Redefining “Republican”: Symbolic Boundary Transformation and the Reconstitution of Republican Identity, 2010–2024

• In Event: Transformations of Right Wing Politics

Abstract

This paper examines how the alt-right, a movement that initially defined itself in opposition to the Republican establishment, became incorporated into a Republican-dominated political coalition. Rather than treating this transformation as a case of ideological diffusion from fringe to mainstream, the study conceptualizes it as a process of symbolic boundary renegotiation. I argue that the key transformation occurred not simply at the level of ideological content, but in the relational meaning of “Republican” as a political identity. Drawing on theories of collective identity and boundary processes, I identify three mechanisms of change: boundary blurring (shared values and enemies), boundary expansion (incorporation into a common movement), and boundary contraction (intra-coalitional policing of “true” Republicans). To test these mechanisms, I estimate diachronic word embedding models on an original corpus of alt-right and far-right media texts from 2010–2024. By measuring shifts in the semantic associations surrounding “Republican,” I track how its relational positioning evolves over time. The findings reveal a multi-stage process. Early boundary blurring narrowed the symbolic distance between Republican and nationalist-populist language. A brief expansion phase around 2016–2017 repositioned “Republican” within a broader insurgent movement. Subsequent intra-right policing generated instability before a post-2020 consolidation embedded nationalist-populist rhetoric within institutional Republican identity. The results suggest that insurgent movements can become incorporated into party politics through the renegotiation of symbolic boundaries, producing new identity formations rather than simple ideological takeover.

Author

• Kylie Fuller, New York University