Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump 9781032397177, 9781032398402, 9781003351634

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“It was once assumed that populists could not survive once in power, but recent history has shown us how very wrong this assumption was. Comparing two of the most important cases of populism in power on the left and the right in recent years – the cases of SYRIZA in Greece and Donald Trump in the US respectively – Giorgos Venizelos’ masterful book pushes our understanding of the phenomenon of populism forward in several ways. It works across regional and ideological lines, interrogates the relationship between populism and anti-populism, and creatively analyses populist discourse, visuals and performances to make sense of how and why populism operates and sometimes changes when in power. Theoretically sophisticated yet empirically grounded, cleverly argued and methodologically innovative, it is required reading not only for those interested in populism, but in the rapidly changing landscape of contemporary politics more generally”. Benjamin Moffitt, Associate Professor Australian Catholic University “This book recasts the debate over populism in power by examining its varied effects on democracy and its performative mode of governance. As Giorgos Venizelos explains, populist discourse, performativity and identification may be forged in opposition, but they hardly disappear once populists take power. Through a comparative analysis of left-wing populism in Greece and right-wing populism in the U.S., Venizelos breaks new ground in showing how populism adapts to governing responsibilities and transforms ‘the people’ in different institutional contexts. This book is a major contribution to the study of populism’s dynamic properties and the socio-cultural bases of its appeal”. Kenneth M. Roberts, Professor of Government, Cornell University “In the crowded field of populism studies, GiorgosVenizelos persuades with his illuminating comparison of diametrically opposed types of populists in government. His meticulous in-depth studies of Syriza and Trump show that populists succeed in reinventing and recalibrating their populist discourse once in office but do so in different ways given their ideological roots. His book is a must read for any scholar wanting to understand the impact populists might have on liberal democracy”. Sarah De Lange, Professor of Political Pluralism, University of Amsterdam

Populism in Power

Shifting attention away from policy achievements and effects on democracy, this book focuses on the charismatic function of populist discourse – comprising antagonistic narratives, transgressive style and appeals to the common people. The book puts forward an integrative approach that brings together discourse analysis, analysis of digital media, in-depth interviews and ethnographic methods, and places into comparative perspective the cases of SYRIZA in Greece and Donald Trump in the United States. Theorising populism through the lens of collective identification, Venizelos places the rhetorical and emotional dynamics of populist performativity at the core of the analysis, offering a rigorous yet flexible conceptulisation of populism in power. Against theoretical expectations, findings suggest that both SYRIZA and Trump retained, to different degrees, their populist character in power, although their style and vision differed vastly. This book urges researchers, journalists and politicians to adopt a reflexive approach to analysing the political implications of populism for politics, polity and society, and to challenge the normatively charged definitions that are uncritically reproduced in the public sphere. It will appeal to researchers of political theory, populism, comparative politics, sociologists and ethnographers. Giorgos Venizelos is Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Cyprus. His research is situated at the intersections of contemporary political theory and comparative politics with a special focus on populism, anti-populism and discourse theory. He has published in journals including Political Studies, Constellations, Critical Sociology and Representation. He co-convenes the Populism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association (www.giorgosvenizelos.com).

Conceptualising Comparative Politics: Polities, Peoples, and Markets Edited by Anthony Spanakos (Montclair State University) and Francisco Panizza (London School of Economics)

Conceptualising Comparative Politics seeks to bring a distinctive approach to comparative politics by rediscovering the discipline’s rich conceptual tradition and inter-disciplinary foundations. It aims to fill out the conceptual framework on which the rest of the subfield draws but to which books only sporadically contribute, and to complement theoretical and conceptual analysis by applying it to deeply explored case studies. The series publishes books that make serious inquiry into fundamental concepts in comparative politics (crisis, legitimacy, credibility, representation, institutions, civil society, reconciliation) through theoretically engaging and empirically deep analysis. 10. The End of Communist Rule in Albania Political Change and The Role of The Student Movement Shinasi A. Rama 11. Authoritarian Gravity Centers A Cross-Regional Study of Authoritarian Promotion and Diffusion Thomas Demmelhuber and Marianne Kneuer 12. Politics as a Science A Prolegomenon Philippe C. Schmitter and Marc Blecher 13. Populism in Global Perspective A Performative and Discursive Approach Edited by Pierre Ostiguy, Francisco Panizza, Benjamin Moffitt 14. Populism in Power Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump Giorgos Venizelos For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

Populism in Power

Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump Giorgos Venizelos

First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Giorgos Venizelos The right of Giorgos Venizelos to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-39717-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-39840-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-35163-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figuresviii List of tablesx Acknowledgementsxi Series prefacexiii Introduction

