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ABSTRACT
This article explores the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics under Trump. We employ Gramscian theory to make sense of US foreign policy structures, conceptualizing the Trump administration as engaged in a discursive war of position over narratives of national identity and security. Second, we use securitization theory to conceptualize agency and change within this. We analyse 1200 official, opposition and media texts over 20 months following Trump's election. First, we consider Trump's attempted securitization of immigration. Second, we explore the counter-securitization of Trump as a threat to “progressive” America. Third, we analyse how Trump securitized the opposition, conflating the constructed threat posed by immigration with political elites. We show how this led to greater polarization of US political debate, which became underwritten by securitized language. Finally, we note security's referent differed for both groups, with Trump's ethnocentric “real” America opposed to the liberal America endorsed by his critics..
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Ben Fermor is a PhD student at the University of Leeds. He researches official discourses of American foreign policy and counter-terrorism, focusing on representations of security, threat and otherness since 2009.
Jack Holland is Associate Professor at the University of Leeds. He is the author or editor of six books. His most recent monographs are Fictional Television and American Politics: From 9/11 to Donald Trump (Manchester UP 2019) and Selling War and Peace: Syria and the Anglosphere (Cambridge UP 2020). He has also published in journals such as European Journal of International Relations.