The Impact of Trump-Speak on US Foreign Policy

For many observers, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States came as a shock. This has now been recast as the culmination of a long-standing dissatisfaction with the political elite and deep-seated frustrations with broader socio-economic conditions, particularly since the Global Financial Crisis. At the same time, Donald Trump’s success is interpreted as a clear victory of a political figure that uses emotionally charged anti-establishment rhetoric combined with factual ignorance and the distortion of data to for policies gain. The primary objective of this paper is to better understand how this ‘post-truth’ mode of political communication impacts on US foreign policy, both in a domestic and international context. Specifically, I will explore the features and consequences of Trump speak in a three-fold analytical strategy. I seek to first uncover the essential components of administration’s communicative toolkit that are linked to foreign policy. In a second step, I will utilize insights from political psychology to better understand the effectiveness of a communicative strategy built around false-speak, ‘alternative facts’, and disregard for evidence. Finally, I will evaluate the impact this has on US foreign policy, in particular in terms of setting the boundaries of political possibility.