Changing Faces of Change: Metanarratives in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

• Main Author: Albion M. Butters
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Association for American Studies 2017-08-01
• Series: European Journal of American Studies
• Subjects: pop politics; election of change; teleology; declinism; political metanarrative; 2016 U.S. presidential election
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12116

This article explores the significance of the theme of “change” in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, going beyond its rhetorical use by the candidates or as a way of defining a historic electoral shift (making an “election of change”) to examine how change played a critical role in the political landscape itself. One can locate voters’ desire for change in many existing conditions leading up to the race, but also ideologically and as a force in its own right. Framing of the election as a story reveals that the various actors were increasingly aware of their shifting identities, representations, and agency; thus, change was not just a plot of the story, frequently expressed in terms of populism and popular culture, but a fundamental dynamic behind competing metanarratives and contestations of how the story should be told.