Political Right Party Movement in Europe

3 Populism and Politics: Transgressing Norms and Taboos

‘Political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question- begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. […] All issues are political issues, and […] when the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.’

George Orwell (1946, 43)

Discourses, Genres, and Right-wing Populist Agenda Orwell primarily focused on euphemisms, that is, sophisticated ways of talking about terrible events and distressing actions in mitigated, ‘soft’ language. Quite masterfully, he was able to deconstruct the ‘double-think’ we are all confronted with daily, in the media, in newspapers, or when listening to politicians promising reforms and a better future – or cloaking difficult decisions in neologisms and managerial jargon. In his dystopia of 1984, Orwell intuitively pointed to many discursive strategies and lexical innovations which have become part and parcel of populist rhetoric across all political parties since 1945. Indeed, inspired by the language used in national-socialist as well as in Communist totalitarian states, he unmasked the second reality frequently imposed by politicians to cover up uncomfortable facts.

After experiencing the horrific consequences of totalitarianism in the 20th century, most politicians nowadays turn to a more subtle, coded version of previously blunt exclusionary text and talk. It is this coded language that I am concerned with when analysing right-wing populist micro-politics and related rhetoric; the insinuations to common-sense of those ‘in the know’, the euphemisms that serve to mask crises and discriminatory policies, the arguments and legitimation strategies employed to justify the unjustifiable or speak the unspeakable. Most importantly, the calculated ambivalence that serves to address multiple and contradictory audiences simultaneously, and the provocative statements which colonize the agenda of our daily news programmes, have to be considered in systematic detail. In this way, the strategy of calculated ambivalence relates well to the Orwellian notion of ‘double think’, that is, creating assumed associations between contradictory meanings.1 All these linguistic strategies in text and talk keep right-wing populism alive and kicking. These are the most important discursive strategies, rhetorical tropes and pragmatic devices as well as argumentation schemes employed to express and realize both form and content of right-wing populist ideologies,

which I focus on in this chapter.

‘Double-think’, Left-wing and Right-wing Populism Populism can be viewed as a political style in the sense of a complex ‘syndrome’ (used here not in any pathological sense) which mixes heterogeneous and theoretically incoherent elements in a strategic way – of course, these elements need not all emerge simultaneously. In addition to this quite formal, stylistic and technical definition, ‘populism’ can also be concretely categorized with respect to the content of opinions and beliefs expressed. At this point, it is important to emphasize – again – that ‘right-wing populism’ has to be distinguished from ‘left-wing populism’ with respect to the attitude of populist politicians towards National Socialism, fascism, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia as well as to their understanding of inter alia social and cultural policies, migration policy, gender issues, environmentalism and security policy (Pelinka 2013). Right-wing populism endorses a nativist notion of belonging, linked to a chauvinist and racialized concept of ‘the people’ and ‘the nation’. This has to be kept in mind as both types of populism (left-wing and right-wing) otherwise share some features of style, form and mediated performance. In short, right-wing populism presents itself as serving the interests of an imagined homogenous people inside a nation state, whereas left- wing populism or other parties also employing populist strategies have an international stance, look outwards and emphasize diversity or even cosmopolitanism (albeit in different ways).

With respect to the political role of populist politicians, we distinguish between an ‘oppositional habitus’, which is the classical stance of populism, and a ‘governmental habitus’ (Grande 2000; see Chapter 6). While observing the ‘career-trajectory’ of various right-wing populist parties across Europe, it becomes obvious that the oppositional habitus (opposing everything and especially ‘those up there’ while serving ‘the man and woman on the street’) suits the objectives of such parties better than having to find compromises when in government.

If we consider the social domain of politics and related fields of action, then populist rhetoric has to be regarded a matter of ‘external political communication’. The rhetoric of oppositional populism manifests itself in (1) the field of political advertising; (2) the field of political control; and (3) the field of formation of public attitudes, opinions and will. Generally, the field of political control is the traditional and typical place of oppositional populism, which develops as a form of protest against hegemonic governmental policy. In contrast, the rhetoric of governmental populism is usually articulated in the field of formation of public attitudes, opinions and will. Moreover, governmental populism has gained some importance in the field of the political executive and administration, for example in the case of ‘issueless politics’, in which political action is simulated primarily by symbolic rituals (Figure 3.1; adapted from Reisigl 2007, 1128ff.; Wodak 2011a, 41).

Different fields of action are defined by different functions of discursive practices (Girnth 1996). For example, in the arena of political action, we distinguish eight different political functions as eight different fields (see Figure 3.1). A ‘discourse’ about a specific topic such as

immigration can emerge within one field of action and proceed through another; for example, debates about immigration could be launched in a party-internal meeting to form the opinions of party members and then be recontextualized as a political leaflet in an election campaign (with the function of political advertising). Discourses often ‘spread’, or are intentionally spread, to different fields and relate to or overlap with other discourses. In this way, the discourse about immigration could draw on discourses about security and citizenship, and also be disseminated to other fields, like education or foreign affairs.

Figure 3.1 The ‘Political Field’: Functions, genres, discourses and discursive practices

Figure 3.2 illustrates the various discourses and the specific ideological positionings of right- wing populist parties, the many topics which are talked about and framed in specific ways, and the range of genres employed when advertising, influencing public opinion and will as well as intervening into political control. The agenda relate to the theoretical approaches discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, and to the various examples analysed throughout this book.

Figure 3.2 Discourses about right-wing populist agenda

Discursive Strategies and Exclusionary Argumentation The study of discriminatory practices necessarily implies qualitative in-depth analysis, as traditional methods of measurement encounter enormous obstacles when trying to account for racist, antisemitic or xenophobic attitudes. Indeed, much research has provided ample evidence that better educated people understate their prejudiced beliefs (Kovács 2010); moreover, the ideological value of tolerance is widespread in contemporary capitalist societies, so that the explicit promulgation of exclusionary politics conflicts with the generally accepted values of liberalism. Hence, discriminatory utterances tend to be ‘coded’ in official rhetoric so as to avoid sanctions; pragmatic devices such as insinuations, implicatures, inferences or presuppositions are frequently comprehensible only to insiders. Indeed, the very terms ‘discrimination’, ‘exclusion’ or ‘prejudice’ carry a range of negative connotations. Thus, few would admit in public or when interviewed to agreeing with the exclusion of or prejudice or discrimination against minority groups. This is why opinion polls and interviews are inherently doomed to fail as investigations into racist belief systems. Usually, people deny these beliefs and try to present themselves in a positive light as they are aware that such opinions are taboo or might even be associated with extremist right-wing political affiliations. This implies studying how discursive practices can accomplish exclusion in its many facets without the explicitly acknowledged intention of actors; exclusion has become ‘normality’ and

thus acceptable, and has been integrated into all dimensions of our societies. According to Reisigl and Wodak, racism/discrimination/exclusion manifests itself discursively: ‘racist opinions and beliefs are produced and reproduced by means of discourse […]; through discourse, discriminatory exclusionary practices are prepared, promulgated and legitimized’ (2001, 41).