1

1 Populism(s) in power

17

2 Populism in Greece and the United States: politics, history, culture

47

3 SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015)

80

4 SYRIZA in government (2015–2019)

103

5 The rise of Donald Trump: ‘Make America Great Again!’

132

6 Donald Trump in power: ‘Keep America Great!’

157

7 Left- and right-wing populists in government: a comparative analysis

189

Conclusion

220

Research Methods Appendices232 Index247

Figures

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5.1 5.2

5.3 5.4

SYRIZA’s 2012 election campaign posters 81 Poster from SYRIZA’s first congress in 2013 82 SYRIZA’s posters for Angela Merkel’s visit to Athens in 2014 84 SYRIZA’s posters from the 2014 European election campaign 88 2014 European election campaign posters expressing SYRIZA’s core demands 91 Stills from SYRIZA’s election campaign broadcasts in January 2015 93 Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras performing on the socio-cultural low 107 Transgressing the socio-political high 1 108 Transgressing the socio-political high 2 108 Transgressing the socio-political high 3 109 SYRIZA’s poster for the 2019 European elections 113 Pamphlets included in the SYRIZA-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton115 Alexis Tsipras announces Greece’s exit from the memoranda 116 Alexis Tsipras appears wearing a tie for the first time 116 Alexis Tsipras on the ‘high’ of the populism/elitism spectrum 119 An abandoned warehouse next to a newly constructed mosque affords a snapshot of contemporary suburban Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre, PA 140 Billboards outside Scranton, PA advertise the US Marine Corps. In the same districts, sepia images of veterans captioned with patriotic messages were hung from lamp posts, and homes proudly flew the American flag 141 Stills capturing the range of Trump’s hand gestures within a 1-minute time frame, during a rally at Wilkes-Barre, PA on 25 April 2016 (VM.41) 147 Donald Trump with an ‘authentic’ background, Golden, CO, October 2016 (VM.42) 148

Figures ix 5.5 Trump’s tweets during his 2016 campaign demonstrate a working literacy, albeit cruelly deployed, with prevailing Internet culture 149 5.6 Trump publicises his ‘passion’ for fast food on social media 149 6.1 Donald Trump tweets a meme about his first impeachment process159 6.2 An email sent by the 2020 Donald Trump campaign (VM.61) 161 6.3 Trump’s Instagram story following his 2020 State of the Union address 161 6.4 Trump’s tweeted memes: surveilled by Obama, and reimagined as Rocky Balboa 162 6.5 ‘Law & Order!’. Trump posts a favourite catchword on Instagram in response to the Black Lives Matter protests (VM.62) 167 6.6 2020 Campaign flyers and stickers collected from a petition rally in Scranton, PA (F.US.5) 171 7.1 SYRIZA and Trump’s frames in opposition and government. The dominant frame is outermost 198 7.2 Collective identity among SYRIZA supporters, showing relations of horizontal solidarity between articulated identities, and a shared self-understanding of these identities as constituent parts of ‘the people’ 201 7.3 Collective identity of ‘the people’ in the Trump campaign, vertically mediated by the relationship between leader and base, but not necessarily in horizontal solidarity 201

Tables

1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

Sublimation and idealisation Democratic and anti-democratic affects Similarities between SYRIZA and Donald Trump Differences between SYRIZA and Donald Trump Characteristics of ‘the low’ Ideologically conditioned differences in populist discourse Typology of emotions Trajectories of identification

35 35 53 56 191 194 202 205

Acknowledgements

The core idea behind this book has its roots in the period 2012–2015 while I was finishing my undergraduate degree at the University of Essex and starting my postgraduate studies at Goldsmiths College. The rise and fall of radical left parties such as SYRIZA and Podemos sparked intense discussions about the potential and limits of populism as a strategy for the left – to seize power and produce progressive social change. It was in this context that, in the early stages of my PhD in Florence, the right had its own seemingly sudden populist moment with the BREXIT referendum and the election of Donald Trump. The changing political landscape urged me to transform a number of political questions into research inquiries: are all populists the same? Do they necessarily fail in government? And if so, by what standards? How can we conceptualise failure? To shape and structure these questions, I drew inspiration from many people whom I met through various research trips and conferences, especially in Europe but also in Brazil and the United States. It is obviously impossible to name everyone, but a number of people deserve special acknowledgments. I wish to thank Manuela Caiani for supervising this project for more than four years. I am also indebted to my second supervisor and mentor Yannis Stavrakakis for his constant intellectual and moral support, and the numerous theoretical and political discussions that have influenced my thought and research since 2014 when we first met in London. I benefited greatly from the stimulating exchanges that took place in the various colloquia, seminars and workshops organised at the Centre on Social Movements Studies in Florence, led by Donatella Della Porta and populated by many excellent scholars and friends whom I want to thank for their direct or indirect influence. Special thanks go to Linus Westheuser, Francesca Feo, Andrea Terlizzi, Stella Christou, Jacopo Custodi, Beatrice Carella, Enrico Padoan, Lorenzo Zamponi, Jannis Grimm and Andrea Pirro – not only for their academic feedback, but above all for the moral support they provided me in difficult times. I similarly thank Matteo Paba for our many years of supportive and engaging friendship. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Ken Roberts, who hosted me at Cornell University as part of this research and generously provided me with

