“We Will Build a Great Wall”: Domination, Criminalization, and Expatriation in Trump Campaign and Rally Speeches

Abstract

Given the import and impact of political campaign promises, this study systematically analyzed Donald Trump’s campaign and rally speeches using a typology of verbal-textual hostility (V.T.H.) developed by Asquith (2013) from criminal hate incidents in the United Kingdom. Trump used all forms of V.T.H. previously identified by Asquith, except for sexualization, and new forms that may be specific to the political context. Analysis of speeches from 2015–2018 revealed that expatriation, criminalization, and domination were the most frequently used forms of V.T.H. deployed by Trump, which we consider in relation to the historical, social, and political context and consequences.

“We’re led by stupid people”: Exploring Trump’s use of denigrating and deprecating speech to promote hatred and violence

“…3 In addition to the newly recategorized speech act of denigration, we found two authoritative illocutions rarely used in hate speech incidents, perhaps due to the exercitive force needed to empower both domination and deprecation. Domination, as noted above, was analyzed separately in Valcore et al ( 2021 ), but its connection to deprecation and denigration is explored here.…”

“…Here, the deprecation also induces a clear “other” for comparison, namely China in this context. As noted by Valcore et al ( 2021 ), nationalist discourses focus on the threat to employment and resources from the other, and fear and hatred of the other is a key element of right-wing populism.…”

“…We previously identified and labeled populist and racist rhetoric that Trump often utilized to appeal to his target audience of white Americans as a new VTH category of Domination (Valcore et al, 2021 ). Trump’s dominating speech was intended to stoke fear about immigrants and racially minoritized groups, and incite his audience to action, even violence (Valcore et al, 2021 ).…”

“…We previously identified and labeled populist and racist rhetoric that Trump often utilized to appeal to his target audience of white Americans as a new VTH category of Domination (Valcore et al, 2021 ). Trump’s dominating speech was intended to stoke fear about immigrants and racially minoritized groups, and incite his audience to action, even violence (Valcore et al, 2021 ). His two most popular campaign slogans, “Make America Great Again” and “America First” were emblematic of his white nationalist and populist beliefs (“America First” was also a slogan of the Ku Klux Klan in the 20 th century).…”

“…We began this exploration by applying Asquith’s ( 2013 ) verbal-textual hostility (VTH) framework and identifying the most common categories of hostile speech that Trump employed. In a previous article, we analyzed and discussed three major categories: criminalization, domination, and expatriation (Valcore et al, 2021 ). In this article we analyze two unique categories of VTH that Trump commonly employed, denigration and deprecation, and discuss their relation to domination, which is explicitly white nationalist and white supremacist speech.…”