Donald Trump Research Articles

Migration Policy in the Era of Trumpism and Media Spectacle: What a 2024 Trump [or other] Presidency Could Mean for Mexico-U.S. Relations

Donald Trump may be the Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election and is facing multiple indictments for alleged crimes committed during his presidency. If convicted, this would make a Trump election victory unlikely, although he is the master of the media spectacle and populist authoritarianism – essential components of Trumpism. I focus on U.S. migration policy consequences affecting Mexico and other states in the Americas if Trump wins in 2024. With a Republican win, the migration policy could revert back to a Title 42 migrant expulsion scenario, with attempts to harden the border using more personnel, infrastructure, and surveillance technology. President Biden, if reelected, is on a course towards increased militarization of the southwest border that is a long-term bipartisan trend with globalization – accelerated by Trumpism down to the U.S. state level. Analyzing these scenarios, the border securocracy theoretical concept is employed in keeping with Trumpism migration policies.

Racial Bias and U.S. Presidential Candidate Preference

Abstract Much research has suggested that Republican candidates in U.S. presidential elections benefit from voter bias against non-White groups. The present study supplements this research by including in the analysis bias against Whites. Estimates from the American National Election Studies 2020 Time Series Study indicated that a nontrivial percentage of the U.S. population has a bias that disfavors Whites, with this bias more prevalent among Democrats than Republicans. Further analyses estimated the extent to which the type of voter racial bias that favors Republican presidential candidates offsets the type of voter racial bias that favors Democratic presidential candidates. Estimates for the 2020 U.S. presidential election indicated that the two-party vote share for Donald Trump was higher among voters who rated Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians/Asian-Americans equal to each other on 0-to-100 feeling thermometers than among the full population of two-party voters, suggesting that Donald Trump was disadvantaged on net by the electorate including racially biased voters. These results call into question research that has used an unrepresentative set of racial attitudes to suggest that, in recent U.S. presidential elections, only Republican candidates have benefitted from racial bias among the electorate.

Policy whiplash: How California Title IX coordinators navigated local, state, and federal policy changes during the Trump administration

AbstractFederal Title IX policy requires institutions of higher education (IHEs) to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct. Based on 23 in‐depth interviews, this study explores California Title IX coordinator experiences at a critical policy juncture—the recension of the Obama‐era guidance and the implementation of the Trump administration Title IX rules and regulations—to understand how they responded to, implemented, or resisted federal mandates. Most California Title IX officers reported that the recension of Obama guidelines had limited impact on their daily operations because they lived in a state with more progressive social policy. Participants singled out California case law, state statues, the California Education Code and university system mandates as protective legislation to ensure survivors’ rights. By contrast, the new Title IX regulations that became law in August 2020 were perceived as more consequential. The tight implementation time frame, combined with the complicated and unfunded policy directives, imposed heavy burdens on their administrative offices. Title IX officers foresaw implementation consequences to campus safety, survivors’ willingness to report, and to the credibility of the Title IX office. Taken together, their experiences lend support to progressive state legislative action, restorative justice approaches and for a survivor bill of rights as important counterpoints to federal Title IX policy.

Within and Beyond: Indie Magazines and the Asian Diasporic Subject

As a resident of New York City during my twenties and early thirties, I lived through a cascade of cultural eras that exemplified America’s complex and oftentimes contradictory character. Certain palpable shifts coincided with major political events: my time in the city was bookended by the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 and Donald Trump’s last year in office in 2020. Other changes were more subtle or cumulative in nature, broader trends that took shape around me as I grew into my adult identity and found footing within various communities. Millennials and Generation Z began to stake positions in public discourse with their idiosyncratic worldviews and economic or political grievances, all while Internet 2.0 developed in step with the proliferation of smartphones and the rise of social media. Amidst this wholesale reshaping of human experience by technology, I started to become aware of the independent magazine as a site of representational discourse and collective identity formation, especially for the Asian American community.

