‘We have the best gays, folks’
Homonationalism and Islamophobia in a critical discourse analysis of a pro-Trump social media forum
Keywords:
American exceptionalism, critical discourse analysis, far right, homonationalism, homophobia, IslamophobiaAbstract
In the wake of the 2016 election of Donald Trump, users on the pro-Trump online forum thedonald.win engaged in violently homophobic and Islamophobic discourses. This study uses a critical discourse analytic approach to investigate how users on this forum contradictorily invoke homosexuality to construct Muslims as sexually deviant while also situating them as homophobic and therefore incompatible with the users’ brand of American nationalism. This is an example of homonationalism, using the United States’ supposed tolerance of homosexuality to uphold American exceptionalism and paint Muslims as anti-gay and thus anti-American. While this form of homonationalism was originally formulated in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the presidency of Donald Trump has altered the way the homonationalist project is discursively constructed on an interactional level.
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