A warrant for violence? An analysis of Donald Trump's speech before the US Capitol attack
Journal article
Ntontis, E., Jurstakova, K., Neville, F., Haslam, S.A. and Reicher, S.D. 2023. A warrant for violence? An analysis of Donald Trump's speech before the US Capitol attack. British Journal of Social Psychology. 63 (1), pp. 3-19.
Authors | Ntontis, E., Jurstakova, K., Neville, F., Haslam, S.A. and Reicher, S.D. |
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Abstract | On January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump's speech during a ‘Save America’ rally was followed by mass violence, with Trump's supporters storming the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the presidential eletion. In its wake, there was a great deal of debate around whether the speech contained direct instructions for the subsequent violence. In this paper, we use a social identity perspective on leadership (and more specifically, on toxic leadership) to analyse the speech and see how its overall ar-gument relates to violence. We show that Trump's argument rests on the populist distinction between the American peo-ple and elites. He moralises these groups as good and evil respectively and proposes that the very existence of America is under threat if the election result stands. On this basis he proposes that all true Americans are obligated to act in order prevent Biden's certification and to ensure that the good prevails over evil. While Trump does not explicitly say what such action entails, he also removes normative and moral impediments to extreme action. In this way, taken as a whole, Trump's speech enables rather than demands vio-lence and ultimately it provides a warrant for the violence that ensued. |
Keywords | Capitol attack; Identity leadership; Mass mobilisation; Social identity; Toxic leadership; Donald Trump; Violence |
Year | 2023 |
Journal | British Journal of Social Psychology |
Journal citation | 63 (1), pp. 3-19 |
Publisher | John Wiley & Sons |
ISSN | 0144-6665 |
2044-8309 | |
Official URL | https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12679 |
Publication dates | |
Online | 21 Aug 2023 |
Online | 24 Jan 2024 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 09 Aug 2023 |
Deposited | 29 Feb 2024 |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Output status | Published |
https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/973xx/a-warrant-for-violence-an-analysis-of-donald-trump-s-speech-before-the-us-capitol-attack
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Publisher's version
British J Social Psychol - 2023 - Ntontis - A warrant for violence An analysis of Donald Trump s speech before the US copy.pdf | ||
License: CC BY 4.0 | ||
File access level: Open |
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