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Abstract
In this article, I explore presidential candidate Trump’s rhetoric concerning America’s role in the world. I argue Trump’s rhetoric broke with the post-World War II consensus of maintaining and extending U.S. globalism. I further assert that Trump modified America’s exceptionalist arguments that served as rhetorical support for this consensus. Trump’s rhetoric suggested the United States’ current path in foreign policy was in a state of chaos that needed to be curtailed. His rejection of this postwar consensus and turn toward an “America First” foreign policy would restore order to the United States’ foreign policy universe. Trump’s rhetoric set to redefine the United States’s role in the 21st century but has serious implications for the leadership position it has taken for the past 75 years.
Notes
[1] Jessica Durando, “Donald Trump’s Big 10 Foreign Policy Pledges—Will He Stick to Them?” USA Today, November 17, 2016. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/11/17/trump-foreign-policy-campaign-promises/93802880/.
[2] The post-World War II consensus consisted of presidents predominantly agreeing that the United States should take up the mantle of world leader. This consensus included a commitment to economic openness, cooperation among democratic governments, engaging multilateral institutions, and a willingness by the United States to take on this increased leadership position. Presidents might have disagreed about the specific means to enforce this consensus, but no president broke from maintaining and extending the U.S. commitment to global leadership. See Tony Smith, Why Wilson Matters: The Origins of American Liberal Internationalism and Its Crisis Today (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017).
[3] Jason A. Edwards, Navigating the Post-Cold War World: President Clinton’s Foreign Policy Rhetoric (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).
[4] See Loren A. Baritz, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us in Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (New York: William Morrow, 1985); Edwards, Navigating the Post-Cold War World, 5–11; Paul T. McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006); Trevor McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1974 (New York: Palgrave, 2003); Siobhan McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy at the End of the Cold War (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Hilde Restad, American Exceptionalism: An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World (New York: Routledge, 2015).
[5] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage, 1975).
[6] McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, 5.
[7] Thomas Paine, Common Sense (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1995).
[8] McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy, 23.
[9] McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, 8.
[10] McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, 8.
[11] McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, 1.
[12] Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 15.
[13] See Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2006); McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam; McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy.
[14] See Baritz, Backfire; Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996); Paul T. McCartney, “American Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy from September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly 119 (2004): 401–26; Deborah L. Madsen, American Exceptionalism (Oxford, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1998); Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963).
[15] McCartney, “American Nationalism,” 401.
[16] H. W. Brands, What America Owes the World: The Struggle for the Soul of American Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), viii.
[17] Denise M. Bostdorff, The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 185–87.
[18] George Washington, “Proclamation 4—Neutrality Between the United States in the War Between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain and the United Netherlands Against France.” American Presidency Project, April 22, 1793. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65475&st=neutrality&st1=.
[19] George Washington, “Farewell Address.” American Presidency Project, September 19. 1796. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65539&st=farewell+address&st1=.
[20] Washington, “Farewell Address.”
[21] Thomas Jefferson, “Inaugural Address.” American Presidency Project, March 4, 1801. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=25803.
[22] John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of a Commission at the Citizens of Washington; On the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence, on the Fourth of July 1821 (Colombia, MO: University of Missouri Fourth of July Archive Collection), 32.
[23] James Monroe, “Seventh Annual Message.” American Presidency Project, December 2, 1823. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=29465.
[24] William Jennings Bryan, “Democratic Nomination Acceptance Address.” American Rhetoric, August 8, 1900. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wjbryanimperialism.htm.
[25] William McKinley, “Inaugural Address.” American Presidency Project, March 4, 1901. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=25828.
[26] McKinley, “Inaugural Address.”
[27] Woodrow Wilson, “Address at the City Hall Auditorium in Pueblo, Colorado.” American Presidency Project, September 25, 1919. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=117400.
[28] Smith, Why Wilson Matters.
[29] Henry Cabot Lodge, “Opening Address and Rebuttal,” The Lodge-Lowell Debate on the League of Nations Held at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, March 19, 1919 (Boston, MA: Old Colony Trust Company, 1919).
