Masks and Emasculation: Populist Crisis Rhetoric and the 2020 Presidential Election

Abstract

This essay illustrates how Donald Trump engaged in what I call “populist crisis rhetoric” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and coinciding 2020 U.S. presidential campaign cycle. By performing a critical rhetorical analysis of textual fragments surrounding how Trump addressed the preventative measure of mask-wearing, I show how he rejected the role of comforter-in-chief and instead opted for the role of victim-in-chief. Specifically, turning the bare face into a litmus test of Trump loyalism, his rhetoric suggested that masks threatened masculinity and functioned as a form of anti-choice bodily oppression.

Despite numerous scandals throughout his time in office and even an impeachment, in early 2020, it seemed like strong economic numbers and a committed base of enthusiastic supporters would likely be enough to make Donald Trump a two-term president. Pundits predicted that, by rallying his base, Trump’s first impeachment actually increased his chances at reelection (Mark, 2020). In February 2020, following Trump’s acquittal by the Senate, Gallup indicated that “Americans [were] more positive about the state of the nation than they [had] been in over a decade” (Jones, 2020b, para. 20). With his highest approval rating yet at 49% and with 61% of Americans reporting that they were “better off than they were three years ago,” Trump’s bid for reelection looked promising (Jones, 2020a, para. 1). Of course, by the end of March, this promising reelection landscape was turned upside-down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, Trump faced a hurdle that called for him to step into the role of a crisis president.

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control advised people to refrain from using masks, as there was little existing evidence that doing so would prevent people from contracting the coronavirus and officials worried that public purchasing of masks would harm the already-short supply of personal protective equipment available to healthcare workers. By April, however, top public health experts reversed course, releasing new guidance that wearing a cloth face mask in public could help drastically reduce transmission. Although many states implemented mask mandates throughout the summer and several prominent Republicans came out in support of masks, Trump not only resisted the measure but also scorned politicians and reporters who followed the guideline. Trump’s refusal to support such a simple, life-saving measure was somewhat befuddling, especially when his reelection was at stake. In fact, according to many experts, Trump’s rejection of the norms of crisis communication at least partially explains why he lost the election. In addition to “the need to express sympathy,” Coombs (2010) explained that “accuracy” and “consistency” are key elements of crisis communication, “because public safety should be the preeminent concern” (pp. 28-29). In particular, presidents facing national tragedies are typically expected to comfort the nation, eulogize victims, and provide clear solutions to show how the government will prevent the disaster from reoccurring or worsening (Campbell & Jamieson, 2008). Trump, however, stoked anti-mask rhetoric and anti-government conspiracy theories that diminished the power of his own public health experts. Hart (2021) summarized that Trump’s “self-preoccupations made him blind to the needs of the electorate . . . and ultimately cost him his job” (p. 1).

Although Trump’s narcissism during the pandemic may have horrified many Americans, I suggest his peculiar crisis rhetoric speaks to a larger scholarly debate regarding how to evaluate “outsider” performances of traditional political speech genres. Following Justice and Bricker (2020) who asserted that responses to political scandals are “increasingly targeted [toward] narrow, hyper-partisan audiences, reflecting the polarization of society along partisan lines” (p. 319), I contend that Trump’s response illustrated a kind of “populist crisis rhetoric” aimed at energizing his conservative base while purposefully alienating his critics. As an act of redefinition that sought to “shape the context in which events . . . are viewed by the public” (Zarefsky, 2004, p. 611), populist crisis rhetoric transforms one crisis into another crisis that may benefit a populist leader. As Müller (2016) noted, “a ‘crisis’ is not an objective state of affairs, but a matter of interpretation” (pp. 41-42). Populists reframe crises as “existential threat[s],” because this “serves to legitimate populist governance” (p. 42). In Trump’s case, I argue, a crisis impacting the body politic was transformed into a crisis for the masculine body. Within this crisis narrative, Trump and his supporters were cast into the role of victim, a familiar strategy which Bostdorff (2017) noted helped Trump succeed in the 2016 election.

