Résumé:
Islam has been demonized by the rightist politicians in most of the Western countries.
This worldly normalization of hate and critics towards Islam made it the easy prey of the
rightwing populist rhetoric. In USA, Islamophobia eased the success of Trump populist
campaign of 2016; he enjoyed a great appeal and he further persuaded and mobilized the
audience and his supporters. This research claims that the negative presentation of Muslims in
Trump populist rhetoric went too far in smearing the Muslims image which negatively
affected the Muslim community in USA. Trump rhetoric implicit an encouragement to the
acts of violence in which his ultimate win resulted in a rise in hate crimes against Muslims.
Rightist populist actors usually ignore democracy and focus on identity politics the research
sheds light on the status of democracy in Trump era by analysing the undemocratic traits in
the populist rhetoric of Trump, his atypical audacious decisions which appear limitless and
not abiding to any norms or laws. A qualitative content analysis aims to evaluate the rhetoric
negative effect on anti-Muslims crimes and its undemocratic level that affected and threatened
the stability of the country. A critical analysis used to the populist approach to analyse Trump
atypical policy of division that cared not to unite the people instead it deepened the gap
between the people so that a pure white group dominate. This research highlighted that the
populist response of the Americans in 2016 reflects their dissatisfaction about economy,
politics and the cultural change. Political polarisation predominated as the critical state of
society stemmed from a hate swamp sourced from social media and populist actors which
stick on battling the liberal democracy. Trump populist campaign was the premonition of the
appearance of authoritarian traits within the democratic US, the rise of Trump was
catastrophic and incompatible with the nation’s principles of liberty, equality and freedom.
