The Language of Permission: How Dehumanization Creates the Conditions for Policy
Throughout American history, the most consequential restrictions on human rights have rarely emerged from sudden bursts of cruelty or spontaneous legislative malice. Instead, they have been preceded by something more methodical and more insidious, namely the careful construction of a linguistic framework that renders exclusion not merely acceptable, but administratively logical. Dehumanization, in its most effective form, functions less as overt brutality and more as the bureaucratic groundwork that makes certain populations thinkable as subjects of restriction rather than bearers of rights. Once a group has been framed through sustained rhetoric as biologically deficient, inherently dangerous, or fundamentally outside the boundaries of civic belonging, the policies that follow appear not as acts of aggression but as necessary measures of regulation and public order. The language does not merely accompany the law; it constructs the conceptual architecture that makes the law seem inevitable.
Historical Foundations
The Administrative Logic of Racial Classification
The architects of American slavery understood this principle with remarkable clarity. Thomas Jefferson, Roger Taney, Samuel Cartwright, and John C. Calhoun did not traffic primarily in emotional appeals or inflammatory rhetoric. Rather, they built systematic classificatory frameworks that functioned as the administrative foundation for legal exclusion. In his widely circulated Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Jefferson proposed what he framed as empirical observations about racial difference, describing Black people as inferior in reason and imagination, possessing what he termed physical and moral distinctions that nature itself had made fixed and permanent. His language was clinical rather than hysterical, presenting these assertions as matters of natural philosophy rather than prejudice, which allowed them to circulate as seemingly objective grounds for policy rather than expressions of bias.
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
When Chief Justice Roger Taney issued his majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, he did not simply rule against Scott's claim to freedom. He articulated a comprehensive theory of Black legal status that denied the very possibility of African American citizenship. His assertion that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" was not presented as a moral position but as a description of the legal reality established by the Founders themselves. Taney framed this exclusion as a matter of constitutional interpretation, embedding it in the language of jurisprudence and founding intent. The opinion transformed what might have been understood as contestable political choices into settled legal categories, making exclusion appear not as a decision but as a recognition of pre-existing constitutional truth.
The Invention of "Drapetomania" (1851)
Samuel Cartwright's invention of "drapetomania" in 1851 exemplified how medical and scientific language could serve the administrative needs of the slave system. Cartwright proposed that enslaved people who fled captivity suffered from a mental illness, based on the premise that slavery improved their lives so substantially that only mental disorder could explain the desire to escape. The diagnosis appeared in respectable medical journals, lending it institutional credibility. By classifying the pursuit of freedom as a pathology requiring therapeutic intervention rather than as a rational response to bondage, Cartwright created a category the law could act upon. The recommended "treatment" (which consisted of whipping and stricter control) became medicalized rather than punitive, transforming violence into a form of care for the mentally ill.
John C. Calhoun's 1837 Senate speech declaring slavery a "positive good" represented a shift in rhetorical strategy but followed the same underlying logic. Rather than apologizing for slavery as a necessary evil, Calhoun argued that where two races of different origin coexisted with physical and intellectual differences, the relation between them in slaveholding states was not evil but beneficial—a positive good. He framed this not as sentiment but as historical and sociological observation, noting that no wealthy civilization had existed without one portion living on the labor of another. This rhetorical move placed slavery within a broader pattern of social organization, making it appear as a natural feature of advanced societies rather than a moral aberration. The language was philosophical rather than emotional, designed to appeal to those who valued systematic thinking over moral sentiment.

These frameworks operated like paperwork in the sense that once the category was established and certified by authoritative institutions (whether scientific, legal, or political), the policies became procedural rather than controversial. The classification system created a bureaucratic reality in which restrictions on Black autonomy appeared not as choices requiring moral justification but as administrative necessities following naturally from the established categories.
The Mechanism
How Rhetoric Becomes Restriction
The translation of dehumanizing language into restrictive policy follows a structural sequence that has repeated throughout American history.
01
Identification
The language identifies a specific population as a source of disorder or threat.
02
Amplification
Institutional channels (whether newspapers, medical journals, or political speeches) amplify this characterization until it becomes part of the assumed background of public discourse.
03
Rationalization
Fear or administrative necessity becomes the organizing rationale for intervention.
04
Codification
Law codifies the newly defined category into formal legal structures.
05
Enforcement
Bureaucratic systems enforce these structures through mechanisms that present themselves as neutral administration rather than targeted oppression.
