The 2016 U.S. presidential election

Candidate Trump anchored the positive side of his MAGA binary codes of civil discourse (BCCs) with winning and being smart, with having knowledge of the real reality, and with having a special set of skills that makes one a good negotiator. He also acknowledged the persuasive power of the modern-civil codes. In Trump’s semiosis, American political elites betray the sacred characteristics of both sets of codes. They speak the modern-civil code to their constituents. To enervate the sacralizing power of these constructions, the candidate drew from a conventional script of modern-coded democratic politics by insisting that no, in reality, these characters are secretive and calculating, greedy and deceitful. On the other hand, the candidate insisted repeatedly that American elites are stupid, they are losers, and they are bad negotiators. It appears as if this strategy introduced a contradiction to his semiotic coding.

This coding indicates flux within the foundational binary cultural codes of American civil discourse, or a decentering of the modern-civil code. We need to investigate the semiotic shifts being orchestrated in order to understand why significant portions of the American public find it persuasive and desirable. We need answers two questions. First, what are America’s political elites doing or not doing that makes them the embodiment of stupidity? Second, how might the candidate be able to make the heroic, good elites in his narrative – the MAGA elites – appear to embody the sacred set of modern-civil codes? Put another way, how can they embody simultaneously both the sacred set of MAGA-codes – smart, winner, good negotiator, seeing the real reality - and the sacred set of modern-civil codes – or of being altruistic, open, straightforward and trustworthy? Another look at the coding of outsider elites provides an answer to the first question, and suggests where we can find a solution to the second.