“Least Racist [Leader]:” an Exploration of Donald J. Trump’S Racial Dialect (53Pp.)

Hilling, Alexis Paige, M.A. August 2021 Sociology

Racism and the “Least Racist [Leader]:” An Exploration of Donald J. Trump’s Racial Dialect (53pp.)

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Tiffany Taylor

Former President Donald J. Trump fell under constant criticism for his racial rhetoric. In

Trump’s case, racism emanated strongly from both his speeches and endless Tweets. This included his expression of overt racism directed toward specific people of color and even other political leaders such as United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. What is missing from these examinations of Trump is how he also strategically exhibits colorblind rhetoric.

Given that the new racism of colorblindness is the hegemonic form over overt racism, a fuller analysis of how the two coexist and work together to create various leader’s racial dialects is necessary. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the racial dialect, or strategic switching from overt racism to colorblind racism employed by Trump, which works to perpetuate the white racial frame. I conduct a qualitative content analysis of Donald Trump’s

2016 election speeches, starting with the announcement of his candidacy in 2015 and ending with his election victory in November 2016. My findings show that Trump, in his rally speeches, consistently drew upon the utilization of the white racial frame. Specifically, within my sample, I saw that he used a combination of hard (overt) and soft (colorblind) racial framing to create his racial dialect. The overall rhetoric utilized by Trump fell into an "us versus them" dichotomy, which deemed United States citizens the "us" while all others became the "them." He drew heavily upon the hard racial frame when discussing “illegal immigrants,” Syrian refugees, and others deemed as “undeserving.” However, when talking about citizens of color or Black

Americans, Trump switched to the soft racial framing of colorblindness in a nationalist appeal to rally white voters and voters of color, specifically token Americans of color and honorary whites.

Racism and the Least Racist [Leader]: An Exploration

of Donald J. Trump’s Racial Dialect

A thesis submitted

To Kent State University in partial

Fulfillment of the requirements for the

Degree of Master of Arts

Alexis Paige Hilling

August 2021

Except for previously published materials

Thesis written by

Alexis Hilling

B.A., West Virginia University, 2018

M.A., Kent State University, 2021

Approved by

______, Advisor Tiffany Taylor, PhD

______, Chair, Department of Sociology Richard Adams, PhD

______, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, PhD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 4

Racial Formation, Racial Threat, and White Ignorance ...... 4

The Current Upholding of White Supremacy: Racial Framing and Colorblindness ...... 6

People of Color and Complicity to White Supremacy: Honorary Whiteness and Tokenism ... 10

CHAPTER III METHODS...... 14

Purpose of Study ...... 14

Data and Analysis ...... 14

Methodological Issues and Limitations ...... 17

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS ...... 18

Us Versus Them Dichotomy ...... 18

Racial Framing at the Individual Level...... 20

Racial Framing of National Leaders...... 26

One American People ...... 30

CHAPTER V DISCUSSION...... 38

REFERENCES ...... 42

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

On top of a global pandemic, 2020 was marked by a mass resurgence of protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, against police brutality and broader racial inequality in the United States. These protests were highly criticized by many citizens, political leaders, and former President Donald Trump. Trump went as far as to threaten military action against demonstrators whom he referred to as "thugs" (Romm and Chiu 2020). Racial unrest in the US continues and is certainly not a new phenomenon, but unrest surrounding the aftermath of the George Floyd murder has taken center stage within the last year and was overall unsurprising given the state of race relations over the last several years. The conviction of Derek Chauvin for

Floyd's murder is a step in the right direction, although the fight is nowhere near over as white supremacy still has a stronghold on our systems and institutions. Therefore, this racial unrest will continue until real strides toward systemic change are made. This unrest increased well before

2020 when we saw an increase during both the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald

Trump. Both before and after the election of President Barack Obama, we saw a rise in white supremacist hate groups (Giroux 2009) and the emergence of the Tea Party (Zeskind 2012). The rise of these groups, the resulting racist rhetoric, and the rise in "old-fashioned racism" only continued throughout the 2016 election cycle and was rampant within the Donald Trump campaign.

Previous research has often focused on the overt and easily recognizable, or "old- fashioned" racism exhibited in Trump's America and by Trump himself (Abramowitz 2018;

Konrad 2018; Abramowitz and McCoy 2019). Within the broader United States population, we saw an increase in this rhetoric and incitement of violence against people of color deemed as not

belonging in the country. According to the F.B.I Uniform Crime Report (UCR), in 2018, interpersonal attacks motivated by bias or prejudice reached a 16-year high, with a significant increase in violence against Latinxs people (FBI 2018). The presence of racism in Trump's case emanates strongly from both his speeches and endless Tweets. One example of the overt racism expressed by Trump included Tweeting that United States Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-

Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, three of which were born in the US, should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came"

(Luo 2019).

What is absent from these analyses is how colorblind rhetoric (Bonilla-Silva 2010) is strategically exhibited by Donald Trump. Given that the new racism of colorblindness is the hegemonic form over overt racism (Bonilla-Silva 2019), a fuller analysis of how the two coexist and work together to create various leader's racial dialect is necessary (Wingfield and Feagin

2012). The goal of this paper is to address this gap in the exploration of Donald Trump.

Therefore, Donald Trump's racial dialect will be explored through an analysis of his 2016 campaign speeches, with a focus on how he switches from overt racism when discussing "illegal immigrants" and all others standing in the way of the American dream for "legitimate" citizens, to colorblind racism when attempting to appeal to citizens of color and Black Americans, often under the guise of bringing together "all" American citizens.

To truly understand the current presence of racism in the United States, we need to first and foremost understand the invention of racial categories and hierarchical organization created to benefit white, European settlers through the exclusion and domination of people of color.

Even though racial categories and racism are ever-evolving, the system created on white supremacist ideals persists. How it has been able to persist is also ever-changing. While

generally held under the guise of white ignorance, the current upholding of systemic racism is done so through the utilization of both overt and covert forms of racism in which white

Americans, some Americans of color, and some Black Americans draw upon to understand racial differences and justify differential treatment. Given that major strides toward racial equality have been made, it should come as no surprise that there has been backlash evident in the current racial rhetoric.

In this paper, I will start by discussing the historical emergence of racial categories and racism. After laying this groundwork, I will briefly discuss how racial threats to whiteness may be a driving force in the current racial rhetoric we see used in the United States by both average

(white) citizens and political elites. I will then review contemporary literature in this vein on the white racial frame, or the rationalization and legitimation of systemic processes that maintain a positive orientation to whiteness and a strong negative orientation to racial "others", and how the hard (overt and easily recognizable racism) and soft racial (colorblind, more difficult to recognize) subframes work to create one's racial dialect (Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). Within the soft racial frame, I will discuss how Bonilla Silva's (2010, 2019) theorization on colorblind racism and its subframes fit into the racial dialect, and regardless of the current state of racial affairs, is still dominant. After this is laid out, I will discuss the place of citizens of color and Black Americans in colorblind political discussions, and how they potentially work as an attempt to rally "all" Americans through a nationalist appeal against our common "enemies." I will identify instances where Donald Trump grants people of color and

Black Americans conditional honorary whiteness.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

RACIAL FORMATION, RACIAL THREAT, AND WHITE IGNORANCE

Before diving into contemporary research on the persistent importance of race as a social construct and current racial matters, an understanding of when and how race as a category and racism thereafter, emerged is an important starting point. In this vein, Work by Omi and Winant

(2015) and their theorization on racial formation theory remains extremely influential. Racial formation theory refers to the social and historical process in which racial categories are created, occupied, altered, and destroyed in society through various racial projects (Omi and Winant

2015). According to Winant (2001), racial projects link signifiers of race with social structural instances of racial hierarchy or dominance. These socially constructed signifiers of race include physical attributes (skin color, hair texture, eye shape), behaviors, family relations, group rituals, and clothing (De Andrade 2000), which are drawn upon in social interactions in an attempt to categorize people as belonging to either the dominant or subordinate group.