Case Study: Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
The response to Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 illustrates this mechanism with devastating clarity. Following Turner's uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, which resulted in nearly 60 white deaths, the immediate response included the killing of more than one hundred suspected rebels by soldiers, militia, and vigilantes in the days after the revolt was suppressed. But the more consequential response came through legislative action. The Virginia General Assembly debated whether to end slavery entirely but ultimately chose instead to impose additional restrictions on both enslaved and free Black people. The rebellion had been described in contemporary media not as a political uprising or a response to the conditions of bondage, but as an outbreak of savagery and madness led by a man with delusions of prophecy. This framing transformed a question about the sustainability of slavery into a question about the dangerous tendencies of Black people when left inadequately controlled.
The legislature passed new restrictions on Black mobility, education, and assembly, making it a crime to teach enslaved people to read or write and limiting the rights of free Black people. These restrictions were presented not as punishment for Turner's actions but as necessary precautions against the inherent instability that Black people were assumed to possess. The rhetoric about Turner's "rampage" and "savagery" had already prepared the public to accept such measures as reasonable responses to an identified threat rather than as escalations of oppression. The language had wired the public to view the policy as protective rather than punitive before the policy was even proposed.
The pattern reveals how rhetoric functions not merely as commentary on events but as preparation for the legal infrastructure that will follow. The language establishes the interpretive framework through which subsequent actions will be understood, ensuring that when restrictions arrive, they will be legible as reasonable measures rather than as exercises of power against the powerless.
Present Day
Contemporary Echoes in Modern Rhetoric
The rhetorical architecture that enabled nineteenth-century exclusions has not disappeared; rather, it has updated its vocabulary while preserving its essential structure. In 2024 and 2025, political rhetoric around immigration, diversity programs, and gender recognition has employed language that marks specific groups as sources of contamination, disorder, or categorical threat. Terms such as describing immigration as "poisoning the blood of our nation" and references to immigrants as coming from "prisons" and "mental institutions" have been used repeatedly in political discourse. Statements describing some immigrants as "not people" and calling them "animals" represent explicit dehumanization that echoes historical patterns.
Immigration as "Invasion"
The language of "invasion" to describe immigration frames the movement of people not as migration or asylum-seeking but as an act of territorial aggression requiring military response. This rhetoric has been employed consistently across multiple campaigns, describing immigrants in ways that characterize them as threats to community integrity, economic stability, and public safety. The framing transforms administrative questions about immigration processing into existential questions about national survival, creating the emotional and conceptual groundwork for extraordinary measures.
DEI as "Discrimination"
The characterization of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as "illegal discrimination" rather than as efforts to address historical disparities in opportunity represents a strategic reframing. Executive orders issued in January 2025 described DEI programs as "illegal and immoral discrimination" that needed to be terminated across federal agencies and discouraged in the private sector. This language does not merely oppose such programs; it recasts them as violations of civil rights law, inverting the framework that originally justified their creation.
Gender as "Fixed"
The rhetorical treatment of transgender individuals follows a similar pattern, with recent policies defining sex as exclusively binary and immutable, thereby rendering transgender identity legally unrecognizable. Executive orders have established federal policy recognizing only two genders and removed any acknowledgment of gender identity as distinct from biological sex assigned at birth. This definitional work precedes and enables subsequent restrictions by creating a legal framework in which transgender people cannot be accommodated without violating what the policy presents as natural and fixed categories.
The continuity is not in the specific targets (which shift according to the political moment) but in the function of the language itself. In each case, the rhetoric works to establish a population as categorically different in ways that make them appropriate subjects of restriction, regulation, or exclusion. The language changes its wardrobe while retaining its essential function: to make certain groups thinkable as exceptions to the norms of rights and belonging.
From Rhetoric to Implementation
The policies enacted in January 2025 demonstrate how dehumanizing rhetoric translates into administrative action. The executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship directed federal agencies not to recognize children born in the United States as citizens if their mother was unlawfully present and the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. This policy, though immediately challenged in courts and subject to multiple injunctions, follows logically from rhetoric that has characterized undocumented immigrants as "illegal aliens" whose very presence constitutes a form of contamination or violation. If the presence is inherently illegitimate, then the extension of citizenship to their children becomes conceptually problematic rather than constitutionally mandated.
Refugee Resettlement
The suspension of refugee resettlement and the dramatic reduction in refugee admissions were presented as measures to ensure the United States does not become a haven for those who pose threats. The characterization of refugees as potential dangers rather than as people fleeing persecution makes their exclusion appear as prudent security rather than as abandonment of humanitarian commitments. The rhetoric about refugees as potential terrorists or criminals performs the preparatory work that makes the policy seem reasonable rather than cruel.
