ABSTRACT
Donald Trump prompts certain feelings in his audience in order to achieve his goal of maintaining the White, patriarchal, neoliberal status quo that enabled his presidency, and he does not allow the facts of a situation to interfere with the effectiveness of his emotional appeals. Trump’s privileging of feelings over facts contradicts the claims made by some scholars that increased access to information renders other forms of persuasion unnecessary. Trump’s emotional appeals work for many of his supporters because they position him as authentic, giving the impression “that they have direct access to his very real emotions.” Trump’s privileging of feelings over facts has turned his audience’s feelings of fear and anger into a political movement of the supposed forgotten Americans. Emma Gonzalez resists the expectations of the felt politics of the rhetorical situation in order to deliver a message on gun violence rooted in facts and her emotional experience as a survivor.