[30] Mary E. Stuckey, “The ‘Great Debate’: The Battle over American Neutrality, 1936–41,” in A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume 8: World War II and the Cold War, edited by Martin J. Medhurst (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press), forthcoming.
[31] On building the liberal order see G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011); G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Tony Smith, Why Wilson Matters; see also Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the World Wide Struggle for Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Tony Smith, “Democracy Promotion from Wilson to Obama,” in U.S. Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion: From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, edited by Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch, and Nicholas Brouchet (New York: Routledge, 2013), 13–36.
[32] Harry Truman, “Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey: The Truman Doctrine.” American Presidency Project, March 12, 1947. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12846&st=Greece&st1=.
[33] McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam.
[34] Edwards, Navigating the Post-Cold War World.
[35] See Edwards, Navigating the Post-Cold War World; Jason A. Edwards, “Resetting America’s Role in the World: President Obama’s Rhetoric of (Re)Conciliation and Partnership,” in The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency, edited by Jennifer Mercieca and Justin Vaughn (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2014), 130–50.
[36] For Trump’s rhetoric, I see his use of Americanism as a direct synonym for an exemplarist worldview and his use of globalism as a synonym for interventionism.
[37] Kenneth Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1961).
[38] C. Allen Carter, Kenneth Burke and the Scapegoat Process (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Process, 1996); see also Abhik Roy, “The Construction and Scapegoating of Muslims as the “Other” in Hindu Nationalist Rhetoric,” Southern Communication Journal 69 (2004): 320–32.
[39] Donald Trump, “Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech.” New York Times, April 27, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.html?_=0.
[40] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[41] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[42] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[43] Donald Trump, “Speech Criticizing Hillary Clinton on Foreign Policy.” Time, June 22, 2016. http://time.com/4378270/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-foreign-policy-speech-transcript/.
[44] See Edwards, Navigating the Post-Cold War World; William G. Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking America’s Foreign Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999).
[45] Brands, What America Owes the World?
[46] John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of a Commission at the Citizens of Washington, 32.
[47] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[48] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[49] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[50] Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.”
[51] Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.”
[52] Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.”
[53] Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.”
[54] Donald J. Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.” Politico, July 21, 2016. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-at-rnc-2225974.
[55] Trump, “Speech Criticizing Hillary Clinton on Foreign Policy.”
[56] Trump, “Speech Criticizing Hillary Clinton on Foreign Policy.”
[57] Trump, “Speech Criticizing Hillary Clinton on Foreign Policy.”
[58] Lara M. Brown, “The Greats and the Great Debate: President William J. Clinton’s Use of Presidential Exemplars,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37 (2007): 124–38.
[59] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[60] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[61] George Washington, “Farewell Address,” September 19, 1796, American Presidency Project.
[62] John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of a Commission at the Citizens of Washington; On the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence, on the Fourth of July1821 (Colombia, MO: University of Missouri Fourth of July Archive Collection), 32.
[63] Michael Hostetler, “Henry Cabot Lodge and the Rhetorical Trajectory of American Exceptionalism,” in The Rhetoric of American Exceptionalism, edited by Jason A. Edwards and David Weiss (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2011), 118–31.
[64] Michael Leff, “Topical Invention and Metaphoric Interaction,” Southern Speech Communication Journal 48 (1983): 217.
[65] Martha Cooper, Analyzing Public Discourse (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1989).
[66] Donald Trump, “Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,” Time, June 16, 2015. http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/.
[67] Trump, “Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.”
[68] Joseph Tanfani, “Donald Trump Warns that Syrian Refugees Represent a ‘Great Trojan Horse’ to the U.S.,” Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2016. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-syrian-refugees-debate-20161019-snap-story.html.
[69] Jared Goyette, “A Historically Xenophobic Metaphor Has Been Used by Trump, Limbaugh, Obama—and US?” PRI’s The World, January 29, 2016. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-29/historically-xenophobic-metaphor-used-trump-limbaugh-obama-and-us.
[70] Goyette, “A Historically Xenophobic Metaphor Has Been Used by Trump, Limbaugh, Obama—and US?”
[71] Donald Trump, “Full National Security Speech in Philadelphia,” Independent Sentinel, September 7, 2016. http://www.independentsentinel.com/donald-trumps-full-national-security-speech-in-philadelphia-transcript-video/.
