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Donald Trump and the politics of emotion

Trump’s ability to create a shared mood among voters was honed in the world of professional wrestling.

Published:
EdSugden.jpg
EdSugden.jpg

The ‘Trump Unity Bridge’ trailer on August 18, 2017 in Iowa City, Iowa. Credit: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

In 2017 Donald Trump posted a clip of himself on Twitter wrestling an avatar of CNN to the ground. In the thirty-second vignette he seizes an individual with CNN’s logo where the head should be and pummels them. The point was to position himself as a defender of truth, flattening media enemies who spread disinformation about his reign.