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The Defense Of American Exceptionalism: President Trump's Covid-19 Rhetoric, Sabrina Paetow
The Defense Of American Exceptionalism: President Trump's Covid-19 Rhetoric, Sabrina Paetow
Honors College
This thesis uses grounded theory and content analysis to examine the political rhetoric President Donald Trump used in the Coronavirus Task Force press briefings during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. I collected 44 transcripts of these press briefings from when they began on February 26, 2020 until April 27, 2020. This time frame marks the period during which the press briefings happened with consistency and when Trump spoke at all of them. Through my research, I established that United States presidents have employed rhetorical tropes of American exceptionalism, including Trump. Trump invoked American exceptionalism in a three-pronged rhetorical …