Conspiracy, Identity, and American Conservatism: How Political Elites Use Conspiratorial Discourse in their Official Communications
Creators: name: Schmitt, Carolyn Elizabeth
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2023

description: Donald Trump repeatedly referred to his political opponents as “globalists,” a term that refers to an antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jewish people conspiring to take control of the world. The use of this term is part of a broader globalist discourse that employs coded language; its meaning is determined by how audiences interpret the message, which varies based on their predisposition to conspiratorial or extreme ideas. This discourse is just one of Trump’s many far-right populist messages that resonated with white Christian Americans who are concerned about the increasingly multicultural demographics of the country as a threat to their dominant societal status. Elected politicians who use globalist discourse thus spread an antisemitic conspiracy theory that, read in context, is suggestive of broader political identity appeals and values. In this study, I explore how elected politicians perpetuate conspiratorial discourse in their official communications. Through qualitative critical discourse analysis and thematic analysis, I examine e-newsletters sent by members of Congress who mention the globalist conspiracy theory and the “deep stories” about American political identity that they tell through these texts. I identify which members of the United States Congress use globalist discourse in their official communications and analyze the content and the context of these communications to situate the conspiratorial discourse within broader discussions of American politics and, specifically, what these messages convey about “true Americans.” I find that Republican members of Congress with extreme conservative ideologies spread the globalist conspiracy and do so in two ways: through far-right populist communication styles and with the aim of appealing to white Christian nationalist identities. Taken together, this conspiracy functions as a discursive strategy for political identity ownership among far-right members of Congress that appeal to white Christian nationalism. Both far-right populist communication and white Christian nationalism are concerned with maintaining (racial) power hierarchies and, by extension, protecting their ingroup interests from vaguely defined Others. I show how Republicans with extreme ideologies frame Democrats and foreign interests as corrupt and threatening. I thus extend the literature on political identity ownership by incorporating power into the framework and demonstrating how conspiracies constitute a communicative tool for evoking deep stories and reinforcing ingroup identity while sharply vilifying and fearing the outgroup. This discursive strategy, as employed by elected politicians, is anti-democratic. In a well-functioning democracy, members of Congress must recognize the legitimacy of their political opponents. The far-right Republican members of Congress who perpetuate globalist discourse contribute to democratic backsliding by framing their Democratic counterparts as illegitimate political enemies.