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The Rhetorical Algorithm: Wikileaks And The Elliptical Secrets Of Donald J. Trump, Atilla Hallsby
The Rhetorical Algorithm: Wikileaks And The Elliptical Secrets Of Donald J. Trump, Atilla Hallsby
Secrecy and Society
Algorithms were a generative force behind many of the leaks and secrets that dominated the 2016 election season. Taking the form of the identity-anonymizing Tor software that protected the identity of leakers, mathematical protocols occupied a prominent place in the secrets generated during the presidential campaign. This essay suggests that the rhetorical trope of ellipsis offers an equally crucial, algorithmic formula for explaining the public production of these secrets and leaks. It then describes the 2016 DNC leak and Donald Trump’s “I love Wikileaks” moment using the trope of ellipsis, which marks a discursive omission or gap in official executive …
#Whitegenocide, The Alt-Right And Conspiracy Theory: How Secrecy And Suspicion Contributed To The Mainstreaming Of Hate, Andrew F. Wilson
#Whitegenocide, The Alt-Right And Conspiracy Theory: How Secrecy And Suspicion Contributed To The Mainstreaming Of Hate, Andrew F. Wilson
Secrecy and Society
This article considers the relationship between “hashtag activism” as it is currently being used by the alt-right and the tendency to draw on conspiracy theory that Richard Hofstadter identified as being prevalent among what he termed “pseudo-conservatives” half a century earlier. Both the alt-right and Hofstadter’s “pseudo-conservatives” can be characterised by a pronounced populist nationalism that understands its aims as protecting a particular way of life whilst drawing on an aggrieved sense of injustice at being conspired against by an unseen enemy. That this “enemy” is typically foreign in actuality or in spirit confirms the cultural dimension on which their …