In The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle, Kenneth Burke analyzes Hitler’s rhetorical form in his book Mein Kampf. Burke does this in part to uncover “what kind of ‘medicine’ this medicine-man has concocted” (191) but also to understand his tactics better so as to anticipate the potential “concocting of a similar medicine in America” (191). While I am not directly comparing Trump to Hitler, there has no doubt been a very noticeable shift in the ways that the current president of the United States has employed epideictic rhetoric, a rhetoric-made reality, to divide the American public while also invigorating and uniting his supporters eventually leading to his election in 2016.
One unifying tactic that I’m going to focus on is that of creating a symbol of a common enemy. “Men who can unite on nothing else can unite on the basis of a foe shared by all” (192). During a time of social and economic uncertainty, he points to a single group of people, essentializes them, and is able to use them as a scapegoat for all the problems currently being faced in the country. We see this being employed when Trump attacks immigrants, and by extension, people of colour who are perceived to be perpetual foreigners. Here’s a quote from the announcement of his campaign:
“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably-probably-from the Middle East. But we don’t know, because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.”
It’s unclear whether Trump is specifically talking about refugees or migrants, but this sentiment has grown since becoming elected and realized in building of The Wall and the Muslim Ban. According to Trump, these people steal jobs and property from real Americans who deserve it. These people bring crime and disease over the border. By essentializing these non-American enemies, what and who gets to be defined as “American” is also shaped. We see this in Trump’s remarks towards those in the NFL protesting police brutality as being anti-American altogether.
Burke adds, “I believe that [Hitler] has shown, to a very disturbing degree, the power of endless repetition” (217). I can’t help but think of Trump’s “make America great again” slogan, which has gone on to emblazon many a red trucker hat (even producing Canadian versions) and the acronym becoming a commonly posted phrase in internet comment sections. This slogan demands a return to a time when America was “great”, a nostalgic yearning for law and order, economic stability, and free speech without “PC backlash”. By making efforts to contain the “enemy” (limits of immigration, preferential treatment and privileges for ‘Americans’, detaining and arresting ‘foreigners’), a prosperous America will re-emerge.
As someone who watches sci-fi, it’s hard to imagine human kind coming together and setting differences aside unless an extraterrestrial enemy force arrives on the planet to unite us all against them. Much like other myths such as multiculturalism or meritocracy, Hitler’s tactic is one that unifies and control a population that is not working towards undoing the structures of power that reinforce social and economic inequality in the first place.