Article published In:
Public Debates on ImmigrationEdited by Andreas Musolff
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 5:2] 2017
► pp. 323–346
Edited by Andreas Musolff
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 5:2] 2017
► pp. 323–346
Donald Trump supporters and the denial of racism
An analysis of online discourse in a pro-Trump community
Donald Trump’s campaign to become president of the United States was shocking for many people. His negative representations of racialized immigrant groups were one of the most controversial aspects of the campaign, leading to frequent accusations of racism. This study explores how his supporters responded to such accusations. Discussions of racism within a pro-Trump reddit community, called “The_Donald”, were analyzed. The_Donald users adamantly denied that Trump’s statements or proposed policies were racist. Their dismissal of these accusations drew on and extended the logic of color-blind racism. They argued that such accusations were merely cynical political tactics and advocated that Trump supporters respond to them as such. Their favored response strategies superficially resembled genuine debate but were apparently intended to incite emotional responses from accusers and to compel them to disengage from conversations. The article discusses these strategies in light of the ongoing polarization of political debate around immigration.
Keywords: Donald Trump, color-blind racism, reddit, polarization, right-wing social movements, discourse analysis
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Color blind racism and the discourse of immigration
- 3.Political debate online
- 4.Methods
- 5.Findings
- 5.1Weaponizing accusations of racism
- 5.2Strategies for responding to accusations of racism
- 6.Conclusion
- 6.1Summary of findings
- 6.2A new or resurrected form of racial discourse?
- Notes
-
References
References (30)
Abrajano, Marisa, and Zoltan L. Hajnal. 2015. White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 
Adams, Josh, and Vincent J. Roscigno. 2005. “White Supremacists, Oppositional Culture and the World Wide Web.” Social Forces 84(2):759–778.
Augoustinos, Martha, and Danielle Every. 2007. “The Language of ‘Race’ and Prejudice: A Discourse of Denial, Reason, and Liberal-Practical Politics.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26(2):123–141.
Bloch, Katrina Rebecca. 2014. “‘Anyone Can Be an Illegal’: Color-blind Ideology and Maintaining Latino/Citizen Borders.” Critical Sociology 40(1):47–65.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2002. “The Linguistics of Color Blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding ‘Racist’.” Critical Sociology 28(1–2):41–64.
. 2013. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Tyrone A. Forman. 2000. “‘I Am Not a Racist but …”: Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the USA.” Discourse & Society 11(1):50–85.
Brettell, Caroline B., and Faith G. Nibbs. 2011. “Immigrant Suburban Settlement and the ‘Threat’ to Middle Class Status and Identity: The Case of Farmers Branch, Texas.” International Migration 49(1):1–30.
Burns, Alexander, and Maggie Haberman. 2016. “To Fight Critics, Donald Trump Aims to Instill Fear in 140-character Doses.” New York Times, Feburary 26. Retrieved from: [URL].
Cooper, Ryan. 2016. “Hillary Clinton Supporters Should Get Ready for an Onslaught of Insane Bigotry.” The Week, May 17. Retrieved from: [URL].
Diehl, Trevor, Brian E. Weeks, and Homero Gil de Zúñiga. 2015. “Political Persuasion on Social Media: Tracing Direct and Indirect Effects of News Use and Social Interaction.” New Media & Society 18 (9):1875–1895.
Douglas, Karen Manges, Rogelio Sáenz, and Aurelia Lorena Murga. 2015. “Immigration in the Era of Color-blind Racism.” American Behavioral Scientist 59(11):1429–1451.
Ewing, Walter A., Daniel E. Martínez, and Rubén G. Rumbaut. 2015. “The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States.” Washington, D.C., American Immigration Council.
Gottfried, Jeffrey, Michael Barthel, Elisa Shearer, and Amy Mitchell. 2016. “The 2016 Presidential Campaign – A News Event That’s Hard to Miss.” Washington, DC, Pew Research Center.
Herrman, John. 2016. “Donald Trump Finds Support in Reddit’s Unruly Corners.” New York Times, April 8. Retrieved from: [URL].