In the following section, I first briefly present key concepts of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) (i.e. the concepts of ‘con/text, discourse, and discursive strategies’) relevant to the understanding and deconstruction of right-wing populist rhetoric, as well as some implications for the analysis of the various data sets and genres presented throughout this book.2 Second, I use several examples to illustrate some of the most important characteristics of right-wing populist rhetoric.

The Discourse-historical Approach The discourse-historical approach (DHA) allows relating the macro- and meso-level of contextualization to the micro-level analyses of texts. Such analyses consist primarily of two levels: the so-called ‘entry-level analysis’ focusing on the thematic dimension of texts, and the ‘in-depth analysis’ which scrutinizes coherence and cohesion of texts in detail. The general aim of the entry-level thematic analysis is to map out the contents of analysed texts and then to assign them to particular discourses. The key analytical categories of thematic analyses are discourse topics, which ‘conceptually, summarize the text, and specify its most important information’ (van Dijk 1991, 113). The in-depth analysis, however, is informed by the research questions. The in-depth analysis consists of the analysis of the genre (e.g. television interview, policy paper, election poster, political speech or homepage), the macro-structure of the respective text, discursive strategies and of argumentation schemes, as well as of other means of linguistic realization (Krzyżanowski 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2009; Wodak et al. 2009).

First and most importantly, the DHA focuses on texts – be they audio, spoken, visual and/or written – as they relate to structured knowledge (discourses), are realized in specific genres, and must be viewed in terms of their situatedness. That is, many texts – including posters, speeches, comics, television debates, postings and other web 2.0 genres – owing to their inherent ambiguities as texts, cannot be fully understood without considering different layers of context. Here, I follow a four-level model of context that includes the historical development of the respective political party (the socio-political/historical context), discussions which dominated a specific debate/event (the current context), a specific text (text-internal co-text) as well as other related events, utterances, discources, and texts which have influenced the specific discursive practice in manifold ways (intertextual and interdiscursive relations; Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 40ff.). The terminological pair interdiscursivity/intertextuality denotes the linkage between discourses and texts across time and space – established via explicit or implicit references. If text elements are taken out of their original context (de- contextualization) and inserted into another (re-contextualization), a similar process occurs,

forcing the element in question to (partly) acquire new meaning(s) (Wodak 2011a).

Second, the DHA defines discourse as a set of ‘context-dependent semiotic practices’ as well as ‘socially constituted and socially constitutive’, ‘related to a macro-topic’ and ‘pluri- perspective’, that is, linked to argumentation (Reisigl and Wodak 2009, 89). Taking such a perspective, the ‘Facebook incident’ (Vignette 1) can be understood as drawing on existing opinions and collective memories about Austrian history, on manifold prejudicial identity constructions, stereotypes as well as current discourses on immigration and the financial crisis in Europe, and furthermore mobilizing and radicalizing these discourses. Third, positive self- and negative other-presentation is realized via discursive strategies (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 45–90). Here, I primarily focus on nomination (how events/objects/persons are referred to) and predication (what characteristics are attributed to them). A paradigmatic case might be the ‘naming’ of a protagonist or an institution metonymically (pars pro toto), for example Merkel for Germany, or as synecdoche (totum pro pars), for example the EU for all individual EU organizations. The strategy of perspectivization realizes the author’s involvement, for example, via deïxis, quotation marks, metaphors and so forth.

Argumentation Schemes, Topoi and Fallacies The DHA draws on the concept of topos apart from employing and elaborating Toulmin’s model (2003) when appropriate (see also Chapter 2).3 Kienpointner (2011, 265) defines topoi as ‘search formulas which tell you how and where to look for arguments. At the same time, topoi are warrants which guarantee the transition from argument to conclusion’ (2011, 265).4

Figure 3.3 A simplified model of argumentation

Rubinelli (2009, 13) suggests that topoi are strategies of argumentation (see Figure 3.3) for gaining the upper hand and producing successful speeches. Topoi can be made explicit as conditional or causal paraphrases such as ‘if x, then y’ or ‘y, because x’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 69–80). Focusing on such conclusion rules, Kienpointer (1996) distinguishes between various content-abstract, that is, formal argumentation, schemes (while drawing on Aristotle’s taxonomy) which occur frequently in argumentation, such as the topos of definition, the topos of the species and the genus, the topos of comparison (topos of similarity versus topos of difference), the topos of the part and the whole, the topos of authority, the topos of example and the topos of analogy. For example, the topos of authority can be deconstructed as follows:

Conclusion rule:If authority X says that A is true, A is true.

A:X says that A is true.

C:Thus, A is true.

On the other hand, Wengeler (2003a, 2003b) emphasizes a content- and context-specific definition of topoi as this allows deconstructing presupposed and frequently fallacious prejudices embedded in everyday common-sense conversations about specific topics. The notion of common-sense (or everyday) argumentation is salient in our case as many studies focus on understanding more or less explicit preferences of specific electoral groups or political parties. For Aristotle, topoi are linked to the subject of dialectic, called endoxon [accepted opinion]. He uses the concept of endoxon in order to describe an opinion that can be accepted by the majority of people, because it represents traditional knowledge but not necessarily true knowledge (Boukala 2013, 18). Accordingly, van Eemeren (2010, 111) also claims that endoxa are defined as commonly held beliefs or generally accepted commitments which are linked to normal beliefs and are acceptable for the audience.

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 present the two different types of topoi (formal and content-related), based on Wengeler (2003a, 2003b) and Kienpointner (1996).5 When considering these two categories of topoi, it becomes apparent that a logical continuity exists, extending from rhetorical topoi to the definitions proposed in Kienpointner’s approach and the DHA (Wodak 2014a). At this point it is important to emphasize that topoi are not necessarily fallacious. Many examples below manifest flawed logic, but in particular contexts, arguments using a specific topos could be right: topoi are therefore, neutrally speaking, a useful shortcut appealing to existing knowledge. Therefore the use of topoi in specific ways and contexts (which are often very complex), what they ignore or sidestep, can be fallacious and manipulative.6

In summary, the DHA focuses on ways in which power-dependent semiotic means are used to construct positive self- and negative other-presentations (‘Us’ and ‘Them’, the good people and the scapegoats, the pro and contra of the crisis or any other topic/event). This also captures the ability to select specific events in the flow of a narrative as well as increased opportunities to convey messages through opening up space for ‘calculated ambivalence’ (Engel and Wodak 2009, 2013). The latter is defined as the phenomenon that one utterance carries at least two more or less contradictory meanings, oriented towards at least two different audiences (see the ‘Facebook incident’, Vignette 1). This not only increases the scope of the audience too (e.g. the Austrian people and international audiences), but also enables the speaker/writer to deny any responsibility: after all, ‘it wasn’t meant that way’. Finally, the power of discourse creates regimes of quasi ‘normality’, that is, what is deemed ‘normal’, for example, with regard to the political messages circulating during the financial crisis and the heated debates related to it.