To examine Trump’s deployment of populist crisis rhetoric, I first review previous literature regarding the typical expectations of presidential crisis rhetoric and Trump’s reliance on appeals to victimhood. Next, based on a critical rhetorical analysis of Trump’s mask discourse and the news coverage surrounding it, I demonstrate how he adapted his strategy of masculine victimhood to the context of the pandemic. Specifically, I illustrate how Trump’s rhetoric functioned to turn mask-wearing into a marker of anti-Trumpism, a sign of feminine weakness, and an assault on bodily freedom. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of implications.

Comforter-in-Chief Versus Victim-in-Chief

Especially in the modern era of the rhetorical presidency, when the nation faces a collective crisis, citizens look to the president for both guidance and comfort. Denton (1994) explained that “in times of national emergency, we discard skepticism and return to childhood images of the presidency . . . as a combination of Washington and Lincoln, making wise decisions to protect and preserve our quality of life” (p. xi). Although presidents face the weight of managing crises, they also benefit from a “strong bias toward favorable presidential coverage” during emergencies (p. xi). As Kiewe (1994) wrote, “Critical situations . . . allow presidents to communicate an image of decisiveness and determination, since crises can evoke the image of events that are extraordinary, unique, and threatening” (p. xvi). Thus, crisis situations have been found to boost “faith in leaders,” since followers are likely to see them as “more powerful” and to “identify more with [them] as a coping mechanism” (Bligh et al., 2004, p. 212).

Because the public tends to look to their leaders during a time of crisis, we have come to expect presidents to assume the role of “comforter-in-chief” by “consol[ing] the American people following disasters and tragedies that have caused collective distress” (Childers & Bird, 2019, p. 109). Childers and Bird noted that although he was “not known for his calming presence,” Trump would be “expected to perform” this role regardless of “whether he like[d] it or not and whether he [was] particularly good at it or not” (p. 120). However, as I will demonstrate in my analysis, Trump largely rejected this role when it came to the collective pain and fear caused by COVID-19. Childers and Bird argued that rhetorical scholars “should pay very close attention to how individual presidents choose to use their role as comforters-in-chief,” since moments of crisis provide presidents a platform for “(re)defin[ing] the nation’s values . . . in subtle ways unnoticed at more deliberative times” (p. 122). If the rhetoric of a comforter-in-chief can reveal subtle shifts in national values, Trump’s rejection of this role during a crisis of literal pandemic proportions points to a different value system altogether, one focused more on stoking anger than fostering healing and American unity.

Trump’s ability to rile up the Republican base by framing himself and his followers as victims is what “helped propel [him] into the White House” (Bostdorff, 2017, p. 700). However, if there was ever a time for Trump to set aside this narrative, it would have been during the COVID-19 crisis when hundreds of Americans were dying on a daily basis. Yet, instead of taking on the responsibility of comforter-in-chief, Trump continued on in the role of victim-in-chief, a role that previous scholars have noted is incoherent, given his privileged position and commitment to traditional masculine norms. Johnson (2017) argued that demagogic rhetoric like Trump’s “encourage[s] audiences to self-identify as victims on the basis of felt precarity, encouraging the well-off and privileged to adopt the mantle of victimhood at the expense of those who occupy more objectively fraught positions” (p. 230). Building on the work of King’s (2009) concept of abject hegemony, Johnson (2017) explained that Trump has relied on a “paradoxically abject masculine style” that helps his supporters “to imagine themselves as victims of a political tragedy centered around the displacement of ‘real America’ from the political center by a feminized political establishment” (p. 230). Trump has continually stoked fears of “powerlessness” and then taken on a “masculine leadership style as the single solution for different problems.” (p. 239). Similarly, Kelly (2018) suggested that Trump has used “perceived victimhood” as a call to “remasculinize” a “so-called feminized society” (p. 2). Kelly laid out how Trump embodies the incoherence of “white male victimhood,” which allows its adherents to simultaneously “identify with strength and rugged individualism while also considering themselves vulnerable and wounded.”

Ultimately, Trump’s failures in the early days of the pandemic were his own. His obsession with whether the coronavirus was like the common cold, or at worst like the flu, were distractions that allowed the virus to spread. While political communication scholars might have expected Trump to assume the role of comforter-in-chief, Trump was not like other presidents before him. As Müller (2016) argued, “all failures of populists in government can be blamed on elites acting behind the scenes” (p. 42). Facing long odds of reelection, Trump opted to redefine the health crisis and refashion the tropes of victimhood that elevated him into the presidency.