[72] Donald Trump, “Full National Security Speech in Philadelphia.”
[73] Hal Brands, “U.S. Grand Strategy in an Age of Nationalism: Fortress America and Other Alternatives,” Washington Quarterly 40 (2017): 77.
[74] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[75] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[76] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[77] Kathryn M. Olson, “Democratic Enlargement’s Value Hierarchy and Rhetorical Forms: An Analysis of Clinton’s Use of Post-Cold War Symbolic Frame to Justify Military Interventions,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 34 (2004): 307–40.
[78] Tony Smith, America’s Mission.
[79] Robert Manning and Patrick Clawson, “The Clinton Doctrine,” Wall Street Journal, January 29, 1997. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-clinton-doctrine.
[80] George W. Bush, “Inaugural Address,” American Presidency Project, January 20, 2005. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58745.
[81] Eric Patterson, “Obama and Sustainable Democracy Promotion,” International Studies Perspectives 13 (2012): 26–42.
[82] Donald Trump, “Speech on Fighting Terrorism,” http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-terrorism-speech–227025 (accessed August 15, 2016).
[83] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[84] George Friedman, “Donald Trump Has a Coherent, Radical Foreign Policy Doctrine.” Real Clear World, January 20, 2017. http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/01/20/donald_trump_has_a_coherent_radical_foreign_policy_doctrine_112180.html.
[85] President Reagan is the prototypical example of this. For an excellent essay on the subject, see John M. Jones and Robert C. Rowland, “A Covenant Affirming Jeremiad: The Post-Presidential Appeals of Ronald Wilson Reagan,” Communication Studies 56 (2005): 157–74.
[86] Hilde Eliassen Restad, American Exceptionalism: An Idea That Made a Nation and Remade the World (New York: Routledge, 2015).
[87] Noah Bierman and W.J. Hennigan, “Donald Trump Says the U.S. Should Have Taken Iraq’s Oil. Here’s Why That Wasn’t an Option.” Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2016. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-iraq-oil-20160909-snap-story.html.
[88] Trump, “Foreign Policy Speech.”
[89] Hilde Eliassen Restad, “The Unexceptional Nation: Donald Trump and Making America Great Again.” Starting Points, January 23, 2017. http://startingpointsjournal.com/donald-trump-making-america-great-again/.
[90] Donald J. Trump, “Inaugural Address,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural-address (accessed January 20, 2017).
[91] Trump, Inaugural Address.
[92] Council on Foreign Relations, “Trump’s Foreign Policy: Year One.” https://www.cfr.org/timeline/trumps-foreign-policy-year-one (accessed January 2, 2018).
[93] Sarah Westwood, “Trump Says Mexico ‘Absolutely’ Should Pay for the Border Wall After Meeting with Pena Nieto.” Washington Examiner, July 7, 2017. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-says-mexico-absolutely-should-pay-for-border-wall-after-meeting-pena-nieto/article/2627970.
[94] Rosie Gray, “Trump Declines to Affirm NATO’S Article 5.” Atlantic Monthly, May 25, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-declines-to-affirm-natos-article-5/528129/.
[95] Henry Farrell, “Thanks to Trump, Germany Says It Can’t Rely on the United States. What Does That Mean?” Washington Post, May 27, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/28/thanks-to-trump-germany-says-it-cant-rely-on-america-what-does-that-mean/?utm_term=.c4a9e1b8ba22.
[96] Huileng Tran, “Japan Emerging as Leader on Trade Liberalization.” CNBC, July 6, 2017. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/05/japan-emerging-as-a-leader-on-trade-liberalization-says-apec-official-alan-bollard.html.
[97] Greg Myre, “Taking U.S. Politics Beyond ‘The Water’s Edge.” National Public Radio, March 10, 2015. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/10/392095906/taking-u-s-politics-beyond-the-waters-edge.
[98] Pew Research Center, “Key Findings on How Americans View Its Role in the World,” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/05/key-findings-on-how-americans-view-the-u-s-role-in-the-world/ (accessed May 5, 2016).
[99] Robert Grenier, “Donald Trump and the Foreign Policy Elite.” Al-Jazeera, March 15, 2017. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/donald-trump-foreign-policy-elite-170313111704029.html.