Queer Fluency in Populist Masculinity

This paper examines the role of masculinity in contemporary populism, focusing on Donald Trump’s self-presentation on Instagram. While traditional populist figures such as Getúlio Vargas and Juan Perón have been read as embodying a more humanized father/brother archetype, right-wing populist masculinity is often categorized as toxic, authoritarian, and violent. This paper, however, argues that Trump’s aesthetics present a queer fluency that challenges hegemonic masculinity. His flamboyant, camp-inflected performances, marked by musical and theatrical obsessions, hyperstylized gestures, and drag-inflected style, demonstrate this. Drawing on Bakhtin’s theory of carnival and queer theory, we introduce the concept of ‘queer carnivalization of masculinity’, a form of parody that subverts authority and gender norms through excess, flamboyance, and humour. Using visual interpretive methods, we analyze six representative images from Trump’s official account that demonstrate how his visual self-presentation employs camp, effeminacy, and opulence as a way to navigate contemporary social anxieties surrounding masculinity, particularly its authoritarian strains. The paper argues that these three aesthetic categories play a key role in offering a deconstructive transgression of conventional masculinity, challenging yet reinstating class and gender hierarchies.