Historically, in the United States, one of the earliest racial projects occurred first through the formation of a settler society that prioritized whiteness and European Americans, whether landowners or later indentured servants (Ignatiev 2015), in opposition to non-white indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans (Collins 2001). While Omi and Winant's (1994) theory remains influential, more contemporary race scholars such as Bonilla-Silva (1997) and Feagin (2013) criticize the theory for lacking enough emphasis on the structural or systemic level of racism and continuing to focus on the individual agency of individuals and groups within racial projects.

Overall, the systemic racism seen in the United States comprises a broad range of racialized dimensions such as racist framing, ideology, stereotyped attitudes, racist emotions,

discriminatory behaviors, and macro-level racist institutions that have been developed over centuries by the white majority (Feagin 2013).

Given that the function of racial projects and the creation of an "us versus them" dichotomy in which whiteness is prioritized, is to hierarchically position racial groups, it is theoretically logical that the racial group at the top of the hierarchy, in this case, white

Americans, would continue to perceive racial minorities as a threat to whiteness. Early research by Blumer (1958) focused on four basic feelings that are nearly always present and held by the dominant group in society: 1.) a feeling of superiority, 2.) a feeling that racial subordinates intrinsically differ from those in the dominant group, 3.) a feeling of exclusive claim to various privileges and advantages, and 4.) the feeling that the subordinate group is threatening or will threaten the position of the dominant group. Both historically and currently, the white dominant group's reaction to these perceived threats is to fight for the continuation of white supremacy, often through racial ignorance.

Racial ignorance is the process of knowing designed to produce not knowing encompassing white privilege, culpability, and structural white supremacy (Mills 1997; 2007).

Even though Blumer (1958) was writing before the post-civil rights era and likely theorizing on more overt forms of racial prejudice, we can still see the application of his ideas on racial threat as applying to our current "colorblind" society. The white dominant group's reaction to perceived racial threats in the post-civil rights era is still to continue to uphold white supremacy and defend racial domination through the claim of racial ignorance (Forman and Lewis 2006; Mueller 2017;

2020). The current process of ignorance we see emphasized by the white majority and elites is rooted in colorblind understandings of race (Mueller 2017; 2020). To fully understand this process, we need to first understand the current functioning of racial framing and colorblindness.

THE CURRENT UPHOLDING OF WHITE SUPREMACY: RACIAL FRAMING AND

COLORBLINDNESS

Racial framing includes the racial perceptions, ideologies, narratives, and emotional reactions that arise to understand situations, issues, and experiences involving race (Feagin 2013;

Feagin 2020). The hegemonic white racial frame as theorized by Feagin (2020) has traditionally and continually allowed whites to rationalize and legitimate systemic processes that maintain a positive orientation to whiteness and a strong negative orientation to racial "others", leading to ongoing racial privilege and inequality. This positive orientation to whiteness is embedded within our institutions, used and legitimated by both whites and oftentimes, people of color, and leads to the perpetuation of everyday discrimination and inequality towards people of color

(Feagin 2020).

Research has analyzed the existence of this inequality in systems and institutions of healthcare (Williams, Priest and Anderson 2016; Muennig et al. 2018; Metzel 2019), education

(Goar and Sell 2005; Picower 2009; Diamond and Lewis 2015), work (Roediger 2007; Embrick

2011; Evans 2013), criminal justice (Doering 2015; Sohoni and Rorie 2019), and the family

(Goar, Davis, and Manago 2017; Hagerman 2018). For example, within the institution of education, on the one hand, whiteness is associated with innocence and intelligence with white children given the benefit of the doubt, provided with better resources, and better access to honors and A.P. classes (Diamond and Lewis 2015). On the other hand, Blackness is associated with trouble and suspicion leading to surveillance and heightened punishments for Black children, tracking, unequal resources, and an overall achievement gap (Diamond and Lewis

2015).

Given the complexity and reach of the white racial frame in society, Wingfield and

Feagin (2010) expanded the concept to account for its variations through three subframes: hard racial framing, soft racial framing, and counter-framing. The hard racial frame refers to more explicit racist imagery and language, openly referring to people of color as racially inferior, and involves gut-level reactions of disgust or discomfort towards people of color (Wingfield and

Feagin 2010). The soft racial frame works in a more covert way that downplays the reality of structural racial inequality, uses colorblind language while avoiding the overtly racist terminology of the hard racial frame, such as the N-word, and praises people of color who ignore the existence of institutional racism (Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012).

Lastly, racial counter-framing operates to challenge the racial hierarchy and the white racial frame used to legitimate it. This frame has been most fully employed by Black Americans

(Feagin 2010).

As the most positively used of the three, counter-frames are a form of active resistance against the prevailing white racial frame. Researchers have analyzed the use of counter-frames in an array of ways, including how they are employed by Black entrepreneurs to understand business ownership (Wingfield and Taylor 2016), but more often, how they are used as a form of resistance against broader systemic racism and police brutality. This includes research by Clay and Evans (2017) on the construction of Blackness and resistance against police brutality and systemic racism on social media platforms, namely, Twitter. Similarly, Nummi, Jennings, and

Feagin (2019) focus on how the frames are used more broadly by those involved in the Black

Lives Matter movement.

On the contrary, the hard racial frame is often thought of as "classic" or "old school" racism, which many (whites) believe arose long ago, before and during the inception of the

United States, and essentially abruptly died out after the civil rights movement. This overt form of racism and its explicit racist imagery and language is much less socially acceptable than it once was, but this does not mean that it does not prevail. Research often focuses on its usage against people of color from their perspectives (Feagin and Cobas 2008; Evans 2013), or through analyses of its presence in the media (Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012).

In Evans's (2013) intersectional analysis of African American flight attendants and pilots, passengers would often use hard racial framing and engage in overt racism when talking to airline employees, intentionally trying to display their racial superiority. This included using gendered and raced language to refer to employees as "colored" "boys" and "girls". Even more overtly, Evan’s (2013) describes an incident involving a little (white) boy asking an African

American flight attendant if she were a "monkey." However, people of color, as well as whites, can use and/or legitimate the white racial frame. In Feagin and Cobas's (2008) work, they found that not only did some Latinxs individuals excuse white's invention and usage of racist language but also engaged in using racial epithets, such as "spic" themselves.

Research focusing on the hard racial frame's presence in the media has often placed attention on political leaders, and President Barack Obama specifically (Wingfield and Feagin

2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). The election of president Obama marked the historic event of the first African American President, which some incorrectly viewed as a sign that the United

States had moved into a post-racial climate (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011). In Wingfield and

Feagin's (2012) analysis of public statements from elected officials, experts, and Obama himself, they found that the hard racial frame was often present in public discourse. Obama and his family were included in bigoted attacks comparing them to "gorillas" or "monkeys", and Malia

Obama (an 11-year-old, child) was targeted by gendered and racist language such as, "common

street whore" and "ghetto street trash" (Wingfield and Feagin 2012). Even Obama's (positive) decisions that had racial undertones and implications fell victim to white racial framing, including his decision to nominate Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The well-educated and experienced, Sotomayor, was referred to as a "reverse racist" and "intellectually inferior," playing into stereotypes of people of color as less intelligent, moral, honest, and fair to whites

(Wingfield and Feagin 2012).

According to Bonilla-Silva (2019), despite the presence and current rise of the hard racial frame's bigoted language and imagery, or "old fashion" racism, the prevailing form of racism is colorblindness. While much less overt than the legalized segregation of Jim Crow, or broader explicit racism, colorblindness continues to reproduce broad-scale racial and ethnic disparities while protecting white privilege, covertly. Colorblindness allows whites to claim that they "do not see color" and that racial inequality is, therefore, a thing of the past. Even though our society is highly racialized, through colorblind racism, whites actively deny the place of racism within society, often through the claim of "not knowing" (Forman and Lewis 2006; Mueller 2017).

