Donald Trump and his opponents as represented in his ۲۰۱۶ US presidential campaign retweets: A critical discourse analysis

Donald Trump’s ۱۰۶ handpicked tweets of his supporters in terms of his retweets, during his ۲۰۱۶ presidential campaign starting from the day before his candidacy announcement, June ۱۵th, ۲۰۱۵, until the day he took office on January ۲۰th, ۲۰۱۷, were researched in accordance with the Fairclough’s approach to CDA: (۱) to identify the specific linguistic, discursive, and social features employed in Donald Trump’s retweets; (۲) to explore how Donald Trump is represented via his retweets; (۳) and to examine how Donald Trump’s opponents are represented via his retweets. The findings revealed a severe authenticity issue regarding Trump’s retweets since numerous Twitter accounts from which he retweeted did not exist on Twitter. Additionally, his representation was mainly ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. He was attributed with Godlike characteristics while his opponents were poorly portrayed. Moreover, his representation was concentrated on his personal character, his popularity, and his financial success. Discursively considering, the discourse was simplistic, populist, informal, and repetitious filled with powerful words describing nationalistic and economic–oriented ideologies. Generally, the discourse struggled to legitimize Trump as the prime candidate and delegitimize his opponents due to the people’s discontent with the career politicians. This study indicated that Trump’s presence as a celebrity politician was due to the need in society for a novel character to relieve traditional politics while his language simultaneously transformed the existing social order in the realm of American politics.