ABSTRACT

For the past 100 years, the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, from 1919 has stood as a landmark case due to the Court’s creation of a “Clear and Present Danger” standard of freedom of speech. Through the vehicle of the Clear and Present Danger measure, the Court reconsidered that the degree of freedom for inflammatory rhetoric could be legally permissible until the point that realistic danger of harm or illegal action might occur. One century after this ruling, this paper examines the unprecedentedly divisive and uncivil public rhetoric of a US President, Donald J. Trump. Through a descriptive analysis summarizing the characteristics of President Trump’s rhetoric, we contend that Trump generates a level of dangerous Presidential communication not publicly expressed by previous Presidents that arguably could be considered to overstep the limits of free expression set forth by the courts.

摘要

在过去的 100 年里，最高法院在申克诉美国案中的裁决, 249 US 47, 自 1919 年以来，由于法院制定了“明显且存在危险”的言论自由标准，因此成为具有里程碑意义的案件。通过“明确而存在的危险”措施，法院重新考虑了煽动性言论的自由度在法律上是允许的，直到可能发生伤害或非法行为的现实危险为止。在这一裁决之后的一个世纪，本文考察了美国总统唐纳德·J·特朗普 (Donald J. Trump) 前所未有的分裂和不文明的公开言论。通过对特朗普总统言论特征的描述性分析，我们认为特朗普产生了前任总统未公开表达的危险的总统沟通水平，可以说是超越了法院规定的言论自由的限制。