xii  Acknowledgements important insights about the political and cultural terrain in the US. Likewise, I wish to thank my dear friend and collaborator Antonis Galanopoulos who was a great companion during my research visit at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Our discussions of parts of this text provided me with valuable insights into various aspects of Greek politics and culture. I’d also like to thank Benjamin De Cleen, whose empathic approach kept me going when morale was pretty low; Thomás Zicman de Barros, with whom I discussed the intersection between psychoanalysis and populism; Seongcheol Kim for his rigorous feedback; and Hara Kouki, Haris Malamides, Kostis Roussos, Christos Avramidis and Giorgos Papaioannou, who shared their first-hand experience and knowledge of crisis politics in Greece. It is not an overstatement to say that this research would not have been possible without Alexandra Elbakyan, an overlooked hero whose commitment to open access education is invaluable to many scholars. This project was also made possible by the administrative staff at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore, especially Serenella Bertocci, Michela Cappellini. Thanks must also go to those who agreed to be interviewed for the purposes of this research, opening up and sharing their thoughts and emotions with me, without being concerned about our potential ideological differences. I would also like to thank photographer Panayotis Tzamaros for permitting me to use the photos that appear in Figure 4.4 and Ilias Louloudis for permitting me to reproduce the photo that appears in Figure 4.2. Last but not least, I want to thank Sophie for showing me another mode of relating with my work and with others; as well as my parents who supported me for 30 years by all means possible.

Series preface

The series Conceptualizing Comparative Politics aims at publishing books that make a serious inquiry into fundamental concepts in comparative politics through theoretically engaging and empirically deep comparative analysis. Few concepts have the recurring and contemporary import of populism, and this book fulfils the remit of the series in regard to that concept. Through the comparative study of populism in power in Greece (SYRIZA) and the United States (Donald Trump), the book engages some fundamental theoretical issues in the study of populism while offering new light on how populists deploy and sustain (or not) populist politics in the office. Venizelos understands populism as a particular political logic that constructs collective identities in the name of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’, empty of any essential content and susceptible to variable socio-cultural characteristics and manifestations. Ostensibly aligned with the mainstream minimalist conceptualisation of the term (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017), Venizelos makes three key differences. First, populism is not an ideology, not even a thin one (Freeden, 1998), nor is it a political strategy (Weyland, 2017). Instead, in line with Laclau (2005a), he advances a purely formal definition of populism as a political logic. Second, he argues that the idea of a single, homogenous, authentic people is a fantasy and it is precisely because the subject-as-a-whole is a fantasy that multiple discrete identifications can emerge to fill it. Third, he challenges whether the ‘purity’ (of the people) and the ‘corruption’ (of the elite) are defining characteristics of populism. Drawing on the appeals of SYRIZA’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, he shows that the people were not framed by Tsipras as ‘pure’ but rather as ‘excluded’, ‘marginalised’ and ‘exhausted’ (though at the same time, ‘resisting’). ‘The people’ in this appeal therefore took the status of a politically rather than normatively constituted actor. By bracketing attributes of ideology, homogeneity and purity, we are left with a minimalist definition of populism that pares down the concept to two core features: (1) the centrality attributed by populists to ‘the people’ (as the plebs or the excluded) as the holders of sovereignty and (2) the constitutive role that the antagonism between the people and its ‘other’ (the elite, the establishment, the political class, etc.) plays in the constitution of popular identities. It is this characterisation that frames Venizelos’ analysis of populism in

xiv  Series preface government and helps to understand the similarities and differences between SYRIZA and Trump. The study of populism in office raises some important questions that are addressed in the book. Perhaps the theoretically most important one concerns the anti-establishment, anti-institutional, nature of populism. Arguably, a political appeal that shares these attributes cannot remain populist in office: it either follows the rules of the ‘establishment’ and ceases to be populist or it proves unable to govern because the ‘establishment’ undermines it. Such an assumption rests in conceptiualisations of populism as a force of the opposition; or as a force that is not as capable as ‘normal’ non populist politicians. Redirecting the discussion back to populism core definition, Venizelos argues that the analysis of populism in power must concentrate on the very analytical locus which classifies a phenomenon as such. In examining whether populists remain populists in power, the book thus focuses on if and how populist governments continue to present antagonistically ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. Based on extensive empirical research, Venizelos argues that having risen to power through a populist affective performativity, both Trump and Tsipras maintained, renewed and expanded their populist repertories in office. Both actors presented high degrees of people-centrism and anti-elitism, and polarisation remained the discursive norm rather than the exception in their political appeals. Yet, he notes that although both Tsipras and Trump continued to perform as populists in government, their appeal did not go entirely unchanged and was subject to fluctuations depending on when and where it was performed. This qualification brings into consideration two closely related theoretical questions in the study of populism. The first one is that populism is an ordinal rather than categorical attribute. As Laclau (2005b:45) noted, ‘[to] ask oneself if a movement is or is not populist is, actually, to start with the wrong question. The question that we should instead, ask ourselves, is . . . to what extent is a movement populist?’ A second related question is that populist leaders are never wholly defined by their ‘populism’, as their appeals always articulate populist and non-populist discursive frames, such as liberal democracy. As Venizelos notes, this highlights that a populist actor is never merely populist. But perhaps the main question to be addressed regarding Trump and Tsipras’ degree of populism is how successful they were in their appeal. Here the contrast is telling. Both SYRIZA and Trump ended up losing elections, but this is not necessarily the best form of measuring the success of their respective versions of populism. After all, as Venizelos notes, Trump gathered more votes in 2020 than in 2016, while SYRIZA registered only a moderate fall in the popular vote when they lost power. There are many reasons for this, but one critical one is the presence of a host ideology that impacts the discourse of the populist. The explanatory primacy of the host ideology over that of the populist logic runs extensively throughout the book. Venizelos claims that Tsipras and Trump’s populist discourses, their definitions of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, their diagnosis of the social, political and economic issues at stake, and the