Appealing to Security – Justifying Exclusion

EU-scepticism and 9/11 The ethno-nationalist form of populism mentioned in the previous chapters frequently employs strategies of appealing to, or presupposing, national sameness, unity and cohesion. These strategies are usually based on the fallacy of sameness and on the fallacy of argumentum ad baculum. The fallacy of sameness imagines the ‘own’ nation as a culturally homogeneous community. The fallacy or argumentum ad baculum refers to (alleged) dangers that threaten this so-called national homogeneity. On the other hand, ethno-national populism relies on the strategy of presupposing or stressing difference. This strategy resorts to the fallacy of difference, which emphasizes the clear distinction and distinctiveness from other nations or

ethnic minorities in order to draw a rigid dividing line (see Wodak et al. 2009). In this way, all persons considered members of allegedly different nations or minorities are automatically excluded. Additionally, nationalistic populism makes use of the strategy of singularisation, that is, of constructing oneself as unique and superior. This strategy necessarily integrates the explicit or implicit fallacy of comparison: the superiority of one’s own nation to all other nations and ethnic minorities is thus overemphasized and exaggerated. Moreover, as elaborated in Vignette 3, right-wing populist movements also tend to have an ambivalent approach to ‘Europe’ and support EU-scepticism. When it fits their political agenda, even right-wing populist politicians such as the former leader of the FPÖ, Jörg Haider, who usually indulged in anti-EU views (i.e. the Feindbild of ‘Europe’), strategically invoke ‘Europe’ and a ‘European identity’. This was the case, for example, when he tried to exclude groups of people not considered ‘European’, that is, Turks, Muslims or other people from the ‘developing countries’ (Wodak et al. 2009, 221–2), alluding to the Christian or even Judeo-Christian traditions in Europe – a theme frequently repeated by Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party or by Jarosław Kaczynski of the PiS, the Polish Right and Law Party (see Krzyżanowski 2013b; Wodak and Boukala 2014, 2015).

Exclusionary measures and exclusionary rhetoric are also legitimized via security measures (Matouschek et al. 1995; van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999): the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 had – and still have – global consequences and continue to have an enormous impact on Europe and all European nation states, most specifically by linking immigration restrictions to security measures instead of Human Rights conventions or other social and economic considerations and policies. The FPÖ and the Jobbik or the Vlaams Blok and UKIP thus attempt to functionalize 9/11 as a persuasive vehicle to create or strengthen a European identity, against the danger of ‘invading masses’ or so-called ‘uncivilized barbarians’ (see below).

For example, about two and a half weeks after 9/11, Jörg Haider proposed that the EU should only accept asylum seekers from Europe and that asylum seekers from other continents would have to wait for a decision in an (allegedly) safe third country outside Europe (e.g. in Asia). This request undoubtedly violated Human Rights laws and the Geneva Refugee Convention. In this way, Haider stated – cynically – that it would be useful to reach agreements with third (non-European) countries where asylum seekers could be ‘dumped’ (the German ‘deponiert’ used by Haider evokes the metaphor of ‘a waste disposal site’) (Wodak et al. 2009, 223) .7 Haider’s demand was obviously based on Islamophobic prejudice, while appealing to and legitimizing his demands via the necessity of more security policies. He presupposed, it appears, that mainly potential terrorists were emigrating from unspecified non-European countries to Europe, to live and hide here as ‘sleepers’, who would then carry out suicide attacks in the near future. Haider’s proposal clearly illustrates how European right-wing populist parties sometimes advocate a rigid patriotic chauvinism no longer only limited to national identities, but extended to an unspecified European identity whenever politically opportune.

Vignette 4

Geert Wilders8 and the ‘Judeo-Christian Heritage’ in Europe In debates or media reporting about immigration and religious difference, speakers/writers frequently employ arguments about ‘culture’, depicting it as an essentially bounded entity whose integrity is threatened by the presence of residents supposedly belonging to a different ‘culture’ and thus not willing to learn and adopt ‘our’ conventions and norms, that is, to assimilate; in these argumentative sequences, deictic elements acquire salience and culture is regarded as a static entity which somebody either knows about or does not, has or does not have. Culture is thus essentialized in such debates.

Let us look at a typical example: in 2011, the Italian government decided to issue Schengen visas to Tunisian refugees so that they could cross the borders into other European countries – a measure supported by the former EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström.9 The former Italian Minister for Interior Affairs, Roberto Maroni, officially requested support and solidarity from neighbouring EU member states. The latter, however, did not want to comply: in a press conference on 26 April 2011, the former French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, emphasized that Schengen borders should be closed again, even though this would contravene EU policy. Many national media seemed (and still seem) to support this new campaign for a ‘Fortress Europe’.

In this context, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, delivered a speech in Rome on 25 March 2011 and claimed that:10

Text 3.1 ‘[…] the failure to defend our own culture has turned immigration into the most dangerous threat that can be used against the West. Multiculturalism has made us so tolerant that we tolerate the intolerant […] if Europe falls, it will fall because, like ancient Rome, it no longer believes in the superiority of its own civilization. It will fall because it foolishly believes that all cultures are equal and that, consequently, there is no reason why we should fight for our own culture in order to preserve it.’

Wilders defines immigration as the ‘most dangerous threat against the West’ (topos of definition) and links immigration to multiculturalism, thus employing a topos of threat and a metaphorical scenario of a presupposed danger from multiculturalism. Here, I draw on Musolff’s concept of metaphorical scenario:

‘[W]e can characterise a scenario as a set of assumptions made by competent members of a discourse community about “typical” aspects of a source situation, e.g. its participants and their roles, the dramatic storylines and outcomes, and conventional evaluations of whether they count as successful or unsuccessful, permissible or illegitimate, etc. These source-based assumptions are mapped onto the respective target concepts.’

(2006, 28)

Moreover, Wilders compares modern Europe to ancient Rome and maintains the necessity to fight for the defence of European culture. This argument is further developed by the topos of threat, which relies on the conditional: ‘If immigration creates a specific threat against Europe and European culture, then the Europeans should fight against it.’ Finally, he highlights the causes of multiculturalism for Europe via the fallacy that accepts as a cause something that is not a cause (post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy) and which can be linked here to the conditional: ‘If Europe accepts multiculturalism and denies the superiority of European culture, then Europe will fall.’ He then emphasizes the end of the Roman Empire by drawing a very tenuous analogy to current immigration flows from North Africa (Tunisia), Turkey and the Middle East (topos of comparison):

Text 3.2

‘Rome did not fall overnight. Rome fell gradually. The Romans scarcely noticed what was happening. They did not perceive the immigration of the Barbarians as a threat until it was too late […]. People came to find a better life, which their own culture could not provide. But then, on December 31st in the year 406, the Rhine froze and tens of thousands of Germanic Barbarians crossed the river, flooded the Empire and went on a rampage, destroying every city they passed. In 410, Rome was sacked.’

