Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:17:47.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Crybabies and Snowflakes

from Part I - Dividing the American Public

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Janet McIntosh
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

This paper explores the “crybaby/snowflake” name calling leveled by Trump’s supporters against his detractors, a discourse that exploded in the immediate wake of the 2016 election. It explores interdiscursive (or intertextual) relationships and functional similarities between the crybaby discourse and the language historically used by Drill Instructors during basic training in the United States Marine Corps. In both cases, someone in the role of “ritual elder” uses language as a punitive and didactic cudgel to weed out the weak (whether literally, from the military, or more symbolically, from cultural citizenship/the nation) while signifying that the interlocutor needs to “grow up” or “man up” by attenuating their sensitivity to both suffering and linguistic meaning. The ideal citizen then has a calloused quality, in the model of military masculinity, ready to face harsh realities and to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. The crybaby discourse is intended to discredit political opposition and discourage empathy as part of Trump’s new nationalism. Its interdiscursive passage between military personnel and American conservatives can be seen in memes and mass media. The crybaby discourse has also been taken up by many of Trump’s detractors and leveled at Trump himself to infantilize and discredit him.

Keywords

ritualmilitaryinterdiscursivityintertextualityTrump supportersmasculinitymemesempathynationalismsnowflake
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 74 - 88
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agha, Asif. 2005. “Introduction: Semiosis across Encounters.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15, no. 1: 1–5.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1983 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Holquist, Michael. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bump, Philip. 2014. “Obama Is a Horrible Dictator Who Is Also a Wimp.” The Atlantic, March 4, 2014. https://bit.ly/2nGpdFp.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1997. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. Routledge.Google Scholar
Chapman, Steve. 2018. “Trump the Wimp.” The Chicago Tribune, March 16, 2018. https://bit.ly/2nHnfVe.Google Scholar
CNN. 2017. “Van Jones: Trump Is ‘President Snowflake.’” CNN video, May 18, 2017. https://bit.ly/35VVUPZ.Google Scholar
Cohn, Carol, and Ruddick, Sara. 2004. “A Feminist Ethical Perspective on Weapons of Mass Destruction.” In Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, edited by Hashmi, Sohail H. and Steven, P. Lee, pp. 405–35. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dodd, Matthew. 2004. Reply to “Has Marine Corps Training Gone Soft?” LeatherNeck, October 10, 2004. https://bit.ly/2m8rBnK.Google Scholar
Flood, Brian. 2016. “‘What’s the Worst That Can Happen to These Millennials?’ Donald Trump’s Campaign Manager Asks Sean Hannity.” The Wrap, November 17, 2016. https://bit.ly/2majbMN.Google Scholar
Fox News Insider. 2016. “You Crybabies Are Why Trump Won! See Fed-Up Vet’s Message to Protesters.” Fox News article, November 14, 2016. https://bit.ly/2mrauxf.Google Scholar
Gabler, Neal. 2012. “What’s Behind the Right’s ‘Obama Is Gay’ Conspiracy.” The Nation, October 23, 2012. https://bit.ly/2mUnyfd.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The New Press.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra, ed. 2009. Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1996. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lima, Cristiano. 2016. “Conway: Anti-Trump Protesters ‘Degrade’ Presidency.” Politico, November 16, 2016. https://politi.co/2mLGblH.Google Scholar
Lutz, Catherine. 2002. “Making War at Home in the United States: Militarization and the Current Crisis.” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3: 723–35.Google Scholar
McQuillan, Karin. 2017. “Obama’s Snowflakes.” American Thinker, March 9, 2017. https://bit.ly/2nHoUtW.Google Scholar
NBC News. 2016. “Meet the Press, November 27, 2016.” Online video clip, November 27, 2016. https://nbcnews.to/2orHy9w.Google Scholar
Palahniuk, Chuck. 2005[1996]. Fight Club. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Schneider, Christian. 2017. “Donald Trump Is America’s Snowflake in Chief.” USA Today Opinion, October 12, 2017. https://bit.ly/2yijCb3.Google Scholar
Smith, Erec. 2019. “Habitat for Inhumanity: How Trolls Set the Stage for @realDonaldTrump.” In President Donald Trump and His Political Discourse: Ramifications of Rhetoric via Twitter, edited by Lockhart, Michele, pp. 131–46. Routledge.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. [1969]2017. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, Michael. 2018. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Little Brown.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×