Series preface xv solutions they propose were profoundly influenced by their adjunct ideology. In other words, the policies, articulated visions and mobilised affective identifications of these populists were not determined by populism itself. This raises the question of why studying populism at all if it does not account for some of the most fundamental features of the two governments. Perhaps the answer can be found in Venizelos’ conclusion that understanding populism through a discursive-performative lens makes it possible to transcend the restrictive frameworks that understand populism’s fate in government as a question of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in policy delivery, or of taking a ‘mainstream’ or an ‘authoritarian’ turn. He notes that accessing state power is not the teleological end point of a populist strategy but the starting point for new salient identifications between ‘the people’ and the (populist) government that requires the constant reactivation of political passions and antagonism over time. He further notes that political mobilisation and the energising of affect are indispensable for the maintenance or, in extremis, reinvention of a collective ‘we’ in antagonistic juxtaposition to an oppressive or exploitative ‘other’. This is perhaps the main lesson to be drawn from the contrasting cases of SYRIZA and Trump and this is also why the study of populism is still relevant. Populism is not the only road to political change and may not even be the most effective one, but an energised and mobilised populous is important for change. This book goes a considerable way in explaining why this is the case. Francisco Panizza and Anthony Petros Spanakos

References Freeden, M. (2017). After the Brexit referendum: Revisiting populism as an ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies, 22(1), 1–11. Laclau, E. (2005a). On Populist Reason. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005b). Populism: What’s in a name? In F. Panizza (Ed.), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy (pp. 32–49). London: Verso. Weyland, K. (2017). Populism: A political – strategic approach. In C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 48–72). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Introduction

I. Populism: from the streets to the halls of power The proliferation of populist movements, leaderships and parties, together with their transition from the margins to the mainstream of party systems, signalled a dramatic change in the global political landscape. The (re-)emergence of left and right populists in the aftermath of the deep 2008 economic crisis combined with a profound public distrust of political and business elites to disrupt ‘long-established patterns of party competition in many contemporary Western societies’ (Norris & Inglehart, 2019:3). Traditional political parties, which had governed interchangeably over the preceding 30 years, were perceived as incapable of responding to mounting socio-economic demands, leaving a political space open for populist parties and movements. The emergence of the so-called ‘square’ and ‘occupy’ movements in 2011 and the rise of movement parties in the following years brought formerly neglected demands to the centre of the political mainstream (Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2013; Kioupkiolis & Katsambekis, 2016; Gerbaudo, 2017; Della Porta et al., 2017). Populists sought to harness indignation as a force for change by channelling popular frustration and electorally uncommitted protest grievance against what they characterised as ‘the political establishment’. Populism’s distinct antagonism, which undermines conventional political formations of left and right by conceptually pitting ‘the people’ at the bottom against ‘the elite’ at the top, points to a provisional definition of the resurgent populist politics. Yet, against the temptation to clump all sorts of varied phenomena under a homogenous ‘populist’ label, fundamental differences between populisms can in fact be drawn. Left-wing populists champion ‘the people’ against an elite and establishment defined by its economic supremacy (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). This antagonism is vertical and punches upwards: the many at ‘the bottom’ rally against the few at ‘the top’ (Casullo, 2020a). The collective subject adopts the subaltern status in the sense that it is excluded from society (Ostiguy, 2017). Thus left populism is ‘dyadic’ (Judis, 2016:15). By contrast, right-wing populists champion ‘the people’ against an elite whom ‘they accuse of coddling a third group, which can consist, for instance, of immigrants. . . . [Thus] Right-wing populism is triadic. It looks upward, but also down upon an out group’ (Judis, 2016:15). DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-1