Wilders presents the fall of the Roman Empire as an unavoidable consequence of the mass migration of ‘barbarians’ into Roman provinces, and thus intentionally ‘rewrites history’. In fact, as many historians have indicated, it is highly unlikely that keeping barbarians from crossing the frontiers would have prevented the invasion of 406–407 and the subsequent defeat of Rome (see Pohl and Wodak 2012). Labelling non-Western civilians as ‘barbarians’ leads to a distinction between Westerners and non-Westerners/barbarians and thus to the discursive construction of in-groups and out-groups. Wilders further maintains that ‘together with Jerusalem and Athens, Rome is the cradle of our Western civilization – the most advanced and superior civilization the world has ever known’. And he adds:

Text 3.3

‘As Westerners, we share the same Judeo-Christian culture. I am from the Netherlands and you are from Italy. Our national cultures are branches of the same tree. We do not belong to multiple cultures, but to different branches of one single culture. This is why, when we come to Rome, we all come home in a sense. We belong here, as we also belong in Athens and in Jerusalem. Ordinary people are well aware that they are witnessing a population replacement phenomenon. Ordinary people feel attached to the civilization which their ancestors created. They do not want it to be replaced by a multicultural society where the values of the immigrants are considered as good as their own. It is not xenophobia or Islamophobia to consider our Western culture as superior to other cultures – it is plain common sense.’ (Emphasis added)

In this extract, he refers to the historical unification and cultural similarity of Europe and moves beyond the rhetoric of European populist parties11 that deny the coexistence of Judeo and Christian traditions within European territory. Quite to the contrary: he employs a conceptual metaphor – a tree with various branches but the same roots symbolizing the cradle of civilization. Moreover, he redefines the limits of European civilization via another conceptual metaphor (‘the nation as a home’; Norocel 2013) in order to substantiate the continuity and unification of European culture; he strongly emphasizes the alleged superiority of this specific civilization (see Chapter 4) and – via a topos of threat – repeats that a multicultural society necessarily implies a threat to ordinary (European) people.

This argument is further elaborated by the topos of (common) European culture, which is based on the conditional: ‘If we share the same Judeo-Christian culture, then we are citizens of Europe.’ Wilders excludes people from Islamic countries from Europe in an indirect way, in so far as he does not refer to them directly but gives weight to the borders of European civilization and distinguishes between ‘Us’, the Europeans (of Judeo-Christian roots), and ‘Them’, the non-Europeans, defined by ‘religion and culture’ (and not by territory), thus in a typical ethno-nationalist way. This argument is further substantiated by the topos of definition, which refers to ‘Europeans’ and can be reconstructed as ‘If a group of people is named as Europeans, then they feel attached to the (European) civilization that their ancestors created’, and thus indirectly refers to people with different cultural backgrounds who are necessarily, Wilders maintains, excluded from this group. Thus, the aforementioned topoi establish and legitimize the opposition between ‘Us’, the ‘Europeans’, and the ‘Others’. Finally, Wilders concludes:

Text 3.4

‘Now that Tunisia is liberated, young Tunisians should help to rebuild their country instead of leaving for Lampedusa.12 Europe cannot afford another influx of thousands of refugees.’

At this point he employs a ‘flood metaphor’, that is, the ‘influx of thousands of refugees’, and supports his argument via the topos of threat; such metaphors are frequently employed in the context of migration (Reisigl and Wodak

2001, 54–61). In this way, he intensifies the idea of the dangerous ‘Other’. The discursive construction of the in- group of ‘Europeans’ and the out-group of ‘Others/Muslims’ that dominates Wilders’ rhetoric could also be viewed as related to the constructive macro-strategies identified by Wodak et al. (2009, 33–42) in the context of the discursive construction of national identities. One could argue that Wilders equates a transnational Europe with a nation state, in the manner of exclusive nationalism; he highlights the common culture of different European nations and attempts to unify them by emphasizing a common threat. Wilders thus cultivates a quasi-national, elite identity based on a cultural hybrid and the discursive construction of fear.

The Denial of Racism: Disclaimers, Denial and Justification Strategies Clearly linked to positive self-presentation and the construction of positive group and collective identities is what Teun van Dijk (1992) calls ‘the denial of racism’. Van Dijk (1992, 92) provides a useful typology of denial as part of a general defence/justification strategy when accused or blamed of having uttered a racist remark or of being racist. These types are:

Act-denial (‘I did not do/say that at all’) Control-denial (‘I did not do/say that on purpose’, ‘It was an accident’) Intention-denial (‘I did not mean that’, ‘You got me wrong’) Goal-denial (‘I did not do/say that, in order to …’) Mitigations, downtoning, minimizing or using euphemisms when describing one’s negative actions

Moreover, van Dijk (ibid.) assumes that there are also cognitive and social strategies which could be regarded as ‘stronger forms of denial’: blaming the victim and victim–perpetrator reversal (see Vignette 6 below). Van Dijk’s approach can be integrated with an innovative theoretical framework provided by Hansson (2015) which serves analysing and explaining ‘blame avoidance’ in political (government) communication; strategies of denial and justification obviously form an important part of the so-called ‘blame game’. When returning to Vignette 1 in Chapter 5, I will illustrate that HC Strache primarily employs act- and intention- denials; however, when analysing apologies (see below), intention-denials, goal-denials, control-denials and relativizing/downplaying serve as justification strategies, whereas act- denials do not occur.

Van Dijk (ibid.) also mentions the use of disclaimers: recall the well-known examples of justification discourses, such as ‘I have nothing against …, but’, ‘My best friends are …, but’, ‘We are tolerant, but …’, ‘We would like to help, but the boat is full’ and so on. All these utterances, labelled as disclaimers, manifest the denial of racism or exclusion and emphasize positive self-presentation. Usually, such speakers seek to justify the practice of exclusion without employing related overt rhetoric. Overt denials of prejudice basically involve two presuppositions. First, they presuppose the existence of ‘real’ prejudice. In this regard, the existence of extreme, outwardly fascist groups enables defenders of mainstream racism, exclusion or discrimination to present their own rhetoric as being unprejudiced – by comparison, thus also constructing an implicit straw man fallacy. Second, speakers, in denying

prejudice, will claim that their criticisms of minority group members are ‘factual’, ‘objective’ and ‘reasonable’, rather than based upon irrational feelings, and will accordingly employ a range of discursive strategies of legitimization. Speakers can, of course, use similar denials of prejudice and arguments of reasonableness when invoking different forms of discrimination, such as sexism, racism, antisemitism or religious discrimination. Additionally, each type of exclusionary practice will integrate particular themes, stereotypes and topoi, all contributing to the syncretic nature of mainstream discriminatory discourse.

For example, when analysing postings following an article by Helen Smith in the Guardian (2013) about the financial crisis in Greece and the rise of the Greek extremist right-wing party Golden Dawn, Angouri and Wodak (2014) were able to identify numerous utterances, such as:

Text 3.5

‘I don’t condone violence but clearly the governments of Europe aren’t listening to their people any longer and real alternatives are popping up.’

