Politics and ‘Playing Rude’ : A Comparative Analysis of Impoliteness in American Presidential Debates 2000-2020

Abstract: The present study investigates the use of impoliteness in American presidential debates, analyzing whether the use of impoliteness strategies has increased, whether this varies depending on the candidate’s status as an incumbent or a challenger and if Donald Trump is an outlier when compared to his peers. To conduct this study, a total of 12 debates from the last 6 elections (2000-2020) were analyzed. The analysis used Culpeper’s (1996) framework as its base, specifically looking at the frequency and variability in the usage of face-attacks along with a set of output/micro-strategies from Garcia-Pastor (2008) typically used in the primary presidential debates as well as instances of overlaps and interruptions. The results showed, based on nearly all of the measured variables, that there was a significant increase in the 2016 and the subsequent 2020 debates when compared to the preceding ones. Furthermore, there were clear differences found in the incumbent presidents’ strategy choice and frequency when compared to their opponents as the former would typically be more defensive, using less impoliteness. Trump strayed from this established pattern by being vastly more aggressive than his incumbent predecessors. He additionally scored the highest in nearly all of the measured variables, this, in conjunction with the noticeable difference in his use of overlapping speech, as well as direct face-attacks, leads to the conclusion that he is an outlier in his use of impoliteness and a likely catalyst for the increase seen in the 2016-2020 debates.