Notes on the uses of sport in Trump’s white nationalist assemblage

Abstract

Using conjunctural analysis and informed by insights drawn from critical whiteness studies, sport studies, and masculinity studies, I offer some developing interpretations on two inter-related questions. First, how sport has been used to cultivate and popularize the proto-fascist white nationalist project(s) currently gripping the United States. And second, how sport facilitates the production and popularization of the unapologetic and omnipotent performance of white masculinity that seems central to the popular appeal of this contemporary American white nationalist assemblage. To address these questions, I critically examine the patterned ways Donald Trump, first as candidate and then as President, has used sport to promote his white nationalist project. Additionally, I critically unpack the writings and performances of two white male cultural figures who are key figures within Trump nationalist assemblage. The first, Richard Spencer, coined the label ‘alternative right’. The second, National Football League superstar, Tom Brady, is a man who Trump loves to call a ‘good friend’. I contend that, like Trump, they venerate (in Spencer’s case) and normalize (in Brady’s case) an idealized performance of white masculinity I call white male omnipotence, that is central to explaining the appeal of Trump’s nationalist project to “Make America Great Again” for many anxious white Americans.

The Performance and Reception of Race-Based Athletic Activism: Toward a Critical, Dramaturgical Theory of Sport

“…In these exchanges, Trump moved away from the “strategic breach of patriotism,” as theorized by Montez de Oca & Suh ( 2020 ), and questions of who was breaching the sanctity of sport, to direct and personal insults. Nevertheless, Trump’s attacks on athlete activists and the athletic establishment were clearly part of a conservative white nationalism that centered sport for its promotion and public outreach (Andrews 2019 ; Kusz 2019 ; see also: Seigel 2019 ). Trump’s overtly partisan use of sport stands in sharp contrast to the more subtle and unifying use of sport by previous Presidents (Green and Hartmann 2014 ).…”

“Real Men Stand for Our Nation”: Constructions of an American Nation and Anti-Kaepernick Memes

“…Similar to how sport itself is often a medium "used to provide the short-circuit signs" to reproduce cultural meanings (St Louis, 2003, p. 76), memes turn complex cultural, historical, and social processes into simplistic and easy-to-digest visual morsels. The reemergence of Kaepernick memes signals the importance of studying memes particularly as both memes and sport media have become cultural battlegrounds for president Donald Trump and the loosely affiliated alt-right (Falcous et al, 2019;Kusz, 2019). As memes become a more prevalent and salient part of sport media participatory culture and the public acknowledgment of the interrelationships of sports and politics heightens, our analysis can be a guide for future critical sport scholars to take memes seriously as the potent aspect of political and public discourse that they are.…”

“…Sport is a battleground for the perpetuation of these ideas. Donald Trump has routinely glorified White male athletes while disparaging the character of Black players speaking out against injustices via Twitter (Kusz, 2019), while rightwing websites like Breitbart have characterized Kaepernick's protest as emblematic of the soft and liberally tainted discourse infecting U.S. colleges and society more broadly (Falcous et al, 2019).The memes in this section work similarly in that they enable an identification with a social world that has rejected politically correct culture by framing the support of his message as a product of a leftist agenda, rejecting the existence of racial oppression, and emphasizing Kaepernick's economic status.…”

“…Our examination of sport media via internet memes allows for an exploration of two important tools of the playbook of Donald Trump and the loosely affiliated alt-right, sport and memes. Falcous et al (2019) argue that as the alt-right increasingly sees culture as a site of contestation over social values, sport is increasingly becoming a space for a re-articulation of a form of politics centering White, Western, and heterosexual men (see also Kusz, 2019). For example, alt-right media outlets such as Breitbart Sports are using their coverage of sport to convey a hard right agenda, while perpetuating the belief that the cultural space of sport is under attack by liberal policies and politically correct culture (Falcous et al, 2019), a framing that positions conservatives as the real victims within the current political climate by positioning liberals or those that advocate for the rights of racial minorities, women, or the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community as the instigators of bigotry in the United States (Falcous et al, 2019).…”

“…In providing valuable insight into long-standing tensions between politics, nationalism, patriotism, citizenship, meanings of race/racism, and sport, scholars have used his protest to discuss the importance of a publicly engaged sport sociology (Newman, 2019;Walton-Fisette, 2018), examine White undergraduate students' perspectives of race and activism in sport (Chaplin & Montez de Oca, 2019), and consider the traditional media's coverage of athlete activism (Boykoff & Carrington, 2019;Montez de Oca & Suh, 2019). By focusing on memes, we seek to add to this growing body of literature on Colin Kaepernick, while also contributing to the rise of scholarship examining how sport plays a role in the creation and dissemination of the politics of the alt-right (Falcous et al, 2019;Kusz, 2019). In what follows, we provide a larger discussion of post-9/11 America and sport, followed by an outline of memetic culture, before moving into our larger analysis of internet memes featuring Colin Kaepernick.…”