Abstract
Though many in news media have accused Donald Trump of being racist or dog-whistling during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign, there has been little empirical analysis of Trump’s words. A content analysis of Donald Trump’s speeches as the Republican Presidential Nominee was conducted to search for race baiting dog whistles. The paper uses the content analytical method, which seeks alignment of message, messenger, and receiver; as such, analysis included not only Trump’s words but connection with extant research on his political persona and his supporters. Analysis showed alignment in the three areas, including consistent dog whistle usage in Trump’s speeches. Trump’s dog whistle usage also significantly exceeded that of recent Republican Presidential Nominees.
Highlights
Though many in news media have accused Donald Trump of being racist or dog-whistling during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign, there has been little empirical analysis of Trump’s words
The speeches Donald Trump made as Republican presidential nominee were downloaded from the American Presidency Project (APP) website
Topics consistently mentioned by the candidates that did not meet the criteria for coding or did not align with the racism theme underlying the dog whistle analysis are not presented here
Summary
Though many in news media have accused Donald Trump of being racist or dog-whistling during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign, there has been little empirical analysis of Trump’s words. Writers and television pundits often blamed Clinton’s loss on the failures of the Democratic party to appeal to Americans living outside ascendant, densely populated cities (Trende & Byler, 2017) Those explanations, which either ignored the impact of race or minimized it, felt sterile in light of the series of controversial events at Trump rallies and campaign stops (Mathis-Lilley, 2016), including clashes between groups of protesters (Saunders, 2016), racist chants (DelReal & Sullivan, 2016), and physical violence like the Black man assaulted by a White Trump supporter (Parker, 2016). Phrase that implies, but does not state, a connection to one or more minority groups
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