To foreignize or to domesticate? How media vary cross-nationally in their degrees of incorporating foreign events

While the domestication literature indicates how national media link foreign events to a country’s domestic affairs, it has thus far only examined modes of domestication - the ways through which these links are created. In this article, we introduce a different dimension of the phenomenon: degrees of domestication. This includes the extents to which a foreign event gets connected with the domestic. By making a topic-modeling analysis of French and Dutch newspaper articles about 9/11, the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Arab Spring and Donald Trump’s political rise, we provide an explorative case study of this dimension. We inductively arrive at a scale ranging from no to extreme domestication of the event, classified according to four degrees of domestication: (1) an entirely foreign affair; (2) a foreign political affair involving domestic actors; (3) a domestic political affair; (4) or a personal disruption. French newspapers score higher on the second degree, the Dutch ones on the third and fourth. A deepening of this pattern shows how these differences stem from two distinctive cultural repertoires that journalists and other media participants employ when relating to foreign events: a French one, which sees them as an opportunity to dominate the international political stage, and a Dutch one, which considers them a reason for reflecting on domestic or personal matters. These clear differences indicate the concept’s importance for the literature and for investigating it within other national media contexts.

A Moving Image of Scepticism: Cavell on Film, Gender, and Gaslighting

This article examines the political themes in Cavell’s philosophy through a reading of the film Gaslight in the context of contemporary American politics. It demonstrates how Cavell’s ideas offer valuable insights into gender politics, fascism, and propaganda in American society. The article proceeds in three sections, first reviewing Cavell’s ontology of film and genre to elucidate his claim that film embodies scepticism. Next, it analyses gaslighting in the film as an enactment of gendered politics of scepticism and explores Cavell’s resources for responding to it. Lastly, it investigates the political implications of gaslighting, particularly in light of its association with post-truth politics, using Cavell’s interpretation as a philosophical framework to understand instances like Donald Trump’s manipulation of America.

‘Softballs’ for ‘Hardballs’: The congenial political interview on right-wing partisan TV news outlets

Taking a conversation-analytic approach, this article examines potentially shifting norms of political interviewing against the surge of authoritarian populism and increasingly legitimated forms of political and discursive bias on affiliated partisan TV outlets. Based on four political interviews of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon on Fox News and GB News, the analysis documents changes in interviewing practices away from the conventions of accountability interviewing. These changes involve the design of IR questions, the interpersonal dynamics between IR and IE, and the interactional work performed by questions and political interviewing at large. It is demonstrated that, in the aftermath of organizational and ideological disruptions affecting partisan right-wing media such as Fox News, political interviewing enacts a congenial type of questioning, with attendant transformations in the negotiation of accountability. The analysis documents two variations of congenial interviewing practices, one in the absence of adversarial questioning, and the other in the presence of ostensibly accountability questions, that are nevertheless deployed as interviewer resources for doing strategic image-repair work in the benefit of the interviewee. The attested questioning practices have implications for the normalization of authoritarian populist discourses and agendas, and, also, for the future of journalism as watchdog and safeguard of democratic institutions in liberal democracies.

Commissioned Book Review: Giorgos Venizelos, Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump

Commissioned Book Review: Giorgos Venizelos, <i>Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump</i>

Diaspora, war, Gaza

This guest editorial examines how diasporic communities influence modern wars amidst globalization and rising ethnonationalism. It discusses historical tensions between states and diasporas during conflicts, referencing world wars and recent issues involving Chinese Americans in the US. The editorial highlights the roles played by diasporas in various conflicts, including the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, scrutiny of Chinese Americans during Trump's presidency, and Irish expatriates’ involvement with the IRA. It focuses particularly on the Israel‐Gaza conflict, noting the active participation of Israeli and Palestinian diasporas in North America, often marked by internal disagreements. The piece argues that these diasporas, though physically distant from the conflicts, significantly influence global perspectives and the nature of warfare through public opinion and social media, thereby reshaping the contemporary understanding of war.

