Ep. 4 - Decoding Trumpism

The 2016 political campaign and popularity of Donald Trump as the
Republican Party candidate for President of the United States has
aligned the idea of “Trumpism” with the construction of
“whiteness”. Similar to the current socio-political climate, the
notion of whiteness was propagated by the 1980's Republican Party
as a mechanism to re-establish white racial solidarity across
economic lines. This obscures neoliberalism’s effects on the
working-class and serves to rally behind nationalist, populist,
xenophobic, protectionist and anti-establishment sentiments. The
popularity of his rhetoric, message, and general path to the
presidency indicates the growing (and/or previously more silent)
beliefs of the electorate. The Trumpism ideology is not new. As
most things that the Donald champions, Trump slapped his name on
it, made it unecessarily flashy, and called it his own. Dominic
Tierney (2016) of The Atlantic points out that Trump “rode a wave
that has been building across America and the West for decades.
Trump embraced and shaped the mood so profoundly that it’s
possible to brand the movement with his name.” Trumpist
sentiments have been seen overseas in Britain (particularly
around Brexit) as well as Finland and elsewhere.


What is new about this collective ideology is that they are
branded around one highly animated, highly outspoken celebrity
funneled into a racialized white nationalist context. The
coalescing of Trump’s narcissistic demagoguery and (more so than
other Trumpist tenets) the racialized anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim,
and overall “othering” he promotes via obscene comments and
proposed legislation has validated frustrations amongst the
so-called “silent majority”, working-class white voters, in
addition to previously shunned bigoted attitudes from the Ku Klux
Klan and the newly branded “alt-right”. Groups and demographics
whom once believed themselves to be unheard and/or too radical
(read: racist, hateful) to have a voice in the mainstream
electoral process now feel their beliefs are being propagated
through a candidate and now president.


See and read more of the Trumpism: A
Brief History article at
SoapBox Editorial.


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CREDITS: Intro soundbite from BBC's Newsnight
special layered on Auditorium (instrumental) by Mos Def
ft. Slick Rick. Outro from Alright by Kendrick Lamar.
Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro. Episode art and Bourbon 'n
BrownTown logo by Desirae Gladden.


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