2  Introduction Populists are no longer confined to sporadic appearances in opposition. They have increasingly taken opportunities to become relevant forces within their respective party systems by achieving incremental power at the sub-national level and winning seats in national legislatures.1 Gradually, the most successful populists moved from opposition to government. Parties such as PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [Law and Justice]) in Poland and Fidesz (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége [Alliance of Young Democrats]) in Hungary are often regarded as paradigms of populism in government, exhibiting authoritarian, undemocratic and illiberal characteristics (Kim, 2020, 2022).2 Moreover, the Philippines’ PDP–Laban (Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan [Filipino Democratic Party–People’s Power]) under Rodrigo Duterte (Curato, 2021) and Turkey’s AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [Justice and Development Party]) under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have received substantial attention in a similar vein over the last few years (Özdemir, 2015; Gurhanli, 2018; Baykan, 2021). Much ink has been spilled on Latin America, arguably a ‘natural habitat’ for populist politics. The cases of Juan Perón in Argentina, Getúlio Vargas in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela demonstrate that in contrast to contemporary Europe, populism in government has not historically been an exceptional mode of Latin American politics (McGuire, 1997; Hawkins, 2010; Groppo, 2010). Recent regional developments are suggestive of a return to form. On the left, the Ecuadorian ‘Citizens’ Revolution’ (2007–2017) led by the progressive populist Rafael Correa was an exemplary case (Mazzolini, 2021), as was Bolivia’s plurinational and indigenous populism under Evo Morales from 2016 until its violent interruption in 2019 (see de la Torre, 2010; Brienen, 2016). The right-wing populism of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018 interrupted the continuity of Lula da Silva’s progressive populism (Zicman de Barros, 2018; Mendonça & Caetano, 2021), while Andrés Manuel López Obrador, alias ‘AMLO’, captured the presidency of Mexico in 2018 (Macip, 2018). In 2019, resurgent Kirchnerist Peronism supplanted four years of neoliberalism in Argentina (Do Rosario & Gillespie, 2019). In the face of such evidence, it is difficult to deny that a new wave of Latin American populism is well under way. The Italian and Greek governments formed in 2018 and 2015, respectively, present two paradigmatic cases of the populist coalition government in the European liberal party systems. The hitherto marginal experience of European populist parties in government, usually as minor coalition partners at best, is no longer the norm. In Italy, the idiosyncratic populist Movimento Cinque Stelle and the nativist right Lega briefly coalesced into an ideologically contradictory alliance putatively based on anti-establishment populism (Caiani & Padoan, 2021; Giannetti et al., 2021). In Greece, the contemporary populist experience managed to exhaust its term in office. In 2015, SYRIZA (Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς [Coalition of the Radical Left]) led a coalition government alongside the nativist populist right party ANEL (Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες [Independent Greeks]), the latter serving as a minor partner (Aslanidis & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2016; Hawkins et al., 2018; Pappas & Aslanidis, 2015; Stavrakakis et al., 2017).

Introduction 3 The other side of the Atlantic presents a very similar picture. The victory of Donald Trump in 2016 was by itself construed as a political scandal. His triumph against the expectations of pollsters and analysts took the American public by surprise. It especially shocked cosmopolitan urban classes and educated elites whose values were threatened by Trump’s success. As Paul Krugman (2016) put it, [w]hat we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in. We thought that our fellow citizens would not, in the end, vote for a candidate so manifestly unqualified for high office, so temperamentally unsound, so scary yet ludicrous. Trump rejected progressive neoliberalism: an alliance of mainstream currents of new social movements (feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism and LGBTQ rights) on the one side, and high-end ‘symbolic’ and service-based sectors of business (Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood) on the other, ideals such as empowerment, multiculturalism and diversity. (Fraser, 2017) These developments challenged conventional wisdom, which regarded the juxtaposition of populism with established institutions as odd or contradictory. The fact that populists over the world no longer come as minor partners in coalitions but now in fact lead national governments raises a critical question: what happens when populists achieve power?

II. Conceptual challenges Populism in government is often thought of as an epitome of contradiction. Its relationship with institutions can be uneasy. Does populism last once in power? Does it maintain its anti-establishment outlook? Existing literature has produced several hypotheses on populism’s trajectory once in power which have guided prior empirical research. Commonly analysed as an ‘outsider force’, a feature of the opposition (see Kitschelt, 2006; Akkerman & de Lange, 2012), populism is rarely understood as a durable force of government (see Mény & Surel, 2002). Populism in power can therefore seem an impossibility: it either fails to deliver its promises or it falls into alignment with the mainstream (see Canovan, 1999; Mudde, 2017). Nonetheless, the multitude of Latin American populists in power surveyed earlier coupled with the growing electoral success of contemporary populists in western liberal democratic contexts undermines this received wisdom. Unsurprisingly then, this standard view has its dissenters. Focusing on the capability of populists to implement policies close to their core ideological

