ABSTRACT
Language about the US-Mexico border has long permeated political speech in the United States, informing candidates’ representations of the national community and national identity. Donald Trump has made such language a pillar of his political brand in ways that have increased his political capital, often through crisis frameworks and the abjection of Latino immigrants. Since Trump’s election to the presidency, his detractors have been forced to grapple with strategies that best counter Trump’s border script and reverse misrepresentations of the immigrant community. Through an interdisciplinary lens combining scholarship on political culture and rhetoric, this chapter argues that in her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for the presidency, California Senator Kamala Harris capitalized on her personal and professional background by incorporating parental and prosecutorial rhetoric as a creative strategy to combat Trump’s erroneous representations of both the border and border-crossing immigrants. Throughout her campaign, Harris flipped the crisis narrative altogether, framing the Trump administration as a crisis writ large and dignifying Latino border-crossers by locating them within the folds of a broader and more inclusive polity. This chapter ends by contemplating the efficacy of this strategy, its utility in and beyond Trump’s tenure, and what modifications might bolster its appeal.