美 해외투자안보심사제도 도입의 주요 쟁점 및 전망

Since the inauguration of the Trump administration in 2017, it has been sensitive to foreign capital investments and mergers and acquisitions aimed at acquiring advanced core technologies in the country under the slogan “Make America Great Again”, The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 was enacted by strengthening the authority of the Foreign Investment Commission (CFIUS). “Resurrection of U.S. leadership” since the inauguration of the Biden administration in January 2021. In other words, part of the Global Supply Chain Reorganization (GVC) with the slogan that the U.S. is the only country capable of leading the international order, The “CHIPS and Science Act of 2022”, which took effect at the end of July 2022, and the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022”, which took effect on August 16, 2022, are representative examples, while actively cooperating with allies and restoring relations, it shows the same trend as the previous government, which prioritizes national interests.&#x0D; On June 13, 2022, the United States released a draft bill to sanction specific overseas investment reviews and business activities to respond quickly to national security risks.This is the so-called “National Critical Capabilities Defense Act of 2022 (hereinafter referred to as 2022 NCCDA or revised NCCDA)” bill. The bill is intended to replace NCCDA 2021, which was included in the U.S. Competition Act (COMPETES Act), which passed the House of Representatives in February 2022. International attention and attention are focused on the case that the state directly applies a security review to foreign investment activities of companies, except for China.&#x0D; This study analyzes the characteristics of the U.S. NCCDA bill and presents a response strategy to protect its interests from a national security perspective by synthesizing previous studies of similar international law. In particular, as the control targets and standards that the U.S. government or Congress intends to regulate are broad and include provisions for offshore application, it intends to contribute to the establishment of a response strategy for Korean companies and the government and further technical means requiring international cooperation.

‘The National Interest of Israel-Turkey Engagement on Syria Civil War Related to US Foreign Policy of Pulling out Forces’

Since 2011, when Protests against President Assad's rule triggered a large-scale conflict between anti-government rebel groups sponsored by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others countries. regional allies, and the Syrian government backed by Russia and Iran, the Syrian civil war has colored the international relations issue. This article focuses on US policies in Syria and Israel-Turkey's national interests in the region. The purpose of the paper is to conduct an assessment on Syria civil war related to US foreign policy of pulling out forces and theirs impacts. This research employs qualitative method . The results demonstrate that Trump's actions have exposed some unsettling truths and realities regarding US strategy toward Syria. Yes, Trump has acted as both an arsonist and a firefighter.. These developments therefore give rise to a new period of conflict between Israel and Turkey based on their respective national interests. Finally, President Donald Trump's administration's foreign policy toward Syria has considered the tragic drama in Syria

Critical Discourse Analysis of Trump's Tweets on the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump's tweets regarding COVID-19, utilizing Fairclough's three-dimensional model and Halliday's systemic functional linguistics to examine the language used. The analysis centers on two tweets that illustrate Trump's politicization of the pandemic and the propagation of stigmatization through social media. The research examines the stylistic and formal characteristics of Trump's tweets, focusing on his use of metaphorical language and blame-shifting tactics, specifically his labeling of COVID-19 as a 'Chinese virus.' The analysis also investigates discourse practices, connecting Trump's rhetoric on the U.S.-China trade agreement and pandemic response to wider political narratives. The study analyzes the socio-cultural implications of Trump's discourse at a macro level. It highlights how his discourse exacerbated xenophobia, nationalism, and social divisions during the global health crisis. The findings demonstrate that Trump's tweets influenced public perceptions and international relations, reinforcing anti-China attitudes and contributing to a polarized public response to the pandemic. This study emphasizes the significance of a critical and reflective approach to political communication, particularly during times of crisis. It also offers insights into the creation and dissemination of ideological narratives in the digital era.

#GaysForTrump

Abstract This article presents a multimodal critical discourse analysis of #GaysForTrump on Twitter as a discursive formation within Trumpism with distinct subject positions connected to specific acts of identification, libidinal investments, and a homonationalist allegiance to the United States, constructed as a homotopia for cisgender, white gay men. Trumpism is a political formation with its own discursive and structural dynamics that we argue have bred a specific strain of homonationalism worth unpacking in its specificity. Our main objective was to understand how identifying as gay was articulated as commensurate with Donald Trump’s particular brand of transgressive and masculinist white nationalism. We identified three overarching discursive strategies: the appropriation of the “coming out” narrative to validate the #GaysForTrump victimization experience; the construction of conservative gay masculinity as desirable; and the articulation of a sexual geopolitics that legitimates the extreme xenophobia of Trumpism.