Masks as a Symbol of Anti-Trumpism, Femininity, and Oppression

To explain how Trump transformed the COVID-19 pandemic and the mask debate into a populist narrative of masculine victimhood, I follow the tradition of McGee (1990) in examining news fragments that analyzed and amplified Trump’s position. Focusing on news coverage from the early stages of the pandemic through election day reveals how Trump deployed three main anti-mask arguments, turning the bare face into a populist resistance symbol. First, Trump framed the pandemic as an effort to undermine his administration and reelection efforts, transforming the refusal to wear a mask into a litmus test for true Trump supporters. Second, the president tied face-coverings to feminine weakness and facing the virus unmasked to masculine toughness. Third, Trump and his supporters mimicked the language of women’s rights groups to advocate for “free choice” concerning masks.

Real Trump Supporters Don’t Wear Masks

By January 19, 2021, Trump’s last full day in office, the total number of U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 passed 400,000 (Zak, 2021). Given the unprecedented daily death toll, Trump was routinely criticized during his last year in office for neglecting his duties as comforter-in-chief. In April 2020, The Washington Post described that out of the thirteen hours that Trump had publicly spoken over the three weeks prior, he spent two hours “on attacks and 45 minutes on praising himself and his administration, but just 4.5 minutes expressing condolences for coronavirus victims” (Bump & Parker, 2020, para. 3). The next month, when the death toll “surpassed that of the Vietnam War,” ABC News reporter Ben Gittleson (2020) wrote that Trump “continued to eschew the president’s traditional role as comforter-in-chief” (para. 7). Even Trey Gowdy, a former Republican representative from South Carolina, advised the president to focus on being “comforter-in-chief” and “let the health care professionals handle explaining our health-care response” (Halon, 2020, para. 3). Instead of heeding Gowdy’s advice, Trump centered himself when addressing the crisis. As Ted Widmer quipped to ABC News, “The word empathy is not in his vocabulary . . . You can’t be empathetic and always talk about yourself” (Gittleson, 2020, para. 7).

Rather than focusing on the people suffering from illness or those who lost loved ones, Trump adapted his trope of claiming victim status to the context of the pandemic. For instance, he accused the media of mischaracterizing his administration’s handling of COVID-19. In March, he noted, “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media. The media has not treated it fairly” (Haltiwanger, 2020, para. 5). He also accused media outlets of being “dishonest,” “corrupt,” and overly “negative” as well as “siding with China” (paras. 14-17). According to Trump, the media was out to get him over a pandemic response that he self-rated as “phenomenal,” “10 out of 10,” and “A+” (Cillizza, 2020, paras. 4-6). In July, reporters from The Washington Post summarized that Trump had “cast himself in the starring role of the blameless victim—of a deadly pandemic, of a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all of which happened to him rather than the country” (Parker et al., 2020, para. 4). Several anonymous sources revealed that Trump was fixated on how “the great economy he built” was destroyed due to the pandemic and that the “first half” of every conversation he had was “woe is me” (paras. 23, 28).

Part of Trump’s claim to victimhood during the pandemic was rooted in the conflict over face-coverings. The wearing of masks quickly became a politicized issue. As on many topics, Trump’s messaging was often contradictory. For instance, in May 2020, Trump stated that people had “learned a lot about face masks—the good and the bad, by the way. It’s not a one-sided thing” (Blake, 2020, para. 17). In June, he contended that masks were a “double-edged sword” (para. 11). In July, Trump actually tweeted a pro-mask message but was then seen that same evening “at his Washington hotel mingling with guests without wearing one” (Baker, 2020, para. 24). When addressing the issue in August, he stated, “Maybe they’re great, and maybe they’re just good. Maybe they’re not so good” (Cathey, 2020, para. 14). As Columbia University professor Michael Sparer told Newsweek, Trump’s mask rhetoric has been “extraordinarily inconsistent” (Grzeszczak, 2020, para. 11).

