Constructing the Other

Abstract This study examines how the construction of the Other evolves in Donald Trump’s right-wing populist discourse across his three U.S. presidential campaigns. Using a corpus-assisted Discourse-Historical Approach, it traces shifting targets of exclusion in campaign speeches and the discursive strategies through which they are constructed. Findings reveal three trajectories of othering: opposition to establishment elites in 2016 evolves into an anti-left stance in 2020 and an anti-institutional position in 2024; moral panic is sustained through shifting scapegoating targets framed as sources of social, moral, or epistemic disorder across campaigns; and antagonism shifts from external threats toward internal Others, drawing diverse Others into a convergent logic of exclusion. These shifts channel racial, partisan, and cultural tensions into symbolic antagonists, narrowing the imagined boundaries of the “true” people, reinforcing authoritarian tendencies, and contributing to the erosion of trust in democratic institutions. The study highlights othering as an adaptive discursive resource through which right-wing populist mobilization and antagonistic alignments are mutually reinforced, thereby sustaining the dynamic construction of the Other.