Even when individuals are no longer able to claim, "not knowing" and have been educated on racial issues, research has shown that whites are still committed to maintaining and defending the ideologies that support racial domination and white supremacy (Mueller 2017).

Research by Bonilla-Silva (2010) breaks colorblind racism into four frames: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism is both the most important and hardest to define (Bonilla-Silva 2010). It allows whites to express concern for racial inequality while simultaneously rejecting race-specific policies that would address these racial inequalities (Stoll and Klein 2019). The naturalization frame allows whites to explain away racial phenomena as natural occurrences and includes statements like claiming

"segregation" is naturally occurring because people of similar backgrounds "gravitate toward likeness" (Bonilla-Silva 2010). Cultural racism relies on stereotypical, culturally-based arguments to explain minorities standing in society, such as the view that Black women are

"welfare queens" or "breeders" (Collins 2000), or that "Mexicans do not put much emphasis on education" (Bonilla-Silva 2010:71). Minimization of racism occurs when whites express beliefs that racial minorities' social standing is the product of anything but racism and discrimination, and is due to their "culture", "class", "poverty", and so on. (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011).

PEOPLE OF COLOR AND COMPLICITY TO WHITE SUPREMACY: HONORARY

WHITENESS AND TOKENISM

As noted previously, a positive orientation to whiteness is embedded within our institutions, used and legitimated by whites as well as Black Americans and people of color, leading to the perpetuation of everyday discrimination and inequality (Feagin 2020). Black

Americans and other people of color who ignore the existence of institutional racism, often receive praise from whites (Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). This praise from white Americans can lead to some "benefits" for people of color, such as easier assimilation into the United States for immigrants (Feagin and Cobas 2008) and increased promises of privileges enjoyed by whites, like social and economic mobility, or wealth (Young 2009). Given this, according to Bonilla-Silva (2010), people of color are encouraged to adopt colorblind racism's frames as the employment of these frames, by high achieving non-Black people of color, leads to their categorization as "honorary whites." Although Bonilla-Silva (2010) claimed that only those who are "non-Black" can obtain the categorization of "honorary white," some research has stated that all "non-whites" who forfeit the everyday language and cultural norms of

their communities can be afforded honorary whiteness, as long as the rules of whiteness or complicity to white supremacy is followed (Collins 2009; Dancy 2010).

Given the dissension in the literature as to whom can be bestowed honorary whiteness, it may be more fit to think of all people of color, regardless of education, who are actively complicit to white supremacy and praised by whites, as "tokens." Tokenism is a social identity that results in the hypervisibility and convenient invisibility of being the distinguished minority in a group (Niemann 2012; Niemann 2016). Tokenism is described as a mechanism in which inequalities are unfairly maintained in modern white-dominated, capitalist, patriarchal societies

(Grant 2017). According to Grant (2017), most instrumental sociological literature (Laws 1975;

Jackson, Thoits, and Taylor 1995) reflects two general characteristics: first, tokens' main role is to show that upward mobility within society is possible. Second, consequently, because of this, once tokens are in place within a specific population, it makes it more difficult for those with the same master status (i.e., gender, age race, etc.) to achieve the token status. Work by Cloud

(1996), focusing on a more structural perspective, provided the example of the token representation of Oprah Winfrey and how it relates to the idea of the "American Dream". These examples reflecting people of color becoming upwardly mobile undermine the reality of racial socioeconomic inequality in the United States and maintains that opportunity is available for all when this is simply not true (Cloud 1996).

Research on racial tokenism, similar to research on honorary whiteness, has been examined in relation to politics, and nationalism (Collins 2001; Vega 2014; HoSang and

Lowndes 2019). Within the broader realm of the political system, the inclusion of people of color into the US nationalist framework has been theorized by multiple scholars (Collins 2001; Vega

2014; HoSang and Lowndes 2019). Collins (2001), using the experiences of African American

women in her analysis, explored how a gendered and raced family rhetoric contributes to the idea of "like one of the family." This reflects the idea of being a legal part of the nation while also being subordinated within it. For Collins (2001), conceptualizing the US nation-state as a large

American family leads to the assessment of groups in terms of their contributions to national well-being. Using this logic, Native Americans, African Americans, documented citizens of

Mexican descent, and Puerto Ricans become "domestic others" and included within the

American family. In contrast, racial/ethnic immigrants from places such as Mexico, Central, and

South America, the Caribbean, and Africa become the targets of exclusionary politics (Collins

2001).

Following along the lines of Collins' (2001) ideas on the creation of an us (white citizens and "domestic others") versus them (racial/ethnic immigrants) dichotomy, more recent research conducted by Vega (2014) documented how Mexican-origin Latinos engaged in boundary- making strategies against "illegal immigrants". These politically conservative, nationalistic individuals must frame themselves as deserving of material and symbolic resources over outsiders with whom they share racial/ethnic markers (Vega 2014). HoSang and Lowndes (2019) also focused on the growing, intertwined relationship between reemerging forms of authoritarian nationalism and masculinized multiculturalism seen under Donald Trump and how some people of color are selectively incorporated into this nationalist framework. As the right continues to vie for hegemony, selective incorporation of people of color is required given that the confines of the current US state and national identity unavoidably includes racial difference (HoSang and

Lowndes 2019). Essentially, while those who have the ability to claim honorary white/token status to obtain minimal benefits, the people of color in this position, can never reach the peak of the racial hierarchy and can be banished at any time (Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2006).

In summary, the white racial frame is dominant and pervasive within our institutions and broader society. It continues to allow whites to rationalize and legitimate systemic processes that maintain a positive orientation to whiteness and a negative orientation to racial "others" (Feagin

2020). This negative orientation can take the form of overt racism (Wingfield and Feagin 2010;

Wingfield and Feagin 2012), or covert, colorblind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2010, 2019). Whites are not the only individuals contributing to this racial inequality through engagement in these racist ideologies. Racial tokens or honorary whites are people of color and Black Americans who are complicit to white supremacy and therefore receive some benefits for their role in the maintenance of the white racial frame (Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2006; Feagin and Cobas 2008;

Young 2009). Only specific people of color can rise higher on the racial hierarchy (closer to whiteness, further from Blackness) and obtain this status of racial token or honorary white

(Alexander 2004, 2006; Griffin 2018).

Once this status is obtained, one is always at risk of their position being compromised and therefore pushed further down the racial hierarchy (away from whiteness, closer to

Blackness) (Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2006). Within the current political system specifically, the selective incorporation of people of color is required given the confines of the current diversity of the US state and national identity (HoSang and Lowndes 2019). Therefore, rallying all "deserving" Americans (whites, honorary whites, and token Blacks) through a nationalist appeal against our common "enemies", such as racial/ethnic immigrants is necessary to further the idea of the "one American family" leading to the stronger formation of a collective nationalist identity (Collins 2000; Vega 2014; HoSang and Lowndes 2019).

CHAPTER III

METHODS

PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of this study is to investigate the racial dialect of former president, Donald

Trump and how his racial dialect or periodic switching from overt to colorblind racism potentially works as a nationalist appeal to rally both white voters and voters of color, specifically token Americans, who follow the rules of whiteness (Ignatiev 2015). This research is seeking to explore the following questions: (1) When does Trump switch from using the overt racism of the hard racial frame to the colorblindness of the soft racial frame? (2) What racial groups are deemed deserving of the rewards that will be provided if the rules are followed? (3)

What role does nationalism play in Trump's racial dialect and discussion of racial minorities?

Through the qualitative exploration of the racial dialect used by Donald Trump in his speeches, this research answers the call of some race scholars to conduct additional systematic analyses of colorblind actors (Bonilla Silva 2019), while providing a fuller analysis of the switching from hard to soft racial framing that often occurs (Wingfield and Feagin 2012). Additionally, a more comprehensive analysis, exploring the entirety of the racial rhetoric employed by Donald Trump is explored.