Trump was rarely seen wearing a mask during his time in office and often framed mask-wearing decisions as being about himself as opposed to about whether masks might help stop the spread of the virus. In May 2020, when Trump visited a Ford manufacturing plant in Michigan, he briefly wore a mask while in a specific area of the plant but defied company policy (as well as the state’s mask mandate) when touring the rest of the facility with mask-wearing Ford executives. He explained that he refused to wear a mask in areas where cameras could see him, because he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it” (Cathey, 2020, para. 8). Such rhetoric furthered the narrative that the media and the left were out to get him. During a press briefing in the Rose Garden, Trump ridiculed reporter Jeff Mason as just wanting to be “politically correct” when Mason refused to remove his mask at Trump’s request (Behrmann, 2020, para. 3). Trump similarly derided Joe Biden for his commitment to face-coverings, saying he found it “very unusual” when Biden wore a mask outside during “perfect conditions, perfect weather” (para. 9). Trump also retweeted a post from Brit Hume of Fox News, which showed an image of Biden in a mask and aviator sunglasses. Hume mocked Biden’s appearance writing, “This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a mask in public” (para. 12). According to some reports, concern over this type of image mockery was a reason Trump refused to wear a mask, as he did not want images of him in a mask ridiculed in campaign attack ads (Israel, 2020).

Through his actions and comments, Trump spread the idea that public figures who consistently wore masks had ulterior motivations and thus, implied that a bare face served as a bodily marker of a tough Trump supporter who refused to be pressured into submission. Pew Research Center data showed that Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to express opposition or skepticism of masks and to cite face-coverings as something that made their life more challenging during the pandemic (Van Kessel & Quinn, 2020). However, even some Republican politicians showed support for masks, indicating that the issue was tied more specifically to Trumpian values. In June 2020, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander lamented that going maskless had become an unfortunate sign of Trumpism: “[If] you’re for Trump, you don’t wear a mask; if you’re against Trump, you do” (Smith, 2020, para. 15). In a Salon interview, Dr. Joshua Gartner, a former Johns Hopkins psychology professor, went so far as to claim that Trump’s poor pandemic management and anti-mask rhetoric made him a “first-degree mass murderer,” who was leading a “death cult,” which required supporters to “engage in suicidal self-destructive behavior as a sign of loyalty to the Great Leader” (DeVega, 2020, paras. 19, 30).

Just as refusing to wear a mask was frequently framed as a bodily symbol of Trump support, choosing to wear a mask was often seen as affront against Trumpism. When Trump noticed that Fox News personality Laura Ingraham was wearing a mask at one of his rallies, he mockingly said, “Are you wearing a mask? I’ve never seen her in a mask. Look at you!” (Papanfuss, 2020, para. 2). The association between being anti-mask and pro-Trump was so clear to Trump’s die-hard followers that they booed Ohio’s Republican Lieutenant Governor John Husted when he encouraged rally attendees to don face-coverings. Husted tried to sell the idea of masks by stating, “I’m trying to make masks in America great again” and then pulling out a red mask printed with the phrase “Trump 2020” (Court, 2020, paras. 3-4). However, he was met with “loud jeers” and shouts to “get off the stage” (para. 5). By midsummer, Republican strategist Alex Castellanos suggested that mask-wearing had become a “secular religious symbol,” explaining, “Christians wear crosses, Muslims wear a hijab, and members of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior” (Smith, 2020, para. 10). Such coverage revealed that Trump’s populist spin on the pandemic had taken hold amongst his adherents, who now viewed masks as a political tool wielded by liberal elites with a hidden agenda.

Although Trump did not win a second term, he successfully convinced many followers that pro-mask messages were primarily about undermining him, his reelection campaign, and everything he represented. Whether it was because mask-wearing actually acknowledged the reality of a grim crisis he allowed to worsen or perhaps because he sought to preserve a sense of normalcy to avoid a harsher economic crisis fueled by widespread anxiety, Trump’s mask rhetoric transformed the victims of the crisis from those dying alone in hospital beds to those wearing red hats in support of his campaign.

