From Victim to Avenger: Trump’s Performance of Strategic Victimhood and the Waging of Global Trade War

This article examines the rhetorical affordances of political claims to victimhood by US president Donald Trump during his first and second terms in office. By applying Critical Discourse Analysis to victimhood claims tactically deployed in the discursive performances of the US president, this analysis demonstrates the versatility and multi-functionality of victimhood claims as a political communication strategy in different contexts, which may account for, at least partly, the appeal of far-right populist leaders to national electorates. The analysis calls attention to a novel argumentative pattern, attested in Trump’s empowered victimhood rhetoric upon his inauguration as second-term president of the USA. This pattern consists of constructing prolonged economic injury inflicted on the nation and announcing retribution against the constructed victimizer(s). This emancipated performative style of claiming victimized nationhood is used to justify and forewarn the implementation of illiberal and coercive politics, in this case, the waging of a global trade war by the US president. Focusing on Trump as an original case study of the construction of ‘economic victimhood’ to justify aggressive economic policy, this paper aims to advance our understanding of the rhetorically complex and continuously evolving victimhood rhetoric of authoritarian populists, as well as the leverages accrued thereof, and adds to a growing body of the literature on the discursive–ideological shifts triggered by authoritarian populism.