Donald Trump's Rhetoric on Black Lives Matter Movement Discourse In

Home , Blue Lives Matter, Laura Ingraham, Movement for Black Lives

VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND DIPLOMACY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Dainius Karaliūnas

Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Black Lives Matter movement discourse in Mass Media: foxnews.com and cnn.com

Final bachelor thesis World Politics and Economy study programme, state code 6121JX037 Political science study field

Supervisor Dr. Aušra Rimaitė ______(degree, name, surname) (signature) (date)

Defended Prof. Dr. Šarūnas Liekis ______(degree, name, surname) (signature) (date)

Kaunas, 2021 TABLE OF CONTENT

LIST OF TABLES AND SCHEMES ...... 4

SANTRAUKA ...... 5

SUMMARY ...... 6

INTRODUCTION ...... 7

1. POLITICS AND MASS MEDIA – RELATIONSHIP DIMENSION ...... 9

1.1. Defining the concept of political communication ...... 9

1.2. Agenda setting and Framing Theories ...... 10

1.3. Political rhetoric and persuasion ...... 12

2. D. TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION ...... 15

2.1. President D. Trump reforms ...... 15

2.2. Political issues under the Trump’s administration ...... 16

2.3. D. Trump and social media ...... 17

3. BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT ...... 18

3.1. Social movements as Politics ...... 18

3.2. Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives ...... 19

4. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF D. TRUMP RHETORIC ON BLM IN FOXNEWS.COM AND CNN.COM ...... 22

4.1. Research design ...... 22

4.2 D. Trump argumentation on BLM discourse ...... 24

4.2.1. BLM Discourse Frames in Fox News ...... 24

4.2.2. BLM Discourse Frames in CNN ...... 27

4.2.3. Comparative analysis ...... 29

4.3 D. Trump political rhetoric and political decisions on BLM ...... 33

CONCLUSIONS ...... 36

Appendix ...... 46

Appendix 1. Table of categorized headlines from mass media ...... 47

Appendix 2. Rhetorical figures in D. Trump discourse on BLM...... 49

LIST OF TABLES AND SCHEMES

SCHEMES

Scheme 1. Models of mediated communication:...... 9 Scheme 2. Research process (Made by author) ...... 24 Scheme 3. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM in Fox News (Made by author) ...... 24 Scheme 4. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM political supporters in Fox News (Made by author) ...... 26 Scheme 5. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM in CNN (Made by Author) ...... 27

TABLES

Table 1. Three levels of Agenda settings theory (Made by author) ...... 10

Table 2. Elements of rhetorical appeals...... 14

Table 3. Main trade policy (Made by author) ...... 16

Table 4. Number of interviews were given by Trump to news media (Made by author) ...... 17

Table 5. The Black Lives Matter movement: a timeline (Made by author) ...... 20

Table 6. Discourse analysis steps ...... 23

Table 7. Headlines categorized to ‘Hate’ (Made by author) ...... 30

Table 8. Headlines categorized to ‘Violence’ (Made by author) ...... 31

Table 9. Headlines categorized to ‘Humiliation’ (Made by author) ...... 32

Table 10. Headlines categorized to …? (Made by author) ...... 33

Table 11. Ethos and Trump (Made by author) ...... 34

Table 12. Logos and Trump (Made by author)...... 35

Table 13 Pathos and Trump (Made by author) ...... 35

FIGURES

Figure 1. Sample size (Made by author) ...... 22

SANTRAUKA

Karaliūnas D. Donaldo Trumpo retorika ir Black Lives Matter diskurso judėjimas žiniasklaidoje: foxnews.com ir cnn.com. Politikos mokslų bakalauro baigiamasis darbas / vadovė dr. Aušra Rimaitė. Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, Politikos mokslų ir diplomatijos fakultetas, Politologijos katedra, Kaunas, 2021.

Temos aktualumas ir naujumas - Pastaraisiais metais Black Lives Matter judėjimas tapo populiariu socialiniu judėjimu, bandančiu kovoti už rasinę neteisybę ir baltų žmonių viršenybę. Praėjusių metų įvykiai sustiprino protestų ir kovos už teisingumą judėjimą. Donaldas Trumpas turintis tvirtą kalbą ir nuomonę, kuri gali skirtis nuo kitų žmonių, todėltai galima analizuoti jo retorinį požiūrį į Black Lives Matter judėjimą. Tyrimo objektas - D. Tumpo retorika apie Black Lives Matter judėjimą rodomą žiniasklaidos portaluose foxnews.com ir cnn.com susijusi su Black Lives Matter judėjimo įvykiais Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose. Tyrimo tikslas išanalizuoti D. Trumpo retoriką foxnews.com ir cnn.com žiniasklaidos portaluose. Tyrimo tikslui pasiekti buvo sukurti šie tikslai: 1. Atlikti teorinę politikos ir žiniasklaidos sąvokų analizę, retorines strategijas ir įtikinėjimą politinėje kalboje. 2. Atlikti D. Trumpo administravimo ir reformų analizę. 3. Pristatyti Black Lives Matter judėjimo idėjas. 4. Išanalizuoti D. Trumpo naudojamą argumentaciją apie Black Lives Matter judėjimo diskursą pateikiamą žiniasklaidoje. 5. Išanalizuoti D. Trumpo retorinį įtikinėjimą ir politinius sprendimus dėl Black Lives Matter judėjimo. Ginamasis teiginys - D. Trumpo retorika apie Black Lives Matter judėjimo veiksmus žiniasklaidos šaltiniuose foxnews.com ir cnn.com interpretuojama skirtingai. Tyrimo metodai – mokslinės literatūros analizė, antrinė duomenų analizė, diskurso analizė ir retorinė analizė. Išvados - Empirinis tyrimas parodė, kad CNN “įrėmino” prezidentą D. Trumpą dėl jo pareiškimų apie Black Lives Matter judėjimo pabrėždami kalbos formuluotę, todėl skaitytojas galėjo būti nukreipiamas prieš jį. Tuo metu Fox News “nerėmino” D. Trumpo dėl jo naudojamos argumentacijos, tačiau “rėmino” kitus, ši žiniasklaidos svetainė palaikė prezidento pareiškimus ir rengė naujienas taip, kad kiti palaikantys judėjimą atrodytų neigiamai. Daugiausia D. Trumpas teigia, kad BLM yra pavojus, BLM judėjimo protestuotojai yra nusikaltėliai, jis naudoja neapykantos kalbą ir kaltina BLM, kad judėjimas yra politiškai palaikomas. Prezidentas Donaldas Trumpas įvairiuose situacijose naudojo retorines strategijas: “Ethos”, “Pathos”, “Logos”, kad įtikintu savo klausytojus/skaitytojus. D. Trumpo kalboje trūko argumentų. Prezidento kalba buvo labiau emociškai susieta, kad įtikintų jo pasekėjus, jog policijos departamento biudžeto mažinimas ir pinigų leidimas Black Lives Matter judėjimo ženklui yra nepriimtini. Retorinė analizė atskleidė, kad D. Trumpas kuria vienybės jausmą su savo pasekėjais, žiniasklaidos auditorija.

Raktažodžiai: Black Lives Matter judėjimas, Donaldas Trumpas, retorika. 5

SUMMARY

Karaliūnas D. Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Black Lives Matter movement discourse in Mass Media: foxnews.com and cnn.com. Bachelor's Thesis / Supervisor of Political Science dr. Aušra Rimaitė. Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Department of Political Science. Kaunas, 2021

Relevance and novelty – In recent years, Black Lives Matter became popular social movement, that tries to fight for racial injustices and white supremacy. Last year’s events strengthen the movement to protest and fight for justice. Donald Trump have a strong speech and opinion that could differ to other people, thus leading to analyze its rhetorical approach to the Black Lives Matter movement. Research object - D. Trump’s rhetoric about Black Lives Matter movement featured in mass media portals foxnews.com and cnn.com related to events of the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. Research aim is to analyze D. Trump’s rhetoric in foxnews.com and cnn.com news media sites. The following objectives were created to achieve the research aim: 1. To do theoretical analysis of politics and mass media concepts, and rhetorical strategies and persuasion in political speeches. 2. To do analysis of D. Trump administration and reforms. 3. To present Black Lives Matter Movement’s ideas.4. To analyze the Trump’s used argumentation on BLM discourse presented in mass media. 5. To analyze D. Trump’s rhetorical persuasion and political decision on Black Lives Matter movement. Defensive statement - Donald Trump’s rhetoric towards Black Lives Matter movements are interpreted differently between mass media sources foxnews.com and cnn.com. Research methods: scientific literature analysis, secondary data analysis, discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis. Conclusions. Empirical research shows that CNN was framing the president Trump for his statements regarding BLM movement by highlighting the wording of the speech, so the reader could be turned against him. While Fox News was not framing Trump on his used argumentation, but it framed other, and the news media site supported president’s statements and was framing the news that other who support the movement would look negatively. The mainly D. Trump argues that BLM is a danger, BLM movement protesters are criminals, he is using speech of hate and blaming BLM that the movement is politically supported. President Donald Trump was using rhetorical strategies: Ethos, Pathos and Logos in different occasions to persuade his listeners/ readers so that they will be convinced. In D. Trump speech was missing argumentation. Presidents’ speech was more emotionally tied to persuade his followers that cutting budget of police department and spending money on Black Lives Matter sign is unacceptable. Rhetorical analysis revealed that D. Trump is creating the feeling of unity with his followers, mass media auditory. Keywords: Black Lives Matter movement, Donald Trump, rhetoric.