DATA AND ANALYSIS

This research consisted of a qualitative content analysis of Donald Trump's speeches. For the present study, I analyzed Donald Trump's speeches from the 2016 election cycle, starting with the announcement of his candidacy on June 16th, 2015, and ending November 7th, 2016, the day before his election victory. I analyzed speeches from the 2016 election cycle given the importance of the 2016 election and the sheer amount of publicly available speech transcripts.

The 2016 election came as a shocking blow to many given poll projections of Clinton winning over Trump. Instead, the election was marked by Trump's victory, and his identification as the president of the "left behind" and his stance against the establishment and politics as usual

(Hobolt 2016; Goodwin and Heath 2016; Inglehart and Norris 2016; Bhambra 2017).

I split the speeches into eight different time segments: (1) early primary speeches (June

25, 2015- December 30, 2015), (2) mid- primary speeches (January 2, 2016- March 30, 2016),

(3) late primary speeches (April 2, 2016- June 3, 2016), (4) pre-Republican candidacy announcement (June 10, 2016- July 12, 2016), (5) post-Republican candidacy announcement

(July 21, 2016- September 24, 2016), (6) post-first presidential debate (September 27, 2016-

October 5, 2016), (7) post-second presidential debate (October 10, 2016- October 18, 2016), and

(8) post-third presidential debate (October 20, 2016- November 7, 2016). I randomly selected and analyzed five speeches from each time segment, for a total of 40 speeches. On the one hand,

Donald Trump's speeches are very repetitive and use the same negative, doom, and gloom sentiments over time as a strategy to appeal to his base (Liu and Lei 2018). On the other hand, his speeches are also reactive to what is occurring within the United States and abroad at the time each speech is given. This means that speeches often mention and emphasize problems as they arise. Given this, I analyzed speeches over time, throughout the election cycle.

Therefore, I split the election cycle into eight segments, following important election events. Considering the repetitious nature of Donald Trump's speeches, a sample size of five speeches per segment, or a total of 40 speeches allowed for adequate data saturation (Glaser and

Strauss 1967; Saunders et al. 2017). I first input all speech dates into a Google Sheets document.

Using the randomization command, the first five speech dates for each time segment were selected. After each speech date had been selected, I obtained speech transcripts from these

dates. I obtained the majority of speech transcripts from C-SPAN and Politico with the remainder of speech transcripts not available on either website obtained using the video transcription feature on videos of speeches uploaded to YouTube. I copy and pasted the speech transcripts into Word Documents and uploaded them to ATLAS.ti for coding.

The first step in the analysis plan was to open code all 40 speeches for instances of racial messages, which allowed me to organize the data for the next coding step (Corbin and Strauss

1990; Lofland et al. 2006). Line by line coding of each speech allowed me to stay grounded within my data, obtain active and concrete codes, before then identifying these recurring codes and applying them to all of the data, through focused coding (Charmaz and Mitchell 2007) Focus coding was the next step in the analysis plan and involved looking for specific themes in the data and determining the patterns within those themes (Corbin and Strauss 1990; Lofland et al. 2006).

For this project, racial themes were explored for patterns of the hard and soft racial frames of the racial dialect (Wingfield and Feagin 2010). I then broke down the soft racial frame into more focused codes for specific patterns of colorblindness. Specifically, the four frames of colorblindness: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism as defined by Bonilla-Silva (2010).

After coding, I noted examples of the racial frames, including elaboration on the presence of any subframes of colorblindness. I then compiled codes and memoed the results. Given that memo writing is an important research technique, not restricted to just the analytical phase, I relied on memos throughout the research process to truly engage with the research, establish a greater relationship with the data, and form better responsiveness to the emerging themes (Glaser

1978; Birks, Chapman, and Francis 2008). Although, most importantly, during the analytical phase, memos allowed for theoretical categories that have been created through initial coding, to

be broken down to clarify ideas (Charmaz 2001). These memos then allowed me to see how these theories on race (Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Bonilla-Silva 2010) function and work together to maintain whiteness.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES AND LIMITATIONS

Although Donald Trump gave well over 400 speeches during the 2016 election cycle, not all of these speeches are readily available and accessible, especially those from 2015, right after he formally declared his candidacy. Therefore, first and foremost, not all speeches had an equal probability of being selected for analysis. Further, when it came to the actual analysis phase, I was the only coder, meaning that the intercoder reliability was lower than if there were multiple coders. Without multiple coders, I as an independent coder, am unable to compare my evaluation of the data themes and ensure the same conclusion is reached across the board (Tinsley and

Weiss 2000). Considering this, the reliability of established codes cannot be fully ensured to the same degree (Davies 2012; Venkatesh, Brown, and Bala 2013).

CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS

The overwhelming amount of research on Donald Trump’s use of racially based statements often focuses almost solely on the presence of overt racism. Therefore, the goal of my research was to explore Trump’s racial dialect, or the periodic switching from overt racism (the hard racial frame) to colorblind racism (the soft racial frame) while discussing various, differing racial groups (Wingfield and Feagin 2012; Feagin 2020). A consensus still exists among many scholars of race and ethnicity that regardless of what seems to be a rise in overt racism, that colorblind racism is still the dominant racial ideology, especially within the United States

(Bonilla-Silva 2017; Bonilla-Silva 2019). Given this, the exploration of how the two work in tangent is only growing in importance. Overall, my data consists of numerous examples of the hard racial and soft racial frames, which Donald Trump seems to strategically draw upon and switch to and from. I will outline my findings through a discussion of the overarching themes, showing how Trump’s racial dialect is employed within each speech theme. I report my findings in the following two sections: the creation of an “us vs. them” dichotomy and the role of the One

American People. Lastly, I will briefly outline the ambiguities of applying Feagin’s framework. I will show it is not always as clear-cut as one may think in differentiating when an individual, in this case, Trump is drawing upon the hard or soft racial frame.

US VERSUS THEM DICHOTOMY

Of constant discussion in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign speeches is the creation of an

“us versus them” dichotomy. Here, the “us” is in reference to the American people and the

“them” is often in reference to either undocumented individuals or other countries and their leaders more broadly. When attempting to make nationalist appeals, the construction of

collective identities and creation of us versus them binaries in which some individuals are deemed deserving while others are not (Luna 2017; Kretschmer and Barber 2016) are often employed. Nationalism in and of itself involves beliefs about what a country is and what it represents, which becomes the basis of national action (Ferber 1998). As I observed, Donald

Trump employs a nationalistic emphasis on who we are as a country, who is deserving of national resources, and who threatens “legitimate” citizens’ achievement of what they deserve.

All of which is in order to garner support for his candidacy and exclusionary politics, including policies drenched in immigrant restrictionism.

Further considering the specific countries and racial/ethnic groups demonized by Trump in his speeches, most often Hispanic and Latinx countries and their citizens followed by Syrian refugees, it becomes clear that white nationalism is specifically at play. According to Srikantiah and Sinnar (2019), white nationalism can be defined as the belief that national identity should be built and maintained around whiteness and that white citizens should maintain a majority and dominance over the nation’s culture and public life. These perceived threats to national identity appear most often in Trump’s speeches as economic in nature with threats to economic wellbeing and resources appearing at both the individual (undocumented individuals) and country level

(countries such as Mexico, China, and Japan and their leaders). According to Trump, America is being humiliated at the hands of immigrants and global powers who are taking advantage of us and leading to the detriment of our country (Mukherjee 2018). Therefore, in this section, I will outline how Trump draws upon an us versus them dichotomy and how his racial framing of the

“them” differs most overtly at the varying levels (individual and national) but also as the severity of threats to legitimate citizens from those othered increases.

