Trump’s Immigration Policies and the (non-)Meaning of Language

Abstract

This paper looks at U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter and online news media about immigration. Of special concern is the use of language to create an illusion of disorder within the government in creation of immigration policy and relations with Mexico, a key sending nation for immigration. A key argument of this paper is that the Trump administration uses disorder words in which language is used to sow confusion to alienate people from the process of democratic governance. This is a modified form of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concept of ‘order words’ which refers to communication where the listener’s obedience is more important than the speaker’s truthfulness. Accordingly U.S. governance under Trump has gone beyond mere disobedience toward a disorientation that prevents political opposition.