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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

15. Trump Daddy

Author : Rhiannon Goad

Published in: Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter examines how members of a political community maintain the boundaries of a group identity through the persistent circulation of constitutive rhetoric. Working from a codex of 380 mentions of the phrase “Founding Fathers” from the notorious pro-Trump subreddit, /r/The_Donald, I detail how members of an online political community use calls to America’s past to legitimize their political identity. Ultimately, I argue that the narrative of the Founding Fathers becomes a way for members to cast themselves as marginalized even while aligning themselves with persons in power.

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Title: Trump Daddy
Author: Rhiannon Goad
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36524-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-36525-7

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36525-7_15