4  Introduction positions, Albertazzi and McDonnell (2015) argue that populists can survive the experience of power.3 Populists may indeed succeed in implementing policy in government. However, aspects of such policy, some literature has argued, are not definitive of populism, but rather of whichever supplementary ideology accompanies it. Besides, we may well interrogate whether a populist actor in government successfully implements policy, but by itself, this does not necessarily speak to the question of whether they have remained populist. If analysis of populists in government is principally concerned with their ability to pass and implement policy, then dichotomies of ‘responsible’ and ‘irresponsible’, ‘capable’ and ‘incapable’ and ‘normal’ and ‘exceptional’ can be uncritically reproduced, together with an inclination to place populist actors on the latter side in each case. Nevertheless, just as with populists, nonpopulists and establishment politicians can equally fail or succeed to implement policy. Focusing on populism’s ‘outcomes’ – the impact it may have on the institutions of representation – Müller (2016) and Pappas (2019) assert that the destiny of populism in government is to descend into illiberal and authoritarian forms. Some populists in government may well indulge in corruption, intimidate political adversaries and the media and inflict other authoritarian repressions, but does this hold true for all populists; for the phenomenon of populism in government per se? Certainly not, since even a superficial comparative survey immediately discloses the existence of democratic, egalitarian and liberally oriented populisms (Katsambekis, 2020). In short, attempts to understand populism in government through attributes that are neither exclusive to nor constitutive of populism distract us from the core of the populist phenomenon, and impede its rigorous assessment. This book takes the view that if there is a definitive populist style of governance, it is likely dissimilar to what has been conceived earlier. In order to properly explore the metamorphosis from populism in opposition to populism in power, the very notion of populism itself may require re-evaluation (cf. Moffitt, 2016). Populism’s inherent ambiguity and complexity render the concept normatively charged. Widespread and uncritical use of the term in public life has exacerbated its a priori association with irresponsibility, ignorance, backwardness, demagogic agitation of the masses, reactionary backlash and its conflation with concepts like nationalism and fascism (Stavrakakis & Jäger, 2018; De Cleen et al., 2018; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). This construal of ‘populist’ as an axiomatic pejorative is bound to predispose us to negative expectations about its ascent from opposition to power. As Conniff (2012) has argued, populism in power is a question of who gains public office and how they govern. In order to assist in the clarification of populism’s operational definition, this book argues that adequate analysis of populism in power can only emanate from the very analytical locus which classifies a phenomenon as populist in the first place (cf. Laclau, 1977; Canovan, 2005; Stavrakakis, 2004; Mudde, 2004; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; Panizza, 2005; Hawkins, 2009). In examining whether populists remain

Introduction 5 populists in power, this book examines how and if populists in power persist in their antagonistic presentation of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. This study builds upon the theoretical tradition of the Essex school of discourse analysis (Laclau & Mouffe, 2014 [1985]; Torfing, 1999; Howarth et al., 2000; Glynos & Howarth, 2007; Stavrakakis, 2007) as well as on the socio-cultural/performative perspective (Casullo, 2020a; Moffitt, 2016; Ostiguy, 2009), whose innovative contributions helped divorce populism from the essentialist connotations ascribed to it by Eurocentric punditry. In accordance with Moffitt (2016), this project moves beyond efforts to define populism ‘as a particular thing’, a type of policy or a regime intrinsic to any particular ideology and reorients towards populism’s own function (Laclau, 2005b). The book conceives of populism as a performative mode of political identification which, through affective investment, constructs the collective identity of a politically subaltern social majority that operates against a political class which is framed as illegitimate (Laclau, 2005; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014; Panizza, 2017; Venizelos, 2022). Continuing a tradition established by other studies, this one focuses on the primacy of people-centrism and antielitism within populist discourse (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). In discursive and performative approaches, however, ‘the people’ do not pre-exist but are rather articulated as a popular political identity, understood as a series of discursive linkages. Importantly, articulation is not just a particular type of rhetoric but also a performative praxis manifested by a transgressive and disruptive dynamism. The populist style comprises a wide range of practices and operations: political speech, bodily choreographies and gestures, social markers such as accent as well as symbols, music and slogans (Laclau, 2005a; Casullo, 2020b; Ostiguy et al., 2021a). The populist actor’s function of interpellation is fundamental to constituting what it purports to represent: ‘the people’ (Thomassen, 2019). The aforementioned considerations in no way insinuate that populism is a top-down phenomenon. To view populism as a dynamically relational category presupposes that ‘the people’ – and the collectivities from which it emerges – themselves play an active role in constructing and conditioning an affective community through the interplay of their demands, visions and desires. Relationships between populist leaders4 and the people are thus ‘co-constitutive’ (Ostiguy et al., 2021a:2), and for this reason, Dean and Maiguashca (2020:21) refer to them as collective enactments which are ‘not seen as ephemeral performances by leaders, but rather as embedded, relatively durable and purposeful “repertoires of action” that reflect a substantive view of the world and a desire to transform it’. Collective identities are sustained by shared experiences and bonds, emotions and other corporeal energies, often referred to as affects, and these lie at the core of this analysis. Taking this anti-essentialist perspective, the research presented in this book invites examination of populism’s transformation on entering government in terms of its own discursive and performative dynamics by which it articulates the antagonism between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, while at the same

6  Introduction time sustaining an affectively-invested collective identity revealed by the bond maintained between ‘the people and ‘the populist’.

