King, Pope, Jedi, Superman: How Trump’s Social Media Blurs Political Reality

AndrewRojecki and TanjaAitamurto suggest in a new scholarly commentary that the social-media strategy employed by Donald J. Trump in the White House is progressively more of a spectacle, pop-culture imagery, and political message in a displacement of traditional communications. 

The article emphasizes how posts made by the white house have Trump playing wildly stylised roles such as king, pope, Jedi, Superman, and relies on dramatic visual imagery to describe Trump fighting radical left lunatics, murderers, drug lords, and well-known members of MS-13 gangs. 

The goal, according to the authors, seems not to be to convince the masses but more to energise his base. The characterisation of that base is that it is predominantly white, predominantly working-class, dominated by rural or small-town, culturally conservative, and economically anxious – a group often skeptical of the elite institutions and socially displaced. 

Instead of fostering positive discussions or social cohesion, the scholars state, Trump communicates based on emotion and exaggerated imagery and informal writing to enhance the backing of his supporters. According to the article, this strategy can lead to the undermining of democratic values: focusing on entertainment at the expense of facts, and making politics a spectacle, it can only increase polarisation, and other leaders around the world can emulate such theatrics. 

The reading references a more general, international tendency in which populist leaders use the affordances of social media as a visual medium to make the distinction between governance and performance indistinct. According to the authors, this has serious consequences to information integrity, civic trust, and the operation of liberal democracy.

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