This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the strategic use of negative evaluations in the Twitter campaigns by the Republican and Democratic candidate for the US presidency in 2020. The study combines a corpus-linguistic method (key semantic domain method) with Martin and White’s Appraisal framework to systematically capture and compare the dispersion, frequency and contextual use of negative evaluations by Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump. The study shows how corpus-linguistic methods can be usefully employed to systematize the quantitative and qualitative exploration of attitudinal evaluations in mid-size language corpora. Further, results indicate that Donald Trump’s targets and objects of negative evaluation in 2020 have broadened compared to his previous Twitter election campaign. This is likely to reflect Trump’s new official status as leader of the government, needing to defend his actions and decisions. In turn, Joe Biden’s negative evaluations on Twitter criticise such government policies with the principal aim to present Biden as a challenger of the status quo, fighting to create new jobs for the ‘ordinary man’. This constitutes a clear change in campaign policies of the Democratic party compared to their Twitter campaign for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This chapter examines the controversy over psychiatric comment on Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump’s election led many psychiatrists to grow concerned for the country’s safety and to argue that when the country is unsafe, commenting on a public figure’s mental health is in fact an ethical obligation. The APA, on the other hand, held firm to and even strengthened its ban on such comment. For my narrative and analysis, I draw on original interviews with APA officials – including medical director Saul Levin and ethics chair Rebecca Brendel – and with critics of the APA, including Bandy X. Lee, Judith Herman, Robert Jay Lifton, and Leonard Glass. Using this new material and looking at the age of Twitter, this chapter presents the first sustained analysis of the controversy and its importance for psychiatry, ethics, and journalism in the age of Trump. As I note, in recent years, several prominent figures have argued for a revision of the libel standard articulated in New York Times v. Sullivan. These figures include the late Justice Antonin Scalia, current Justice Clarence Thomas, and President Donald Trump himself – leaving the future of libel law contested, as it has been since 1964.