III. Research methods and contributions This book focuses on the cases of SYRIZA in Greece and Donald Trump in the United States which can be considered as paradigmatic instances of populism in power: not only have both attained power against expert expectations and fierce anti-populist reactions, but both also successfully maintained power for a full term in office putting into challenge the norm that populism is not a durable force in government. Indeed, the two cases are characterised by stark distinctions. SYRIZA was a cohesive party while Trump was an individual leader who was widely perceived as an outsider even within his own party. SYRIZA emerged under strict political monitoring in a small semi-peripheral EU member-state while Trump emerged in a seemingly economically and politically robust United States. Greece has a parliamentary system and the United States a presidential one (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014; Aslanidis & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2016; Katsambekis, 2016, 2019; Venizelos, 2020; Bitecofer, 2018; Alexander & Mast, 2019; Ott & Dickinson, 2019; Oliva & Shanahan, 2019). The weight of difference between SYRIZA and Donald Trump could superficially seem prohibitive to comparative analysis. However, a core aim of this book is to move beyond inflexible social-scientific paradigms of geographically confined research. The intensity of populist mobilisations that spark, often simultaneously, in an ever-globalising world allows one to observe patterns of similarity and differences. One must not forget that neither SYRIZA nor Donald Trump constitutes an exceptional moment in the political history of their countries as they are part of rich and reactivating traditions of populist mobilisation. Furthermore, they both emerged in the aftermath of the Great Recession, as a response to the popular discontent against unresponsive political and economic elites and accumulated grievances. If the two actors are as different as expected, will the process of comparison disclose whatever core remainder justifies their co-categorisation as ‘populist’ or reveal that this common classification exists purely in the eye of the beholder? Research of this nature can arguably provide answers to pressing questions about the character of distinct populist typologies regarding their nature as well as relationship with democracy and its institutions. To conduct empirical research, this book puts forward an integrative approach that brings together discourse analysis (see Appendix A), analysis of digital media, posters and campaign spots (see Appendix B), in-depth interviews (see Appendix C) and ethnographic research (see Appendix D). Specifically, this book studies speeches of the political actors involved, the type of language they employ, the qualities of their bodily movements and overall social habitus, symbolic resources and aesthetics found in posters, campaigning material and social media. Furthermore, to grasp the affective grip of collective identification  – arguably a core aspect of populism  – the book

Introduction 7 interviews ‘the people’ in order to gain insight as to the ways they identify or stop identifying with their leaders, parties and ideas. Through ethnographic research conducted during fieldwork in Greece (2018–2019) and the Unites States (2020), this book delves into the various community practices and rituals, rallies and protests that generate affective bonds which are understood as a vital drive of politics. The aim is to elaborate one’s understanding with respect to how groups, networks, organisations and movements become ‘the people’. The first service this research performs to its field is to redress the research gap in the prevailing literature of populism in power. A remarkably rich and ongoing literature has approached populism from several directions, but since the ascendance of contemporary populism to government – especially in the so-called ‘consolidated’ democracies of the West – remains a relatively new phenomenon, thorough treatments remain scant. Most research has treated the term ‘in power’ liberally, focusing on populists at the regional level, in parliamentary opposition, and as minor partners in coalitions. This research focuses on durable national governments and actors who rule independently (or at least as major partners in a coalition). The strength and autonomy afforded to populist governments allow the phenomenon to be studied in the proper sense of the term ‘in power’ – operating with fewer institutional restrictions and obstacles than they would otherwise – thereby testing populist articulation and interpellation in power to its maximum capacity. Its second advantage is to pursue a cross-regional perspective. With some notable exceptions (see Mouzelis, 1986; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; de la Torre, 2015; Savage, 2018; Ostiguy et al., 2021; Padoan, 2021), the state of the field is predominantly confined to narrow geographic boundaries and isolated case studies (Self & Hicken, 2016). This ultimately poses barriers to enhancing understanding of a global and multifaceted phenomenon – especially in times marked by intensely proliferating populist governments. Third, this book performs a cross-ideological comparison, treating left and right phenomena in parallel within the same study. Until recently, literature has predominantly focused on nativist right-populist phenomena (see Akkerman et al., 2016; Betz, 1994; McDonnell & Werner, 2019; Mudde, 2004, 2007; Pirro, 2015), recently, though left populists also received attention (see Katsambekis & Kioupkiolis, 2019; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014; Agustín, 2020; Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). It is only rarely, however, that leftand right-wing populists are incorporated in the same in-depth study (see also March, 2017; Ivaldi et al., 2017; Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2017; Roberts, 2019; Caiani & Graziano, 2019). Many contemporary phenomena are treated under the rubric of ‘populism’, and due to the negative valence of the term in public discussion, egalitarian and pluralistic manifestations are sometimes collapsed into xenophobic and regressive typologies (Stavrakakis, 2017). Recognition that populisms of different ideological orientations pursue differentiable political agendas and have a dissimilar overall impacts on democracy has only appeared relatively recently (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; Ivaldi et al., 2017; Huber & Schimpf,