INTRODUCTION

Actuality and novelty of the topic - “With conditions ripe for a movement in response to the right, we examine the mobilizing effect on African-Americans of the threatening political context symbolized by Donald Trump. <…>. Moreover, the threat that Trump represents significantly drives blacks to engage in politics beyond voting even after accounting for alternative explanations. In the end, Trump and the reactionary movement behind him offers a powerful mobilizing force for an African-American population that can no longer look toward the top of the Presidential ticket for inspiration.”1 Analysis of different research performed by various scientists showed that there is no sufficient scientific research on the topic “D. Trump’s rhetoric on Black Lives Matter Movement in mass media”. Arguments on this issue in different publications are mentioned abstractly. Therefore, this topic chosen for bachelor’s thesis, focusing on the D. Trump’s rhetoric on Black Lives Matter movement in mass media, is original and not broadly researched before. Research question – What D. Trump’s rhetoric’s are presented on different mass media sites featuring Black Lives Matter Movement? How Black Lives Matter discourse is framed in mass media? How messages are represented on foxnews.com and cnn.com mass media portals. Whether there are changes on how D. Trump’s rhetoric is interpreted towards Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. The object of the research –D. Trump’s rhetoric about Black Lives Matter movement featured in mass media portals foxnews.com and cnn.com related to events of the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. Aim – To analyze D. Trump’s rhetoric in foxnews.com and cnn.com news media sites. Objectives -

1. The objective of the research is to do theoretical analysis of politics and mass media concepts, and rhetorical strategies and persuasion in political speeches. 2. To present of D. Trump administration and reforms. 3. To present Black Lives Matter Movement’s ideas 4. To analyze the Trump’s used argumentation on BLM discourse presented in mass media. 5. To analyze D. Trump’s rhetorical persuasion and political decision on Black Lives Matter movement. Defensive statement - Donald Trump’s rhetoric towards Black Lives Matter movements are interpreted differently between mass media sources foxnews.com and cnn.com.

1 Towler, C., & Parker, C. (2018). Between Anger and Engagement: Donald Trump and Black America. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 3(1), 219-253. 7

Research methods It will be done theoretical analysis by comparing scientific literature on politics and mass media concepts, and rhetorical strategies and persuasion in political speeches. Secondary data analysis will be suitable for presenting D. Trump and how he approaches Black Lives Matter movement. Discourse analysis of D. Trump rhetoric on Black Lives Matter movement discourse in various mass media articles that involve D. Trump on this issue will be analysed and compared. Also, rhetorical analysis will be used. Research period: January 2020 – December 2020. Sample: 30 CNN and FoxNews. Literature review – These were the most important articles analyzed during the theoretical analysis: Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, Presidential Agenda-Setting of Traditional and Nontraditional News Media, Political Communication (2016)2, Jörg Matthes Framing Politics: An Integrative Approach, American Behavioral Scientist (2011)3, and Castañeda, E., Guignard, Z., Johnson, D. and Faust, A., Black Lives Matter And The Movement For Black Lives (2019)4. Towler argues that the black community are less engaged in the contemporary politics in U.S. and they believe that decision involves in racial antipathy towards African- American communities.5 Another paper argues that D. Trump have been breaching many constitutional rights as a president, by creating Muslim travel ban, or attacking Latinos and Muslims immigrants who showed great dissatisfactions towards Trump’s inauguration, even during the campaign for president D. Trump stated for a complete shutdown for Muslims to enter the United States.6 Structure of academic paper – There will be four main parts involved in my research paper that will cover politics and mass media, that will include framing, political communication and agenda setting. The second part will focus on Trump’s administration and will look how the president is as a political leader, his views and position towards Black Lives Matter movement. The third part will look at the Black Lives Matter movement, social movements and how their started, their idea and position. The last part of the research paper will focus on Fox News and CNN pivot, will look if there any misinterpretations between different occurrences that D. Trump were mentioning Black Lives Movement.

2 Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha (2016) Presidential Agenda-Setting of Traditional and Nontraditional News Media, Political Communication, 33:1, p. 1-20, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2014.958261 3 Jörg Matthes (2011) Framing Politics: An Integrative Approach, American Behavioral Scientist, 56:1, p. 353- 364, DOI: 10.1177/0002764211426324 4 Castañeda, E., Guignard, Z., Johnson, D. and Faust, A., 2019. Black Lives Matter And The Movement For Black Lives. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334688950_Black_Lives_Matter_and_the_Movement_for_Black_Lives 5 Towler, C., & Parker, C. (2018). Between Anger and Engagement: Donald Trump and Black America. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 3(1), 219-253. 6 HAVERCROFT, J., WIENER, A., KUMM, M., & DUNOFF, J. (2018). Editorial: Donald Trump as global constitutional breaching experiment. Global Constitutionalism, 7(1), 1-13. doi:10.1017/S2045381718000035 8

1. POLITICS AND MASS MEDIA – RELATIONSHIP DIMENSION 1.1. Defining the concept of political communication

Communication in politics is a process between ruling actors of a society and the people. The main political communication after World War II was television and press up until digital technologies came in place. Looking at the Scheme 1 top-down model was used that political sources was informing media or journalists and then they would report back to the society, media was able to control or influence the process of communication from political sources. The new horizontal model reduced media role of communication and allowed political sources to communicate between audience. Wide availability of different types of communication has transformed the whole media system, as new media types and channels of communication increased, allowing to grow their popularity and become equal part in the media system, as well as traditional media have been developed their channels of communication in order to keep their audience.

Scheme 1. Models of mediated communication:

(Source: Social media in political communication. 2019) 7

There are three main actors that create political communication. The first one, is a political sphere in general, the state and its political actors, their main role is to communicate their various actions towards the particular issue to the society, with the aim of gaining public favor and authenticity from the society. Secondly, there are various non-state actors with different organizations that include political motivations, and these organizations usually try to communicate their message to political sphere with hopes to gain influence. Lastly, there are media coverage, usually the media

7 Johansson E. 2019. Social media in political communication. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330687537_Social_media_in_political_communication_A_substitute_for_con ventional_media/link/5c4f4a57458515a4c746cd4d/download p. 150. 9 speaks about politics, influencing the society and different political actors that are involved, in most of the countries media usage is free and is not controlled by national governments, different media sites can be led by the same group, that potentially formulates same opinions, policies or arguments across different news sites.8

1.2. Agenda setting and Framing Theories

The agenda setting theory was firstly introduced in 1972 by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, they discovered by surveying one of the state’s citizens in U.S. presidential election in 1968, that showed people believed that the most important are those issues labeled most critical by the mass media. The agenda theory concept is that mass media sets the agenda for what people should care about. This theory supports on two assumptions: the first one is that the media shapes what people see instead of showing real stories to their audience. The second assumption relies on that the more media gives attention to an issue, the more likely audience will consider it as important.9 The original theorists that found out the agenda setting theory in the 1972, discovered seven different development areas that the original theory evolved:

Table 1. Three levels of Agenda settings theory (Made by author)

Level Topic Description The first level of agenda setting Basic agenda setting Basic agenda setting with the effect of the media agenda on people in general agenda with respect to the relevance of issues, political figures, and different considerations.

The second level of agenda setting Attribute agenda setting Attribute agenda setting, the effect of the media agenda on the general population agenda regarding importance of the aspects of these ideas. The third level of agenda setting Network agenda setting Network agenda setting, the effect of the arrange media agenda of aspects or ideas on the arranged public agenda of idea or attribute importance. (Source: The Agenda-Setting Theory in Mass Communication, Posted February 19, 2018)

8 Lilleker, D., 2006. Key Concepts In Political Communication. [online] Google Books. Page 1 Available at: https://books.google.lt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ipMs1- YGfyMC&oi=fnd&pg=PT1&dq=types+of+political+communication&ots=Jo47-iX76S&sig=Rik7joDxOAfkQJN6v- pudTkl47A&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false 9 The Agenda-Setting Theory in Mass Communication, Posted February 19, 2018. Accessed on: 30/11/20 https://online.alvernia.edu/articles/agenda-setting-theory/

Central idea to understanding strength of agenda-setting impacts is the of need for orientation, which features the psychology of each person’s experience with the media. More recently, dual psychological ways connecting media exposure and agenda-setting impacts have been specified. Results of agenda-setting impacts at all three levels for perspectives, conclusions, and conduct. Origins of the media agenda, that range from the predominant social and ideological environment to news sources, the impact of the media on one another, the standards and schedules of reporting, and the person qualities of journalists. Agendamelding (is the construction that authors of the text created by combining variety of agendas to find the best personal community to choose to live in) the manner in which citizens combine civic agendas of the media provided with their own valued referenced communities with their own personal views and experiences that create a better picture of the world.10 M. Eshbaugh-Soha has done a research to see presidential agenda-setting of traditional and nontraditional news media, the analysis consisted of 748 stories on the presidency for 63 days in 2012, from 7 traditional, cable, and online news sources. In the article author explained why media cover the president’s agenda, by stating that the influence of to cover president’s agenda is the profit increase by covering content of political news. Firstly, newly created businesses that focuses on political news content will generate higher exposure of viewer and increased ratings, thus allowing to charge more for advertisements, which increases profit. Secondly, author states that the higher journalistic norms of newsworthy stories represented will have higher impact to viewers, potentially involve conflict and stories are familiar to viewers and presidents are believed to be newsworthy people. Also, author states that, the nontraditional media could be different, in a way that there are less news covered in nontraditional media, as of cable television and it should cover the president more frequently than traditional new sources, while cable news programs must be more focused on the president than other online news. The results of the research showed that if president provides speech during the day it most likely will be covered by news source. As well as, in general agenda- setting impact for president is low because of other stories shared across media, but the highest agenda influence is on cable news. Also, nontraditional news sources provided greater amount of presidential news coverage than traditional media. Although, research showed that policy coverage on news, is prioritized differently and they frame presidency in the context, the example, that one of the new sites covered broadly one of the reforms in much more context than presidential news.11

