Populism and Immigration: (Re)Inventing Identities Through Language

Abstract

Populism is one of the hottest topics of the moment and immigration is a fundamental lens for understanding its success, although not the only one. Starting from this assumption, this chapter aims to specify how language can be used as a strategic resource to empower populist platforms. The analysis contributes to the existing analysis by clarifying that language is intrinsically evaluative: the choice of the use of words and the linguistic strategies implemented by any political actor cannot be seen as neutral. Hence, we argue that (radical right) populists do not make a pathological use of language per se. The populist linguistic strategies belong to a physiological dimension, in the sense that PRRPs masterly exploit the potentialities inherent in language. In brief, we connect to Mudde’s convincing argumentation concerning the need to understand contemporary populist radical right not as a normal pathology but as a pathological normalcy (2010) and consider that populist radical right parties’ relation to language is better perceived as a pathological physiology, in the sense that the content might be at odds with the politically correct, but even the politically correct is not neutral.