Masks as a Form of Emasculation

As Trump redefined the pandemic as his opponents’ main strategy to weaken his campaign, he also sought to turn the ongoing crisis into a test of masculine resolve. Trump’s decision to rarely show himself wearing a mask and to mock others who wore them signaled that he viewed masks as a sign of weakness. Trump avoided wearing masks in public because he did not want to allow his “political rivals to accuse him of cowering from the scourge” (Liptak et al., 2020, para. 43). Reportedly, some of Trump’s political advisors also worried that “wearing masks would convey weakness” at a moment when “the president was adapting a ‘wartime’ mien” (para. 35). Anna North (2020) of Vox agreed, “For Trump in particular, refusing to wear a mask became part of a larger message that ignoring the risks of the coronavirus was the tough or strong thing to do” (para. 13). He even told Americans to “think of themselves as warriors” (para. 14).

As pressure to don a face-covering mounted, Trump struggled with how to square wearing a mask with his persona when they seemed so at odds. In April, he implied that there was something untoward about wearing one, explaining that doing so while in the Oval Office while he “greet[ed] presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, [and] queens” was not something he could “see for [him]self” (Cathey, 2020, para. 7). In July, Trump briefly tried to reframe his mask-wearing as manly, bragging that he “looked like the Lone Ranger” when he wore one (Israel, 2020, para. 22). Neil Steinberg (2020) of the Chicago Sun Times, noted that even on July 11th when Trump “finally broke down and wore a mask, he had to first assemble a tableau of generals, behind him, as backup” in order to “nurs[e] his fragile masculinity” (para. 15). However, this rhetoric was inconsistent and short-lived, as Trump continued to downplay the virus and mock Biden for wearing a mask throughout the election cycle.

Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the danger of the virus in an attempt to maintain his tough-guy credibility was perhaps most clear after he contracted COVID-19 in October and had to be transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for care. The White House was tight-lipped regarding the severity of Trump’s bout with the disease, and his family released a series of statements to assure the public that Trump’s strength would keep him safe. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that “no one is tougher” than Trump, Ivanka Trump referred to her father as a “warrior,” and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump insisted he “would beat Covid to a pulp” and then “come back and beat Biden to a pulp” (Plank, 2020, para. 4). Similarly, Georgia Congresswoman Kelly Loeffler tweeted an old WWE clip of Trump that had been edited to show him tackling and beating up the coronavirus (Kurtzleben, 2020). Two days after being admitted, Trump himself tried to allay any concerns about his health by leaving the facility to wave at supporters in the hermetically sealed presidential SUV, even though this put the secret service officers inside the vehicle with him at great risk. Liz Plank (2020) of NBC News wrote that the “reason for this transparent bravado is obvious. The president’s needing urgent medical care because of a virus he spent the last eight months mocking or outright denying contradicts his brand of invulnerable masculinity” (para. 5). When Trump recovered and was released from the hospital, he used this as proof of his vigor. Despite the fact that at this time the American COVID-19 death toll was at 211,000, Trump tweeted, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life” (Liptak & Reston, 2020, para. 3). On his return to the White House, cameras filmed him removing his mask prior to entering the building. Shortly after, he released a video statement complimenting himself and suggesting that brave leaders take risks: “I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger” (para. 8). He was offering himself as the antithesis of Biden. While the Democrat wore a mask and avoided the dangers of the virus, Trump insinuated that he faced the disease head on and emerged a stronger man.

Trump’s masculinity rhetoric proved infectious. For example, on the day Trump left the hospital, supporter Garland Thomas told NPR, “He’s a vibrant man. He’s strong. This man, he looks stronger than Biden” (Kurtzleben, 2020, para. 4). Similarly, in July, when Trump finally wore a mask in public, Republican congressional candidate K. W. Miller exclaimed, “I don’t wear face masks, but POTUS is the only man who can pull it off and still look intensely masculine” (Steinberg, 2020, para. 17). Making a comparison between the male anatomy and the face, one supporter retorted, “I don’t wear a mask for the same reason I don’t wear underwear; things gotta breathe” (Smith, 2020, para. 9). Similarly, Emily Willingham (2020) of the Scientific American argued that, following in the footsteps of “the Masculinity Performer in Chief,” Trump’s supporters viewed masks as “face condoms” (paras. 1 & 6). Thus, not wearing a mask during a global pandemic was added to the list of reckless actions a man can take to prove his machismo, and protective measures were situated as feminine. For instance, when Biden released a side-by-side video of Trump removing a mask while Biden put one on with the tag line, “Masks matter. They save lives,” Fox News’s Tomi Lahren retweeted it with the caption, “Might as well carry a purse with that mask, Joe” (Kurtzleben, 2020, para. 11). Such rhetoric reinforced Trump’s narrative that Americans were in need of a leader who performed his ilk of masculine bravado as opposed to a leader who submitted to public health directives.

