Political Science

This article explores how the emergence of a particular strain of American nationalism in the campaign rhetoric of Donald J. Trump during the 2016 US Presidential election was enabled by discourses on American identity. The conclusion of the cold war, an ideological conflict that elicited unique levels of cohesive bi-partisan support, saw the emergence of a slightly amended globalist outlook grounded in neo-liberal economics in terms of American exceptionalism, American identity and American policies. The 2016 US presidential election cycle represents the most pronounced rejection of parts of these embedded discourses, with Jacksonian nationalism, protectionism and exclusion becoming more vocal in the mainstream of American identity politics. This article makes use of a critical constructivist approach in which phenomena are seen as socially constructed. Using this approach reveals how meanings are produced and attached to subjects and objects such as the United States, political establishment, globalization, and internal and external 'others' within identity and policy discourses. Identity and policy discourses help to construct how issues of national interest, problems, objects, and subjects should be understood, and also generally offer solutions to these various issues. These identity discourses inform policy discourses and serve to enable and constrain the options available to policy-makers. This article demonstrates that the emergence of the particular strain of American nationalism, manifested in the statements of the successful Republican Presidential candidate, were made possible through appeals to aspects of a populist and nationalist brand of American exceptionalism.