Racial Framing at the Individual Level

The discussion of undocumented immigrants is often at the forefront of Trump’s speeches as his negative framing of immigration and invocation of terms such as “illegal” has been well documented (Martin 2017; Alamillo, Haynes, and Madrid 2019). While Trump uses racially charged language in his discussion of these immigrants and their countries of origin, there is a clear difference in his use of language when discussing the two. Trump was much more likely to employ the racist language of the hard racial frame when discussing undocumented immigrants and the advantage taken of legitimate American citizens at the individual level. This is demonstrated by his constant discussion of undocumented immigrants as “illegals” and in terms of criminality, clearly meant to invoke fear among (documented) citizens. In his speeches, these discussions of criminality on the part of undocumented people was almost always in relation to why the border wall was necessary, but his use of soft and hard racial framing became a bit more ambiguous from time to time as the severity of the criminal act increased or when the inclusion of a “legitimate” American victim was missing:

In his December 30th, 2015 Hilton Head, SC speech:

We've got to build a wall. So, when I talk and when I'm up on the stage with these guys,

these people -- wonderful people -- and a very nice woman, Carly. She's a nice woman.

When I'm up on the stage with them, they think I'm crazy when I say "Mexico" -- I'm

saying, "We're going to build a wall; it's going to be a great wall; it's going to be real

wall. See this ceiling? This ceiling is peanuts compared to the height of the wall I'm

talking about." I'm talking about a van to get up there. They're not coming down because

it's too dangerous. (Laughter from Trump and Crowd) Alright? Did you ever see what

they do now? We have these little walls. They build ramps. They build a ramp. I say,

"Wouldn't it be cheaper just to knock the wall down and just..." And then they drive over

it with jeeps loaded up with drugs. Do you see this? They build ramps. There was a

picture in Time magazine. It's a ramp -- a little ramp that goes over the wall. So, they

have a jeep -- over, down, bump, make money. We get the drugs. Think of it. We --

"build a wall" is right. You've got to build a wall. We get the drugs. They get the cash.

Not so good, right? We don't like that deal.

From February 28th, 2016 in Madison, AL:

I said let’s take a deep breath, I made a speech and talked about illegal immigration and

all hell broke out. You wouldn’t even be talking about illegal immigration – It was far

bigger than anyone knew. I knew. I have friends who live in California, Texas, and

friends who have become addicted to drugs that flow to that border. We won New

Hampshire – I was treated so well. There were great people out there. The first thing that

was always told to me about it is that they have a tremendous heroin problem. Everything

is beautiful, and it doesn’t seem right. It is pouring through the southern border. I said we

are going to get this ended. So, I went out and we brought this up and said we’re going to

have strong borders and Mexico will pay for the wall 100%.

In the above quotes, Trump is discussing the transport of drugs across the border and into the United States. Although his discussion in the first quote is relatively light-hearted and comes across in a joking manner, it is clear that he is invoking sentiments about Mexican citizens being criminals, in this case, drug dealers, the same as he does in the second quote. One of the clearest ways Trump hoped to invoke added fear and garner support amongst citizens was to include discussions of crimes being committed by undocumented individuals, in which the clear victim was a United States citizen. In the second quote, Trump takes a much more serious tone and

blames the presence of problems with heroin abuse in our country on undocumented immigrants.

The mentioning of these crimes was also almost always embellished with overt racially charged language. When discussing more heinous crimes such as murder, there is a clear shift in Trump’s use of language which includes much more racially overt language.

In his September 14th, 2015 speech in Dallas, Texas:

I want to have a big beautiful door, but they have to be legal. They have to be and if

they're not going to be, they can't come in and I'll tell you what the first thing we do, you

know people don't realize you look at crime in Chicago, you look at crime in so many

different places and you see gangs. Many of these gang members are illegal

immigrants— they're rough dudes. They will be out of here so freaking fast and I think a

lot of these countries send them in here because they don't want them because what do

they want them in prison for 40 years? They look… whether it's any country their leaders

are smarter than our leaders, they’re more cunning, they're tougher, they're better, and we

take them. Kate in San Francisco this magnificent young woman shot in the back by a

guy that was sent over here. Probably pushed over, who knows but it was an illegal

immigrant who came over, went to San Francisco. We have to end the sanctuary cities

crap fast, fast. So, he admits he's guilty now he's got a lawyer. Oh, he didn't really know,

he wasn't aiming there or was a ricochet, blah blah blah, it's disgusting. What's happening

to our country? We are a dumping ground.

In this example, Trump is blaming the crime present in American cities on undocumented immigrants. He is confounding all immigrants, especially those immigrating from the southern border, with gang members and crime, which has been documented as often being the very issues these individuals are attempting to escape (Mukherjee 2018). Considering the repetitive

and often formulaic nature of Trump’s speeches, he often drew upon the same examples of citizens’ murders, such as Kate’s, to prove his point about the dangers facing our nation:

From the August 31st, 2016 speech in Phoenix, AZ:

Then there is the issue of security. Countless innocent American lives have been stolen

because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our

laws. I have met with many of the parents who lost their children to Sanctuary Cities and

open borders. They will be joining me on the stage later today. Countless Americans who

have died in recent years would be alive today if not for the open border policies of this

Administration. This includes incredible Americans like 21-year-old Sarah Root. The

man who killed her arrived at the border, entered federal custody, and then was released

into a U.S. community under the policies of this White House. He was released again

after the crime and is now at large. Sarah had graduated from college with a 4.0, top of

her class, the day before. Also, among the victims of the Obama-Clinton open borders

policies was Grant Ronnebeck, a 21-year-old convenience store clerk in Mesa, Arizona.

He was murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member previously convicted of burglary

who had also been released from Federal Custody. Another victim is Kate Steinle,

gunned down in the Sanctuary City of San Francisco by an illegal immigrant deported

five previous times. Then there is the case of 90-year-old Earl Olander, who was brutally

beaten and left to bleed to death in his home. The perpetrators were illegal immigrants

with criminal records who did not meet the Obama Administration’s priorities for

removal. In California, a 64-year-old Air Force Veteran, Marilyn Pharis, was sexually

assaulted and beaten to death with a hammer. Her killer had been arrested on multiple

occasions but was never deported. A 2011 report from the Government Accountability

Office found that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens in our prisons and jails

together had around 25,000 homicide arrests to their names.

The quote reflected above was from a speech given by Trump on August 31, 2016, at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona. Considering that Arizona is one of four states bordering Mexico, it is logical that additional emphasis was placed on the supposed dangers of individuals immigrating from the southern border. Although, these are of course not the only states in which he mentioned the tragic deaths of citizens such as, Kate. In this quote, he emphasizes the achievements of these citizens while also emphasizing the painstaking, violent details about the crimes perpetrated against them on behalf of individuals here “illegally.” Trump also emphasizes, in his repeated mentions of these examples, that many of the perpetrators were allowed to return to “our” communities given the failures of our political system and specifically, the liberal Obama administration.

Another interesting inclusion in the above quote is the emphasis on the family. In his speeches, he frequently mentions that he has met with the parents who have lost children, though a number of these individuals who were killed, were in fact adults. While these citizens were someone’s children, the emphasis placed on that of the family is a recurring theme in nativist and populist rhetoric (Spierings and Zaslove 2015). Specifically, the focus on the ideal family, which is patriarchal in nature and emphasizes (non-poor) white motherhood as the most legitimate

(Collins 2006). We can see that Trump’s positive mentioning of the family in the above quote stands in stark contrast to his discussion of the undocumented family:

In his September 14th, 2015 Dallas, TX speech:

We are a dumping ground and let me tell you something, the whole subject of anchor

babies. Did you hear that character for one of the networks say, “anchor baby is this

really not a nice term.” I said what would you do, what would you say? And he gives me

like a 12-word definition. I said no after you think of it but and I don't mean to be

disrespectful, but when a man has a problem and he's got his wife, or his girlfriend and

they move her over to the border for one day, has the baby on the other side of the border,

our side. Now that baby is a citizen of our country for however long the baby lives,

hopefully alone. It's wrong. It's wrong and by the way, by the way the law doesn't call it

that. That's not what the law says, and people are finding out now that I'm right. We

didn't say that somebody could be pregnant for nine months come across the border, have

a baby and now it's ours and we have to take care of the baby. It doesn't say that, it does

not say it, so we have to straighten out, we have to straighten out our rack. We're gonna

have a great country.

