Walls of Words: A Laclau-Mouffe discourse analysis on the use of othering and securitization in official speeches made by Donald Trump during the Biden administration.

Sammanfattning

This paper analyzes Donald Trump’s evolving rhetoric on undocumented migration during the Biden administration, building on previous literature related to the use of language to delegitimize migrants. Employing a discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, we examine Donald Trump's remarks surrounding illegal immigrants in the United States through 7 major speeches from 2021 to 2024, utilizing theoretical perspectives on securitization and othering to contextualize our findings. We reach the conclusion that Trump’s discourse portrayed undocumented migrants as a security threat during the entire sampled period, though its manifestation became more direct and strongly emphasized over time. This was achieved through articulating undocumented migrants as a violent and dangerous “Other” incompatible with American society, yet with sufficient power to existentially threaten it. Furthermore, we found that this process enabled Trump to propose unorthodox policy suggestions with regard to migration by tying undocumented migrants into a chain of equivalence with crime and destruction. Not having a loud enough voice to make themselves heard, we argue that undocumented migrants were unable to resist this discourse, resulting in the upholding and extension of uneven power-relations between irregular migrants and the American legislative and political sphere. Lastly, we encourage additional research on the upcoming Trump-administration’s articulation of undocumented migrants and policy suggestions related to migration that may develop out of it.