scholarly journals The Nature of the Alt-Right

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Byron Williams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
Michael Mann ◽  
Interwar Europe

<p>The presidential campaign and eventual election of president Donald Trump emboldened and highlighted the existence of a fringe group known as the alt-right, short for alternative right. While the term was coined in 2008 by white nationalist Richard Spencer, it was the campaign rhetoric of Trump which brought national and global attention to an internet fringe group which ideologically aligned with the president’s often racist and hyper-nationalist agenda. This study aims to explain the nature of the alt-right and ask to what degree it can be considered as fascist. An ideal type of fascism has been constructed drawing on authors such as Michael Mann, Robert Paxton and Roger Eatwell and I aim to use this to explore the connections between twentieth century fascism and the alt-right. I argue that the alt-right should be viewed as fascist, acting within a period of history which is reminiscent of the proto-fascist era of interwar Europe. Although independent of Trump, the alt-right’s white nationalist/neo-Nazi agenda is explicitly and implicitly supported and encouraged by the new president.</p>

scholarly journals The Nature of the Alt-Right

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Byron Williams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
Michael Mann ◽  
Interwar Europe

<p>The presidential campaign and eventual election of president Donald Trump emboldened and highlighted the existence of a fringe group known as the alt-right, short for alternative right. While the term was coined in 2008 by white nationalist Richard Spencer, it was the campaign rhetoric of Trump which brought national and global attention to an internet fringe group which ideologically aligned with the president’s often racist and hyper-nationalist agenda. This study aims to explain the nature of the alt-right and ask to what degree it can be considered as fascist. An ideal type of fascism has been constructed drawing on authors such as Michael Mann, Robert Paxton and Roger Eatwell and I aim to use this to explore the connections between twentieth century fascism and the alt-right. I argue that the alt-right should be viewed as fascist, acting within a period of history which is reminiscent of the proto-fascist era of interwar Europe. Although independent of Trump, the alt-right’s white nationalist/neo-Nazi agenda is explicitly and implicitly supported and encouraged by the new president.</p>

Motivational underpinnings of support for radical political leaders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽  
Katarzyna Jasko ◽  
Marta Maj ◽  
Marta Szastok ◽  
Arie W. Kruglanski
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Personal Significance ◽  
Political Candidate ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Willingness To Engage

In three studies conducted over the course of 2016 US presidential campaign we examined the relationship between radicalism of a political candidate and willingness to engage in actions for that candidate. Drawing on significance quest theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018), we predicted that people would be more willing to make large sacrifices for radical (vs. moderate) candidates because the cause of radical candidates would be more personally important and engagement on behalf it would be more psychologically rewarding. We tested these predictions among supporters of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. Our findings were in line with these predictions, as the more followers perceived their candidates as radical, the more they viewed leaders’ ideas as personally important, gained more personal significance from those ideas, and intended to sacrifice more for the leader.

Masks and Emasculation: Populist Crisis Rhetoric and the 2020 Presidential Election

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110112
Author(s):  
Meredith Neville-Shepard
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Rhetorical Analysis ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Preventative Measure ◽  
Litmus Test

This essay illustrates how Donald Trump engaged in what I call “populist crisis rhetoric” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and coinciding 2020 U.S. presidential campaign cycle. By performing a critical rhetorical analysis of textual fragments surrounding how Trump addressed the preventative measure of mask-wearing, I show how he rejected the role of comforter-in-chief and instead opted for the role of victim-in-chief. Specifically, turning the bare face into a litmus test of Trump loyalism, his rhetoric suggested that masks threatened masculinity and functioned as a form of anti-choice bodily oppression.

"Us" vs. "Them". Communist Dialectical Images from Interwar Europe and Soviet Russia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adri Kácsor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Interwar Europe

Brawny male workers vs. bulging bourgeois men. Working-class mothers burdened by the hardship of poverty and childcare vs. elegant upper-class women enjoying a lifestyle of privilege. Such juxtaposed images of workers and the rich were prevalent in the visual culture of communism throughout the twentieth century, appearing on posters, illustrations, and other genres of political propaganda across countries and continents. Although these didactic propaganda images have rarely been considered in histories of modernism and the avant-garde, this article argues that they were among the key visual inventions of twentieth-century communist visual culture given their highly innovative aesthetics and juxtaposed structure that provided them a potential to become dialectical. Drawing on examples from interwar Europe and Soviet Russia, this article examines how didactic juxtapositions could become dialectical images, triggering political transformations while also making revolutionary class consciousness visible for the viewer.

scholarly journals The Trumpet of the Swan

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-186
Author(s):  
Karen Ann Donnachie ◽  
Andy Simionato
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Autonomous Robot ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Twitter Account ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Natural Media