10 : Maxwell E. McCombs , Donald L. Shaw & David H. Weaver (2014) New Directions in Agenda-Setting Theory and Research, Mass Communication and Society, 17:6, P. 782, DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2014.964871

11 Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha (2016) Presidential Agenda-Setting of Traditional and Nontraditional News Media, Political Communication, 33:1, p. 1-20, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2014.958261

The concept of framing is closely linked to the agenda-setting theory but focuses more deeply by expanding research on the principle of the matters closely instead of a particular topic. The idea of framing theory is that media providers focuses interests on particular events/issues and then places in an appropriate field to get a meaning. The theory looks at different ways how media is organizing and presenting the ideas, events, and topics that they cover.12 Jörg Matthes in his article tries to deliver framing theory as an integrative concept, the idea was that the important actors, journalists, and audience do not just reflect or convey the social and political realities. Framing can have different patterns and interpretations of politics, issues and events, thus the frames are carefully chosen views on variable issues that create an image leading to different approaches and evaluations. The aim was to integrate analysis of the strategies of political actors and media actors with the analysis of their impact on citizens’ opinion formation in order to understand the political framing process on a Swiss direct-democratic campaign regarding the naturalization of immigrants in 2008. The content analysis of all media input was conducted firstly, following by broad content analysis involving all newspapers and TV coverage on the issue for five months, and lastly, there was a two-wave panel survey that asked citizens about their personal opinion and views towards the campaign. In the 2008 campaign there were three different framing ideas were distinguished: the mass naturalization frame was by those that were against of naturalization of immigration, the people final say frame was by those that people should have the final say regarding who to naturalize, and the rule of law frame was mainly by opposition arguing that the procedures of naturalization should be taken together with the rule of law. This was taken into account to look for similarities between the linkages, even thou they focus on different aspects, but the core remained closely linked. The research showed that different solution proposed ended up with a problem between other frames. According to the opposition right, the adaptation of the naturalization of immigration was the problem, and for opponents this was against the rule of law. These frames showed the consistent pattern argumentation favoring certain frame over another.13

1.3. Political rhetoric and persuasion

Rhetoric is the most important part of communication, not only through phrases or words but how can be visually influenced audience at specific time. According to J. Johnson, people experience

12 Framing Theory https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/framing-theory/ Accessed on: 30/11/20

13 Jörg Matthes (2011) Framing Politics: An Integrative Approach, American Behavioral Scientist, 56:1, p. 353- 364, DOI: 10.1177/0002764211426324

12 rhetorical setting all the time by watching a movie, texting, reading the newspaper, tweeting, or listening to a political speech and the social media can be overloaded with information. The author states that “The polyphony of voices on social media, on the other hand, makes it harder to figure out how to respond. Language is powerful, and it encourages audiences to move to action. A political candidate most often wants readers to give money, volunteer, and vote.”14 The politicians tries to use various social media sites to target users where they are more likely to comment, like and share their messages, thus increasing their message flow and audience size. Different rhetorical strategies are used by politicians, news media providers or anyone else to persuade their listeners/readers in order to convince their story. Looking at Aristotle’s concept of rhetoric gives the basis for rhetorical analysis and taking key elements of ethos, logos, and pathos to describe. Ethos is referring to the communicator including their trustworthiness and credibility. Particular examples of persuasive techniques that characterize appeals to the ethos are similitude, deference, expertise, self-criticism and the appeal to the inclination to succeed. Similitude is the technique that looks at similarities between the text or speaker author and their audience, it is best used with a set of pronouns that give an impression of cohesion to the audience. Logos describes the integrity of the selected argument, it emphasizes logic and appearance of rationality allowing speaker/writer to defend their argument with logic, data, claims and evidence. Pathos refers to the writer/speaker audience’s emotions, and depends on persuasion for triggering audiences’ emotions, such as fear, happiness, satisfaction, or sadness. It can be achieved that writer/speaker shows that they understand and can relate to the needs, desires, and values of their audience. We can look at the table 2 below for different examples of persuasive techniques for different rhetorical appeals.15

14 Johnson, J., 2020. Political Rhetoric, Social Media, and American Presidential Campaigns Candidates’ Use of New Media. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345910564_Political_Rhetoric_Social_Media_and_American_Presidential_C ampaigns_Candidates%27_Use_of_New_Media [Accessed 1 May 2021]. P. 3 15 Colin Higgins & Robyn Walker (2012) Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental reports, Accounting Forum, 36:3, 194-208, DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2012.02.003

Table 2. Elements of rhetorical appeals.

(Source: Colin Higgins & Robyn Walker (2012) Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental reports, Accounting Forum, 36:3, P. 198)

The table above shows the persuasive techniques that are used to achieve selected appeal. Nowadays, internet communication is part of everyone live, the usage of internet and availability to reach various content that is only available on the internet is enormous. We can see at the data provided by Eurostat the internet usage in 2019: “As of the beginning of 2019, six out of seven (86 %) individuals in the EU-27, aged between 16 and 74 years, used the internet (at least once within the three months prior to the survey date). This share was at least 90 % in ten countries, with the highest values recorded in Sweden (98 %) and Denmark (97 %). By comparison, around four fifths of all individuals aged 16 to 74 used the internet in Croatia (79 %), while this share was around three quarters in Italy (76 %), Greece (76 %), Portugal (75 %) and Romania (74 %). The lowest share, somewhat above two thirds, was recorded in Bulgaria (68 %).”16 According to A. Baran, politician have started to see how big the influence can be of using the internet for spreading their opinions and persuasion of public. According to the author people tend to talk about statements that are indicating emotions compared to those that are issued to public media, and this allows to give the indicating emotions new life. Online media, like Facebook or Twitter, is capable to create a news item that could be discussed locally or globally from a single Facebook post or Twitter tweet, for example, the Arab Spring or the Occupy Wall Street movement. The politicians know that there is a relation between social media and regular media and try to adjust their statements so there would be less emphasis from the media.17

16 Ec.europa.eu. 2020. Digital economy and society statistics - households and individuals - Statistics Explained. [online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php?title=Digital_economy_and_society_statistics_-_households_and_individuals#Internet_usage [Accessed 1 May 2021]. 17 Anneli Baran (2016) Political Rhetoric and Publicity in the Digital Age, Traditiones, 45:3, 27-42, DOI: 10.3985/Traditio2016450303. P. 28 14

2. D. TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION 2.1. President D. Trump reforms

“The Trump presidency has been widely regarded as presaging the end of liberal international order even if this is an order from which the US has long benefited. That contradiction might be seen to follow predictably from a chaotic government and a capricious and intellectually shallow president.”18 The author with these words compares Obama’s and Trump’s presidencies as how it will change. D. Trump has been mentioned as he brought up Trumpism ideology that argued negatively free trade and immigration, had dissatisfaction of U.S. intervention in other states, supported nationalism instead of globalization. 19 President reforms to reduce illegal immigration and change the laws in order to prevent it, brought zero-tolerance policy that was harder to get asylum in the country. In 2018 there was a government shutdown that was forced by D. Trump to get funding and start building wall between U.S. and Mexico that he believed would be reducing illegal immigrant and border control would be increased. Also, various law enforcement agencies efficiency was increased to target undocumented immigrants for deportation to their home countries. The well-known Muslim travel ban from several countries was an unconstitutional policy that was targeted for people with certain religion, in presidents defense he argued that the policy will increase countries security from potential terrorist attacks, even thou there was no historical background of terrorists on those countries that were included in the policy. President’s statements regarding various immigration policies been criticized as racist or xenophobic, he believed that illegal immigrants who came to the country brought crime and drugs and called Mexican immigrants’ “rapists”20. More recently, president banned traveling from China, where the COVID-19 was firstly detected, he claimed that the ban was beneficial and saved many lived.21

18 James Sperling and Mark Webber (2019) Trump’s foreign policy and NATO: Exit and voice, Review of International Studies 45:3, p. 511

19 Seib, G., 2020. Separating Donald Trump From Trumpism. [online] WSJ. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-donald-trump-from-trumpism-1470678372 [Accessed 6 December 2020].

20 Reilly, K., 2020. Here Are All The Times Donald Trump Insulted Mexico. [online] Time. Available at: https://time.com/4473972/donald-trump-mexico-meeting-insult/ [Accessed 6 December 2020].

21 Bush, D., 2019. Where President Trump Stands On The Issues In 2020. [online] PBS NewsHour. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-president-trump-stands-on-the-issues-in-2020 [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 15

2.2. Political issues under the Trump’s administration

On the economic standpoint D. Trump’s administration worked on removing regulations that were focused in agricultural, energy and financial sectors, arguing that removed regulation will stimulate economic growth. Manufacturing sector jobs rapidly increased, but later the increase slowed down after first year in office. The coal industry was holding still during Trump’s office as oppose to B. Obama the sector was shedding, still there was no significant increase, as the energy producing companies move away from coal. Trade policy approach during his presidency was to combat trade deficits and wanted to get new trade deals with countries main trade partners. Tariffs were placed on Chinese imported goods, including raw materials such as steel and aluminum.22 It showed that president wanted to increase economic growth in manufacturing sector and go towards protectionism.