DEI Terminations
The termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and programs across federal agencies included placing employees on administrative leave, closing offices, and requiring agencies to submit plans for reductions in force. Lists were compiled of employees who had ever worked in DEI-related positions or participated in diversity initiatives, and these employees faced termination or security clearance revocation. This administrative action followed from the rhetorical reframing of DEI as discriminatory rather than corrective.
The restrictions on property ownership for certain visa holders, limitations on bail assistance for immigrants, and narrowing of gender recognition in federal documents all rely on rhetorical groundwork that has already cast these populations as appropriate targets of state regulation. The public becomes acclimated to the idea of exclusion through repeated exposure to language that frames these groups as problems requiring solutions, threats requiring containment, or deviations requiring correction. By the time the formal policy arrives, the conceptual work has already been completed. The policy appears not as an escalation but as the natural implementation of principles that the rhetoric has already made familiar.
The Continuous Logic of Exclusion
American policy does not emerge in a vacuum. Throughout the nation's history, legislation restricting rights and freedoms has been preceded by sustained linguistic projects that define who qualifies as fully human, who belongs to the political community, who represents risk, and who can be acted upon without violating the moral order that ostensibly governs the society. The pattern persists precisely because it is effective, as language that successfully reframes a population as categorically different creates the administrative and conceptual conditions under which restrictive policies become not only possible but procedurally logical.
The continuity lies not in the persistence of specific prejudices but in the recurring structure of the process itself. Whether the target consists of enslaved people in the nineteenth century or immigrants and transgender individuals in the twenty-first, the mechanism remains consistent. First comes the classification: the identification of a group as possessing characteristics that place them outside the norms of full civic participation. Then comes the amplification: the circulation of this characterization through institutional channels until it becomes part of the assumed background of political discussion. Finally comes the codification: the transformation of these characterizations into formal legal categories that can be administered through bureaucratic systems.
This structure allows exclusion to present itself not as prejudice or cruelty but as the rational administration of categories that appear to be natural rather than constructed. The genius of this approach is that it shifts the burden of justification. Once the category has been established and legitimated, those who oppose restrictions must argue not merely against a specific policy but against an entire framework of understanding that has been embedded in institutional practice and public discourse. The policy becomes defended not through explicit arguments about the inferiority of the targeted group but through appeals to legal consistency, administrative necessity, and the preservation of established categories.
Understanding this pattern does not require ascribing identical motives to historical and contemporary actors or claiming that every form of exclusion is morally equivalent. It requires recognizing that the mechanisms through which exclusion becomes administratively thinkable have proven remarkably durable across different contexts and different targets. The language creates the permission structure. The institutions amplify and legitimize it. The law formalizes it. The bureaucracy implements it. And throughout the process, each step appears as a response to the previous one rather than as a choice requiring independent moral justification.
Conclusion
The Preparation, Not the Commentary
When political leaders introduce language describing specific populations as "invasions," "animals," "poisoning the blood," or as categorically unsuited for equal treatment, they are not merely expressing hostility or rallying supporters. They are constructing the administrative and conceptual infrastructure that will authorize the policies yet to come. This language does not simply reflect attitudes; it generates the categories and frameworks through which subsequent actions will be understood and justified. The rhetoric establishes what will count as legitimate concerns, reasonable precautions, and necessary regulations.
The historical record demonstrates with uncomfortable clarity that dehumanizing language is never just commentary. It is preparation.
It serves as the groundwork that transforms exclusion from a controversial exercise of power into an apparently neutral application of established categories. It is the mechanism through which cruelty becomes administration, restriction becomes procedure, and the denial of rights becomes the enforcement of supposedly natural boundaries. Those who dismiss such language as mere words or political theater misunderstand its function. The words are not separate from the policies; they are the foundation on which the policies will be built. By the time the executive orders arrive, the memoranda circulate, and the bureaucratic mechanisms engage, the essential work has already been accomplished. The language has already established who counts as fully human and who does not, who belongs and who represents a threat, who deserves protection and who requires containment.

The pattern is not accidental, and it is not new. It represents the continuous logic of exclusion, adapting its vocabulary to each era while preserving its essential structure, which is the construction of categories that make certain populations administrable as problems rather than recognizable as people.