This paper will outline the ideation, background and development of the electronic artwork The Trumpet of the Swan (Donnachie & Simionato, 2017) presented by the authors at the Electronic Literature Organisation conference in Porto, Portugal in 2017. The artwork is a custom-coded drawing-robot which automatically inscribes in natural media, every post published from the personal Twitter profile of the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, identified on Twitter as @realDonaldTrump. The machine, which has the appearance reminiscent of a swan, including a broad “body” balanced on two short legs that end in webbed “feet”, is a semi-autonomous robot that writes in a pen, crowned by a long white plume, on a continuous scroll of paper while producing bird-like sounds. The drawing-robot remains permanently in a state of attention and the demonstrated sequence of actions can only be triggered remotely and by the 45th President of the U.S.A. himself (or more precisely, by whomever publishes a new tweet through his Twitter account ‘@realDonaldTrump’). In other words, to borrow a popular phrase taken from twentieth century cold-war propaganda: only the President has the ability to “launch” this artwork which otherwise remains dormant, in waiting.

scholarly journals Framing Immigration and Illegal Immigration in the 2016 Presidential Campaigns: Comparing Donald Trump and Bernie Sander’s Position

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
JIN YANG
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Illegal Immigrants ◽  
Function Approach ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Tv News ◽  
The U.S

This study compared the U.S. TV news coverage of Donald Trump’s and Bernie Sanders’ talking points on immigration in the 2016 presidential campaign. Utilizing six common frames on immigration in general and adopting framing’s function approach (which consists of definition, causes and solutions aspects of an issue or a topic under discussion) to illegal immigration, the study content analyzed 153 TV news transcripts. Trump's talking points highlighted the claim that immigrants were dangerous because they brought crimes to U.S., and they had to be deported and borders must be secured. Sanders’ talking points emphasized the idea of a nation of immigrants where even illegal immigrants should be entitled to basic human rights, and immigration reform constituted a better solution. The causes for illegal immigration, however, were largely marginalized in the TV news coverage. Keywords: Framing immigration, framing illegal immigration, framing’s function approach, 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, U.S. TV news coverage of election

When Playing the Woman Card is Playing Trump: Assessing the Efficacy of Framing Campaigns as Historic

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (04) ◽  
pp. 736-742
Author(s):  
Leslie Caughell
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
General Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Female Candidates

ABSTRACTCandidate gender has become a major theme in the 2016 presidential campaign. Secretary Clinton appears to be emphasizing her gender to a greater degree than she did in 2008, even invoking gender in primary debates as something that separates her from the political establishment. Her opponent in the general election, Donald Trump, claimed that Clinton was playing the “woman card” and that Clinton has little to offer as a candidate beyond her sex. However, scholars have little sense of the effectiveness of playing the woman card by emphasizing the historic first associated with a candidacy, a strategy with inherent risks. This project examines the effect of playing the woman card by emphasizing the historic nature of a female executive candidate, and demonstrates that playing the woman card may actually benefit female candidates among certain subsets of voters. Playing the gender card appeals to voters traditionally underrepresented in politics and to weak Democrats and independents. These findings suggest that playing the gender card may benefit female candidates, especially Democrats, in elections.

Chitown Loves You

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Villanueva
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Structural Resistance ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
The City

Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric about violence in Chicago spatialized a narrative that branded the city as the poster child of urban disarray. His bombast lacked any contextual understanding of the issue and offered no productive pathways for collective solutions. Alternatively, I argue in this paper that a rising collection of Chicago hip hop artists were producing musical discourses in 2016 that not only challenged Trump’s negative rants, but also spatialized a multilayered narrative of the intersections between hip hop and activism in the city. Through textual analysis of three tracks from three breakout artists in 2016, my goal is to show how hip hop enables audiences to imagine Chicago’s 1) structural resistance to violence in the city’s communities of color, 2) a sense of place and belonging among the city’s youth, and 3) a loving and unapologetic “black liberation” lens to social movements in the city.

US president’s clemency powers could see party fight

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Content Type ◽  
White House ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Cover Up

Significance The APPA would place scrutiny mechanisms around the president’s pardon power. The bills have been introduced because their sponsors fear President Donald Trump and his White House -- which directly or indirectly face investigations relating to whether his presidential campaign colluded with Russia -- have something to ‘cover up’ and are readying to use the pardon powers to ‘silence’ witnesses and ‘protect’ people. Yet the president and White House deny any wrongdoing -- and thus any need or any plans to wield the pardon power in this way. Impacts States may amend their laws to give their judiciaries more prosecutorial powers over federal pardon recipients. Congress might lack the votes to overturn a presidential veto of any pardon-related law. Trump will likely use his clemency powers to support his policy goals, such as immigration control. Greater sensitivity over clemency could hinder the president from legitimately exercising his clemency powers.

The Islamic City Critique: Revising the Narrative

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Aldous
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The 1950S

Abstract In recent years scholars have challenged the concept of an Islamic city by constructing a historical narrative in which it derives from the orientalist tradition. They claim that French orientalists in the early twentieth century created an ideal type of the Islamic city as contrasted with its Western counterpart in order to support the assumptions of orientalist discourse. The first part of the article challenges this assumption by showing that the French orientalists did not in fact posit an Islamic city type. The second part offers an alternative explanation for the genesis of the concept by tracing it to the work of American anthropologists in the 1950s.

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