Table 3. Main trade policy (Made by author)

Policy

Environmental Foreign Economic

Foreign policy approach was to prioritize U.S. economic interests abroad instead of playing leadership role in global affairs that do not benefit the country. Trump has ordered to NATO member states to increase expenditure on their defense and supporting authoritarian leaders from other countries, for example, Vladimir Putin Russian President, Rodrigo Duterte Philippines President or Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Egyptian President.23 Presidents views towards Middle East region in particularly on Iran nuclear deal and killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader in a drone strike attack and Iran counterattacked with missile strike to facilities of U.S. troops that were located in Iraq with tensions reaching to a high point.24 These different approaches made by D. Trump in foreign

22 Bush, D., 2020. Where President Trump Stands On The Issues In 2020. [online] PBS NewsHour. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-president-trump-stands-on-the-issues-in-2020 [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 23 Calamur, K., 2018. Nine Notorious Dictators, Nine Shout-Outs From Donald Trump. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/trump-xi-jinping-dictators/554810/ [Accessed 6 December 2020].

24 Bush, D., 2020. Where President Trump Stands On The Issues In 2020. [online] PBS NewsHour. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-president-trump-stands-on-the-issues-in-2020 [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 16 affairs shows that the leader is putting his country to first instead of others and showing a real power to others, like launching a drone attack on one of the Iranian leaders. Environmental policies in Trump’s administration during his cadency in White House was controversial. U.S. have left Paris Climate Agreement, stating that it had negative impact towards economy and stalling fossil fuel energy production. Another action was to remove the Clean Power Plan which was set to regulate and limit the amount of carbon pollution on existing and new energy power plants can produce and it promoted states to move to renewable energy resources. According to Trump’s administration the plan was unnecessary on the countries energy sector.25

2.3. D. Trump and social media

The president Donald Trump enjoyed to use Twitter platform a lot, in the article from 2020 by CNN, stated that Trump has tweeted more than 25,000 times with an average of 18 times per day, when took the office back in January 2017.26 The Department of Justice in one court case argued that presidents tweets were official statements of the President of United States and in another one they argued that tweets were official policy statements and his Twitter account is for personal use and do not showing off state power.27 The president Trump was selective to which traditional media give interviews, a table below with data collected from The New Yorker article is showing the amount of interviews with different traditional media president had till 2019.

Table 4. Number of interviews were given by Trump to news media (Made by author)

News media company Amount of time interviews were given NBC 5 CNN 0 Fox News 44 CBS 5 (Source: The making of the Fox News White House, Posted March 11, 2019) 28

25 Bush, D., 2018. All Of The Ways Scott Pruitt Changed Energy Policy. [online] PBS NewsHour. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/all-of-the-ways-embattled-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-has-changed-energy-policy [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 26 Vazquez, M., Hickey, C., Krishnakumar, P. and Boschma, J., 2020. Donald Trump's presidency by the numbers. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/18/politics/trump-presidency-by-the-numbers/index.html [Accessed 1 May 2021]. 27 Laird, L., 2017. DOJ says Trump's tweets are official presidential statements. [online] ABA Journal. Available at: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trumps_tweets_are_official_presidential_statements [Accessed 1 May 2021]. 28 Mayer, J., 2019. The Making of the Fox News White House. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house [Accessed 1 May 2021]. 17

After the riot on 6 January 2021, where Trump supporters stormed in the U.S. Capitol where 5 people died including 1 Capitol police officer and 4 rioters. Rioters wanted to suspend calculation of electoral college ballots, that would potentially consolidate Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump on presidential elections.29 Majority of the social media sites decided to ban President’s activity online that could cause a possible further encouragement of violence by his actions online, such social media platforms as, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch banned Donald Trump’s appearance on those social media platforms indefinitely.30

3. BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT 3.1. Social movements as Politics

“Social movements are instances of collective action which vary in degrees of formal organization, scale of mobilization and forms of action. Even if focused on a single issue they often embody a philosophical alternative to established society and they are political because they make demands upon the state. As expressions of protest they flourish where the state is moderate and inconsistent in its use of repression.”31 Social movements form a group of people that work together for sharing same values and ideas on organizational level. Social movements can have impact on the political processes in the country, Charles Tilly and Lesley Wood gives good example of how from developed protest of rising frustrations and inequality can have an availability to bring down dictator in Egypt in 2011. The protest were successful, as the former president of Egypt with his sons was arrested and put on trial, political prisoners were released, the dominant political party was eliminated and a referendum was held for the next election. People were willing to gather, protest in order to achieve changes in the government. As the authors later says, “by the twenty-first century, people all over the world recognized the term “social movement” as a clarion call, as a counterweight to oppressive power, as a summons to popular action against a wide range of injustices.”32

29 Evelyn, K., 2021. Capitol attack: the five people who died. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/capitol-attack-police-officer-five-deaths [Accessed 10 May 2021]. 30 Lima, C., 2021. Social media: Where Trump is welcome — and where he's still banned. [online] POLITICO. Available at: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/05/where-trump-can-and-cant-post-on-social-media-facebook- twitter-485343 [Accessed 10 May 2021]. 31 : Christopher A. Rootes (1997) Social movements and politics, African Studies, 56:1, 67-95, DOI: 10.1080/00020189708707861 32 Tilly, C., Castañeda, E. and J. Wood, L., 2020. Social Movements, 1768 - 2018. [online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.lt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CWGlDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT10&dq=social+movements+1768% E2%80%932018+book&ots=ztw-1IKS0i&sig=Q9k3L7KcWJW_0EP1Nony- lbEcxM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 5 [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 18

The authors argue that social movements combine three kinds of claims: program, identity and standing. Program claims include support for actions by the criteria that the movement claims, identity claims involves that social movement groups constitute that they are unified force to be considered with. Standing claims looks at similarities and differences between other political actors in the regime.33

3.2. Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) started in 2013 after killing of unarmed Trayvon Martin, a black teenager in Florida state. The killing happened on February, 2012, the boy went to the store to buy snacks, when the Neighborhood Watch volunteer reported to the police about suspicious behavior from the boy. After a chase between volunteer and the Trayvon was shot in the chest and died on the scene. The shooter was not arrested on the scene and only brought to custody after some weeks passed, then he was charged for second degree murder and manslaughter. After nearly one and half year later the shooter was not found guilty of the killing a young man, because of the juror’s decision to ignore the straight facts regarding the shooter they still did not believed that he was guilty, many people were shocked of the decision and went to the streets to protest, this partially created a Black Lives Matter movement.34 “#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”35 The movement is not only based about raising awareness of police brutality against Black men, but against all types of violence against black persons, despite their sexual orientation and identity or gender. For example, BLM movement has brought more attention regarding high suicide and

33 Tilly, C., Castañeda, E. and J. Wood, L., 2020. Social Movements, 1768 - 2018. [online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.lt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CWGlDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT10&dq=social+movements+1768% E2%80%932018+book&ots=ztw-1IKS0i&sig=Q9k3L7KcWJW_0EP1Nony- lbEcxM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 16 [Accessed 6 December 2020]. 34 Castañeda, E., Guignard, Z., Johnson, D. and Faust, A., 2019. Black Lives Matter And The Movement For Black Lives. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334688950_Black_Lives_Matter_and_the_Movement_for_Black_Lives p. 240-241 35 BLM. 2020. “Black Lives Matter – About”: Black Lives Matter. Available at: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/ [Accessed on: 6 December 2020]. 19 homicide rates of transgender people. Also, the supporters of the movement has been arguing that the Black Lives Matter, can be accepted of all Black lives, without excluding any sexual orientation.36

Table 5. The Black Lives Matter movement: a timeline (Made by author)

No. Date Events BLM slogans and goals 1. 201337 A young and innocent African-American #BlackLivesMatter boy Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman. 2. 201438 A 18 years old black man Michael Brown “Hands up, don’t shoot” was shot dead by a police officer Darren Wilson. 3. 201539 Walter L. Scott, Sandra Bland and Samuel The Black Lives Matter movement helped DuBose were killed by law enforcement to alert other of those events and encourage officers during the year. to take actions. 4. 201640 Death of Alton Sterling and Philando “no justice, no peace” Castile. 5. 201741 Black History Month. In one of the state of U.S. art exhibition was launched showing various work done by black artists. 6. 201842 5 years of movement existent. Highlight deaths of Black people who have been killed by the police officers. 7. 201943 Famous American rapper known by the #Free21Savage name ’21 Savage’ have been detained by US ICE department. 8. 202044 Killing of George Floyd and Breonna “I can’t breathe” #DefundThePolice Taylor by the law enforcement officers. #SayHerName

36 Castañeda, E., Guignard, Z., Johnson, D. and Faust, A., 2019. Black Lives Matter And The Movement For Black Lives. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334688950_Black_Lives_Matter_and_the_Movement_for_Black_Lives p. 245 37 BLM. 2021. “Black Lives Matter –Herstory”: Black Lives Matter. Available at: https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/ [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 38 Pearce, M., 2014. Protesters use hands-up gesture defiantly after Michael Brown shooting. [online] Los Angeles Times. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hands-up-20140813-story.html [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 39 Rufin II, H., 2015. Black Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement •. [online] Blackpast.org. Available at: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-lives-matter-growth-new-social-justice- movement/ [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 40 ABC News. 2016. Timeline: The Black Lives Matter movement. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-14/black-lives-matter-timeline/7585856?nw=0 [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 41 Turan, C., 2021. A timeline of the Black Lives Matter movement. [online] Cosmopolitan. Available at: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a32728194/black-lives-matter-timeline-movement/ [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 42 Turan, C., 2021. A timeline of the Black Lives Matter movement. [online] Cosmopolitan. Available at: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a32728194/black-lives-matter-timeline-movement/ [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 43 BLM. 2021. “Black Lives Matter –Global Actions”: Black Lives Matter. Available at: https://blacklivesmatter.com/global-actions/ [Accessed on: 2 May 2021] 44 BLM. 2021. “Black Lives Matter –News”: Black Lives Matter. Available at: https://blacklivesmatter.com/news/page/6/ [Accessed on: 2 May 2021] 20

