Critical Discourse Analysis of Trump's Racist and Sexist Tweets

Introduction and Theoretical Framework

A reflection on the events of June 16, 2015, presents Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower headquarters, eagerly awaited by passionate supporters. Analogous to the staging of The Apprentice reality show, every element of his appearance projected a culturally self-conscious, modern personality. Fans had high expectations, and as he descended the escalator, it was evident that extraordinary events were about to unfold. It was a moment to launch a political campaign geared toward making America great again. Trump was keen to explain the challenges he linked to illegal migration and the consequences of outsourcing jobs to countries such as China. In a defining moment, Trump declared: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best […] They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume are good people" (Trump, 2015). These comments attracted condemnation from Democrats and a section of Republicans, with many analysts flagging his campaign strategy as extreme. What was clear, however, was that the strategic approach for his campaigns had been established.

Criticism and racially charged comments would dominate the eighteen months that followed, particularly those directed at immigrant groups such as Muslims and residents of inner-city America. He built his "Birtherism" arguments on claims that President Obama lacked the spirit of American citizenship because of his background. While his election on November 8, 2016, was ultimately secured, it presented a challenge to the political establishment, which struggled to comprehend the dynamics behind his rising power (Inwood, 2019).

The purpose of this Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paper is to examine Trump's tweets — particularly those with racial bias directed at minority groups such as Hispanic, Muslim, African American, Latino, and Asian women. The analysis adopts the Van Dijk model as the preferred analytical framework. With these tools in place, the focus considers the strategic ideologies embedded in Trump's tweets and their stances toward the groups they target.

Van Dijk's Ideological Square and Identity Construction

The application of Van Dijk's model strengthens the analytical process for examining ideologies. The model is informed by four principal approaches (Van Dijk, 1998, p. 267):

· Emphasize or express positive information about "Us"
· Emphasize or express negative information about "Them"
· De-emphasize or suppress positive information about "Them"
· De-emphasize or suppress negative information about "Us"

One of the earliest accessible tweets directed at the Arab Spring, retrievable via Trump's Twitter account @realDonaldTrump through search terms such as "Syria," "Syrian refugees," and "Arab Spring," connects to tweets from February 28, 2017. These issues were fundamental to his campaign, which frequently addressed the Syrian War and the refugee crisis. The words appeared crafted to capture the attention of populist audiences (Kazzaz, 2020).

Politics of identity are indispensable in shaping political trajectories. The use of visibly conspicuous terms such as "them" and "us" depicts an element of dominance and control of one group over another. Analysts argue that these two aspects are powerful tools for attaining legitimacy and stability in the world of politics (Wirth-Koliba, 2016, p. 1). Such strategies raise concerns about how power and dominance are deployed in politics to build a political following.

The Ideological Square is used to illustrate the reduced dominance ascribed to Syrian refugees in the linguistic dimension while simultaneously depicting their perceived insignificant power (Van Dijk, 1992; Van Dijk, 1995; Van Dijk, 2013). In this approach, emphasis is given to positivity in "us" and negativity in "them" in order to win the favor of the majority (Van Dijk, 2013, p. 222). An in-depth analysis reveals two broad categories of tweets employed by Trump: first, attacks on Syrian refugees; and second, expressions of positivity about his own position combined with continuous criticism of Obama's immigration ideologies. Trump twisted these ideologies to illustrate that his opponents were eager to allow Syrians to cross the borders. These themes were often disguised in self-presentation and were frequently difficult to decode. Consider the following tweet:

"The terrorists in Syria are calling themselves REBELS and getting away with it because our leaders are so completely stupid!" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, September 5, 2013)

The implication of this tweet — referring to Syrians as "rebels" and refugee groups as "terrorists" in different tweets while simultaneously distancing himself from the "stupidity" ascribed to "us" — demonstrates a form of constructivism. Trump deflects negativity that could have damaged his campaign. This analysis, however, focuses on the negative depiction of "them" rather than the positivity of "us." This analytical dimension is particularly distinctive given that earlier studies tended to emphasize the "us" aspect (Kazzaz, 2020).

