The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean

"That’s a good segue to Ruth Wodak, because that’s one of the strengths of her book, The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Most early studies of the far right and radical right parties focused on explaining the demand side. Why would anyone want to vote for them? Most of the explanations tended to be deterministic: it’s because of immigration or it’s because of unemployment or it’s because they’ve always been fascist. These explanations assumed that whatever the radical right offered was irrelevant. So it didn’t matter whether you had a charismatic leader or a monkey as a leader, the result would be the same. Obviously that is not the case. There’s a reason why Nigel Farage is successful and Nick Griffin, who lead the British National Party, wasn’t. It’s about what he offers. UKIP is more moderate and Farage is from a different class. He’s more successful, he’s smoother in his propaganda. Ruth Wodak is one of the most prominent discourse scholars. Discourse is about looking at propaganda in its political context. For example, one of the old slogans of the Flemish Bloc (VB) was “500,000 unemployed: why then guest workers?” If you take that literally, it’s just a question. If you take it in its political context, it’s an anti-immigration sentiment. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . She shows that what radical right parties do is transgress norms and break political taboos. That’s the populism part and it’s very attractive. When people are frustrated, they like to see someone rattle the establishment. There’s also an element of fearlessness in it. Look at these people, who dare to go where we all want to go! There are a lot of people who would love to go out in the open and make racist or sexist statements, but they don’t want to pay the social cost. They admire the person who does. That’s the taboo-breaking. That’s what Trump does the whole time. He’s saying, ‘I don’t care about these things.’ Many people would love to be like that. The Front National had the perfect slogan in the 90s, “We say what you think.” It’s not that we’re smarter, we’re exactly like you, but we fight your fight for you, because we know the social cost you have to pay and we’re willing to do that for you. So Wodak shows that, on the one hand, you have the transgression of norms. On the other hand, you have the scapegoating and the politics of fear. Why would you vote for parties that scapegoat? Because they give you an explanation of why your life is bad. It’s not because you didn’t move from your area that no longer has jobs, or because you didn’t finish your education. Or something else complex, like the fact the economy has changed and your job is no longer needed. No, it’s because of immigrants. What immigrants do is give a very clear explanation of why things are going badly, and externalize guilt. The focus on immigrants also creates an in-group and an out-group. It’s not just you, an isolated individual. No, you’re part of a powerful nation that fights this out-group. And because of the politics of fear, you create a sense of urgency. We are being invaded. That makes you scared, and makes you look for radical solutions. We have to act now! The regular boundaries can’t be upheld, strong action is required. That’s where the far right gets in. A large part of the populist discourse in general, but the far right discourse in particular, is about creating a sense of crisis. Once there is a crisis, you have salience, you have urgency. The mainstream has failed; you need to look for someone outside of the usual. This far right party is kind of out there, but this is a crisis! Normally what they say goes too far, and I’ll stick with the Conservatives. But right now we need someone who really breaks it open, so I’ll vote for Nigel Farage. What I like particularly about the book is that she walks you through the examples. It isn’t just abstract. It’s almost like the book has exercises—and so it’s incredibly useful for education. In think tanks or NGOS or schools, you can use this book. You can either read it as the teacher or, if students are more advanced, tell them to read it and then take, for example, a Brexit party poster or a flyer or speech by Boris Johnson and say ‘okay, in what way does this do the same and in what way doesn’t it?’ The book is really empowering. It really makes you understand the mechanism of it rather than just describing it. Totally. She emphasizes two parts of the supply side of the far right. On the one hand, the internal supply side, which is what the far right offers. There’s also the external part, which is what others offer, and particularly what the media do. She shows how the media today—which has changed significantly and has become much more commercial—facilitates the rise of people like Haider or Farage. They are charismatic or mediagenic leaders, and are almost like a drug to the media. They just can’t resist them because they sell. They provide the type of scandalous quote that the media crave. What is important here is that the far right is not just passive: it’s part of its own success or failure. Haider was successful because the media was now open to someone like him. Britain has a specifically problematic media structure, and the media had been open to someone like Farage for quite a long time. But what it got was Nick Griffin, and groups like the EDL. There had to be the supply as well and then, when it all comes together, it’s powerful. So the media play a massively important role, but it’s complex. The media is seldom truly a friend of the far right. In the UK we had the Daily Express , which for a while was pretty much the UKIP newspaper, but in most cases newspapers push the issues and the frames of the far right, but are negative towards the far right itself. That can still help the far right, because as long as you talk about immigration as a threat, it doesn’t matter much if you say the far right parties are bad. If they’re the only ones talking about immigration as a threat, it will win them support."