Donald Trump’s America: Communicating the Seeds of Racism, Xenophobia, & Persistent Conflict

Abstract

President Donald John Trump served as America’s 45th President for one term, from January 2017 to January 2021, and his tenure was remarkable for incline in overt racism, xenophobia, and other social conflicts. That it ended in one term, given that three Presidents who served before him all served for the maximum two terms defined America’s response to his service. Although Donald Trump was voted out by America, his mark persists and the imprint significant and deep that it may take years for America to recover and move toward civil communication across racial divisions and returning to the era of America as a land accepting immigrants. It is notable that Trump’s presidency will forever be remembered for building a large and lengthy wall designed to keep away immigrants from crossing the Southern border with Mexico while the border in the North was never open to a debate of closure or immigrant restriction. The meaning was, particularly, on the issue of race and it was obvious to many. At the Northern border was a largely Caucasian Canadian population and at the South was the non-Caucasian Mexicans. But the closure or restriction of physical border to the South would pale in its inhumanity to the treatment of children whose parents were separated from them and housed in locations described as concentration camps where they were detained in cages. Vinopal (2019) reports were collateral in Trump’s decision to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program affected 1.2 million persons and that the program would lead to the loss of $4 billion in lost taxes. But beyond xenophobia, with race undertones, are racial upheavals within the country. Therefore, it is unsurprising that this special issue features articles addressing race and immigration, primarily. Donald Trump stoked the racial fire, within the country, via various communication even before he became America’s 45th President. He claimed that the then 44th President Barack Obama was not American, and Trump led the birther campaign against Obama’s Presidency (Kelley-Romano & Carew, 2018/19). Wilkie (2020) of the CNBC reported President Trump’s blistering attack of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement for highlighting police killing of African Americans across the country. According to Isom et al. (2021); Trump frequently employed the trope of “White victim” in attacking the BLM. They conclude that “The mitigating effects of Trump support and patriarchal gender normative beliefs suggest holding such sentiments likely normalizes perceived ‘victimhood’ and anti-BLM sentiments.”