Nomenclature, Collectivization, and Spatiotemporal Threat Construction

In 2013, Trump addressed Syria and the Arab Spring — specifically the violence that, according to him, was a phase supported by Obama's administration. He was opposed to what he perceived as support for both the Middle East and Syria, at times referring to those involved as "Jihadi." Consider the following tweets:

a. "Remember, all these 'freedom fighters' in Syria want to fly planes into our buildings." [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, August 28, 2013)

b. "The terrorists in Syria are calling themselves REBELS and getting away with it because our leaders are so completely stupid!" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, September 5, 2013)

c. "Many of the Syrian rebels are radical jihadi Islamists who are murdering Christians. Why would we ever fight with them?" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, September 6, 2013)

While various terms were invoked across different debates, Trump continued to use the predominant word "rebel" as in tweet (c) over "freedom fighters" as in tweet (a). The choice is motivated by a desire to control the narrative: the label "freedom fighter" would have carried connotations of success and heroism — associations similar to those of the Nazis' opponents or the French Resistance — which would have conflicted with his campaign ideology. Equally, "rebel" functions as a comfortable bridge to other unfavorable terms such as "terrorist" and "Jihadi," as in tweets (b) and (c). The adopted nomenclature was strategically advantageous because of the rising likelihood that these so-called "rebels" might become refugees — a term Trump was eager to make toxic. Furthermore, the militarized framing made it easier to link them directly to the Syrian War. Whichever direction the terminology took, it yielded political benefits for Trump.

Consider the following tweets:

a. "Refugees from Syria are now pouring into our great country. Who knows who they are — some could be ISIS. Is our president insane?" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, November 17, 2015)

b. "13 Syrian refugees were caught trying to get into the U.S. through the Southern Border. How many made it? WE NEED THE WALL!" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, November 22, 2015)

c. "Crooked Hillary Clinton wants to flood our Country with Syrian immigrants that we know little or nothing about. The danger is massive. NO!" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, July 27, 2016)

d. "Refugees from Syria — over 10k plus more coming. Lots of young males, poorly vetted." [sic, boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, September 19, 2016)

e. "'Five people killed in Washington State by a Middle Eastern immigrant.'" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, September 26, 2016)

These tweets deepen the theme of violence by associating refugees with terrorism. Trump additionally amplifies the negativity by highlighting the perceived danger posed by Syrian refugees based on their age and energy, as in tweet (d). He instills fear through the suggestion of unknown identities, as in tweet (a). A closer reading of word choices such as "flood" reveals the use of metaphor to intensify the message (Khosravinik, 2009, p. 486; Featherman, 2015, p. 78). A similar observation applies to the term "pouring" in tweet (a). The application of such terms implies threats of irresistible, uncontrollable force. According to Trump's framing, a country "flooded" with Syrians equates to a country in immense danger, as in tweet (c).

Further analysis shows how Trump uses precise numbers to add features of realism and claimed accuracy. For example, "13 Syrian refugees" in tweet (b) and "over 10k plus" in tweet (d) are contrasted against victims of violence such as "Five" in tweet (e) regarding a "Middle Eastern immigrant." The application of numbers to refugees provides the basis for collectivizing them, linking them to perceived danger, and degrading their humanity through omission of individual context.

The "Middle Eastern immigrant" referenced in tweet (e) was Arcan Cetin, a person of Turkish descent who had moved to the United States in childhood. On September 23, 2016, he was involved in a shooting that resulted in the deaths of one man and four women. According to authorities, no established motive for terrorism was confirmed (Anderson, 2016). There may be many reasons for such acts of violence. Singling out this case and solely linking it to immigrants reveals the collectivization strategy directed at refugees and immigrants more broadly.