The Movement for Black Lives was created for Black organizations to discuss key actions that needs to be taken in order to achieve racial equality in various governmental sectors in the country. According to The Movement for Black Lives website page to achieve its goals it requires, “in response to the sustained and increasingly visible violence against Black communities in the U.S. and globally, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country came together in 2015 with renewed energy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda. We are a collective that centers, and is led by and rooted in, Black communities. And we recognize our shared struggle with all oppressed people: collective liberation will be a product of all of our work.”45 The Movement for Black Lives set an action plan for the 5 upcoming years that will be working on: mass engagement; by providing Black people with education, trainings, and cultural events, local power; will establish self-determined Black communities that the Black people have power in localities, building across movement strategy; will maintain analysis that focuses on anti-Black racism, leadership development; will train 50,000 Black organizers to fit in different roles that are needed in order to achieve their 5 year plan, electoral strategy; will strategically look for clear electoral victories that would prevent the rise of authoritarian rule and white nationalist.46 Critics have argued that the BLM movement increased racial divisions in the country, but BLM society counters by saying that community speaks about the issues that non-Blacks are unaware of. People came up with their own hashtag #AllLivesMatter because they feel left out when the statements of Black Lives Matter is mentioned. Also, the #BlueLivesMatter hashtag gained a lot of exposure after the killing of police officers on July 7, 2016, when sniper killed 5 police officers at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. Other people blamed the BLM community for affecting these shooters. The BLM movement, responded by saying that all lives matter and the Black people are targeted differently by aggressive police officers, and receive poor justice.47

45 The Movement for Black Lives. 2020. “The Movement for Black Lives – Vision for Black Lives” M4BL. Available at: https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/ [Accessed on: 6 December 2020] 46 The Movement for Black Lives. 2020. “The Movement for Black Lives – Black Power Rising” M4BL. Available at: https://m4bl.org/black-power-rising/ [Accessed on: 6 December 2020] 47 Castañeda, E., Guignard, Z., Johnson, D. and Faust, A., 2019. Black Lives Matter And The Movement For Black Lives. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334688950_Black_Lives_Matter_and_the_Movement_for_Black_Lives p. 246 21

4. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF D. TRUMP RHETORIC ON BLM IN FOXNEWS.COM AND CNN.COM 4.1. Research design

Data selection: Sample selection was done manually by reading articles during the year 2020 that contained keyword and the context of the articles were relevant to the topic. 18 from 1213 articles were selected that matched criteria from CNN news site and 12 articles were selected from 100 available articles while search engine showed that there were 9800 articles related to the keyword, thus limiting sample selection. The sample size for this empirical analysis consists of 30 articles in total (18 from CNN News and 12 from Fox News). Keyword: Donald Trump Black Lives Matter Criteria: articles that contained keyword and were relevant to the topic. Research period: 01/01/2020 – 31/12/2020

Figure 1. Sample size (Made by author)

0 Sample size

CNN Fox News Total

“Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis of language 'beyond the sentence'. This contrasts with types of analysis more typical of modern linguistics, which are chiefly concerned with the study of grammar: the study of smaller bits of language, such as sounds (phonetics and phonology), parts of words (morphology), meaning (semantics), and the order of words in sentences (syntax). Discourse analysts study larger chunks of language as they flow together.”48

48 Linguistic Society of America “Discourse Analysis – What Speakers Do in Conversation” https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/discourse-analysis-what-speakers-do-conversation [Accessed on: 02 May 2021]

“Conducting discourse analysis means examining how language functions and how meaning is created in different social contexts. It can be applied to any instance of written or oral language, as well as non-verbal aspects of communication such as tone and gestures.”49 Conducting discourse analysis can be divided into 10 parts:

Table 6. Discourse analysis steps

1. Establishing the context

2. Preparing material for analysis

3. Exploring the production process

4. Coding material

5. Examining the structure of the text

6. Collecting and examining discursive statements

7. Identifying cultural references

8. Identifying linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms

9. Interpret the data

10. Presenting findings

(Source: How to Do a Discourse Analysis. Posted on March 13, 2013) 50

Political discourse is a study of text and talk of politicians and political institutions, for example, prime minister and president and other parliaments, as well as, parliament or political parties, at local, national, or international level. It refers to being all actors involved in a political process from politician and organization to society. Looking at political text and statements and their essence of activities and practices and not only looking on the character of its participants. The categorization of the groups and people should be understood that the member can be involved in political discourse if they are political actors and is taking part in political actions. Understanding this criterion allows us to distinguish us if the context of analysis is political discourse or not.51

49 Luo, A., 2019. Discourse Analysis | A Step-by-Step Guide with Examples. [online] Scribbr. Available at: https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/discourse-analysis/ [Accessed 2 May 2021].] 50 Schneider, F., 2013. How to Do a Discourse Analysis - PoliticsEastAsia.com. [online] PoliticsEastAsia.com. Available at: http://www.politicseastasia.com/studying/how-to-do-a-discourse-analysis/ [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 51 van Dijk, T., 1997. What is Political Discourse Analysis?. Political Linguistics, 11, pp.11-52. 23

Research process is presented in Scheme No. 2.

Scheme 2. Research process (Made by author)

Scientific Discourse literature Date collection Date analysis analysis analysis

Discourse Comaparative Discourse Rhetorical content analysis analysis context analysis analysis argumentation

4.2 D. Trump argumentation on BLM discourse 4.2.1. BLM Discourse Frames in Fox News

In generally, Fox News supports President Donald Trump’s views and ideas, and mostly interprets his rhetoric towards Black Lives Matter movement positively.

Scheme 3. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM in Fox News (Made by author)

BLM as danger

No respect to BLM a symptom of national flag and left-wing cultural A symbol of hate anthem revolution

In one of the articles the president refers to Black Lives Matter a ‘Marxist’ group, adding “Black Lives Matter, when did it start? Marching down the street screaming 'pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.' They were talking about policemen and women,”52 and “All of sudden, this is taking on this air of great respectability. Well, how does it start there? It’s a Marxist group. It’s a Marxist group that

52 Nelson, J., 2020. Trump rips athletes kneeling for anthem, calls Black Lives Matter a 'Marxist group'. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-anthem-kneeling-black-lives-matter-marxist [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 24 is not looking for good things for our country and now I see these leagues all kneeling down.”53 Fox News added other comment from state lawmaker that threatened one of the NBA’s club with tax penalties if their players take a knee during a national anthem, Trump found this disrespectful to national flag and anthem. In another article Trump stated that Black Lives Matter movement, were symptoms of a “left-wing cultural revolution” that was threatening to “overthrow the American Revolution.”54 New York Mayor decided to paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street in Manhattan by the Trump Tower and the president as fox news said ‘blasted’ such decision and interpreted that the city should instead spend money on the New York Police Department. “This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, ‘Pigs in a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon,’” he continued. “Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won’t let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street.”55 Leaving out that, the president Trump mentioned that Black Lives Matter is a ‘symbol of hate’. Shows that Fox News do not critically reflects towards presidents’ comments regarding Black Lives Matter Movement. One of the articles from Fox News, the mass media interpreted that in some cases protesters were separated leaving Trump supporters and counter protesters that were carrying signs and banners with antifa and Black Lives Matters slogans, allowing to understand that they were marching together. Also, quoting “BLM-Antifa thugs” while reporting on arrest where man was punched from behind.56 In one of the articles regarding Goodyear and MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats and other political slogans, like ‘Blue Lives Matter’ were banned on the workplace. Donald Trump said this “Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES—They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less!”57 Goodyear explained that they ask workers resist on expressing support of political

53 Nelson, J., 2020. Trump rips athletes kneeling for anthem, calls Black Lives Matter a 'Marxist group'. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-anthem-kneeling-black-lives-matter-marxist [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 54 Re, G., 2020. Trump, in fiery Mount Rushmore address, decries rise of 'far-left fascism,' calls on Americans to rise up. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-in-fiery-mount-rushmore-address- decries-rise-of-far-left-fascism-calls-on-americans-to-rise-up [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 55 Singman, B., 2020. Trump blasts de Blasio for plans to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ in front of Trump Tower. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-blasts-de-blasio-for-plans-to-paint-black- lives-matter-in-front-of-trump-tower [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 56 Ruiz, M., 2020. Trump blasts 'ANTIFA SCUM,' media after violence mars MAGA marches in DC. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/violence-maga-march-dc-antifa-blm-counterprotesters [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 57 Singman, B., 2020. White House urges Goodyear to 'clarify their policy,' calls Blue Lives Matter an 'equity issue'. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-goodyear-policy-blue-lives- matter-equity-issue [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 25 campaigning for any candidate. After, further White House comments towards the issue, that they do support police.58

Scheme 4. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM political supporters in Fox News (Made by author)

BLM political supporters

Bullying BLM Democrats supporters gone crazy

Media shows that “Defund the Police” movement is mainly active because of groups like Black Lives Matter that it is not necessarily to defund police directly, but instead address systemic problems in policing in America and increase spending to community needs. While Democrats in Congress released their own plan on police accountability and according to news media site “Trump has opposed the plan and characterized Democrats as having “gone CRAZY!””.59 One of the articles media interpreted D. Trump’s tweet of one of the senators marching together with Black Lives Matter group creating a feeling that supporting this movement is joke and also, taunts senator of his actions. 60 Media focuses on delivering a message that Trump is annoyed by city protests and that they refuse help from the National Guard, by allowing to understand that mayor do not accept help, while Trump tweet that issues could be solved quickly with authorities, mayor just have to ask.61