In such utterances, the writer clearly first positions him/herself as rejecting violence, but then legitimizes the use of violence when no other alternatives seem available to make one’s voice heard. To provide another example, we can return to the Facebook incident presented in Chapter 1, during which antisemitic attitudes were denied by Strache in pointing to his ‘many Israeli friends’ (a typical intention-denial):

Text 3.6

The argument reads as follows: if somebody has Israeli (i.e. Jewish) friends, it must follow that one cannot endorse any antisemitic or anti-Jewish beliefs, a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Moreover, not only does having Jewish friends put HC Strache above reproach, but they also approve the caricature and, therefore, nobody else should criticize it. Two propositions are causally linked here, although they obviously are not in any way indicative of a causal relationship; we are thus dealing with a fallacy presented in the form of a typical disclaimer.

Justifications usually attempt to turn blame into credit, for example, when claiming to be saving

the country/nation/fatherland from terrorists, or migrants, or from any other danger, although these measures may also have involved some restrictions of Human Rights. The related argumentation may be based, as Hansson (2015, 308) elaborates succinctly, on emphasizing one’s own qualities (argumentum ad verecundiam), evoking the audience’s emotions (argumentum ad populum), and the use of fallacies or the incorrect application of argumentation schemes (e.g. false analogies; post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, straw man fallacy and so forth). Moreover, politicians trying to avoid blame may employ a ‘rescue narrative’ frame in order to cast themselves as saviours (see topos of saviour, Chapter 2; Hansson, ibid.). Justifications may include various types of denial, apart from control-denial: the blame taker usually does claim responsibility for the actions or events (see discussion of apologies below). As Hansson maintains, justifications employ ‘the full range of legitimations, based on authority (‘We proceeded according to the law adopted by the Parliament’), moral evaluation (‘Our actions are based on Britain’s values’), rationalization (‘This helps to get our economy back on its feet’) and mythopoesis (e.g. telling a cautionary story about what could have happened if a particular decision had not been made)’ (2015, 308–9) (see also Chapter 1).

Justification can also involve problem-denial, combined with a counter-attack, accompanied with negative Other-presentation, that is, attacking the (sometimes only alleged) accusation and accuser (Wodak 2006). In this case, the argumentation is frequently based on victim– perpetrator reversal (trajectio in alium), on discrediting the opponent (argumentum ad hominem), on threatening the opponent (argumentum ad baculum) or on an alternative claim, applied to shift blame (e.g. post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy) (see Vignette 1; Hansson 2015, 309). Moreover, relativizing and trivializing strategies are applied, frequently by using (fallacious) comparisons or equating strategies: ‘Roma/Jews/Turks are also criminal’. Sometimes, the Bad Apple frame is used by referring to an alleged villain within the opposition or in a stigmatized minority group; or a conspiracy is constructed as caused by a strategically ‘useful’ scapegoat. The Bad Apple frame is based on the proverb ‘One bad apple spoils the barrel’, triggering a simple solution: Get rid of a bad apple and the barrel will be saved (Hansson 2015, 301; Lakoff 2008, 163–7). This frame can, of course, also be used for scapegoating and for shifting blame as well as for victim–perpetrator reversal. Indeed, I suggest that this frame could be reconceptualized in body politics, for the nation as body metaphors, the metaphors of immigration perceived as contagious disease/illness and minorities (Jews or Roma) as parasites threatening the nation (see Chapter 4).

Vignette 5

Jörg Haider and The politics of the Past – Calculated Ambivalence A further example will illustrate the theoretical and methodological considerations of the current chapter, linking to a salient dimension mentioned in Chapter 2 – the rewriting of history and creating national myths from a revisionist point of view, specifically in countries with a fascist or national-socialist past, on the one hand, to justification and denial strategies, on the other. In this way, guilt for alleged or real war crimes is downplayed, atrocities are euphemized and perpetrators are purged from memory. As a case in point, Jörg Haider’s implicit conception of

history became apparent in an interview in the weekly Profil, 21 August 1995:

Text 3.7 Haider: ‘I have said that the soldiers of the Wehrmacht have made democracy in its existing form in Europe possible. If they had resisted, if they hadn’t been in the East, if they had not conducted military campaigns, we would have …’

Profil: ‘What does that mean “resisted” … after all, it was a war of conquest of the German Wehrmacht.’

Haider: ‘Well, then we have to ask what really happened.’

What did ‘really’ happen? By emphasizing the adverb ‘really’, Haider might also be indicating that something different had actually happened, something that is ‘being kept from us’. Implied in this reading is a conspiracy theory, that is, that somebody (who?) is hiding something that really happened. Via the strategy of calculated ambivalence Haider leaves the answer open for the audience. Moreover, the use of the adverb ‘really’ in this context also opposes the statement of the Profil journalist and implies for some readers that Haider’s first answer (‘the Wehrmacht have made democracy’) would actually be the ‘real and right answer’. The macro-strategy informing this short sequence could be described as a move to a meta-level and to a different conversational frame: Haider does not follow the required question–answer scheme that is part of the interview genre. He poses his own question as an answer. This question, however, has to be understood as a rhetorical question. Moreover, Haider’s response could also be perceived as a way of using an answer to one question to invite another question on something he also would like to communicate. In this way, he uses defence as attack. The answer is – this is obviously implied – already available to the readers or could be easily extracted out of the co-text. And this leads us back to the intentional and strategic use of presuppositions and implicatures mentioned above.

Haider continues and adds more defensive and justification strategies: distortion, redefinition and reformulation, the offsetting of old myths and the creation of new ones. The result is that a hegemonic narrative is formulated and presented as the authentic one, the one that many war veterans would probably agree with. It is well known that this ‘Haider version’ of history is frequently welcomed by some of the so-called ‘future generations’ (as Haider used to label himself and other people who were born after 1945 and thus per definitionem incapable of endorsing a Nazi ideology, a fallacy which obviously establishes a false causality). This historical narrative allows maintaining the so-called Austrian ‘victim myth’ (Wodak et al. 1990), which has shaped the understanding and conception of the Nazi past for many Austrians for decades after 1945. This narrative also includes the practice of equating National Socialism with Stalinism, or the Wehrmacht’s war of annihilation with any ‘normal war’ and so forth (Heer et al. 2008). Along this vein, Haider, when asked whom he perceived as the biggest war criminals of the 20th century (thus ‘unrespectable’ people by extension of his wording), equated Hitler with Stalin and Churchill. His answer blatantly disregards the differences between the ideologies, systems of government, their respective consequences and results as well as the difference between aggressors and victims or defendants. The victims, too, are equated by him:

Text 3.8 Profil: ‘Do you consider the Nazi dictatorship a dictatorship like any other?’

Haider: ‘I believe that one should not make gradual distinctions when talking about totalitarian systems. One should reject them altogether […]. There was an era of military conflicts in which our fathers were involved. At the same time, there were operations occurring within the framework of the Nazi regime that cannot be accepted. But no family members of mine were involved in the latter.’

