Aggro-truth: (Dis-)trust, toxic masculinity, and the cultural logic of post-truth politics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Advancing theorizations of communication in post-truth politics, where computational/big data or cognitive bias approaches often dominate the description of and proposed solutions to the problem, this article aims to theorize the cultural production of social trust, which underpins public truth-making. It argues that performing mediated trust is preconditional to public truth-making (oft-overlooked in post-truth accounts). Advocating that a more detailed theory of post-truth political performances requires amalgamating intra- and interdisciplinary resources and broadening perspectives, it unites insights from social trust theory, reality television (RTV) studies, gender studies, and political communication. It identifies and critiques an aggressive emotional and a palpably toxic (especially white) masculinist logic in a popular strand of post-truth political performance. This conjuncturally specific, traditionally aggressive masculinist post-truth political communication is best understood as a transposable style, set of practices, and disposition toward them – a cultural logic called “aggro-truth.” Aggro-truth thus moves beyond the general concept and label of post-truth by a. showing that it has a particular, widely circulating, sub-form with its own particular cultural logic for operationalizing mediated trust in post-truth tellers (such as Donald Trump); and b. demonstrating how that logic works by focusing on Trump, while noting broad evidence of transnational variations for further research.