58 Singman, B., 2020. White House urges Goodyear to 'clarify their policy,' calls Blue Lives Matter an 'equity issue'. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-goodyear-policy-blue-lives- matter-equity-issue [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 59 O'Reilly, A., 2020. Trump vows executive order to address law enforcement use of force, but slams 'Defund The Police' movement. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-vows-to-sign-executive- order-to-address-law-enforcement-use-of-force-but-slams-defund-the-police-movement [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 60 Singman, B., 2020. Trump mocks Romney for marching with protesters to White House: ‘What a guy’. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-mocks-romney-for-marching-with-protesters-to- white-house-what-a-guy [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 61 Blitzer, R., 2020. Trump rails against 'incompetent' Portland mayor, says 'backlash' involving supporters not 'unexpected'. [online] Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-portland-mayor-tweets- backlash-supporters [Accessed 24 April 2021]. 26

4.2.2. BLM Discourse Frames in CNN

The CNN media site interprets Trump words and looks for bad mentions that could be criticized, for example, “Trump was calling the words “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate””.62 The use of words to create emotion that Trump was fumed of the idea that city mayor allowed paintings of ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the streets.63 Scheme 5. Donald Trump rhetoric on BLM in CNN (Made by Author)

BLM as Criminals

Black Lives Marxist group Symbol of hate Very bad people Matter initiated Thugs killings

In one of the articles CNN news gathers additional information check if president Trumps claims are correct, allowing readers to know if the facts are true or false on what presidents is saying.64 Interpretation by the news media that president Trump transmits different messages on race to different audiences, checks facts and distinguishes certain words or phrases that could be sensitive to the reader.65 CNN highlights the president Trumps phrases and words to show that that he understands Black Lives Matter movement and Confederate flags as a “freedom of speech”.66 News media points out that Trumps actions are leaning to the “Blue Lives Matter” more than black ones, while George Floyds death was a work to build a support between African American voters, the picture that CNN is painting with Trump’s phrase “when looting starts, the shooting starts”

62 Holmes, K. and Liptak, K., 2020. Trump calls Black Lives Matter a 'symbol of hate' as he digs in on race. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/donald-trump-black-lives-matter-confederate- race/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 63 Holmes, K. and Liptak, K., 2020. Trump calls Black Lives Matter a 'symbol of hate' as he digs in on race. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/donald-trump-black-lives-matter-confederate- race/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 64Dale, D., 2020. Fact check: Trump shares White nationalist's video in retweet falsely blaming Black Lives Matter for 2019 subway assault. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/31/politics/fact-check-trump- subway-assault-black-lives-matter-antifa/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 65 Vazquez, M., 2020. Trump unveils 'Platinum Plan' for Black Americans. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/donald-trump-black-empowerment-platinum-plan/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 66 Vazquez, M., 2020. Trump leans into racist rhetoric and downplays police violence against Black Americans. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/politics/donald-trump-police-brutality/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 27 is explained as shocking and support of police brutality allowing to understand that protesters could get shot.67 The CNN reported that during one of the Trump rallies there was a group of protesters that chanted ‘Black Lives Matter’ and later during the rally president said that the group “very bad people” and called them “thugs” allowing to understand that Black Lives Matter movement supports bad people only.68 The news are focused on Trumps phrases and comments with interpretations and explanations by the media site that gives an understanding that president selects specific issues that could be widely discussed and not that important while leaving important untouched and silenced.69 In 2016 news media site interpreted that Black Lives Matter according to Trump initiated police officer killings and that he might direct to investigate this civil right group. Interpretation gives a further explanation and understanding that Trump believes that Black Lives Matter initiated killings.70 The CNN covered that D. Trump banned federal agencies training that were focused on “white privilege” and “critical race theory” together adding that Trump commented before on Black Lives Matter as “hate of speech” such move were for reelection campaign.71 News media site picked lines from Trump’s interview and used word as “most reckless” allowing to understand that it will be mostly likely shocking, also, each line has its own comments disapproving or approving what Trump said.72 The article shows Donald Trump’s comments regarding Goodyear policies while the issue was that employees were not allowed to wear MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats at work, later Trump compared Black Lives Matter to Marxist group, saying that company was “playing politics”.73

67Liptak, K., 2020. Trump stokes tensions over George Floyd protests before calling for calm. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/29/politics/donald-trump-george-floyd-protests/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 68 Sanchez, R. and Chavez, N., 2020. Trump calls protesters 'thugs' despite peaceful demonstrations in Tulsa and much of the US. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/20/us/nationwide-protests- saturday/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 69 Liptak, K., 2020. Trump's law-and-order mantra goes missing in wake of domestic terror plot against Democratic governor. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/09/politics/trump-gretchen-whitmer- law-and-order/index.html [Accessed 2 May 2021]. 70 Diamond, J., 2016. Trump: BLM has helped instigate police killings. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/18/politics/donald-trump-black-lives-matter/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 71 Kelly, C., 2020. Trump bars 'propaganda' training sessions on race in latest overture to his base. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/04/politics/trump-administration-memo-race-training-ban/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 72 Cillizza, C., 2020. Analysis: The 35 most reckless lines from Donald Trump's interview with Laura Ingraham. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/01/politics/laura-ingraham-donald-trump-foxnews/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 73 Klein, B., 2020. Trump 'cancels' Goodyear tires as he campaigns against 'cancel culture'. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/trump-goodyear-cancel-culture/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 28

The CNN compared Trump reactions on two protests, while the first one was positively evaluated, the other one was different, certain phrases were compared to the Civil Right era and interpreted that protesters were to cause only trouble after George Floyd killing.74

4.2.3. Comparative analysis

Comparing both mass media sites, we can see that foxnews.com were not commenting D. Trump’s rhetoric regarding Black Lives Matter and sometimes were biased towards presidents’ views and showed support towards him, while cnn.com were more unbiased, mocking and commenting on D. Trump’s rhetoric and giving information that disproves president claims. In addition, looking at the table below we can see that media covers president’s rhetoric differently. CNN tries to emphasize rhetoric for reader to understand that D. Trump is not support Black Lives Matter movement and he is against it, while Fox News expresses president for readers that the movement is supposed to be not supported, because according to them the movement is fascistic and Marxist. In other articles, CNN news emphasizes that Trump is compares Black Lives Matter movement to terrorists and symbol of hate by quoting headlines specific words from president statements, so the reader could judge the article and its content based on the headline that the Trump is considering the movement from not what it is. On the other hand, Fox News is doing oppositely to CNN, they support Trump’s statements and agrees on all of them, and the Fox News media site provides headlines of the articles for readers to understand that those that support the movement are incompetent and ironizes on their actions. There were a few articles from both news media sites that were covering the same event but interpreted differently. On 1st of July 2020 Fox News published an article with title called: “Trump blasts de Blasio for plans to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ in front of Trump Tower” article contained information that president D. Trump expressed annoyance on mayor’s decision to paint the sign and emphasized to spend this money on police department. Another part of the text was mayor’s statements on Black Lives Matter issue, and that president is not showing respect to it. At the same day CNN published an article called: “Trump calls Black Lives Matter a ‘symbol of hate’ as he digs in on race” explaining that various poll show that president is voters not happy on how he handles race relations, as well as other information that Trump is focusing statues and monuments and later in the text there was a D. Trump’s statement towards the mayors decision to paint Black Lives Matter

74 Obeidallah, D., 2020. Trump's tolerance for protesters goes only as far as his base. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/31/opinions/protests-trump-george-floyd-obeidallah/index.html [Accessed 15 March 2021]. 29 in front of Trump Tower, later in the text media showed that president calls the movement a ‘symbol of hate’ and is saying that the police could be blocking the work. Looking at those articles from different media sites, we can see that Fox News and CNN frames D. Trump differently, while Fox News frames others but not president, while CNN frames only president and his statements. I have categorized headlines of the articles from CNN and Fox News sites in 4 different categories thus allowed me to compare in between which category is more used and which news media site covers more articles in different categories. In the table below, are all headlines containing hate and negativity, we can see in subcategories which media is dominant, in this situation is CNN having 4 articles of hate in two subcategories named ‘Thugs’ and ‘Symbol of hate’ while Fox News have articles in BLM as far-left fascism or Marxist group containing 2 articles.

