E109: The Rhetoric of Counterterrorism in the Age of Trump
On today’s show (recorded in mid-May), Calvin and Alex explore the Trump administration's recently released national counterterrorism strategy. As a rhetorical artifact, this document offers a revealing window into how this administration frames security threats and who counts as an enemy of the state. And of course, the fact that it was written by would-be cartoon supervillain Sebastian Gorka makes it all the more dark and ridiculous.
We first trace the strange evolution of "terrorism" as a category, from its shaky, vibes-based definitions to the wildly different ways it's been deployed across US presidential administrations. We then look at how the strategy document organizes its priorities, who gets named as a threat, and who conspicuously doesn't. We ask what work certain word choices and framings are doing beneath the surface, and what those choices reveal about the coalition of interests this administration is trying to hold together.
Along the way, we talk about the document's global scope, from the Middle East to Latin America to Europe, and the throughlines connecting migration, security, and the Trump admin’s cultural chauvinism across all three. We also get into the language used to describe newly added domestic “threats” - in particular left-wing, anti-fascist, and other groups that might be construed as enemies of Trump’s right-wing government.
Text Analyzed in this Episode
The White House’s “United States Counterterrorism Strategy”
Works and Concepts Cited in this Episode:
McGee, M. C. (1980). The “ideograph”: A link between rhetoric and ideology. Quarterly journal of speech, 66(1), 1-16.
Speri, A. (2026, 9 May). ‘Largely slop’: Trump’s new counter-terrorism strategy is scant on substance but heavy on enemies. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/09/trump-counter-terrorism-policy-sebastian-gorka
Walton, L. (2023, 1 Aug.). Making monsters: How media encourage hatred of immigrants. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved from: https://fair.org/home/making-monsters-how-media-encourage-hatred-of-immigrants/ [on the “invasion” and “disaster” metaphors often used to portray immigrants and migration]