Binary rhetoric and divisive discourses on the populist Right

Dorey, Pete ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2763-1622 2025. Binary rhetoric and divisive discourses on the populist Right. Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs 10.1332/20437897y2025d000000052 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Right-wing populism entails discursive divisions both between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, and between ‘the majority’ in society and ‘minorities’. In both instances, the former are attributed with positive attributes and characteristics, while the latter are invariably ascribed negative connotations and qualities, to the extent of being portrayed as inimical to ‘the people’ or ‘the majority’, and possible even a threat to national identity or security. Through such ideologically define or socially constructed binary divisions and polarities, ‘the people’ or ‘the majority’ are portrayed as being decent, hard-working, imbued with common-sense, law-abiding, loyal, and patriotic. By contrast, the ‘the elite’ is usually depicted as being corrupt, decadent, incompetent, out-of-touch, self-serving, and unpatriotic, while sundry ‘minorities’ are often accused of being deviant, disloyal, practicing unorthodox lifestyles, refusing to integrate, and subscribing to alien, or even subversive, values which are inimical to dominant or indigenous culture. Having constructed such binary divisions, the populist Right deploys discourses which perpetuates the identification of so-called ‘enemies within’ or ‘alien others’ against whom ‘the people’ and ‘the majority’ can be mobilised. Such discursive mechanisms serve simultaneously to divert popular attention from the failings or negative consequences of neoliberalism and/or right-wing policies (such as corporate greed and corruption, increasing job insecurity, inequality, and poverty), and promoted divide-and-rule, by persuading ‘the people’ and ‘the majority’ that socio-economic problems are the fault either of ‘the elite’ or sundry ‘alien’ minorities. These then serve to legitimise authoritarian policy responses, accompanied by further discourses, often entailing Biblical or military imagery and symbolism, about a Manichean battle between good and evil, or the nation-state facing a serious, even existential, threat from sundry internal or external enemies.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Cardiff Law & Politics Schools > Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR)
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
ISSN:	2326-9995
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 March 2025
Date of Acceptance:	9 February 2025
Last Modified:	24 Mar 2025 16:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177126

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