Table 7. Headlines categorized to ‘Hate’ (Made by author)

CNN Fox News Thugs Trump calls protesters ‘thugs’ despite peaceful demonstrations in Tulsa and much of the US – Published on May 27 2020 Trump stokes tensions over George Floyd protests before calling for calm – Published on May 29 2020 Symbol of hate June 6 George Floyd protest news – Published on June 6 2020 Trump calls Black Lives Matter a ‘symbol of hate’ as he digs in on race – Published on July 1 2020 BLM as far-left Trump rips athletes kneeling for fascism or anthem, calls Black Lives Matter a Marxist group ‘Marxist group’ – Published on August 5 2020 Trump, in fiery Mount Rushmore address, decries rise of ‘far-left fascism,’ calls on Americans to rise up – Published on July 3 2020

The ‘Violence’ table below have 6 different articles from 4 subcategories where Fox News is having a headline that Trump do not support ‘Defund The Police’ movement. CNN articles are in two different categories that include terror and terrorists. In the last subchapter we can see that we have 2 articles from CNN and 1 from Fox News, that the headlines are of Trump minimizing police violence and that he is campaigning against ‘cancel culture’, while Fox News provides article where Trump ‘blasts’ ANTIFA (far-left movement), which is BLM that had been violence in the mars MAGA (Make America Great Again). 30

Table 8. Headlines categorized to ‘Violence’ (Made by author)

CNN Fox News Defund police Trump vows executive order to force address law enforcement use of force, but slams ‘Defund The Police’ movement – Published on June 11 2020 Terrorist Trump campaign blasts protesters as ‘terrorists’ supporters and Biden supporters – Published on August 31 2020 Domestic terror Trump’s law-and-order mantra goes missing in wake of domestic terror plot against Democratic governor – Published on October 9 2020 Violence Trump leans into racist rhetoric and downplays police violence against Black Americans – Published on July 14 2020 Trump blasts ‘ANTIFA SCUM,’ media after violence mars MAGA marches in DC – Published on November 14 2020 Trump ‘cancels’ Goodyear tires as he campaigns against ‘cancel culture’ – Published on August 19 2020

The table below consists of 6 different subcategories that 10 article headlines are divided, with humiliation having 2 articles by Fox News where it says ‘rails’ and ‘blasts’ different city mayors. There is one in blame, conspiracy and movement initiated police killing, where from the headline we can see that in one BLM is blamed and in other is considered helping police killings. Irony subcategory have 2 articles from CNN where we can see that the news site is ironizing Trump, while Fox News have 1 where Trump is ironizing Mitt Romney.

Table 9. Headlines categorized to ‘Humiliation’ (Made by author)

CNN Fox News Humiliation Trump rails against ‘incompetent’ Portland mayor, says ‘backlash’ involving supporters not ‘unexpected’ – Published August 30 2020 Trump blasts de Blasio for plans to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ in front of Trump Tower – Published July 1 2020 Blame Fact check: Trump shares White nationalist’s video in retweet falsely blaming Black Lives Matter for 2019 subway assault – Published on August 31 2020 Irony Trump’s tolerance for protesters goes only as Trump mocks Romney for marching far as his base – Published on May 31 2020 with protesters to White House: “What a guy” – Published on June 8 2020 Shut the door on Trump by ending the electoral college – Published on December 15 2020 Conspiracy Trump embraces QAnon conspiracy because ‘they like me’ Published on August 19 2020 BLM initiated Trump: Black Lives Matter has helped instigate police killing police killings – Published on July 18 2016 Race-based Trump bars ‘propaganda’ training sessions on Trump administration wants to end trainings race in latest overture to his base – Published on race-based trainings for federal September 9 2020 employees, official claims Published on September 2 2020

The table below contains 8 different articles in 3 subchapters. In the first part we can see that the CNN did not have a interview with Donald Trump while Fox News had 2 of those, and this is relating to the finding mentioned at the beginning that the CNN till 2019 had 0 interviews with the president while Fox News had 44, and thus in 2020 president was avoiding CNN or preferring more Fox News interviews. In the other subcategories, CNN media site published articles with headlines that allowed to understand, that the President is working towards Black Americans, by ‘Platinum Plan’ or inviting Black American rapper to discuss the plan, while Fox News published response of president towards the Joe Biden claim about the children that were left starving by the Mexican border, and news media site published about White House calling Blue Lives Matter an ‘equity issue’ which stating that it should be fairly handled.

Table 10. Headlines on the category: Other (Made by author)

CNN Fox News Interviews and The 35 most reckless lines from Donald Transcript: President Trump joins Laura Transcripts Trump’s interview with Laura Ingraham Ingraham to discuss violence in Democrat- – Published on September 1 2020 run cities, planned visit to Kenosha – Published on August 31 2020 Transcript: ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview with President Trump – Published on July 19 2020 Trump’s support Trump unveils ‘Platinum Plan’ for Black Trump responds to Biden claim he left towards Black Americans – Published on September 25 children ‘starving’ on Mexican side of Americans 2020 border: ‘Outrageous’ – Published March 25 2020 Lil Wayne met with Trump and praised the President’s plan for Black Americans – Published on October 30 2020 Trump grants clemency to rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black in final flurry of presidential power – Published on January 20 2021 Equity White House urges Goodyear to ‘clarify their policy,’ calls Blue Lives Matter an ‘equity issue’ – Published on August 19 2020

From the tables above, we can conclude that CNN tends to provide headlines that is not favoring D. Trump and could be grouped to violence, terrorism, police brutality conspiracy and irony, while Fox News supports D. Trump’s statements as we do not see denial towards his statements, and the headlines for the news media site, tend to be favoring presidents rhetoric, and for those that support the movement are humiliated and ironized, giving the reader to understand that supporting the movement is not good.

4.3 D. Trump political rhetoric and political decisions on BLM

Understanding the rhetorical strategies and how they can be used, I will interpret the Aristotle’s concept of rhetoric to Donald Trump’s citations and statements from CNN and Fox News media sites. I have selected for each category with one example from different media sites, that is most accurate to the rhetorical concept. Ethos covers credibility of the author in this case president Donald Trump, at the table below we can see that in CNN’s citation he used this appeal and capitalized word “GREAT” Police and that the department was cut in budget in New York City and he tried to use his credibility to convince city’s mayor instead of cutting the budget and allowing money to allocate somewhere else, the mayor should be spending money to fight crime.

President giving interview to “Fox & Friends” used similitude of referring to ‘our’ so his readers or listeners will have feeling united together with the president on the same issue, so that his credibility would be taken in the account on Black Lives Matter and that they marched with a slogan that was directly pointed to policemen and women and it is a Marxist group and that the bad things will come to the country.

Table 11. Ethos and Trump (Made by author)

Trump’s used comments towards Black Lives Matter CNN citations Fox News citations "Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been “Black Lives Matter, when did it start? neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates Marching down the street screaming 'pigs in a & disrespects them, won't let this symbol of blanket, fry them like bacon.' They were hate be affixed to New York's greatest street. talking about policemen and women,” Trump Ethos Spend this money fighting crime instead!" told “Fox & Friends.” “All of sudden, this is taking on this air of great respectability. Well, how does it start there? It’s a Marxist group. It’s a Marxist group that is not looking for good things for our country and now I see these leagues all kneeling down.”

Logos looks at logic and appearance in selected argument, where speaker can defend their argument. President Trump’s citation in CNN when he first time heard of Black Lives Matter, and his defense of the article is not logical and claims are incorrect, because it is not discriminatory as the movement supports Black Americans that are affected by white supremacy and seeks for equality for black people in the country. Fox News citation from Donald Trump at the table below and his reasoning for these arguments and claims are not that great. Confederate flags have a history of white supremacy and exclusion of non-white people, and when they have or show they flag they are supporting the history of how things were before. Another reason, in his argument that if you forget that the south and the north fought, so it will happen again, but supporting the Confederate flag and excluding the Black Americans its already going that way.

Table 12. Logos and Trump (Made by author)

Trump’s used comments towards Black Lives Matter CNN citations Fox News citations "That was -- first time I ever heard of Black “When people – when people proudly have Lives Matter, I said that's a terrible name. It's their Confederate flags, they’re not talking so discriminatory. It's bad for Black people. about racism. They love their flag, it It's bad for everybody." represents the south, they like the south. People right now like the south. I’d say it’s freedom of, of, of many things, but it’s Logos freedom of speech.” “Well, I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter. That’s freedom of speech. And you know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we can’t cancel our whole history. We can’t forget that the north and the south fought. We have to remember that, otherwise we’ll end up fighting again. You can’t just cancel all...”

In the table below for CNN citation Trump is using pathos appeal to sympathize for current situation in the country that protesters disrespects the memory of George Floyd and says that he won’t let happen it twice, while at the same time, referring to the protesters as a ‘THUGS’, which often refers to a criminal, even thou protesters were supporting for police brutality and justice for Black Americans. Fox News citation about the defunding NYC Police department was very emotional, using capital letters to emphasize the amount of money is being cut from police department and even thou the budget is cut, the city mayor is going to paint yellow Black Lives Matter sign, emphasizing with words ‘big’ and ‘expensive’, giving an understanding for the readers that the NYC mayor is wasting money while the budget for police department is being cut.

Table 13 Pathos and Trump (Made by author)

Trump’s used comments towards Black Lives Matter CNN citations Fox News citation "These THUGS are dishonoring the memory “NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen," DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is Pathos going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue,”

Looking at the rhetorical appeals on citations from both media sites, it can be concluded that the CNN takes the context that could be used against president D. Trump, while Fox News puts citations in the context that his opinion is agreed and supported by the this news media site.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Political communication theory looks how politicians, media and society communicate between each other. Agenda-setting and framing theories are linked together because one chose what is important to present to society while the other looks how it is presented. Rhetorical persuasion shows how the message presenter can use different persuasive techniques to influence the society. Analysis of the political communication, framing, agenda- setting theories showed that they are important components determining the link between politics and the media, because it allows to analyze the content of the messages and determine how the messages are presented to the society. Rhetorical persuasion theory analysis allows to understand that it can be used to persuade the society and the concept of rhetoric helps to determine the usage of selected approach when analyzing media and politicians.

2. Different policies that were adopted during D. Trump presidency showed that he was putting his interest first on foreign policy issues, leaving Paris Climate Agreement, and trade protectionisms showed that the president is trying to have more power on the global arena. Presenting D. Trump’s administrations political reforms on illegal immigration, Muslim travel ban, zero-tolerance for asylum seekers and most recently travel ban from China showed that the president is radical towards the immigration issue in the country, his speeches often were called as racist or xenophobic on immigrants.