In this quote, Trump states that “we are a dumping ground,” meaning that as he has elsewhere stated, that other countries send us “their worst.” The rhetoric used in this speech is repeated in many others. While he usually discusses undocumented citizens, who are involved with drug trade or other crimes as being another country’s “worst,” here he is confounding women and children attempting to find better lives for themselves with individuals supposedly involved with severe criminality. Early research on immigration found that the mother-child dyad was often used to garner empathy through a sense of shared humanity (Chavez 2001), but more recent research has found that the growing anti-immigration debate in the United States has led to the creation of a more hostile environment for these mothers and their children (Romero

2011). Given Trump’s pre-election sentiments, it becomes obvious who the ideal citizens and families are within the United States.

According to Wingfield and Feagin (2012), white racial framing works in its various forms to reinforce white dominance and subordinate people of color. The most overt form of white racial framing is the hard racial frame. This frame usually involves gut-level, emotional responses, explicit racist imagery and language, and openly defines people of color as inferior through sentiments of racial disgust or discomfort. I found that Donald Trump often employs the language of the hard racial frame when discussing undocumented individuals, as reflected above.

He constantly used openly racist terminology such as referring to these individuals as “anchor babies,” “criminals,” “drug dealers,” “rapists,” and stated that the United States was a “dumping ground.” Within this rhetoric, even mothers and children become targets of exclusionary language and potential policies. In Trump’s America, the only legitimate families with claim to national protection and structural advantages are white, documented citizens.

Racial Framing of National Leaders

As stated earlier, Trump was observed as engaging in white racial framing in his speeches with the utilization of the hard racial frame occurring when discussing undocumented immigrants at the individual level. I will now outline how Trump employed the soft racial frame when discussing the advantage being taken of the United States and its citizens on behalf of countries and their leaders. The advantage being taken of us by other countries was always in reference to economics and jobs. This is predictable given that a lot of Trump’s speeches revolve around prospective economic prosperity with an emphasis on jobs for all. The countries emphasized by Trump as taking the most advantage of the US were Mexico, China, and Japan.

These countries were identified as taking economic advantage of the United States and its citizens through the theft of our jobs, relocation of our business corporations, and devaluation of currency.

From a February 7th, 2016 speech in Holderness, NH:

We will never get our country back if we keep doing this. We are never going to get

back. I will tell a story— where Ford moves, they are building a big plant in Mexico.

They are building a $2.5 billion plant in Mexico. And I say, how is that good for us? New

Hampshire knows better than anyone because you have lost a lot of business to Mexico. I

see these places now, and some are converted for senior citizens or apartments but in the

meantime, you need jobs You don’t necessarily need the apartments. You take the jobs

out and our giving them to other countries. We will end that. Look at manufacturing right

now. Look at Caterpillar Tractor. It’s a great company but look at what Japan is doing

with their currency, they are dropping the hell out of it. They are devaluing currency to

such a point that Komatsu is knocking Caterpillar. We can say we don’t want their cars

They will believe it, especially if I am the messenger. You have to have the right

messenger.

This quote reflects the rhetoric used when discussing these countries and the advantage taken of the US. Another important element within this theme of advantage being taken on behalf of other countries is the emphasis Trump places on the intelligence of these countries’ leaders. The quote places emphasis on leader’s intelligence and uses strong language to imply that our country has been stolen from us. While at the surface level, placing emphasis on these leaders’ intelligence seems to be counterintuitive to the questioning of intelligence we see often employed within the hard racial frame, it soon becomes obvious that white racial framing is still being employed, just through the utilization of the soft racial frame:

Again, from the February 7th, 2016 Holderness, NH speech:

I told people that if you own Caterpillar, with what these foreign countries are doing with

their currencies, especially China, which is the king, king, king of the world of currency

manipulation. The king of the world. They will never allow our companies to compete

with theirs, ever, and they do it based on currency manipulation. That’s why the TPP—

the trade agreement they are trying to sign is so bad. China is not in the agreement. The

countries that are— there is nothing really talking about currency manipulation and that

is the principal tool that these countries are using to kill us. They are killing us. And we

are going to get it stopped. And that agreement is a horrible agreement. By the way,

China is not in it now, but it is so beautifully set up, they are studying it. They’re going to

go at some point through the backdoor, and they will be in it and it will take over that

agreement, and they will make even more money than they are making right now. I am

not upset with China, Mexico, or Japan, their leaders are just too smart for the people

running our country. The people running our country don’t have a clue. They don’t have

a clue. I refuse to say this, but the woman just said they’re stupid, but I refuse to say that.

In quotes such as that reflected above, Trump states that these countries are smart, but references their intelligence as manipulativeness and cunningness in terms of their ability to take advantage of the US and its citizens. It is also important to note that according to Trump, these countries would not have the ability to take advantage without the assistance from the government and “failed politicians” such as, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. These politicians are viewed as having approved a number of policies and trade deals, which have worked to benefit other countries and take away from our own country’s citizens:

In this March 14th, 2016 Vienna, OH speech:

This is something we have to do. Our country is being so badly led, led into this horrible

deal with Iran. This deal will repay $350 billion. We get nothing. We should have never

started negotiating the deal until we got our prisoners back. [APPLAUSE] They never

once walked, nothing. Constantly, you would see back in Iran, people dancing in the

streets before the deal was done. They are dancing calling us all stupid. The deal was a

joke. It was one of the worst initiated transactions of any kind I have ever seen.

Trump is discussing how with the Iran deal, we are made to repay $350 billion and will receive nothing in return, and if that was not bad enough, we are being viewed as stupid by Iran, and likely the rest of world. Trump’s framing of America’s humiliation at the hands of immigrants and global powers has been discussed as an attempt to reinvigorate the true victims of this globalization, white Americans (Mukherjee 2018). Along these lines, it has been argued that white nationalism and white supremacy are yet again present in mainstream U.S. politics

(Inwood 2019; Wright 2021). Within this white supremacist logic, there is a widely held belief that the white race is losing ground and access to resources to people of color, with the assistance of the federal government (Berbrier 2000; Blee 2003). Further, the specific promotion of free trade and the global economy are viewed as a plot to benefit (government) elites as well as people of color throughout the world, while reducing the way of life for white Americans

(Dobratz and Shanks-Meile 1997). It becomes clear that Trump frames his discussion around trade and economics in language meant to convey the detriment of documented Americans standard of living at the hand of government elites. These elites include the Clinton’s and leaders of countries (mostly of color) that only care to benefit themselves and their citizens.

ONE AMERICAN PEOPLE

As I have already outlined above, within the speeches, there is a major emphasis placed on us versus them. The “them” is most overtly discussed in reference to undocumented immigrants at the individual level or specific countries and their leaders, but as I will demonstrate below, documented citizen status does not automatically equal incorporation into the “us.” I will now discuss just who the “us” refers to, or in other words, which individuals have legitimate claim to the American identity. Previous research has emphasized the importance of intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality in the shaping of the construction of a white, heterosexual, man as the ideal citizen (Collins 2001). Collins (2001) specifically theorized that national citizenship is hierarchically positioned by contribution to national well-being, with the

“us” including white citizens at the top and “domestic others,” or citizens of color, which all constitute the “one American family.” However, after analyzing the rhetoric used in Trump’s speeches, it becomes apparent that the only documented citizens of color included within the

“one American family” are those following “the rules of whiteness,” (Ignatiev 2015) or those remaining complicit to white supremacy. Trump consistently placed emphasis on “all” citizens, regardless of race, coming together as “one people.” The language employed when discussing the “all,” or the one American people, was riddled with the colorblind language of the soft racial frame. The discussion of “us” was nearly always in reference to the “them”: global actors, undocumented individuals, organized terror, and the failed politicians that have allowed our country to get into its current status:

In his September 16th, 2016 speech in Miami, FL:

[…] I will fight for every neglected part of this nation and I will fight to bring us all

together as one people imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working

together as one people, under one God, saluting one flag.