INDONESIA'S DIPLOMATIC CONTRIBUTION TO THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT SINCE 1948

This article explores the dynamics of Indonesian diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite ongoing tensions and armed confrontations between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military, Indonesia has consistently advocated for Palestinian independence through a two-state solution. The historical ties between Indonesia and Palestine, coupled with the academic connections between Palestinian scholars and Indonesian students studying in Egypt, have strengthened the diplomatic relationship between the two nations. Indonesia's active role in supporting Palestinian recognition of Indonesian independence, alongside Egypt, remains relevant today. Using conflict resolution theory as a framework, this article delves into Indonesia's diplomatic efforts to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Notably, Indonesia has actively participated as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, opposing policies such as US President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the embassy there. The findings illustrate Indonesia's multifaceted role in conflict resolution, encompassing positions as a co-sponsor, facilitator, mediator, participant, initiator, actor, motivator, and justifier in its endeavors to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By presenting these insights, the article aims to contribute to the understanding of Indonesia's unique diplomatic contributions to the ongoing conflict while avoiding plagiarism.

Realization of semantic and lexical instances in online hard news representation: a study through attitude and graduation analysis

The study explores media discourse through the lexical and semantic realization of text. For that, online hard news on the disruption of tension due to targeting Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani as the Commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on 3rd January 2020 in Iraq was selected from “Tehran Times” and “USA Today.” The “Appraisal Analysis” of Martin and White under “Attitude” and “Graduation” resources were employed to analyze the lexical strategies. The dataset comprises 322 words from the “Tehran Times” and 1727 words from “USA Today.” The study reveals that both newspapers have presented their views via social actors (Irani President Rouhani & U.S. President Donald Trump) as an external voice. President Rouhani presented in negative invoked instances with determination to respond in “Tehran Times.” At the same time, “USA Today” portrayed Donald Trump on a positive with correct measures as the need of an hour. The findings suggest “USA Today” only had inscribed judgment and invoked stances. Both newspapers had represented “subjectivity” along with “objectivity” by presenting social actors’ positive image in their local newspapers through direct speech that showed the ideological orientation of newspapers.

Populism as “Truth”: How Mediated Authenticity Strengthens the Populist Message

The rise of populism is often explained by political factors, economic factors, and media and communication factors. This article analyzes populism in the context of an increased focus on authenticity in political communication. The main aim is to discuss to what degree mediated authenticity strengthens the populist message and what consequences the nexus between authenticity and populism might have for the quality of democratic governance. As a theoretical backdrop, the article discusses the implications of increased valorization of authenticity in times of distrust, and how perforned truth is a key appeal of populism in representative democracies. The methodological approach is a systematic analysis of seven authenticity strategies identified in previous research: consistency, spontaneity, ordinariness, confession, immediacy, ambivalence, and imperfection. In addition to the theoretical analysis, the article offers a case study of the performance of Donald Trump, focusing on how mediated authenticity strengthens the populist message. The study is conducted in a mainly U.S.-context and includes material collected between 2016 and 2023. A key argument is that although performed authenticity can be both advantageous and disadvantageous, depending on the status of the candidate, there is lower risk involved for populist politicians than mainstream politicians because the strategies correspond more with the ideology. In conclusion, the article argues that performed authenticity might legitimize hate speech, conspiracy theories, and post-truth politics because populists claim to have a particular relation to the truth.

Necropolitics, Border Walls, and a Murder of Jim and Juan Crows in the Americas

ABSTRACT Across the Mexico-United States borderlands, overlapping white supremacist and Anglo-nationalist movements are building private walls as monuments to Donald Trump. Numerous social justice activists and ecological stewards have warned that these Trumpist border walls present specific and new threats to social and ecological landscapes, particularly along the riparian sections of the borderlands. To slow their building and even topple these walls, justice activists and ecological caretakers are working to fortify networks with similar efforts elsewhere. In an effort to provide analyses useful to such justice endeavors, I employ Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics to situate the borderland activist struggles against the Trumpist walls within a broader context of struggle against the commemoration of racist terror in the US South. Specifically, I use Mbembe’s theorization of necropolitical deathworlds to illustrate some potential common cause linking protests against Trumpist walls in the Paso del Norte region of the Mexico-US border with a Black Lives Matter/Say Her Name coalition that is bringing down Confederate monuments in central Texas. In placing these movements in connection with each other, I highlight a synergy of the white supremacy of Jim Crow with the Anglo nationalism behind a Juan Crow variant of racist terror and anti-immigrant hatred driving the Trumpist wall constructions. Recognition of this convergence is one way, I maintain, for identifying opportunities for making common cause across the Americas’ myriad struggles to destroy the racist monuments that glorify the necropolitical legacy of racist colonialism and its ongoing social and ecological devastation.