Applying proximization theory to the "them" framing and the associated negativities reveals a clear effort to legitimize protectionist and proactive claims of American self-defense. Trump's tweets can be examined through three angles of proximization: Axiological, Spatial, and Temporal. Consider the following tweets:

a. "If our border is not secure we can expect another attack. A country with open borders is open to the terrorists." [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, July 31, 2014)

b. "Everyone is now saying how right I was with illegal immigration and the wall. After Paris, they're all on the bandwagon." [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, November 19, 2015)

c. "Europe and the U.S. must immediately stop taking in people from Syria. This will be the destruction of civilization as we know it! So sad!" [boldface emphasis added] (@realDonaldTrump, March 24, 2016)

In temporal proximization, Trump's warnings about Syrians portray them as a dangerous and imminent source of crisis. This is the most conspicuous approach, relying on temporal rhetorical techniques. The rhetoric is amplified by invoking the Paris attack of November 2015, as in tweet (b) — an attack linked to ISIS that killed 130 people and involved passports from Egyptian and Syrian nationals (Kazzaz, 2020). Trump deploys temporal language to suggest impending misfortune through self-presentation using phrases such as "I was right," "now," and "after," regardless of the different timing of the attack. The word "now" signals urgency in legitimizing proposed actions against immigrants he associates with terrorism. These dangers are portrayed as real and temporally immediate.

Spatial proximization is evident in the representation of Syrian refugees as moving from outside the deictic center (ODC) to inside the deictic center (IDC) — the United States. Trump frames Syrian refugees as having a close geographic link with illegal immigrants at the southern border. The perceived entry of Syrians — understood as coming from a distant and opaque country about which his supporters know little — suggests the possibility of infiltration, creating immense danger once they mix with already-present illegal immigrants. A second perspective portrays Syrian refugees as radicalized Jihadis who form a chain of terrorist affiliation, rendering them even more dangerous than ordinary migrants. In this context, the rallying cry "WE NEED A WALL" (@realDonaldTrump, November 11, 2015) takes on heightened rhetorical resonance.

Trump persistently reiterates that the distance between the IDC and ODC is shrinking (Cap, 2010, p. 395), emphasizing the need to secure borders, as in tweet (a), by warning that the ODC could import terrorist and radical ideologies that could take root undetected. The third proximization strategy — axiological proximization — functions as a combined architecture within which epithets, nomenclature, spatial proximization, and temporal proximization all operate together.

Conclusion

In both his capacity as President and as a presidential candidate, Trump has made numerous racist remarks — many of them explicit and repeated. As this examination has demonstrated, the denial and construction of racism have been expressed through numerous linguistic mechanisms, represented in four separate discursive approaches: positive self-representation and negative other-representation tactics — specifically, referential, predication, argumentation, and denial strategies.

Concerning referential approaches, Trump relied on multiple references for addressing the outgroup and ingroup. Regarding the former, he depicted migrants, Muslims, Mexicans, and Syrians as enemies symbolizing threat and danger, describing them using negation-based and criminalized language. Regarding the latter, social actors were collectivized around a shared stance against the supposed dangers posed by Middle Eastern and South American migrants. With respect to predication strategies — which focus on the assessment of target persons or groups — condemnatory characterizations of the outgroup consistently outweighed appreciative ones of the ingroup. Regarding argumentation strategies — linguistic tools offering cause-effect relationships with implied action — outcomes were framed through chains of argument and conclusion that reinforced Trump's racist rhetoric in support of his policies and engaged devotion to his campaign. His final approach, denial, denotes the deliberate refusal to acknowledge racist actions, statements, or events. The analysis reveals that he flagrantly adopts multiple approaches for denying racism while deploying counter-claims of racism as reversal and discrediting of policymakers who do not share his harsh stance on immigration. This approach proved effective, as he won the presidential race; groups such as the Proud Boys and other white-nationalist organizations have similarly utilized racism-denial tactics for gaining popularity, promoting a chauvinistic philosophy of western civilizationism.

Linguistic sexism arises from an implicit ideological belief in gender stereotypes. The sexist elements embedded in Trump's language largely stem from encoding reality from a patriarchal standpoint. His assessment of women reflects his belief in male superiority and demonstrates how deeply this philosophy is entrenched in language. His statement — "I don't frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time either" — exemplifies this inequitable, biased posture. He conspicuously propagates an ideology of masculine authority exercised over women. Trump has long been known for his sexist, critical, and dismissive remarks about women. He employs innumerable rhetorical and lexical tactics for underestimating women. The use of metaphors, negative lexicalization, and slurs represents the most widely adopted tactic in his demeaning statements regarding women.

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