Another variation of this repetitive quote from his October 4th, 2016 Prescott Valley, AZ

speech:

We are going to rebuild America. We are going to revitalize America. We are going to

unite America. Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working

together as one people, under one God, saluting one American flag.

The quotes above, appeared in numerous speeches, with this call for unity of the One

American People increasingly emphasized as election day approached. Trump often insinuated that “all” was any citizen with documented status, regardless of occupation, race, or as quoted later, even political affiliation, for example:

Trump’s speech from September 16th, 2016 in Miami, FL:

I'm running to be a president for all Americans. I just had the most amazing afternoon in

little Haiti, good place, unbelievable people, and I'm going to be campaigning hard for

their votes and they are incredible people. Our support comes from all regions, all

backgrounds, and all walks of life…You cops and soldiers, thank you. I love you too.

Carpenters and welders, accountants and lawyers, young and old, rich and poor. Black,

white, and Hispanic, but above all we are together, and we are Americans. We've got to

pull our country together.

Similarly, when attempting to rally (documented) people of color and Black Americans through the utilization of coming together as one, the demonization of failed (Democratic/liberal) politicians, global powers, organized terror, and undocumented people was still present:

In this July 5th, 2016 speech in Raleigh, NC:

Because I'm a messenger. Essentially, I'm your messenger. The message is simple. We're

gonna take our country back. We're gonna have everybody included folks. We want to

include everybody. We want to help African-American youth, we want to help African-

Americans. We want to help Hispanics, Latinos. We want to help everybody. We've got

to help everybody. We've got to bring our country together. We've got to bring our

country together. So important. When you look at what's going on and then you look at

what's going on with ISIS where they're blowing up airplanes, where they're doing things

that are just inconceivable, that hasn't happened since medieval times. We studied

history. And we loved history. I loved history. Chopping off heads -- that medieval times.

Today it's like a common occurrence. And these are animals. These are animals that have

to be stopped.

While Trump often used the colorblind language of abstract liberalism (Bonilla-Silva

2010) in his appeal to “all” Americans, he did at times specifically appeal to voters of color, namely, Black and Hispanic Americans through the often-utilized framing of the us versus them dichotomy. As we see in the quote above the us (United States citizens) is rallied against the them, in this case, members of ISIS. The colorblind language of the soft racial frame is being employed when discussing American citizens of color, but this stands in stark contrast to the hard racial framing utilized when referencing ISIS. Trump discusses these members of ISIS using harsh and drastic language, even going so far to refer to them as “animals” who need to be

stopped for their heinous acts. More examples of Trump’s utilization of the soft racial frame when discussing citizens of color were present in numerous speeches:

In his speech from June 18th, 2016 in Las Vegas, NV:

Our whole theme is, “Make America Great Again,” but I’ve, I’ve revised it. It's Make

America Great Again, it's Make America Safe Again. Safe again, make America safe

again and it's also we want to do it for everybody, not just us. We want to do it for

everybody, we want to help African Americans who are… You look at African

Americans… [Applause] oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

African American youth have a 59% rate of unemployment. Okay, folks, 59 and we're

letting people pour into our country. We have no idea who the hell they are, where they

come from, there's no documentation. There’re no papers. They come from hostile

countries. They came... They come from countries that are tremendous in terms of

terrorism and we're gonna have big problems. If you think Orlando was the end of it with

this weak attitude and this pathetic president that we have. It wasn't folks, it wasn't, it

wasn't. This is just the beginning.

In this quote, Trump is discussing the unemployment rate among young African

Americans, which first and foremost follows his pattern of focus on economic wellbeing. He also seems to insinuate that the reason for this rate of unemployment is due to the fact that the current administration has failed at protecting our (Black) citizens from undocumented individuals coming into our country and “stealing” available jobs. The discussion here is advertently colorblind given that the reasoning behind this rate is reduced down to the fault of those

“othered” as taking advantage of us, while in reality this disparity is more complicated, having to do with a combination of factors including most prominently, structural racism (Solomon,

Maxwell, and Castro 2019). Another interesting aspect of this quote is the mention of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, FL. The majority of patrons at Pulse were Black or Latinx

(Wright 2016) and the shooter, Omar Mateen was a practitioner of the Islamic faith. It appears that Trump is drawing upon the conflation of Mateen to ISIS/international terrorism as an attempt to rally the us, specifically citizens of color here, against the true threat of the them.

While at times Trump used these us versus them appeals in reference to overt violence, the majority of the time, the focus was still on jobs and economics. This discussion of economic and job inequality at the hands of the undocumented and global powers was also employed in reference to Hispanic Americans, whom Trump appeared to discuss as together in their suffering with other citizens of color, specifically Black Americans:

Trump’s October 1st, 2016 speech in Manheim, PA:

They stood up there with their million-dollar salaries and they work with the Democrats,

but they don’t get anything [...] And we have the support of the Hispanics and African

Americans because they are tired of being ripped off and taken advantage of. Believe me,

you watch. They will have some big beautiful surprises on November 8th. Hillary Clinton

all but said that most of the country is racist, including the men and women of law

enforcement. She said that the other night.

From his August 4th, 2016 Portland, ME speech:

The Obama-Clinton economic disasters. An economic disaster that has brought suffering

across the nation. Nearly four in ten African American youth are living in poverty,

another 2 million Latinos have joined the ranks of those in poverty. Nearly one in four

people in their prime working years are now not working. You see the numbers, the

numbers are very… They're out there for everyone to see. The Obama-Clinton economy

has been a total disaster for all working people, but especially people in the inner-cities.

We're gonna bring back our jobs, folks. We're gonna bring them back. Hillary Clinton,

and I've been saying this for a long time, Hillary Clinton works only for her donors,

special interests, and lobbyists.

Trump emphasizes the advantage being taken of all Americans but ensures to place further emphasis on how the problems of people of color in our country are the fault of failed

Democratic politicians, other countries leaders, and undocumented individuals. No discussions of structural racism as influencing inequality are present. As reflected in the first quote above,

Trump calls out Hillary Clinton for referring to his supporters and most of the country as racist.

The denouncement of racism while continuing to engage in racial framing is often drawn upon within the soft racial frame of colorblindness. Trump seems to use his discussion of helping citizens of color as an attempt to further himself from being labeled a racist, but as we continue to see, he continually engages in hard and soft racial framing. In reference to the soft racial frame, we often see the praise of people of color who ignore the existence of structural racism

(Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). Trump often engaged in these types of praises:

In his October 3rd, 2016 Pueblo, CO speech:

This is a city with rich immigrant history and a rich Latino history. The Latinos love

Trump, right? They have contributed so much to this country and this state. To the people

of Pueblo— Thank you. And their families, they’ve come from all regions of the world.

You are united by this one very important factor. You are all Americans. [Audience

Cheers and Applause] [Chanting "USA"] And as Americans, you are entitled to the same

protections every other American gets. Everyone living lawfully inside our borders are

entitled to the same things, safe communities, A great education, and access to high

paying jobs and really good jobs. And this isn’t happening. This is the change that I will

deliver. Hillary Clinton has been there for 30 years, delivering nothing but talk and

failure […]

As I mentioned, Pueblo is filled with wonderful, hard-working immigrants. It’s these

hard-working immigrants who stand to lose the most from our open border immigration

policy. Illegal immigration and brokenness of programs take jobs directly from Latino

and Hispanic workers living here lawfully today. You know that. They are taking your

jobs. Illegal immigration brings with it massive crime and massive drugs, including a

terrible heroin problem right here in Colorado. You have a big problem. So, we are going

to build a border wall. We are going to build a wall and we are going to stop the drugs,

the gangs, the violence, from pouring into Colorado. We’ve got a lot of bad people that

came in. We have great people who came in, but we have a lot of gang members, we

have a lot of drug lords, we have a lot of drug sellers. We are going to ship them the hell

out, ok? Immediately.