To vote or not to vote? Fake news, voter fraud, and support for postponing the 2020 U.S. presidential election

AbstractPrior to the 2020 election President Trump suggested the election should be postponed “until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote.” With the COVID‐19 pandemic leading many states to take steps that made it easier for citizens to vote safely, the president and his allies made numerous false claims about voter fraud; others argued that voter fraud is not common and is unlikely to appreciably increase with greater reliance on mail balloting. We rely on a national Internet‐based survey experiment conducted prior to the 2020 election to assess the effectiveness of both messages on citizens' support for a hypothetical proposal to postpone the presidential election. The results suggest that respondents were more likely to support postponement if they received a fake news message that fraud is common. The results also suggest that these effects are conditional; both political party and knowledge moderate the relationship.Related ArticlesAguado, N. Alexander. 2022. “When Charismatic Leadership Trumps Social Networking: Searching for the Effects of Social Media on Beliefs of Electoral Legitimacy.” Politics &amp; Policy 50(5): 942–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12494.Fisher, Patrick. 2020. “Generational Replacement and the Impending Transformation of the American Electorate.” Politics &amp; Policy 48(1): 38–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12340.Stockemer, Daniel. 2013. “Corruption and Turnout in Presidential Elections: A Macro‐Level Quantitative Analysis.” Politics &amp; Policy 41(2): 189–212. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12012.

Ruled by the Demons? Exploring the Relationship Between Belief in Demons and Public Attitudes Toward Donald Trump and Joe Biden

Beliefs in supernatural evils are prevalent among many religions. Prior research has shown that beliefs in supernatural evils were tied to various social and health outcomes. However, much less is known about the political implications of beliefs in supernatural evils. To fill this research void, a national survey of 1,092 adults with oversamples of respondents of Asian or Hispanic heritage was conducted in March 2023. The findings suggest that a stronger belief in demons or evil spirits was associated with more negative views toward President Joe Biden. This demonic effect was robust even after controlling for a variety of religious and sociodemographic variables. Besides being robust, the demonic effect was the strongest among all religiosity measures. In contrast, a main relationship between a stronger belief in demons and greater support for Donald Trump was found. However, this demonic effect was explained by Christian nationalism. Finally, these demonic effects vary based on one’s political party identity.

Using Spielraum for a Normative Definition of Politics: Obama’s Play Politics and Trump’s Asceticism

AbstractThe terms “politics” and “political” have become so overdetermined that it is difficult to use them in any effective manner. We argue that this has dangerous political consequences, and that this could be addressed by providing a new, sounder, notion of politics. This paper argues that defining politics in relation to the notion of play can provide a notion both intuitively appealing and able to withstand the problematic overdeterminations. We argue that politics is the set of practices through which the indeterminate of Spielraum is made more determinate. This suggests that politics is always partly a matter of play: it is about instituting values without making any claims about the legitimacy of this instituting act. With reference to Huizinga and Nietzsche’s analyses of play, we define play as the living unity of seriousness and frivolity, and non-play as either seriousness without frivolity or frivolity without seriousness. In order to illustrate this, we comparatively analyse the attitudes of Barack Obama and Donald Trump in the single context of the well-known yearly White House Correspondent’s Dinner. There, we see two opposed attitudes to playfulness. Our analysis allows us to apply our Spielraum model of politics to show that the thrust of Obama’s attitude involves an embrace of the non-foundational nature of politics as play, whereas Trump’s attitude is politicidal: it is animated by a refusal to acknowledge its own lack of foundation, leading to an oscillation between over-seriousness and over-frivolity.