Abstract
The emergence of Donald Trump as an anti-Muslim-Islam presidential candidate and victory over Hillary Clinton is an issue of debate and division in the United States’ political sphere. Many commentators and political pundits criticize Trump for his disparaging rhetoric on Twitter and present him as an example of how Twitter can be an effective tool for the construction and extension of political polarization. The current study analyzes the selected tweets by Donald Trump posted on Twitter to unmask how he uses language to construct Islamophobic discourse structures and attempts to form his ideological structures along with. The researchers hypothesize that Islamophobia is a marked feature of Trump’s political career realized by specific rhetorical and discursive devices. Therefore, the study purposively takes 40 most controversial tweets of Donald Trump against Islam and Muslims and carried out a critical discourse analysis with the help of macro-strategies of the discourse given by Wodak and Meyer and van Dijk’s referential strategies of political discourse. The findings reveal that Trump uses language rhetorically to exclude people of different ethnic identities, especially Muslims, through demagogic language to create a difference of “us” vs. “them” and making in this way “America Great Again”.
Highlights
The role of Twitter in the transformation of democracy is irrefutable as it provides a platform to political leaders and the public to communicate in an easy way (Grant et al, 2010)
It helps him create the binary that Muslims cannot be Americans and vice versa, disregarding the fact that there are more than 3 million Muslims already residing in America, and it is possible for a person to be a Muslim and an American
He plays upon the same division of “Muslims vs Americans” which he already creates and identifies himself with Americans, while highlighting Hillary’s sympathy for Muslims, and other ethnic groups, in such a way that she falls in the category of “them.” By doing so, he portrays himself as a savior of America and paints Hillary as the enemy of America
Summary
The role of Twitter in the transformation of democracy is irrefutable as it provides a platform to political leaders and the public to communicate in an easy way (Grant et al, 2010). In contrast to other social media websites such as YouTube and Facebook, the number of users on Twitter has been significantly on the rise (Parmelee, 2014). This development provides a suitable platform for politicians to connect to their followers through social media. Twitter, in this regard, facilitates politicians to connect with their followers with the help of retweets and reactions to queries and comments. This conveys the positive impression that politicians can comprehend and appreciate the opinions of their followers
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