FREE ACCESS This scholarly essay argues that we can usefully separate “heroic demagogues” from “dangerous demagogues” by whether or not the demagogue allows themselves to be held accountable for their words and actions. “Dangerous demagoguery” can be thought of as “weaponized communication” that uses words as weapons to achieve the dangerous demagogue’s strategic goals. The essay examines several recent examples of dangerous demagogues using weaponized communication strategies, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, President Donald Trump, and Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin. Weaponized communication is a danger in any democracy as it corresponds with democratic erosion.

From Just Security: Throughout the Mueller Report, we see evidence of Trump using ad baculum (appeal to the stick) — in other words, Trump routinely uses threats of force to attempt to get his way. We can think of ad baculum as “weaponized communication” tactics that use language as a cudgel to intimidate, coerce, and gain compliance over others. Ad baculum in argumentation is fallacious—it is actually an attempt to prevent debate and discussion by overwhelming the opposition, so that they cannot make their case. Ad baculum in politics is authoritarian—it is a tactic designed to prevent democratic decision-making, or in this case, to prevent the administration of justice in a democratic, rule-of-law system.

FREE ACCESS: The rhetorical presidency model made good sense within the traditional media market of the twentieth century, but makes little sense within the new media market of the new millennium. The era of the rhetorical presidency was characterized by a relationship between the presidency and the press that was reciprocal, mutually beneficial, and stable; the era of the post-rhetorical presidency is characterized by a relationship between the presidency and the press that is independent, competitive, and unstable. The post-rhetorical presidency began with the Bush Administration and flourished with the Obama Administration’s expert use of social and new media. Trump has only continued what his predecessors started.