Nationalism Not Racism: President Trump’s Strategic Communication War Against China’s Coronavirus Propaganda

This article conceptualizes strategic communication nationalism amid the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, this research explores traditional strategic use of communication such as nationalism, propaganda, PSYOP, and dissent public relations in an epistemic status, as well as new strategic use of communication such as rhetorical reappropriation, use of social media, and control of narratives toward global audiences. The focus is on the U.S. challenges emerging from the Chinese coronavirus propaganda campaign, which spreads disinformation to deflect blame for the outbreak via a spinning-a-tale narrative. This article relies on President Trump’s dissent strategic communication technique against the Chinese coronavirus propaganda campaign via Twitter, including his rhetorical reappropriation of the Chinese virus to lay the foundation for developing a S.C. nationalism model in the COVID-19 era. The role President Trump plays in reaffirming the origin of the COVID pandemic is characterized as advocacy for nationalism, not racism, in a process of developing S.C. nationalism, visualized in this article