# overview
Dr. Jennifer Mercieca is an award-winning Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. She writes about American political discourse, especially as it relates to citizenship, democracy, and the presidency. Jennifer has published three books: Founding Fictions, The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency, and Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.

Her academic scholarship has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Argumentation & Advocacy, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Southern Communication Journal, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and the Texas A&M University Press.

She is a Contributing Editor for Zocalo, the Public Square. She has written public scholarship about rhetoric and politics for The Conversation, USA Today, Washington Post, and other major media outlets. She has been interviewed about rhetoric and politics by the BBC World News, NPR's All Things Considered, NPR's 1A, Diane Rehm, The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, The Guardian, Vice News, Australia's ABC Radio, Politico, Salon, Slate, USA Today, and many other outlets throughout the United States and Worldwide. Her public scholarship articles have had more than 3 million views online and have been translated into foreign languages, republished in newspapers, and used for teaching current events to high school students nationwide.

Her 2020 book on Donald Trump's rhetoric (Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump) was reviewed in the Washington Post, which said "it deserves a place alongside George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' and Harry G. Frankfurt's 'On Bulls---.' It's a brilliant dissertation on Trump's patented brand of balderdash. That makes it one of the most important political books of this perilous summer." Reviews in Politico and Salon called the book a "must read" and "highly recommended." The Association of American Publishers awarded Demagogue for President a 2021 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences: Government & Politics. The book is also a Foreword Indies Winner, earning a Bronze medal in the category of Political & Social Sciences. She is a 2016 recipient of the Texas A&M Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching, the highest student award given to faculty for teaching at Texas A&M University.

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University of the Pacific - (Stockton, California, United States)

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University of the Pacific - (Stockton, California, United States)

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Communication (broadcasting & media studies)

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University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign - (Urbana, Illinois, United States)

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Barack Obama and the rhetoric of heroic expectations

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PUTTING THE "PUBLIC" IN RHETORIC & PUBLIC AFFAIRS

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Law-and-order or conspiracy? How political parties frame the impeachment battle will help decide Trumps fate

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Trump accepts the nomination from the White House lawn, portraying a nation in crisis and himself as its hero

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What is the Role of the Communication Discipline in Social Justice, Community Engagement, and Public Scholarship? A Visit to the CM Cafe

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16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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The rhetoric of heroic expectations: Establishing the Obama presidency

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The rhetorical brilliance of Trump the demagogue

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"HAS YOUR COURAGE RUSTED?": NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE CONTESTED RHETORICAL NORMS OF REPUBLICANISM IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA, 1798-1801

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Jefferson's call to nationhood: The first inaugural address

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THE CULTURE OF HONOR: HOW SLAVEHOLDERS RESPONDED TO THE ABOLITIONIST MAIL CRISIS OF 1835

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Donald Trump and the dangerous rhetoric of portraying people as objects

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Can America's deep political divide be traced back to 1832?

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The Post-Rhetorical Legacy of George W. Bush

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Michael Cohens guilty plea? Nothing to see here

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Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation

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Why wont Democrats say they want government to solve problems?

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Afterword: Trump as Anarchist and Sun King

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The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship

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A field guide to Trump's dangerous rhetoric

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What is legitimate political discourse, and does it include the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol?

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Carrying the burden: How barack Obama both embraced and diminished heroic expectations

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Michael Cohens verbal somersault, I lied, but Im not a liar, translated by a rhetoric expert

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"A Discovered Dissembler Can Achieve Nothing Great"; Or, Four Theses on the Death of Presidential Rhetoric in an Age of Empire

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Donald Trumps nonstop news-making can be exhausting, making it harder for people to scrutinize his presidential actions

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William!Manning's Key of Libberty

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Appropriate[ing] Dress: Women's Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth Century America

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16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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Trump and Us: What He Says and Why People Listen

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A Nation of Speechifiers: Making An American Public After the Revolution

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Ignoring the President: Barack Obama and the Postrhetorical Presidency

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CHOICE, LOYALTY, AND SAFETY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DISTINCTLY AMERICAN IMAGINED NATIONALISM

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In acceptance speech, Trump embraces role as hero of the forgotten

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There's an insidious strategy behind Donald Trump's retweets

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"We the People" and the Rhetorics of Republicanism in America, 1776--1845

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After a brutal campaign, a moment of transcendence for Hillary Clinton

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America is in the middle of a battle over the meaning of words like diversity

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Demagogue for President The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump

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DID THE 2008 ELECTION CHANGE EVERYTHING?

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Fighting words for a New Gilded Age - Democratic candidates are sounding a lot like Teddy Roosevelt

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Four quotes from the sixth GOP presidential debate, explained by experts

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Texas A&M University; Communication; 4234 TAMU

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Expert roundtable on Jan. 6 and Trump's Big Lie: "Fascism in its pure ideological form"

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Texas A&M Professor On 'The Rhetorical Genius Of Donald Trump'

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Tucker Carlson prepares white nationalists for war: Don't ignore the power of his rhetoric

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Terry, Andrea June (2017-05). The Rhetoric of Political Time: Tracing the Neoliberal Regime's Ascent. Doctoral Dissertation.