Abstract
The 2016 US presidential election was characterized by themes of newness, fragmentation, and rupture. This chapter argues that these features were precipitated by manifestations of legitimacy troubles in a host of America’s political and civil spheres, and in and among its democratic institutions. A review of the political legitimacy literature indicates that, despite much commentary to the contrary, a character like the one Donald Trump presented on the campaign trail is not anathema to American symbolic representations of legitimate authority. A cultural pragmatic analysis of the Trump, Clinton, and Sanders campaigns reveals what performances of national identity and claims to leadership look like under conditions characterized by troubled legitimacies.
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Mast, J.L. (2019). Legitimacy Troubles and the Performance of Power in the 2016 US Presidential Election. In: Mast, J.L., Alexander, J.C. (eds) Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics. Cultural Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95945-0_14
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