Profil: ‘Do I understand you correctly? “Operations”? What exactly do you call “operations”?’

Haider: ‘Oh well, activities and measures against parts of the population that were blatant human rights violations.’

Profil: ‘Do you have any problems calling it genocide or mass murder?’

Haider: ‘If you like, then it was mass murder.’

In this sequence, we can distinguish several discursive strategies, argumentation schemes and conversational moves. Again, there is a plethora of vague answers which allow for different readings and interpretations and address multiple audiences via the strategy of calculated ambivalence. On the one hand, Haider allows for identification with the war generation and the ‘fathers’; on the other hand, he rejects (indeed, in this situation he has to reject) some of the ‘operations’ of the Nazi time, an obvious vague and abstract euphemism for the Holocaust and genocide – an example of the kind of euphemism pointed to by Orwell in the introductory quote to this chapter. Haider also quickly adds, by shifting frames and employing a very concrete, casual non-standard register, that his own family had no part in these ‘operations’. This move indicates that he obviously knows precisely what he is talking about: the Holocaust. The use of such euphemisms is part and parcel of the strategy of calculated ambivalence. His third move, ‘If you like, then it was mass murder’, suggests that he is conceding a point to the journalist, but only superficially and not because he might believe so himself. It is made recognizable as a gesture to please the journalist by hedging and a concession (‘If you like’). Thus, he indicates to his preferred audience of core party followers and believers that this is not really his opinion but an attempt to be politically correct in the public sphere.

Ambivalent Apologies After making offensive statements, politicians are expected to apologize publicly. As Robin Lakoff elaborates in much detail, ‘[a]pologies have a tendency to be ambiguous’ (2001, 204). The ambiguity implies that, sometimes, apologies are not regarded as sincere; or they do not acknowledge misbehaviour in the necessary explicit way; or they do not accept responsibility adequately but sound like a meaningless ritual (Tannen 1994). Sometimes, apologies relate solely to the style but not the content of language-based transgressions (i.e. the words used are admitted to have been inappropriate, but no mention is made of the content); sometimes, apologies only relate to one of many components that comprise the transgression (and the speakers seem to hope that nobody will notice that they have not apologized for the entire scandalous incident; Kampf 2009, 2265–6). Apologies can also aim at blurring the offence by using a euphemistic or vague term to refer to the offensive remark (i.e. by talking about ‘mistakes’ or ‘things’ or ‘being sorry about that’ in characterizing an offensive utterance); or speakers might only apologize for the consequences of a transgression but not for the transgression itself (e.g. by mentioning the possible damage or harm for recipients but not the insult). This kind of selectivity is characteristic of apologies in political contexts.

Moreover, avoiding responsibility might also be realized as non-performative: Thus, as Kampf (ibid., 2262) explains, such apologies consist of expressing the will or duty to apologize, a promise to apologize, or reference to a past apology – instead of using an active verb in the present tense and thereby actually performing the apology (‘I hereby apologize’). In this way, evasive language is used to avoid blame and in order to survive a ‘talk scandal’ (Ekström and Johansson 2008). Here, the concept of the ‘credibility test’ becomes relevant: such a ‘test’ emerges when an actor (or organization such as a political party) is called on to make an apology which is acceptable to many different parties, with different expectations and differing interpretations of the incident. As Kampf (ibid., 2259) argues, such credibility tests might lead to punitive atmospheres and to attempts of humiliating the wrong-doer. The latter is then forced to apologize while keeping face and, simultaneously, convincing the other audiences of his or her sincerity. Moreover, the media tend to document the offensive statement as well as the apology; this recontextualization, in sequence, creates a specific story, reported by many other

media outlets, on social media and so forth, and thus gains notable momentum. Politicians try to pass the ‘credibility test’ by placating important public actors and audiences who might have different perceptions with respect to the responsibility or guilt of the actor. It is precisely in such complex contexts that apologies tend to become ambiguous; politicians tend to employ the strategy of calculated ambivalence to satisfy the various actors involved.

Right-wing populist politicians, such as Jörg Haider (see Texts 3.7 and 3.8), who have frequently (and also intentionally) transgressed norms, have become ‘infamous’ by performing evasive or selective apologies, by minimizing responsibility or by performing apologies that address multiple audiences with contradictory messages. For example, on 13 June 1991, in a debate in the regional parliament of Carinthia, a Socialist politician attacked Haider’s plan of reducing unemployment payments for people seen as ‘freeloaders’, calling it forced work placement reminiscent of Nazi policies. Haider replied by making an unacceptable comparison between Nazi politics and the post-war democratic Austrian government: ‘No, they didn’t have that in the Third Reich because in the Third Reich they had a proper employment policy which not even your government in Vienna can manage to bring about.’13 Haider first reacted – not surprisingly – with denial, and then claimed that the legislators had probably understood his comment wrongly, as a criticism of the present Austrian government, but in the days that followed the Austrian Social-Democratic Party (SPÖ) joined with the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) in a vote of no confidence against him14 (Köhler and Wodak 2011).

Clearly, in his apology, introduced by ‘Actually, I have to apologize’ (Eigentlich muss ich mich entschuldigen), Haider did not apologize for the content. Moreover, by employing the adverb ‘actually’, he indicated that he was apparently ‘forced’ to apologize, but that he ‘actually’ stood by his opinion. Many other similar examples could be cited. In this way, Haider clearly satisfied his core followers; the general public was only partially satisfied, but no more apologies could be demanded. Frequently, fallacious and completely unacceptable comparisons between the Nazi dictatorship and present-day Austria have occurred, uttered not only by Haider but also by other members of the FPÖ. By employing the strategy of evasive/selective and ambiguous apologies, such politicians were able, in essence, to escape unscathed after their scandalous utterances – although the insincere apologies, in fact, were never able to account for the horrific comparisons.

On 24 March 2014, Andreas Mölzer, MEP and former FPÖ candidate for the election of the European Parliament, also had to apologize: for calling the EU a ‘Negerkonglomerat’ (conglomerate of ‘Negroes’) and for comparing the EU with the Third Reich, as the quality broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung had reported:

Text 3.9

‘The [European] Union is a dictatorship, by comparison the “Third Reich was probably informal and liberal”, the newspaper quoted. Furthermore, it had been stated that the EU

must ask itself whether it was a “Conglomerate of Niggers”, dominated by a “gang of lobbyists”.’15

Mölzer had first denied these utterances; however, the newspaper had been able to record them and could therefore provide ample and substantial evidence. Mölzer eventually had to apologize; the Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported on 24 March 2014:16

Text 3.10

‘In a press release he stressed that he “could not remember” this statement and called it a “semantic slip”. “The choice of words was mistaken and also not intended that way”, said Mölzer.’17

