The Trump carnival: popular appeal in the age of misinformation
| Author | Elizaveta Gaufman |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117818773130 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818773130
International Relations
2018, Vol. 32(4) 410 –429
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117818773130
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The Trump carnival:
popular appeal in the age
of misinformation
Elizaveta Gaufman
University of Bremen
Abstract
This article argues that a Russian analytical paradigm of carnival culture can help explain the
successful presidential campaign of President Donald J. Trump. Russian philosopher and literary
critic Mikhail Bakhtin developed the notion of carnival culture while analyzing Francois Rabelais’
work and its connection to the popular culture of Renaissance. Carnival ethos stood in opposition
to the ‘official’ and ‘serious’ church sanctioned and feudal culture, by bringing out folklore
and different forms of folk laughter that Bakhtin denoted as carnival. Carnival culture with its
opposition to the official buttoned-up discourse is supposed to be polar opposite, distinguished by
anti-ideology and anti-authority, in other words, anti-establishment – the foundation of Trump’s
appeal to his voters. This article examines the core characteristics of carnival culture that defined
Trump’s presidential campaign from the start.
Keywords
Bakhtin, gender, misinformation, presidential campaign, social networks, Trump
Introduction
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, considerable blame was
passed around by pundits and politicians alike,1 wondering how the Republican nominee
managed to secure the presidency. Facebook, the Democratic National Committee, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), gerrymandering, and angry white men appeared
among the suspects, while numerous voices blamed Russian hackers and Putin person-
ally for interfering with the elections in Trump’s favor.2 This article argues that it is a
Russian analytical paradigm that can help explain the ‘blue-collar billionaire’s’ success.
Corresponding author:
Elizaveta Gaufman, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies, University of Bremen,
Mary-Somerville-Str. 7, 28359 Bremen, Germany.
Email: lisa.gaufman@gmail.com
773130IRE0010.1177/0047117818773130International RelationsGaufman
research-article2018
Article
Gaufman 411
Even though his work has been applied to International Relations theory,3 Russian phi-
losopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of carnival culture is another fruitful
avenue to analyze the success of the ‘populist Zeitgeist’.4 Unlike most approaches that
single out one specific factor, such as economic inequality or the role of mass media, or
rationalize Donald Trump’s presidency post factum as a Black Swan event,5 carnival
provides a holistic theoretical framework that includes a range of structural factors.
Bakhtin developed the concept of carnival while analyzing François Rabelais’s work
and its connection to the popular laughing culture of the Renaissance.6 Carnival culture’s
idea of ‘transgression of cultural norms and values by subaltern groups, [is] the ideal
critical tool for approaching all kinds of social and material interactions’.7 Even though
Donald Trump, as a white, straight, rich male could hardly be seen as a subaltern voice,
he nevertheless managed to galvanize a substantial amount of support among the
American population, in marketing himself as an anti-establishment figure, that is, a
subaltern voice, by using elements of the carnival culture.
The carnival ethos stood in opposition to the ‘official’ and ‘serious’ church sanctioned
and feudal culture, by bringing out folklore and different forms of folk laughter that
Bakhtin calls carnival. This type of culture challenges the official buttoned-up discourse
and is characterized by coarseness and vulgarity and is distinguished by its anti-ideology
and anti-authority themes, in other words, anti-establishment. This article is not the first
attempt to apply Bakhtin’s framework to the study of politics and Donald Trump is not
the first ‘carnival fool’ to succeeded in politics:8 one of the most prominent examples is
Beppe Grillo, an Italian comedian and blogger who managed to launch a very successful
political career. Edelman9 noted that carnivalesque elements can penetrate political dis-
course via outsider candidates or, at least, via the candidates who style themselves as
such. James Janack10 studied Russia’s own Vladimir Zhirinovsky (a Russian version of
Trump, according to late night comedienne Samantha Bee), as well as Jesse Ventura’s
successful campaign for the governorship in Minnesota, in large part due to his ‘carnival
fool’s role of protesting against the prevailing political system’.11 While Fetissenko12
offered a critique to this theoretical framework, as the ‘spectacle of democratic elections
as a whole and the ritualized courtship of campaign events in particular [are] examples
of carnival’, this article argues that the Trump campaign went far beyond just ‘familiar
contact’ with voters and encompassed many more carnivalesque elements.
As Çelikkol13 notes, carnival elements are ubiquitous in movements of dissent. As
Trump’s campaign took up the anti-establishment battle-cry, it came to epitomize dissent
as a means of rallying voters against his opponent, who was portrayed as mainstream and
experienced – part of the ‘Washington DC swamp’.14 At the same time, Hoy15 mentioned
that carnival’s potential for political rebellion is limited – but that could also be inferred
from Bakhtin as well, as carnival by its nature is a temporary phenomenon, of which its
participants are well aware.16 In Trump’s case, this temporality was particularly well
taken up by his electorate: his supporters consistently stated that Trump’s most outland-
ish statements and actions were not for real, and that he would be a different, ‘more presi-
dential’ person when in office.17
The age of misinformation presented Trump with a unique opportunity to leverage the
power of social networks to his advantage.18 Even though the role of mass media in
populist ascent to power was underlined a great deal ahead of Facebook or Twitter,19
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