Sources
American Civil Liberties Union. "Trump's Birthright Citizenship Executive Order: What Happens Next." ACLU.org, 2025. https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/trumps-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-what-happens-next
Asian Law Caucus. "Know Your Rights: Trump's Birthright Citizenship Executive Order." Asian Law Caucus, 2025. https://www.asianlawcaucus.org/news-resources/guides-reports/know-your-rights-trumps-birthright-citizenship-executive-order
Breen, Patrick. "Nat Turner's Revolt (1831)." Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities, February 18, 2025. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/turners-revolt-nat-1831/
Calhoun, John C. "Slavery a Positive Good." Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions, February 6, 1837. Teaching American History. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/slavery-a-positive-good/
Civil Rights Coalition. "Trump's Executive Orders on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Explained." CivilRights.org, February 12, 2025. https://civilrights.org/resource/anti-deia-eos/
Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute. "Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)." https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/60/393
Drapetomania. Wikipedia, December 6, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania
Executive Order 14151. "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing." The White House, January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/
Executive Order 14151. Wikipedia, January 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14151
Executive Order 14160. Wikipedia, December 6, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14160
George Washington University Media Relations. "Media Tip Sheet: Trump's Dehumanizing Rhetoric Targeting Immigrants." GWU Media Relations, October 7, 2024. https://mediarelations.gwu.edu/media-tip-sheet-trumps-dehumanizing-rhetoric-targeting-immigrants
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. "Nat Turner's Rebellion, 1831." https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/nat-turners-rebellion-1831
HISTORY. "Nat Turner - Rebellion, Death & Facts." HISTORY.com, May 28, 2025. https://www.history.com/articles/nat-turner
Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). Excerpts in The American Yawp Reader. https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-early-republic/thomas-jefferson-notes-on-the-state-of-virginia-1788/
Jim Crow Museum, Ferris State University. "Drapetomania - 2005 - Question of the Month." https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2005/november.htm
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "Trump Executive Orders Target DEI in Government and Private Sector." Pillsbury Law, 2025. https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/trump-anti-dei-executive-orders.html
Legal Defense Fund. "Know Your Rights: FAQ on Trump's Birthright Citizenship Executive Order." NAACP Legal Defense Fund, October 9, 2025. https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/know-your-rights-birthright-citizenship/
Maddow Blog, MSNBC. "Trump expects to get away with dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric." MSNBC, March 18, 2024. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-expects-get-away-dehumanizing-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-rcna143828
Myers, Dr. Bob. "'Drapetomania': Rebellion, Defiance and Free Black Insanity in the Antebellum United States." Dissertation, UCLA, 2015. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dc055h5
NBC News. "From 'rapists' to 'eating the pets': Trump has long used degrading language toward immigrants." NBC News, September 19, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-degrading-language-immigrants-rcna171120
NBC News. "Trump issues a slew of immigration-related executive orders on first day of new term." NBC News, January 21, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-issue-10-executive-orders-immigration-taking-office-rcna188385
Online Library of Liberty. "John Calhoun on Slavery as a Positive Good." https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/john-calhoun-slavery-positive-good
PBS. "Trump under fire again for violent language and dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric." PBS NewsHour, March 19, 2024. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-under-fire-again-for-violent-language-and-dehumanizing-anti-immigrant-rhetoric
Rolling Stone. "Trump Escalates His Dehumanization of Migrants: Some Are 'Not People … These Are Animals'." Rolling Stone, March 17, 2024. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-migrants-not-people-animals-1234989117/
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. "DEI Under Siege: A Guide to the Trump Executive Orders." Skadden Insights, February 2025. https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2025/02/the-informed-board/dei-under-siege
Teaching American History. "Dred Scott v. Sandford." June 28, 2024. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/dred-scott-v-sandford-4/
The American Scholar. "'Bound to Respect': Chief Justice Taney's Language in the Dred Scott Decision." July 6, 2021. https://theamericanscholar.org/bound-to-respect/
The Washington Post. "Donald Trump says some undocumented immigrants are 'not people'." March 18, 2024. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/16/trump-immigrants-not-people/
The Washington Post. "Trump reprises dehumanizing language on undocumented immigrants, warns of 'invasion'." December 18, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/18/trump-immigrants-invasion-dehumanizing/
The Washington Post. "Trump signs executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship." January 21, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/20/trump-immigration-executive-orders/
The White House. "Promises Made, Promises Kept — One Year Later." November 5, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/11/promises-made-promises-kept-one-year-later/
University of Chicago Press. "Notes on the State of Virginia, Queries 14 and 18." The Founders' Constitution. https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s28.html
Wikipedia. "Notes on the State of Virginia." July 6, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia
Made with