ABSTRACT
This article explores the rhetorical life and times of “the Manchurian candidate” in America’s rhetorical/political culture. It specifically addresses the lasting capacity of the “Manchurian candidate” to operate as a political trope, a signifier divorced fully from its original signified, yet still filled with meaning and power, particularly for ordering conspiracy rhetorics in contemporary political campaigns as an emblem of the “paranoid style” in American politics. The essay examines the conversion of the “Manchurian candidate” into a political trope, from its initial expression in its Cold War context and the subsequent rearticulations of the “Manchurian candidate” for audiences living in varied non–Cold War contexts. Ultimately, the migration of this narrative and its conversion over time into a political trope for active use in U.S. political discourse is a compelling example of the lasting influence of Cold War culture in the American consciousness as well as the malleability, the flexibility, of Cold War characters, cultural themes, and rhetorics.
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Trevor Parry-Giles
Trevor Parry-Giles is the Executive Director of the National Communication Association and a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on the historical and contemporary relationships between rhetoric, politics, law, and popular culture. He is the author or editor of four books, including The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism (U of Illinois P, 2006).
Timothy Barney
Timothy Barney is an associate professor and chair in the Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies at the University of Richmond. He studies Cold War and post-Cold War visual culture and political rhetoric, and is the author of Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power (U of North Carolina P, 2015).
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