A Critical Discourse Analysis of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric in Donald Trump’s Historic 2016 AIPAC Policy Speech

Abstract The primary focus of this study is to explore Donald Trump’s emerging anti-Muslim ideology in his speech delivered at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. The discourse of this speech is loaded with anti-Muslim and anti-Islam linguistic instances. To analyze Trump’s Islamophobic discourse, the study engaged with the ideological square model under the umbrella of critical discourse studies. For data collection, validation and linguistic inquiry, NVivo 12 Plus has also been used. The findings reveal that self-others schema has strongly been evidenced in Trump’s AIPAC policy speech where he tried to depict Muslims in negative terms and successfully presented himself as a “hero” of the nation who wishes to save America from suffering and destruction. In addition, this research exhibited Trump’s obvious attempt to accentuate his virtuous self by using an array of rhetorical strategies in order to imprint negative attributes in terms of high level of Islamophobia.