Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First ArticlesMoral panic and (in)security
Hispanic and Latinx immigrants in the shadow of Trump and right-wing populism
This study examines Trump’s depiction of Hispanic and Latinx immigrants, highlighting his use of moral panic to
activate fear and thereby deepen societal divisions within a broader right-wing populist agenda. Analyzing nearly half a million
words from Trump’s tweets using corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis, the research reveals that he portrays Hispanic and
Latinx immigrants as the ‘object of offence,’ amplifying their perceived threat while ‘scapegoating’ political adversaries and
other nations. As a ‘moral entrepreneur,’ he and his allies position themselves as protectors against this perceived danger,
warning of severe ‘consequences’ for national security and the economy if left unaddressed. Their ‘corrective action’ involves
implementing strict immigration policies, with the ‘desired outcome’ being enhanced security and economic prosperity. The study
demonstrates how the deployment of moral panic generates public fear and insecurity, legitimizing anti-immigrant sentiments and
justifying stringent measures. This, in turn, reinforces right-wing populism narratives with significant societal
implications.
Keywords: corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis, fear, Hispanic and Latinx immigrants, (in)security, moral panic, right-wing populism, Trump
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Immigration issues in U.S.
- 1.2Moral panic
- 1.3Right-wing populism (RWP)
- 2.Methodology
- 2.1Corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis
- 2.2Corpora and tools
- 2.3Detecting linguistic patterns in moral panic
- 3.Findings
- 3.1Keywords
- 3.2Moral panic and (in)security
- 3.2.1Object of offence
- The illegal status
- Border issues
- Large-scale immigration
- 3.2.2Scapegoat
- Scapegoating political opponents and policies
- Scapegoating other countries
- 3.2.3Moral entrepreneur
- 3.2.4Consequence
- 3.2.5Corrective action
- 3.2.6Desired outcome
- 3.2.7Moral panic rhetoric
- 3.2.1Object of offence
- 4.Conclusion
-
References
References (70)
Anthony, Laurence. 2005. AntConc:
Design and development of a freeware corpus analysis toolkit for the Technical Writing Classroom. IEEE International
Professional Communication Conference. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Arango, Tim, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, and Katie Benner. 2019. “Minutes
Before El Paso Killing, Hate-Filled Manifesto Appears
Online.” 2019.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Becker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of
Deviance. [URL]
Benedicto, Ainhoa Ruiz, Mark Akkerman, and Pere Brunet. 2020. “A
Walled World: Towards a global apartheid.” Transnational
Institute. Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau. [URL]
Buchanan, Ethan. 2024. “As
the conflict between the federal government and Texas at the southern border grows, many are once again calling for Texas to
declare independence.” NewsRadio 740 KTRH, January 30, 2024. [URL]
Carter, Phillip M. 2013. “Poststructuralist Theory and
Sociolinguistics: Mapping the Linguistic turn in Social Theory.” Language and Linguistics
Compass 7 (11): 580–96. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cohen, Stanley. 1972. Folk
devils and moral panics: The Creation of the Mods and
Rockers. London : MacGibbon and Kee.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Critcher, Chas. 2008. “Moral
Panic analysis: Past, Present and future.” Sociology
Compass 2 (4): 1127–44. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Delanty, Gerard, Ruth Wodak, and Paul Jones. 2008. Identity,
belonging and migration. Oxford University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Don, Zuraidah Mohd, and Charity Lee. 2014. “Representing
immigrants as illegals, threats and victims in Malaysia: elite voices in the media.” Discourse
&
Society 25 (6): 687–705. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ekström, Hugo, Michał Krzyżanowski, and David Johnson. 2023. “Saying
‘Criminality’, meaning ‘immigration’? Proxy discourses and public implicatures in the normalisation of the politics of
exclusion.” Critical Discourse
Studies, December, 1–27. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Falkof, Nicky. 2018. “On
moral panic: Some directions for further development.” Critical
Sociology 46 (2): 225–39. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Francis, Nelson, and Henry Kučera. 1979. “Brown
Corpus Manual.” [URL]
Goodman, Simon, and Susan A. Speer. 2007. “Category
use in the construction of asylum seekers.” Critical Discourse
Studies 4 (2): 165–85. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Office of the Texas
Governor. 2024. “Governor Abbott Issues Statement on Texas’ Constitutional
Right to Self-Defense.” January 24,
2024. [URL]
Hernandez. 2019. “The fall of
employment in the manufacturing sector.” Bureau of Labor Statistics: Washington, DC, USA. 2019. [URL]
Hier, Sean P. 2019. “Moral panic and the new
neoliberal compromise.” Current
Sociology 67 (6): 879–97. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2016. Strangers in their own land :
anger and mourning on the American right. [URL]
Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. 2018. “The Border President –
Boston Review.” Boston Review. 2018. [URL]
Jessica, Brown. 2016. “The
New ‘Southern Strategy:’ Immigration, Race, and ‘Welfare Dependency’ in Contemporary US Republican Political
Discourse.” Geopolitics, History, and International
Relations 8 (2): 22. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira, and Lisa Zanotti. 2023. “The
populist radical right beyond Europe.” Journal of Language and
Politics 22 (3): 285–305. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kilgarriff, Adam, Vít Baisa, Jan Bušta, Miloš Jakubíček, Vojtěch Kovář, Jan Michelfeit, Pavel Rychlý, and Vít Suchomel. 2014. “The
Sketch Engine: ten years
on.” Lexicography 1 (1): 7–36. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kolås, Åshild, and Lacin Ldil Oztig. 2021. “From
towers to walls: Trump’s border wall as entrepreneurial performance.” Environment and Planning
C: Politics and
Space 40 (1): 124–42. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kreis, Ramona. 2017. “The
