Ruse and Rhetoric as the Populist’s Xenophobic Ploy

Abstract

Rhetoric can be a tool that builds strong communities and great empires, but it can also be weaponized in order to isolate, disenfranchise, and oppress. A thorough examination of rhetoric and its impacts in the United States introduces a unique reflection on the legacy of former President's Trump’s dialogue with a large segment of the American people and its connection to a broader fear of “the other” within the global community. The verbal onslaught indirectly and other times directly, expressed those immigrants as not of the same as the domestic-citizen “ingroup.” Consequently, we have borne witness to some of the most nonsensical attempts at immigration reform disguising the purest form of xenophobia. Unfortunately, the United States was not the lone place where rhetoric towards these outsiders fueled aggressive nationalistic response to a perceived threat. A five-country case study of the Americas highlights a critical consequence of these anti-immigrant attitudes and resulting policies. Specifically, the use of rhetoric in this fashion created an invaluable political pressure relief for conservative populist leaders: promoting a belief in the masses of a dedicated nationalist hero focused on ending the immigrant threat, but in reality only creating the figurative and not literal deportation of an indispensable labor force that are immigrants in these lands.