Hill, Jane H. 2008. The Everyday Language of White Racism. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Jones, Bradley. 2016. “Americans’ Views of Immigrants Marked by Widening Partisan, Generational Divides.” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, April 15. Retrieved from: [URL].
Kettrey, Heather Hensman, and Whitney Nicole Laster. 2014. “Staking Territory in the ‘World White Web’: An Exploration of the Roles of Overt and Color-blind Racism in Maintaining Racial Boundaries on a Popular Web Site.” Social Currents 1(3):257–274.
McElroy, Wendy. 2014. “Beware of Kafkatrapping.” The Daily Bell, April 13. Retrieved from: [URL].
Meer, Nasar. 2013. “Racialization and Religion: Race, Culture and Difference in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3):385–398.
National Hispanic Leadership Agenda. 2015. “NHLA Supports Univision Decision to Cut Ties with Trump, Urges NBCU to the Same”, June 27.
Ngai, Mae M. 2004. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pew Research Center. 2016. “Campaign Exposes Fissures over Issues, Values and How Life Has Changed in the U.S.” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
Sailer, Steve. 2013. “The KKKrazy Glue that Holds the Obama Coalition Together.” Taki's Magazine, March 13. Retrieved from: [URL].
Sarlin, Benjy. 2016. “How an Army of Pro-Donald Trump Trolls Are Taking over Reddit.” NBC News, April 14. Retrieved from: [URL].
Sohoni, Deenesh. 2006. “The ‘Immigrant Problem’: Modern-day Nativism on the Web.” Current Sociology 54(6):827–850.
Sullivan, Sean, and David Weigel. 2015. “Some Republican Hopefuls Criticize Trump’s Muslim ‘Shutdown’ Call More Strongly Than Others.” Washington Post, December 7. Retrieved from: [URL].
van Dijk, Teun A. 1992. “Discourse and the Denial of Racism.” Discourse & Society 3(1):87–118.
1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Zatz, Marjorie S., and Hilary Smith. 2012. “Immigration, Crime, and Victimization: Rhetoric and Reality.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8(1):141–159.
Cited by (10)
Cited by ten other publications
Brandley, ben & Marco Dehnert
2024. “I am not a Robot, I am Asexual”: A Qualitative Critique of Allonormative Discourses of Ace and Aro Folks as Robots, Aliens, Monsters. Journal of Homosexuality 71:6 ► pp. 1560 ff. 
Subtirelu, Nicholas
2023. Decommodifying Spanish-English bilingualism: aggrieved whiteness and the discursive contestation of language as human capital. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2023:282 ► pp. 91 ff.
Davis, Alyssa J. & Heather Hensman Kettrey
2022. Clear and Omnipresent Danger: Digital Age Culture Wars and Reactions to Drag Queen Story Hour across Diverse Subreddit Communities. Social Currents 9:1 ► pp. 25 ff.
HAYNES, Jeffrey & Ömer Faruk CENGİZ
2022. Avrupa ve ABD'de Sağcı Popülizm ve Din. Uludağ Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 31:2 ► pp. 753 ff.
Teneketzi, Korallia
2022. Impoliteness across social media platforms. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 10:1 ► pp. 38 ff.
Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria & Lella Nouri
2021. The discourse of the US alt-right online – a case study of the Traditionalist Worker Party blog. Critical Discourse Studies 18:4 ► pp. 410 ff.
Ortiz, Stephanie M.
2021. Racists without racism? From colourblind to entitlement racism online. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44:14 ► pp. 2637 ff.
Haynes, Jeffrey
2020. Right-Wing Populism and Religion in Europe and the USA. Religions 11:10 ► pp. 490 ff.
Bucholtz, Mary
2019. The public life of white affects. Journal of Sociolinguistics 23:5 ► pp. 485 ff.
Squirrell, Tim
2019. Platform dialectics: The relationships between volunteer moderators and end users on reddit. New Media & Society 21:9 ► pp. 1910 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.