Trump’s Populism and Hate Crimes against Muslims

Abstract

Islam has been demonized by the rightist politicians in most of the Western countries. This worldly normalization of hate and critics towards Islam made it the easy prey of the rightwing populist rhetoric. In USA, Islamophobia eased the success of Trump populist campaign of 2016; he enjoyed a great appeal and he further persuaded and mobilized the audience and his supporters. This research claims that the negative presentation of Muslims in Trump populist rhetoric went too far in smearing the Muslims image which negatively affected the Muslim community in USA. Trump rhetoric implicit an encouragement to the acts of violence in which his ultimate win resulted in a rise in hate crimes against Muslims. Rightist populist actors usually ignore democracy and focus on identity politics the research sheds light on the status of democracy in Trump era by analysing the undemocratic traits in the populist rhetoric of Trump, his atypical audacious decisions which appear limitless and not abiding to any norms or laws. A qualitative content analysis aims to evaluate the rhetoric negative effect on anti-Muslims crimes and its undemocratic level that affected and threatened the stability of the country. A critical analysis used to the populist approach to analyse Trump atypical policy of division that cared not to unite the people instead it deepened the gap between the people so that a pure white group dominate. This research highlighted that the populist response of the Americans in 2016 reflects their dissatisfaction about economy, politics and the cultural change. Political polarisation predominated as the critical state of society stemmed from a hate swamp sourced from social media and populist actors which stick on battling the liberal democracy. Trump populist campaign was the premonition of the appearance of authoritarian traits within the democratic US, the rise of Trump was catastrophic and incompatible with the nation’s principles of liberty, equality and freedom.