Especially after a survey of 2,459 Americans “found that men [were] less likely to wear face masks because they believe[d] it [was] . . . ‘a sign of weakness,’” concern erupted over the best way to convince more men to wear masks (Smith, 2020, para. 25). For many, the answer lied not in presenting scientific evidence on the efficacy of masks but rather in reframing them as masculine, “something that men can individually do in order to be rugged heroes” (Hesse, 2020, para. 18). For instance, a California mask campaign featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, a “Western exemplar of manhood,” saying, “This is not about being weak . . . just do it” (Willingham, 2020, paras. 5, 12). Similar to the Schwarzenegger tactic, Lawrence University professor Peter Glick advised people to lean into masculine stereotypes with “tough-looking masks—MAGA masks, camouflage[-print masks], [masks printed with] shark teeth” (Tschorn, 2020, para. 22). In a widely circulated Twitter post, House Republican Liz Cheney also attempted to make masks tough by tweeting a photo of former Vice President Dick Cheney wearing a cowboy hat with the hashtag, “RealMenWearMasks” (Hesse, 2020, paras. 1-2). Persuasive attempts that try to make masks manly point to the negative association that Trump supporters tend to hold toward any perceived femininization of society. As The Washington Post’s Monica Hesse wrote, “We’ve reached the point of this polarized pandemic where our current plan for salvation is convincing certain recalcitrant men that wearing masks is the testosteroney thing to do” (para. 5). In other words, the only practical solution was to try to associate masks with masculine toughness. However, making this message intelligible was difficult when what makes masks “feminine” is that they are a regulation of a bodily choice. The rhetoric of Trump and his supporters reveals this to be the case, as they simultaneously fell back on familiar cries regarding the left’s erosion of personal liberty while also, ironically, appropriating the language of pro-choice feminists.

My Face, My Choice

When pushed on the question of face-coverings, Trump tried to toe the line by making masks an issue of personal choice. He repeatedly referred to masks as “voluntary.” For instance, in July he explained, “With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it” (Liptak et al., 2020, para. 20). Rather than required, Trump argued on numerous occasions that masks were just a “recommended” thing that he “[wouldn’t] be doing personally” (Blake, 2020, paras. 25-27). CNN contributor Dean Obeidallah (2020) contended that this type of rhetoric is what “politicized” masks and led to a partisan divide on the issue that was reflected in polling data (para. 3). Framing masks as a personal choice permitted Trump to lay claim to masculine agency on the rare occasions that he did wear one while also allowing him to suggest that mask mandates were a violation of liberty.

Pro-mask rhetoric was often linked to existing narratives regarding liberal attempts to control the actions of conservatives on issues like gun rights and free speech. Reporter Jen Schneider (2020) claimed that conservatives denounced masks as “muzzles” or as a form of “oppression,” which “trigger[ed] beliefs that liberals want to limit ‘free speech’” (paras. 10-13). Schneider also pointed out the populist nature of these “concerns about personal liberty” suggesting they were linked to “beliefs about masculinity, sickness, weakness, and conspiracy theories that masks are being used by the federal government to manipulate, dominate or control U.S. citizens, and especially conservatives” (para. 15). For instance, during a public meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, several speakers “railed against mandatory masks, drawing comparisons with Nazi Germany and pushing conspiracy theories linking the virus to Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, 5G mobile networks and pedophiles” (Smith, 2020, para. 9). In other words, MAGA supporters viewed the mask as a bridle brandished by liberal elites, who sought to rein in Trump’s rhetoric. It was seen as both a literal and symbolic form of constraint stifling their voices.

