The Gist

The Secret Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump

Ahead of the final debate, we check in with Jennifer Mercieca, an academic with the unenviable job of studying how Donald Trump uses language.

Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Feb. 26 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 599 of Slate’s The Gist:

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On The Gist, rhetoric scholar Jennifer Mercieca says that when you dig into his speeches, Donald Trump’s kind of an evil genius when it comes to rhetoric. Whether it’s his use of paralipsis (“I’m not saying, but I’m saying”) or reification (treating people like objects), Trump is an expert at using rhetoric to get under people’s skin. Mercieca is authoring a book on political rhetoric in the 2016 campaign, set to come out later this year.

For the Spiel, an update on Trump’s electoral collapse with female voters.

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