2018) negotiated by his predecessors.

In line with the blaming of others as incompetent, Trump rejects all forms of decision-making that limit his room to maneuver. At the international level, this leads to a rejection of “global governance” (White House, 2018) and multilateralism. Although the US government’s critique of multilateral institutions is officially based on the ineffectiveness of relevant institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council (White House, 2017b), it can be argued that Trump also rejects multilateral institutions because they do not fit the requirements of the populist superhero. Multilateralism generally requires a willingness to compromise based on agreed-upon rules that apply equally to all participating states (Finnemore, 2005). Furthermore, those states are said to share certain expectations and understandings (Keohane, 1990: 734). Hence, multilateral forms of decision-making do not allow Trump to present himself as the one and only problem-solver. In contrast, in multilateral settings, Trump is just one head of state among many others.

Consequently, Trump’s rejection of multilateralism goes beyond his predecessors’ dislike of relevant institutions. While some previous US Presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, also disapproved of multilateral institutions, they generally did so only selectively (Finnemore, 2005) and they did not reject the underlying ideas of multilateralism. Instead, they used those multilateral institutions which they considered to be in their favor “to challenge the rules, practices, or missions of existing multilateral institutions” (Morse and Keohane, 2014: 385). Trump, in contrast, does not seek to play off one multilateral institution against another. He rejects the underlying principles of multilateralism because they are incompatible with the populist leadership of a superhero. When looking at Trump’s foreign policy from this perspective, his actions do not seem to be incoherent but rather follow a pattern.

Trump rejects the idea that “within a multilateral arrangement Great Powers cannot do just anything they want. They restrain themselves to conform with the generally accepted rules of the multilateral structure” (Finnemore, 2005: 196). Trump, in contrast, does not consider the US—and hence himself—to be bound by those rules, and he rejects multilateral forms of decision-making because they do not allow him to present himself as the one in command. Accordingly, it is not surprising that Trump abandoned the joint statement of the G7 summit in Canada in June 2018. This joint agreement did not allow him to present himself as the one who led the process. It even allowed others, such as the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, to sit in the driver’s seat and to tell the story from their perspective; something that is incompatible with the presentation of Trump as a superhero.

The same pattern applies to trade agreements and negotiations in that Trump rejects those that do not allow him to appear to be the final decision-maker. Trump withdrew the US from the TPP (January 2017), which his predecessor Obama had negotiated, and instead seeks to carry out bilateral trade negotiations, for example, with Japan. Trump also ended the existing trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, NAFTA, and negotiated a new trade agreement—although multilateral—with these two countries.

All these decisions might be motivated by ideational considerations, but they can also be explained based on the requirements that follow from presenting himself as savior in the sense of a populist superhero. Negotiations with only a few other states, especially bilateral negotiations or what Trump calls “deals,” allow him to at least give the impression that he is in control of the process, for example, by continuously updating the public via Twitter on the state of the negotiations. Although the public cannot verify whether what Trump states on Twitter is correct and whether he is the one who actually sits in the driver’s seat, Twitter allows Trump to present himself as the only person who can negotiate agreements with other states. This becomes apparent when one looks at trade negotiations. Regarding NAFTA, Trump tweeted, for example, “I will renegotiate NAFTA. If I can’t make a great deal, we’re going to tear it up. We’re going to get this economy running again” (20 October 2016). Although the agreement was trilateral in the end, some of the negotiations were bilateral (e.g. between the US and Mexico), giving Trump the chance to present himself as a problem-solver and to threaten to move ahead with a bilateral deal without Canada (Swanson et al., 2018). Regarding domestic politics, Trump similarly claims to be able to make great deals for workers, such as in the case of the Carrier factory in Indianapolis (tweet 30 November 2016).

Based on Weyland’s argument that populist leaders use “economic and social policy as an instrument” to “win and exercise power” (Weyland, 2001: 11), it becomes clear that both protectionist measures, such as tariffs on foreign products, and free-trade agreements, such as the one with Mexico and Canada, can be justified as necessary measures to save the US from unfair practices by these countries and in order to “Make America Great Again.” Thus, although these measures are incoherent at first sight, they serve a purpose.

Conclusion

In this article, I formulated a new concept of populist leadership: the one of a superhero as a savior in times of crisis. This concept is based on the literature on political branding in general and on celebrity politicians in particular because the latter strand of literature is concerned with how political leaders can establish close links with a disinterested electorate. This goal is of great concern to populist leaders, especially those who lack the support of a populist party. By taking the case of Trump as an example, I have shown that we can find empirical evidence for this conception of populist leaders. Its added value is that it allows us to make sense of the policies of populist leaders when such leaders cannot be classified according to the common typologies of populist parties. The concept of the populist superhero explains policy decisions made so that the leader can appear to be leading—even if this results in inconsistent policy choices. While the concept of the populist superhero shares some characteristics with that of the charismatic leadership, it exceeds the latter by allowing for theorizing how the leader performs herself as successful problem-solver who is saving her country and its people in times of crisis. Further research will be needed to show whether what has been demonstrated here based on the example of Trump is also applicable to other cases of populist leaders—such as Bolsonaro in Brazil, Salvini in Italy—and especially to those in which a populist leader is not backed by a populist party, such as Boris Johnson in the UK.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, Bertjan Verbeek, Anja Jakobi, Jutta Joachim, Gabi Schlag, and Jens Taken for their excellent comments and feedback as well as my research assistants Cory Gregg and Alexandra Weber for their support.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Andrea Schneiker

Notes

Author Biography

Andrea Schneiker is Junior Professor of Political Science at the University of Siegen (Germany). She received her PhD in political science from the University of Münster, after which she was an assistant professor at Leibniz University of Hannover and the University of Bremen. She was also visiting scholar at New York University, Radboud University Nijmegen, and the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Her research interests focus on international and transnational governance, on celebrity politicians, on social media, and on peace and conflict studies. She is the author of Humanitarian NGOs, (In)Security and Identity (Routledge 2015) and co-editor (together with Andreas Kruck) of Researching Non-state Actors in International Security (Routledge 2017). Her articles have appeared in, among others, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, Comparative European Politics, Millennium, Security Dialogue, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Contemporary Security Policy, European Policy, and Global Policy.

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