While many Trump supporters resisted masks because they were considered feminine, they simultaneously co-opted feminist rhetoric in order to claim that they were being oppressed. For instance, Trump’s former aide Sebastian Gorka labeled face-coverings “Democrat Islamo-maoist masks” and “COVID burqas,” claiming that they were “dehumaniz[ing]” and that wearing one was “an act of submission” (Moran, 2020, paras. 1-4). While exhibiting clear Islamophobia, Gorka was comparing Democrats to those who forced women to cover their bodies. Furthermore, despite being anti-abortion, many conservatives employed pro-choice rhetoric to support their anti-mask agenda. Gorka described how he retorted, “My body, my choice” when a “lady” who was “clearly a Democrat voter” asked him, “Where’s your mask?” (Moran, 2020, para. 4). Anti-mask demonstrations across America reportedly “bore all the ubiquitous hallmarks of a Donald Trump rally,” but one divergent element was the usage of the slogan “‘My Body, My Choice,’ a cheeky riff on an abortion rights sentiment more commonly heard from the other side of America’s ideological divide” (McCarten, 2020, paras. 3-4). Some Republican officials also relied on this rhetoric. In Colorado, Weld County Commissioner Scott James claimed that mask mandates were “philosophically . . . off limits” (Kenney, 2020, para. 2). He explained as follows:

If indeed it is “my body, my choice” in a nation that celebrates liberty and freedom above all else, we must respect that . . . we can educate [someone] as much as we possibly can, but if that person does not choose to put on their mask, we must celebrate that choice. (para. 3)

Thus, within this context, conservatives valued choice so much that refusing to mask up was not just something to be tolerated but an action to be commended, suggesting that only by allowing this choice could America prove its true commitment to freedom. Elvia Díaz (2020) of the Arizona Republic noted the inherent conflict present in such arguments explaining, “conservatives are now crying ‘my body my choice” while also continuing to battle against “the pro-choice movement” (para. 1). Ultimately, then, this anti-mask appropriation of feminist rhetoric was an incoherent attempt to claim oppression and victimhood while servicing the perpetuation of patriarchal power.

Conclusion

Throughout this essay, I have analyzed how Trump violated the rhetorical norms expected of a president during a national crisis. Trump instead opted to approach the pandemic through a populist lens, returning to a familiar strategy of claiming marginalization. Using masks as a test of loyalty, a marker of feminine weakness, and a symbol of bodily oppression, Trump transformed the pandemic from a crisis of public health into a crisis of masculinity.

Following Trump’s election in 2016, Bostdorff (2017) noted that looking ahead to his years as president, Trump’s “persuasive challenge” hinged on an ability to “keep supporters in a perpetual state of anger for his benefit,” which she suggested would be difficult since “even when anger is justified, it can be exhausting” (p. 698). However, Trump’s 4 years in office demonstrated that he was largely up for this persuasive challenge. Although he ultimately lost the 2020 election, he still managed to get 10.2 million more votes than when he won in 2016, more votes than any Republican candidate ever (Fessenden et al., 2020). Given how successful he was at turning out voters to the polls, Trump’s populist crisis rhetoric should not be written off as a persuasive failure. Instead, Trump’s pandemic response reveals both the power and pitfalls of populist messaging in crisis situations. Populist crisis rhetoric is likely to resonate with a candidate’s followers, but, depending on the scale of the emergency, it also runs the risk of being so unresponsive to the reality of the moment that it motivates voter turnout for the opposing candidate.

What has become increasingly clear since Joe Biden’s inauguration is that while Trump may have lost the 2020 presidential battle, he has not yet lost the political war. As demonstrated by his prominent appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump still looms large over the Republican party and is already situated as a 2024 frontrunner. Trump’s mask rhetoric has also outlived his presidency. As of March 10, 2021, there were 16 states without mask mandates, all with Republican governors (Durkee, 2021). Although at this time, public health experts still recommend that people wear masks in public, even if vaccinated, some of the states on this list, such as Mississippi and Texas, chose to let their mandates expire in the months after Biden took office, a trend that is likely to continue in conservative states. Trump noted in his CPAC speech, “It’s far from being over” (Reston, 2021, para. 2), and, given his skill at transforming his populist message to meet any moment, he is likely to be right.