‘Tweet politics’ of President Trump.” Journal of Language and
Politics 16 (4): 607–18. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2020. “Discursive
shifts and the normalisation of racism: imaginaries of immigration, moral panics and the discourse of contemporary right-wing
populism.” Social
Semiotics 30 (4): 503–27. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Per Ledin. 2017. “Uncivility
on the web.” Journal of Language and Politics
(Print), August, 566–81. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Ruth Wodak. 2009. “Theorising
and Analysing social change in Central and Eastern Europe: The contribution of Critical Discourse
analysis.” In Palgrave Macmillan UK
eBooks, 17–39. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Light, Michael T., Jingying He, and Jason P. Robey. 2020. “Comparing
crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in
Texas.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 117 (51): 32340–47. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lockhart, Michele. 2018. President
Donald Trump and his political discourse: Ramifications of Rhetoric via
Twitter. Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Longazel, Jamie. 2013. “Moral
panic as racial degradation ceremony: Racial stratification and the local-level backlash against Latino/a
immigrants.” Punishment &
Society 15 (1): 96–119. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mannion, Russell, and Neil Small. 2019. “On
folk devils, moral panics and new wave public health.” International Journal of Health Policy
and
Management 8 (12): 678–83. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McEnery, Tony. 2005. Swearing
in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the
present. Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
. 2016. “Keywords and Moral Panics: Mary Whitehouse and Media Censorship.” In Whats in a Word-List? Investigating Word Frequency and Keyword Extraction, edited by Dawn Archer. Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Messing, Vera, and Bence Ságvári. 2021. “Are
anti-immigrant attitudes the Holy Grail of populists? : A comparative analysis of attitudes towards immigrants, values, and
political populism in
Europe.” Intersections 7 (2): 100–127. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nartey, Mark, and Isaac N. Mwinlaaru. 2019. “Towards
a decade of synergising corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis: a
meta-analysis.” Corpora 14 (2): 203–35. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nelson, Robin Lee, and Patricia Davis-Wiley. 2018. “Illegal
or Undocumented: An analysis of immigrant terminology in contemporary American
media.” International Journal of Social Science
Studies 6 (6): 8. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Oppenheim, Oren. 2024. “Immigration
is at the center of the 2024 election for many. Why?” ABC
News, March 1, 2024. [URL]
Pew Research Center. 2020. “Key
findings about U.S. immigrants | Pew Research Center.” August 20, 2020. [URL]
. 2023. “What we
know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. | Pew Research Center.” November 16, 2023. [URL]
Pojanapunya, Punjaporn, and Richard Watson Todd. 2018. “Log-likelihood
and odds ratio: Keyness statistics for different purposes of keyword analysis.” Corpus
Linguistics and Linguistic
Theory 14 (1): 133–67. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2001. Discourse
and discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. SUNY Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Román, Ediberto, and Michael A. Olivas. 2013. Those
damned immigrants: America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration. NYU Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Santa Ana, Otto. 2002. Brown
tide rising: Metaphors of Latinos in contemporary American public discourse. University of Texas Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
. 2013. Juan
in a Hundred: The Representation of Latinos on Network News. University of Texas Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sarica, Serhad, and Jianxi Luo. 2021. “Stopwords
in technical language processing.” PLOS
ONE 16 (8): e0254937. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Serwer, Adam. 2018. “Trump’s
caravan hysteria sparked a massacre.” The Atlantic, October 31, 2018. [URL]
Sharples, Oscar D. 2023. “A vicious cycle: how racialised
moral panics simultaneously reproduce (and are reproduced by) repressive policing
practices.” Culture, Society, and
Praxis 15 (1).![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Steinhauer, Jennifer, Jonathan Martin, and David M. Herszenhorn. 2016. “Paul
Ryan calls Donald Trump’s attack on judge ‘Racist,’ but still backs him.” The New York
Times, June 8, 2016. [URL]
Stocking, Galen, Michael Barthel, and Elizabeth Grieco. 2020. “Sources
shared on Twitter: A case study on immigration | Pew Research Center.” Pew Research Center’s
Journalism Project. August 27,
2020. [URL]
Tourish, Dennis. 2023. “It
is time to use the F word about Trump: Fascism, populism and the rebirth of
history.” Leadership, November. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2008. Discourse
and practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Warren, Robert. 2019. “US
Undocumented Population Continued to Fall from 2016 to 2017 and Visa Overstays Significantly Exceeded Illegal Crossings for
the Seventh Consecutive Year.” Journal on Migration and Human
Security 7 (1): 19–22. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Warren, Robert, and Donald Kerwin. 2017. “The
2,000 Mile Wall in Search of a Purpose: Since 2007 Visa Overstays have Outnumbered Undocumented Border Crossers by a Half
Million.” Journal on Migration and Human
Security 5 (1): 124–36. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Waugh, Linda R., and Theresa Catalano. 2021. “Book
Review: Wodak, Ruth. 2021. ‘The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse’. 2nd ed. Los Angeles,
London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington: Sage.” Qualitative Sociology
Review 17 (3): 130–34. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wodak, Ruth, and Michał Krzyżanowski. 2017. “Right-wing
populism in Europe & USA.” Journal of Language and
Politics 16 (4): 471–84. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)