How Trump Thinks: His Tweets and the Birth of a New Political Language

Description

The most unusual feature of Donald Trump's nationalist and populist campaign for the presidency of the USA was his obsessive use of Twitter. Like other social media, this form of communication has often been assumed to encourage the dissemination of liberal values and the circulation of facts. Trump's tweets, by contrast, formed a constant stream of provocations, insults, conspiracy theories, 'alternative facts' and outright lies. And they helped him win power. Peter Oborne, author of The Rise of Political Lying and Not The Chilcot Report, analyses Trump's incendiary mendacity in all its bewildering guises, and shows how this fusion of entertainment and cunningly crafted propaganda has destabilised the world's most powerful democracy.

Peter Oborne is a columnist for the Daily Mail and former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph. One of Britain's most distinguished and independent political writers, his books include The Triumph of the Political Class and Wounded Tiger.

There have been derisive collections of Trump's blurts before [...] but reading through this para-scholarly presentation of his texts [...] changes your perception of them. They don't seem merely preposterous any more * Evening Standard * Watching Trump recover from successive disgraces and fiascos, Oborne and Roberts marvel at his capacity to deflect blame... The man who currently rails against "fake news" and its lack of accredited sources long ago mastered the same sleight of hand' -- Peter Conrad, Guardian This is the best thing I have read about Donald Trump * ConservativeHome * Oborne and Roberts's book is a service to scholars' -- Meghan O'Rourke, Guardian [A] hilarious yet frightening book * The West Australian *