Top 12 #Election2016 Hashtags That’ll Be In Your History Textbook Some Day

12. #BoycottHamilton

Published in

countdown.education

5 min readDec 1, 2016

Origin:
Hamilton: An American Musical is already worth studying in history classes as a combination of revolutionary era history and 21st-century pop culture
The most successful Broadway show of all time became even more historically significant when one of its actors addressed Vice President-Elect Mike Pence at a curtain call expressing his concerns over how Pence and Trump’s administration would treat diversity
Why it’s historic:
Despite Mike Pence’s insistence that he wasn’t offended and actually enjoyed the play, many conservatives began tweeting #BoycottHamilton because of the perceived condescension of the cast towards Pence

Origin:
One of Trump’s main rallies during his campaign often used to bring in younger, minority voters
Why it’s historic:
The #TrumpTrain is the perfect phrase to encapsulate the feelings of Trump supporters who identified as a larger movement that was gaining momentum
Whether it’s a hype train or a runaway train, only time will tell, but many became excited to at least be aboard for the ride

Origin:
Iowa House of Representatives member Bobby Kaufman said he wanted to defund schools that offered grievance counseling and safe spaces to students upset over Trump’s election
Why it’s historic:
#SuckItUpButtercup became a rallying cry for Trump supporters who were tired of the sensitivity of liberals who were upset following Trump’s victory and felt that schools had become too sensitive and isolated

Origin:
When Trump’s chance of victory seemed slim, Eric Trump shared polls showing that Trump would win if only men voted, prompting some members of the alt-right to use this hashtag suggesting repealing the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote
Why it’s historic:
It’s hard to say how much this hashtag was a legitimate rally for a return to institutionalized misogyny and how much it was just meant to trigger feminists and progressives
This hashtag largely remained relevant because of Trump’s opponents who used it to suggest that Trump’s campaign supported gender inequality

Origin:
After Hillary Clinton criticized Trump’s decision to make Steve Bannon the CEO of his campaign, saying that it legitimized the alt-right, many Twitter users adopted this hashtag to defend the alt-right movement
Why it’s historic:
This hashtag represents how many of the alt-right movement that was popularized by Bannon’s company, Breitbart, felt unfairly villainized and misunderstood by Clinton supporters
#AltRightMeans became a way for the alt-right to defend and clarify its stance and also a way for opponents to attack it for its ties to racist, misogynistic, and inflammatory language

Origin:
Comedian John Oliver made this hashtag trend after a segment blasting Trump and referring to his family’s former name when they first immigrated to the United States
Why it’s historic:
#MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain is one of many examples of how comedians attempted to turn Trump’s words against him and point out his hypocrisies, both rallying Trump’s opponents and upsetting his supporters over perceived bullying

Origin:
Donald Trump coined the term early on in his debates with Hillary Clinton, following his trademark political technique of making nicknames to mock his opponents in the Republican primaries (ex: Lyin’ Ted (Cruz), Low Energy Jeb (Bush) and Little Marco (Rubio))
Why it’s historic:
This phrase helped Trump ingrained in his supporters a sense that Hillary Clinton was a crooked and corrupt politician who was influenced by big Wall Street companies, playing on many Americans’ mistrust of traditional politicians like Hillary Clinton
Combined with frequent references to Hillary Clinton’s leaked email scandals, this phrase was one of the first signs of what would become one of the most viciously personal elections in US history

Origin:
Together with the #NotMyPresident hashtag, this became a rally cry of Trump’s opponents who viewed him as an unacceptable leader of the United States given his offensive comments, views, and deeds throughout his career in business and his campaign that many felt went against American values
Why it’s historic:
This was the first time that such a large part of the population expressed such abject refusal to accept a president-elect, as the strong word choice reflects a permanent and uncompromising rejection of Donald Trump’s whole platform and personage as president

Origin:
“Love trumps hate” is actually an old idiom that predates The Donald, but it was used by Clinton supporters and Trump opponents who opposed his platform that allegedly utilized hate to gain support
Why it’s historic:
Rarely in a US political election has there been such a good-guy/bad-guy dynamic as in 2016, though unfortunately for Clinton supporters, the alleged bad guy on the side of hate won
Clinton supporters saw themselves on the side of “love” due to Hillary Clinton’s message of inclusivity and her strong belief in America’s trajectory under the Obama administration

Origin:
Democrat Bernie Sanders challenged Clinton in the Democratic Primary election and gained viral attention with this hashtag, which served as an effective campaign slogan that rallied his millions of young supporters
Why it’s historic:
While Sanders vehemently opposed Trump and later campaigned on Hillary Clinton’s behalf, after many young Americans had ‘felt the Bern,’ they became disillusioned with the political establishment and many either did not vote, voted for a 3rd party, or voted for Trump rather than Clinton

Origin:
In the beginning of September 2016, two months before the polls, Hillary Clinton said, “To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
Why it’s historic:
In an election where Donald Trump made many controversial and damaging statements, this statement by Hillary Clinton may have been the most costly
Trump supporters were offended by this statement and used it as a rallying cry, embracing their status as perceived ‘deplorables’

Origin:
Donald Trump made this his official campaign slogan and launched a series of red trucker hat merchandise near the beginning of his campaign to build momentum
It is the same slogan used by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 election
Why it’s historic:
Make America Great Again had been a conservative rally cry for a while, but it is what truly propelled Trump’s campaign into legitimacy with its memorability and the free advertisement he got from his merchandise
This slogan sums up a lot of Trump’s message, calling for a return to America’s past with a greater emphasis on white working class Americans and nationalism rather than progressive social movements