3. The BLM movement formulated to raise awareness of social injustices, violence, and white supremacy against Black people. The main critiques for the movement are the increase racial division since the movement started, the movement excludes other racial disparities and they feel left out, that they come up with their own movement idea, for example, #AllLivesMatter or #BlueLivesMatter.

4. Analysis of Trump’s used argumentation on Black Lives Matter discourse in CNN and Fox News media, allowed to compare presidents’ arguments. It appeared that CNN was framing the president Trump for his statements regarding BLM movement by highlighting the wording of the speech, so the reader could be turned against him. While Fox News was not framing Trump on his used argumentation, but it framed other and the news media site supported president’s statements and was framing the news that other who support the movement would look negatively. The mainly D. Trump argues that BLM is a danger, BLM movement protesters

36 are criminals, he is using speech of hate and blaming BLM that the movement is politically supported.

5. President Donald Trump was using rhetorical strategies: Ethos, Pathos and Logos in different occasions to persuade his listeners/ readers so that they will be convinced. In D. Trump speech was missing argumentation. Presidents’ speech was more emotionally tied to persuade his followers that cutting budget of police department and spending money on Black Lives Matter sign is unacceptable. Rhetorical analysis revealed that D. Trump is creating the feeling of unity with his followers, mass media auditory.

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Appendix

Appendix 1. Table of categorized headlines from mass media

Defund police Trump vows executive order to address force law enforcement use of force, but slams ‘Defund The Police’ movement – Published on June 11 2020 Symbol of hate June 6 George Floyd protest news – Published on June 6 2020

Trump calls Black Lives Matter a ‘symbol of hate’ as he digs in on race – Published on July 1 2020 BLM as far-left Trump rips athletes kneeling for fascism or Marxist anthem, calls Black Lives Matter a group ‘Marxist group’ – Published on August 5 2020 Trump, in fiery Mount Rushmore address, decries rise of ‘far-left fascism,’ calls on Americans to rise up – Published on July 3 2020 Violence Trump leans into racist rhetoric and downplays police violence against Black Americans – Published on July 14 2020 Trump blasts ‘ANTIFA SCUM,’ media after violence mars MAGA marches in DC – Published on November 14 2020 Trump ‘cancels’ Goodyear tires as he campaigns against ‘cancel culture’ – Published on August 19 2020 Interviews and The 35 most reckless lines from Donald Trump’s Transcript: President Trump joins Laura Transcripts interview with Laura Ingraham – Published on Ingraham to discuss violence in September 1 2020 Democrat-run cities, planned visit to Kenosha – Published on August 31 2020 Transcript: ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview with President Trump – Published on July 19 2020 Terrorist Trump campaign blasts protesters as ‘terrorists’ and supporters Biden supporters – Published on August 31 2020 Domestic terror Trump’s law-and-order mantra goes missing in wake of domestic terror plot against Democratic governor – Published on October 9 2020 BLM initiated Trump: Black Lives Matter has helped instigate police killing police killings – Published on July 18 2016 Police brutality The 75-year-old Buffalo man seriously injured by against BLM police ‘had a good chuckle’ over Trump’s tweet – protesters Published on June 10 2020 Race-based Trump bars ‘propaganda’ training sessions on race Trump administration wants to end race- trainings in latest overture to his base – Published on based trainings for federal employees, September 9 2020 official claims Published on September 2 2020 Trump’s support Trump unveils ‘Platinum Plan’ for Black Americans Trump responds to Biden claim he left towards Black – Published on September 25 2020 children ‘starving’ on Mexican side of Americans ….??? border: ‘Outrageous’ – Published March 25 2020 47

Lil Wayne met with Trump and praised the President’s plan for Black Americans – Published on October 30 2020 Trump grants clemency to rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black in final flurry of presidential power – Published on January 20 2021 Equity White House urges Goodyear to ‘clarify their policy,’ calls Blue Lives Matter an ‘equity issue’ – Published on August 19 2020 Humiliation Trump rails against ‘incompetent’ Portland mayor, says ‘backlash’ involving supporters not ‘unexpected’ – Published August 30 2020 Trump blasts de Blasio for plans to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ in front of Trump Tower – Published July 1 2020 Blame Fact check: Trump shares White nationalist’s video in retweet falsely blaming Black Lives Matter for 2019 subway assault – Published on August 31 2020 Irony Trump’s tolerance for protesters goes only as far as Trump mocks Romney for marching his base – Published on May 31 2020 with protesters to White House: “What a guy” – Published on June 8 2020 Shut the door on Trump by ending the electoral college – Published on December 15 2020 Conspiracy Trump embraces QAnon conspiracy because ‘they like me’ Published on August 19 2020

Appendix 2. Rhetorical figures in D. Trump discourse on BLM

Trump’s used comments towards Black Lives Matter CNN Fox News "Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been “Black Lives Matter, when did it start? neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates Marching down the street screaming 'pigs in a & disrespects them, won't let this symbol of blanket, fry them like bacon.' They were talking hate be affixed to New York's greatest street. about policemen and women,” Trump told “Fox Spend this money fighting crime instead!" & Friends.” “All of sudden, this is taking on this air of great respectability. Well, how does it start there? It’s a Marxist group. It’s a Marxist group that is not looking for good things for our country and now I see these leagues all kneeling down.” "Whether it's Confederate flags or Black Lives “NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION Matter of anything else you want to talk about. DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going It's freedom of speech." to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue,” "These THUGS are dishonoring the memory “This will further antagonize New York’s of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen," Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, ‘Pigs in a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon,’” he continued. “Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won’t let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street.”

"Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told The president asserted that recent attacks on the him that the Military is with him all the way. nation's monuments, alongside "cancel culture" Any difficulty and we will assume control but, and the rise of the Marxist ideology of the Black when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Lives Matter (BLM) movement, Thank you!" were symptoms of a "left-wing cultural revolution" that was threatening to "overthrow the American Revolution." BLM explicitly advocates the destruction of the "nuclear family structure," which Trump said was in fact the "bedrock of American life."

"You are warriors. We had some very bad "They want to silence us," Trump said, as cheers people outside. They were doing bad things. of "U-S-A!" broke out. "But we will not be But I really do appreciate it," Trump said. silenced. ... We want free and open debate, not Later, the President said there were "very bad cancel culture. ... Their goal is not a better people" outside, describing protesters as America. Their goal is to end America. ... But "thugs." just as in centuries past, the American people will stand in their way." "Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be “Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES—They an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get Gugino was pushed away after appearing to better tires for far less!”

49 scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?" Trump tweeted. after the President said in a wild rally in New “We’re not defunding the police, in fact we’re Hampshire on Friday, "Today's Democratic going the opposite route,” Trump said during his Party is full of hate ... protesters, your ass. remarks during a roundtable on police reform in They're not protesters ... they're agitators, Dallas. “We’re going to have stronger police they're rioters, they're looters." forces.”

"Certainly, in certain instances they are," While Trump’s pledge to increase funding to Trump told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly when healthcare and investment in minority he asked whether the group has been "a fuse- communities may assuage some, he would not lighter in the assassinations of these police back away from his controversial comment that officers." police need to “dominate the streets” and his "They certainly have ignited people and notion of himself as a law and order president. you see that ... It's a very, very serious situation and we just can't let it happen," Trump said. "We have to dominate the streets, we can’t let Trump also called the group a "threat" that happen what happened in New York City,” and accused the group of "essentially calling Trump said in reference to the looting and death to the police," apparently referring to a destruction of property that occurred during 2014 video of protesters in New York City some of the protests last week. “We have to who chanted, "What do we want? Dead cops." dominate with compassion.” retweeting posts praising the memo that went “Tremendous sincerity, what a guy,” Trump to federal agencies demanding they alter tweeted Monday morning. “Hard to believe, racial sensitivity training programs for federal with this kind of political talent, his numbers workers. would ‘tank’ so badly in Utah!” "This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue," Trump told his Twitter followers. "Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!"

"That was -- first time I ever heard of Black --because they just do what's the easiest path. Lives Matter, I said that's a terrible name. It's That's not the easy path. That's a very dangerous so discriminatory. It's bad for Black people. path. Black Lives Matter is a Marxist It's bad for everybody." organization. You remember "pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon." That was - first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said that's a terrible name. It's so discriminatory. It's bad for black people. It's bad for everybody. And all of a sudden, it becomes like sort of - although now if you look, it's gone way down because people are tired of this stuff, what's going on, the Black Lives Matter. If you look at what's going on with the bats and the - the - a lot of thugs, a lot of-- "What the Black community wants in this Oh, it's terrible, what's going on. But Black country is they want police and they want law Lives Matter came into existence, walking down and order." the street screaming "pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon," and that was about police office - 50

that was representing police. They were pigs. Pigs in a blanket, like the sausages or hot dogs, fry them like bacon. Comment on QAnon "I don't know much “When people – when people proudly have their about the movement other than I understand Confederate flags, they’re not talking about they like me very much, which I appreciate," racism. They love their flag, it represents the Trump said in the White House briefing south, they like the south. People right now like room. the south. I’d say it’s freedom of, of, of many things, but it’s freedom of speech.” “Well, I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter. That’s freedom of speech. And you know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we can’t cancel our whole history. We can’t forget that the north and the south fought. We have to remember that, otherwise we’ll end up fighting again. You can’t just cancel all...” "Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!)," Trump began by smearing the protesters as not sincerely caring about Floyd or the Black Lives Matter movement, tweeting on Saturday that "professionally managed so- called 'protesters' at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd." He added, "They were just there to cause trouble."