{"id":1749,"date":"2021-01-07T11:34:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T16:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/?p=1749"},"modified":"2021-03-27T11:43:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T16:43:05","slug":"the-rhetoric-of-donald-trump-how-january-6-could-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/the-rhetoric-of-donald-trump-how-january-6-could-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: How January 6 Could Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I wrote this piece on Facebook January 7, 2021 the day after the Capitol was invaded by insurrectionists. I wanted to post my thoughts here as well to document on how this could happen. I write about Donald Trump’s Rhetoric in my book, “Political Rhetoric, Social Media, and American Presidential Campaigns.<\/a>“<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If you\u2019re confused about how yesterday could happen. Let\u2019s take a look at the history of Trump\u2019s words. The bus tape was the first to reveal that he thought he could grab a woman\u2019s private parts and get away with it because they want it. He thinks he can TAKE whatever doesn\u2019t belong to him.<\/div>\n

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Since 2015 when the 2016 election cycle began, he told us repeatedly who he is through his words. HIS WORDS. They were divisive, they were mean, they were dangerous. He blatantly called Russia to action during a news conference to hack Hillary\u2019s emails.<\/div>\n

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In 2020 he began the voter fraud conspiracy theory by smearing the United States Post Office. He put doubt in people\u2019s minds that their vote wouldn\u2019t count.<\/div>\n
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When he lost, he had NO proof of voter fraud. Basic logic wasn\u2019t presented in Trump\u2019s argument. No proof. And, remember, there\u2019s more than just POTUS on a ballot. This would mean local and state election results wouldn\u2019t count either. Again, basic logic is lost.<\/div>\n

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Trump fed his supporters\u2019 already held beliefs through media. He was allowed to spread his message through the media. He called into news programs. His tweets made news. Media spread his message, thinking they would reveal Trump\u2019s unstable ways.<\/div>\n

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No, they did not. The repetition of Trump\u2019s message even when the media reported their absurdity and falsehoods fed the supporters to believe Trump\u2019s Fake News claim. He talked directly to the supporter. Don\u2019t like CNN? Okay, watch OANN or NewsMax. Don\u2019t like Facebook\u2014use Parler.<\/div>\n

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Trump did a great job isolating the voices and collecting like-minded folks to spread the conspiracy theories and lies. Social Media allowed Trump to amplify his message to enable his supporters.<\/div>\n

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Yesterday, Trump led a rally and called his troops to action that he has primed for this moment for four years. Propaganda and Lies targeting their already held beliefs\u2014strengthening them\u2014led these people to storm the Capitol.<\/div>\n
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Words are powerful, coupled with the means to spread them quickly and wide. People share the lies and start to recruit and organize. Hashtags, targeted apps, and let us not forget foreign influences that strengthen all these ingredients to create the perfect storm.<\/div>\n

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We all must be more responsible with our words. We must stand up to leaders who misuse their power. We must stop the mindless social media share. We must become our own fact-checking advocates. We must uphold the power of good journalism.<\/div>\n

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We are so lucky to have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to petition, freedom of religion, and the freedom of assembly. Trump tried to destroy freedom of speech and freedom of the press and wanted to cherry-pick who could assemble and petition.<\/div>\n

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We can\u2019t let the hand-held device we all carry around staring at that\u2019s filled with a gray area of truths and falsehoods destroy our democracy. Media in the hands of Americans is new. And we must start becoming more responsible by believing ideas amplified online live to enable people to take action offline.<\/div>\n

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These people who stormed the Capitol yesterday already believed what they believed. The social media they participate in solidified those already held beliefs and allowed them to recruit and organize quicker than without social media. Remember Egypt in 2011?<\/div>\n

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Calling on all Media, Citizens, Politicians, and Journalists, let’s all protect our five freedoms by learning how to become better digital citizens by listening more online. When you\u2019re online, stop being passive media consumers and become a more active media participant who questions more.<\/div>\n

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I wrote this piece on Facebook January 7, 2021 the day after the Capitol was invaded by insurrectionists. I wanted to post my thoughts here as well to document on how this could happen. I write about Donald Trump’s Rhetoric in my book, “Political Rhetoric, Social Media, and American Presidential Campaigns.“ ——– If you\u2019re confused about how yesterday could happen. Let\u2019s take a look at the history of Trump\u2019s words. The bus tape was the first to reveal that he thought he could grab a woman\u2019s private parts and get away with it because they want it. He thinks he can TAKE whatever doesn\u2019t belong to him. Since 2015 when the 2016 election cycle began, he told us repeatedly who he is through his words. HIS WORDS. They were divisive, they were mean, they were dangerous. He blatantly called Russia to action during a news conference to hack Hillary\u2019s emails. In 2020 he began the voter fraud conspiracy theory by smearing the United States Post Office. He put doubt in people\u2019s minds that their vote wouldn\u2019t count. When he lost, he had NO proof of voter fraud. Basic logic wasn\u2019t presented in Trump\u2019s argument. No proof. And, remember, there\u2019s more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,161,3,36,133,281,18,29,167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-2020","category-donald-trump","category-media-rhetoric","category-politics","category-president-of-the-united-states","category-republicans","category-rhetoric","category-social-media","category-social-media-literacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1752,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mediarhetoric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}