Month: October 2024

From Demosthenes to Donald: How President Trump’s Rhetorical Innovation Places Him In Good Company Among Great Western Orators Americans already have a good sense that Donald Trump is a maestro of political rhetoric.  When he burst onto the national stage in 2016, it was in large part owing to a salesmanesque rhetoric, which made it easy to communicate often complex problems and ideas, from the fledgling border crisis to the stupidity of our ruling class, to mass audiences in sound bites that were as informative as they were entertaining.   But that does not capture the entire picture of how Donald Trump has revolutionized political rhetoric, or the way we talk about political things, and how his mastery of oratory has evolved over the years to incorporate new innovations previously unseen in our national lexicon.