Obviously, Mölzer attempted to minimize the wrongdoing by claiming that he was emotionally involved (intention-denial); that he could not remember and that the utterance had been a mistake. He had never intended to use those words – a typical example of an apology focused on the words instead of the content. The scandal grew to enormous proportions and dominated the media for several weeks. Meanwhile it followed the predictable dynamic of the right-wing perpetuum mobile (see Chapter 1): Mölzer claimed to be a victim of a campaign directed against him personally and against the FPÖ in general.18 Eventually, Mölzer had to resign and leave the FPÖ when it transpired that he had published – using the pseudonym ‘Dr Seltsam’ (i.e. Dr Strangelove) – explicitly racist attacks against a famous and very successful black Austrian soccer player in the FPÖ newspaper Zur Zeit, of which he was and remains chief- editor.19

Vignette 6

Antisemitism in Hungary: Victim–perpetrator Reversal In a recent study about racism and antisemitism as manifested in the propaganda of the Hungarian Jobbik since 2000, Kovács and Szilágyi (2013, 221–3) provide strong evidence that the strategy of ‘victim–victimizer reversal’ has become a reccurring element of explicit antisemitic discourse in present-day Hungary, different in some aspects from the virulent antisemitism of the 1940s (see Chapter 5). This – traditional and quite ubiquitous – strategy literally ‘turns the tables’: the victims are transformed into the powerful perpetrators, and the perpetrators into victims. A variation of this posits that the victims are themselves to blame for their terrible and dangerous fate, actually inviting it, acting irresponsibly or deserving some form of ‘punishment’.

Nowadays, the authors (ibid.) argue, antisemitism primarily fulfils a function of constructing positive group-identities opposed to the danger and threat allegedly manifested by Jews. Such a discourse implies that by removing/expulsing/exterminating Jews, the danger could/would be removed. Furthermore, the authors illustrate that the topoi of danger and threat are necessarily integrated with the strategy of victim–victimizer reversal. Let us look at two examples (see ibid., 221 for an extensive analysis):

Text 3.11

‘Decisions made by your kind [of people] are always dictated by whatever happens to “pay off” at a particular point in time, whatever is profitable for you, that is, whatever results in money or power. Common values are replaced by antifascist slogans and anti-Hungarian sentiment, and other ways of bringing “our kind” [of people] under control.’ (Alfahír 2008a)

‘Your kind (intend us to be) obedient subjects, servants and domestics, in an impoverished and maimed Hungary that has been turned into a third-world colony.’ (A Népszava megint Morvai Krisztinát gyalázza – Krisztina nyílt válaszlevele Várkonyi Tibornak December 5, 2008)

The discourse leaves little doubt as to the identity of the ‘Other’. Formulated in economic terms and thus referring to the traditional stereotype of the ‘rich and greedy Jew’, Krisztina Morvai, a MEP and representative of Jobbik in the European Parliament, accuses ‘the Jews’ (‘your kind of people’) of trying to dominate Hungary and the Hungarian people; moreover, apart from seeking domination, Jews are, she argues, per se disloyal (anti-Hungarian), thus evoking the stereotype of the ‘disloyal Jew’ (an old religious antisemitic stereotype insinuating Judas’ betrayal of Jesus Christ) and would also strive to turn Hungary into a poor country, thus taking everything away from Hungarians and turning the latter into servants, implying that Jews actually possess the power to do so (stereotype of the ‘mighty, powerful Jew’). Text 3.11 combines positive self- and negative other-presentation with the defamation of Jews (argumentum ad hominem) and the attribution of various traditional negative stereotypes to Jews. Furthermore, the text suggests that Jews are dangerous and powerful and would therefore intentionally damage Hungary and the Hungarians.

Text 3.12

‘If, after the fifty years of your communism, there had remained in us even a speck of the ancient Hungarian prowess, then after the so-called “change of regime” your kind would not have unpacked your legendary suitcases, which were supposedly on standby. No. You would have left promptly with your suitcases! You would have voluntarily moved out of your stolen […] villas, and […] you would not have been able to put your grubby hands on the Hungarian people’s property, our factories, our industrial plants, our hospitals … We shall take back our homeland from those who have taken it hostage!’ (Alfahír 2008b)

Text 3.12 accuses Jews of having been part of, and collaborated with, Communist Hungary by attributing it as ‘your communism’, hence rewriting history (topos of history). By claiming sarcastically that Jews would have left voluntarily (or stayed voluntarily) with their ‘legendary suitcases’ – alluding in an extraordinarily euphemistic and cynical way to the forced deportation of Jews to Nazi extermination camps, where they were allowed to carry only one suitcase with their belongings – the author relativizes or even denies the Holocaust in order to evade responsibility for the bad economic situation currently faced by Hungary. Moreover, Jews are accused of having stolen the Hungarians’ property, thus of never having owned any legitimate property in Hungary; here the fallacy of shifting the blame is used. This fallacious accusation implies that Jews are not Hungarians; they are construed as an out-group, as strangers ‘at hand’ (Kovács 2010), not part of the Hungarian Volk. In this way, tables are turned and victims transformed into perpetrators despite the well-established fact that Jewish property was stolen (‘aryanized’) by the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators, not vice-versa. In short, Jews are blamed for all of Hungary’s problems and economic disasters, a typical fallacious argument (straw man fallacy, combined with the fallacies of shifting blame and hasty generalization; Kienpointner 2009). Kovács and Szilágy suggest that these rhetorical elements are ‘means, in the current antisemitic discourse, for constructing a narcissistic national self- image and self-identity’ (ibid., 222). In other words, antisemitism functions as a code for a ‘real’ Hungarian political identity, part of a nativist body politics.

Summary: The Micro-politics of Fear

Summarizing the salient characteristics of right-wing populist rhetoric, it is important to distinguish two levels: on the one hand, specific contents; on the other, specific discursive strategies that realize these contents (but could, of course, be employed as resources with other contents in other contexts by other political parties and positionings as well).

I follow Michael Billig (2006) in positing that four factors typically have to be considered when analysing discriminatory and exclusionary rhetoric in post-war Europe:

1. Exclusionary practices occur in situations of differential power. 2. The powerful actors need not possess a conscious goal or intention; indeed, they may

deny that any discrimination/exclusion has occurred. 3. The powerful actors consider their own actions ‘reasonable’ and ‘natural’. 4. The actions that lead to exclusion are usually conducted through ‘coded’ language; overt

exclusionary language is rarely to be observed.

