Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Presidents And Populist Politics, Brooke Sobo

Honors Theses

Populist language is a common rhetorical practice of United States Presidents. There is a breadth of literature on the study of populism and populist language, yet few studies identify populist language as reimagining the relationship between president and people. This paper identifies populist language as a political tactic of presidents and links the tactic’s use to the cultivation of authority and legitimacy. A central theoretical foundation of this paper rests on Skowronek’s concept of political time and authority structures. Through the use of four case studies spanning the presidencies of Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, this …