In these quotes, Trump praises Hispanic and Latinx immigrants who did so “legally,” referring to them as a part of the one American people. In the second quote, also from the same speech in Pueblo, Colorado, Trump goes on to pit these immigrants (documented versus undocumented) against one another by stating that documented immigrants are the ones with the most to lose. This boundary making strategy is often employed by Hispanics and Latinxs in their attempt to ignore the presence of structural barriers present for themselves and other immigrants

(Vega 2014), and further drawn upon in white nationalist attempts to further the us versus them dichotomy. Also, of importance to note, is that practically every time the African American or

Hispanic/Latinx communities were discussed, it was in reference to the “inner-cities.” Aside from unemployment rates, Trump often discussed the struggles within these inner-cities and for those apart of the Hispanic/Latinx and Black communities in terms of crime and violence:

In this September 30th, 2016 speech in Novi, MI:

I'll bring jobs, I'll bring great education. I'll bring safe neighborhoods. If you keep voting

for the same people, you'll keep getting the same horrible results. Take a look at what's

going on out in the streets, take a look at Charlotte, take a look at Baltimore, take a look

at Ferguson, take a look at what's happening out on the streets of our inner-cities. Look at

Chicago, thousands and thousands of shootings, 3,000 shootings since January 1st. It's not

a long time ago, it's worse than war zones in many cases. You have cities, inner-cities

that are worse than war zones and more dangerous than some more zones. A Trump

administration will bring prosperity to all of our people. My economic agenda can be

summed up in three such beautiful words: jobs, jobs, jobs.

Regardless of the issues facing citizens of color, or any citizen for that matter, the solution according to Trump is always strengthened immigration policy, no more free trade that benefits other countries at the detriment of our own, and most importantly: jobs. Trump’s solutions themselves fall into the soft racial frame of colorblindness, that is, abstract liberalism

(Bonilla-Silva 2010). These promises of resources for all citizens fall into the category of abstract liberalism given the emphasis is on “equal opportunity.” Even though Trump himself acknowledges the inequality facing citizens of color, at least in some terms, his solution is still jobs.

CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION

In this study, I set out to explore the racial dialect of Donald J. Trump. My findings show that the utilization of the white racial frame as theorized by Feagin (2020), was consistently drawn upon by Trump in his rally speeches. Specifically, within my sample, I saw that he used a combination of hard and soft racial framing in the creation of his racial dialect (Wingfield and

Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). The overall rhetoric utilized by Trump fell into an “us versus them” dichotomy in which United States citizens were deemed the “us” while all others became the “them.” He drew heavily upon the hard racial frame when discussing “illegal immigrants,” Syrian refugees, and others deemed as “undeserving.” When discussing honorary white or token citizens of color, Trump switched to the soft racial framing of colorblindness in what was a nationalist appeal to rally both white voters and voters of color, specifically token

Americans of color and honorary whites.

It quickly became apparent that those with the most legitimate claim to the American identity and a place within the “One American People” label were whites, with some token people of color having the ability to adopt the status of honorary white, therefore obtaining a place (subordinate) to white Americans. Of course, all of this is contingent upon whether or not one follows the “rules of whiteness” (Ignatiev 2015) or follows along with what is in the best interest of white Americans. According to Donald Trump, this best interest is stopping the advantage being taken of us by undocumented immigrants, global leaders, and at times, our own failed (Democratic) leaders. Those falling into the “them” were referenced as taking advantage of United States citizens and can be split into two categories: individual advantage and leadership advantage. Those discussed the most often at the individual level were undocumented

immigrants, specifically, those immigrating from the southern border. Similarly, the country discussed the most recurrently was the country at our southern border: Mexico, closely followed by China and Japan.

Following the theoretical implications of the racial dialect (Wingfield and Feagin 2010;

Wingfield and Feagin 2012), I observed Trump often switching back and forth from the overtly racist language of the hard racial frame to the colorblind language of the soft racial frame, depending on the group(s) being discussed. He used the most overt language of the hard racial frame while discussing undocumented immigrants followed by Syrian refugees and members of

ISIS, which were often conflated. This hard racial frame language also consisted of using terms such as, “anchor babies,” and referring to undocumented Hispanic and Latinx people as

“criminals” and “drug dealers.”

In reference to countries and their leaders, the language employed was much more colorblind. He implied that leaders of various countries, mostly Mexico, were cunning and manipulative. While this language seems to move into the hard racial frame territory, it is still mostly covert given that Trump applauded them for their “intelligence” and ability to take advantage. In these examples, there was little to no presence of the overt language I saw applied to immigrants at the individual level. Similarly, at times, Trump did seem to be using less overtly racist language when discussing undocumented immigrants. The examples that come to mind are

Trump’s joking demeanor when discussing the ramps used to transport drugs over the border.

Even though he was still conflating drug dealing with undocumented citizens, his use of strong language dissipated.

These inconsistencies bring me to an important finding: every so often, it became difficult to truly differentiate between the hard racial frame and the soft racial frame. Wingfield

and Feagin (2010) define the racial frames broadly with the hard racial frame referring to explicit racist imagery and language that openly refers to people of color as racially inferior. The soft racial frame is defined as working in a more colorblind way that downplays the reality of structural racial inequality, avoids overtly racist terminology, and instead uses colorblind language while praising people of color who ignore the existence of institutional racism

(Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wingfield and Feagin 2012). Often, the application of frames was clear cut, but other times, it seemed as though either frame could be applied to examples of language employed. I would argue that Wingfield and Feagin’s broad theorization has both strengths and limitations. As I just mentioned, the major con was the difficulty in differentiating the frame employed at times. I would argue that the biggest pro of their broad theorization is the applicability over time. Originally, I attempted to apply Bonilla-Silva's (2010) theorization on colorblindness in tandem with Wingfield and Feagin’s theory. I expected that Bonilla-Silva’s four frames of colorblindness could help differentiate the hard racial frame from the soft racial frame. I was surprised to find that aside from the frame of abstract liberalism, I did not see many clear examples of the other three frames.

Bonilla-Silva (2010) does state that the frame of abstract liberalism is the most heavily drawn upon frame, and my sample was saturated with these examples. So, while I still agree with

Bonilla-Silva that colorblindness is still the dominant racial ideology (Bonilla-Silva 2019), I also believe that the theory as first formulated in 2003 could benefit from further exploration on its current applicability. As sociologists such as Metzl (2019) have discussed, the increasing acknowledgment of racial inequality within broader American society coupled with (slow) strides toward more racial equality has created backlash and an attempt to hold onto the privileges of whiteness among many white Americans. Therefore, it makes sense that new

strategies, still following along the lines of overt and colorblind framing, are beginning to be employed. Overall, it seems as if Bonilla-Silva’s theorization on colorblindness has become too specific while Wingfield and Feagin’s (2010; 2012) remains too broad.

Future studies should continue to explore the racial dialects of individuals in positions of power as it will illuminate how the dominant white racial frame, specifically the hard and soft racial frames are enacted and perpetuated within our institutions and therefore, broader society. It is becoming clear that there is still research to be conducted on how white supremacy continues to pervade society. Considering that there is broad acknowledgment that true change in the way of racial equality must come from the systemic level, there is no way true strides can be made if we do not first have a complete understanding of the functioning of our systems and institutions and how both elites in positions of power and citizens more generally adapt to the challenges facing the continuation of whiteness and its resulting privileges, therefore continuing the perpetuation of this inequality.

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