Below, I list the specific phenomena related to right-wing populist rhetoric, starting with the contents I have introduced throughout the first three chapters of this book and related to the nine dimensions listed in Chapter 1:

First, right-wing populist parties focus on a homogenous demos, a populum (community, Volk) which is defined arbitrarily and along nativist (blood-related) criteria, thus endorsing a nativist body politic. Second, and related to the former, right-wing populist parties stress a heartland (or homeland, Heimat) which has to be protected against dangerous outsiders. In this way, threat scenarios are constructed – the homeland or ‘We’ are threatened by ‘Them’ (strangers inside the society or from outside; migrants, Turks, Jews, Roma, bankers, Muslims etc.). Protecting the fatherland (or heartland, homeland) implies belief in a common narrative of the past, where ‘We’ were either heroes or victims of evil (of a conspiracy, evil enemies, enemies of the fatherland etc.). In this way, revisionist histories are constructed, blending all past woes into success stories of the Volk or stories of treachery and betrayal by others. ‘They’ are different and are conspiring against ‘Us’. Conspiracies are part and parcel of the discursive construction of fear and of right-wing populist rhetoric. Such conspiracies draw on traditional antisemitic and anti-elitist tropes – conspiracies are, it is believed, organized by bankers, the media, oppositional parties, traitors to the fatherland and so forth. Furthermore, apart from nationalism and nativism as well as the populist agenda, right- wing populist parties endorse traditional, conservative values and morals (family values, traditional gender roles) and want to maintain the status quo. They also support common sense simplistic explanations and solutions (anti- intellectualism), and need a saviour, a charismatic leader who oscillates between the roles of Robin Hood (protecting the social welfare state, helping the ‘man and woman on the street’) and ‘strict father’ (see Lakoff 2008). Such charismatic leaders necessarily

require a hierarchically organized party and authoritarian structures in order to install law and order and to protect the Christian Occident against the Muslim Orient.

As mentioned above, not all right-wing populist parties endorse all these contents; nevertheless, these contents can be largely generalized and typify right-wing populist beliefs and ideologies. It is worth mentioning at this point that the Tea Party movement in the US shares many of the above-listed characteristics; most importantly, anti-intellectualism and an abundance of (frequently anti-elitist and sometimes antisemitic) conspiracy theories are to be found across all Tea Party rhetoric of recent years. I will discuss some differences and similarities between European right-wing populist parties and the Tea Party movement with respect to gendered body politics in Chapter 7.

Turning to the discursive strategies employed to realize the above-listed contents in right-wing populist rhetoric, I would like to emphasize:

The continuous campaigning mode that implies Manichean divisions. Right-wing populist rhetoric divides the world into good and bad, into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, insiders and outsiders, by constructing simplistic dichotomies and by positive self- and negative other- presentation. Following the aggressive campaign mode implies the use of ad hominem arguments as well as other fallacies, such as the straw man fallacy or the hasty generalization fallacy. Politicians tend to deny and justify even obvious ‘mistakes’ and quickly find somebody else to blame; under much pressure, ambiguous, evasive and insincere apologies may occur. Related to such a dichotomist worldview are victim–perpetrator reversal and the construction of scapegoats by shifting of blame (another fallacy). Moreover, the topos of history and the topos of saviour serve to realize revisionist historical narratives and the myth of the saviour who protects Us against Them. Constructing conspiracies necessitates unreal scenarios where some perpetrators (lobbies, parties, bankers and the ‘Other’) are allegedly pulling the strings; these are frequently dramatized and exaggerated. Lies and rumours are spread which denounce, trivialize and demonize the ‘Others’, following the slogan of ‘Anything goes’! Finally, and importantly, the strategy of calculated ambivalence and the strategy of provocation lend themselves to aggressive campaigning and the addressing of manifold audiences as well as to setting the agenda in the media. In this way, the perpetuum mobile of right-wing populist rhetoric is set in motion, time and again.

Endnotes 1 Orwell (1949, 32) defines ‘double-think’ as ‘To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that

democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.’

2 The DHA is elaborated extensively in Reisigl and Wodak (2009) and Wodak (2011a, 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014c). I refer readers to these publications for more information on linguistic details.

3 Which kind of persuasive and rhetorical means can be used depends on topic, genre and audience orientation as well as intention; these factors thus also determine which argumentation schemes seem most adequate and appropriate. In the concrete analysis, therefore, it will sometimes be Toulmin’s model (2003), sometimes Walton’s practical reasoning, and sometimes van Eemeren’s Pragma-dialectics that make sense (see Walton 1996).

4 Charteris-Black, however, proposes to conceptually distinguish between warrants and content-related topoi (2013, 145), as does Boukala (2013), but for different reasons. Charteris-Black states that formal topoi could also be seen as warrants, but not in terms of Wengeler’s content-related topoi (2003a, 2003b). To avoid confusion, he suggests labelling only the latter as topoi and to distinguish them from warrants. Boukala (2013) elaborates on both the Aristotelian and Cicero’s concept of topos (84 BC) and illustrates their different meanings (warrants; common places) and the conflation in their meanings, which may be a further reason for much controversy and confusion.

5 Reisigl (2014, 78–9) presents an elaborated list of topoi which are – he claims – specific to right-wing populist rhetoric; I also believe that the topos of people (argumentum ad populum) is most relevant; however, I would add the topos of the saviour and the topos of history to this list as both are certainly salient throughout my data.

6 I am very grateful to Andrew Sayer for pointing out to me that this differentiation should be made explicit in order to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

7 See http://derstandard.at/725783/FPOe-fuer-Verschärfung-des-Asylrechts, accessed 28 September 2001.

8 Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and the founder and leader of the Party of Freedom (PVV). In 2010, after its electoral success (it won third place) the PVV agreed to participate in a governmental coalition. However, the PVV withdrew its support in April 2012 (see Wodak and Boukala 2014, 180ff., for an extensive analysis of this speech). See Glossary for more information.

9 See also Wodak and Boukala (2014) for an extensive analysis of the background to this speech.

10 www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/geert_wilders_in_rome_defendin.html.

11 Golden Dawn and Laos in Greece, National Front in France, FPÖ in Austria etc.

12 Lampedusa is the port of entry in Sicily for refugees and immigrants coming from North Africa.

13 See www.nationalsozialismus.at/Themen/Umgang/zitiert.htm

14 See https://www.google.at/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF- 8#q=k%c3%a4rntner%20landtags%20protokolle%2013%20juni%201991

15 See https://soundcloud.com/sz-magazin/moelzer. After these utterances, even the President of Austria, Heinz Fischer requested Mölzer’s resignation: www.gmx.at/themen/nachrichten/oesterreich/40b6r3s-heinz-fischer-legt-andreas-moelzer- ruecktritt-eu-wahl-nahe, both links accessed 21 July 2014.

16 See http://derstandard.at/1395362877057/Moelzer-soll-EU-mit-dem-Dritten-Reich- verglichen-haben, accessed 15 April 2015.

17 http://derstandard.at/1395363004736/Deutsch-Moelzer-soll-Kandidatur-zurueckziehen; see also www.kleinezeitung.at/nachrichten/politik/3584399/moelzer-entschuldigte-sich-fuer- sager.story, both links accessed 16 March 2015.

18 www.gmx.at/themen/nachrichten/oesterreich/46b6ie2-eklat-david-alaba-andreas-moelzer- wehrt-rassismusvorwuerfe, accessed 12 March 2015.

19 www.gmx.at/themen/nachrichten/oesterreich/00b6d6o-andreas-moelzer-david-alaba- rassistisch-beleidigt, accessed 12 March 2015.