8  Introduction 2017; Font et al., 2019; Norris, 2019). In this vein, a central task of this book is to illustrate that not all populisms in power have the same implications for democratic institutions and society. Analysis of their discursive practices shows that left- and right-wing populisms in power reproduce contrasting socio-political imaginaries. They pursue, respectively, contrasting political discourses, which in turn generate distinct emotions and construct varied forms of collective identity. It is hoped that the application of the discursive and performative lenses to the populist cases treated in this book may provide the reader with a ‘flexible yet rigorous’ method to study the phenomenon (Stavrakakis, 2013:28). Transcending restrictive frameworks that render populism’s transformation in government as ‘mainstreaming’, ‘authoritarianism’, ‘success’ or ‘failure’, this research aims to facilitate the study of the fluctuations of populist performativity by degree (Aslanidis, 2015; Caiani & Graziano, 2019). Lastly, by evaluating populism as an emotionally-invested collective identity, this book introduces an oft-neglected factor – affect – and thereby sheds new light on the psycho-social dynamics behind the construction of populist political identities (Lacan, 1961; Mouffe, 2002; Laclau, 2005a; Stavrakakis, 2007; Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2008; Cossarini & Vallespín, 2019; Eklundh, 2019; Demertzis, 2020; Venizelos, 2022). Despite the general depreciation and all-too-often exclusion of emotions from socio-political analysis, the work presented in this volume shows how different variants of populism, e.g. left/right, progressive/regressive, and so on, can be associated with a range of emotions, from hate to love, and from nostalgia to hope (see Salmela & von Scheve, 2018).

VI. Structure of the book Chapter 1, Populism(s) in power, offers a critical review of contemporary literature on populism in power and traces its roots to the pre-emptively negative inflection of ‘populism’ as a point of departure in public discourse. By interpreting populism as an affectively-invested collective identity constructed in the name of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’, this chapter puts the case that governing populists’ own discursive performances, together with the manner of emotional identification they sustain with ‘the people’ after assuming power, are the best object of examination for properly understanding the metamorphoses populism undergoes during its ascent from opposition to power. Chapter 2, Populism in Greece and the United States, develops profiles for the cases of SYRIZA and Donald Trump and familiarises the reader with the political, historical and cultural context within which they emerge. It traces their roots in populist mobilisations of the past and highlights populism’s reactivating nature. Chapter 3, SYRIZA in opposition, delves into SYRIZA’s discourse in the period 2012–2015 and highlights its progressive and democratic character. It also looks at the affective question of how the collective identity of ‘the people’

Introduction 9 was constructed through relations of equivalence established between social movements, party militants, radicalised citizens and voters in general against a common ‘enemy’. Chapter 4, SYRIZA in power, focuses on the discourse of the SYRIZA in government in the period 2015–2019. It argues that the leftist government retained its populist style to a great extent; it also renovated and performed it together with new populist and non-populist repertoires. However, SYRIZA’s retreat from its key economic promises critically damaged the affective bond it had previously maintained with ‘the people’. Chapter 5, The rise of Donald Trump: ‘Make America Great Again!’, focuses on the emergence of Donald Trump as a political outsider contesting the Republican Party’s nomination and his role as a key political antagonist in US politics in the period 2015–2016. This chapter evaluates the importance of Trump’s transgressive style in mobilising grassroots affects and constructing an anti-establishment identity capable of courting supporters’ sentiments of long-standing neglect by political elites. Chapter 6, Donald Trump in power: ‘Keep America Great!’, focuses on Trump’s populist discourse, style and performativity in the White House. Donald Trump’s populism not only persisted in power but also multiply reinvented itself by incorporating new elements and themes. Despite Trump’s rhetorical inconsistency and poor record in government, his style continued to resonate with his audience to a great degree. Chapter 7, Left- and right-wing populists in government, offers a comparative analysis of the two cases. Its empirical findings seem to challenge normative conceptions about populism in power on several fronts. First, not only was populist style persistent in power, but it also constantly reinvented itself depending on time and space. Second, the cases’ dissimilar discourses evidently drew on their respective left and right ideologies, articulated distinct socio-political visions, energised different types of emotions and related with political institutions in fundamentally opposing ways. Regardless of institutional performance, the affective element of collective identity followed divergent trajectories; SYRIZA’s supporters felt disillusioned with its reality in government, while Trump’s supporters showed increasingly euphoric levels of affective identification, culminating even in the infamous Capitol insurrection of January 2021. In light of the theoretical considerations and empirical findings delivered by this research, the conclusion affirms that the study of populism’s transition from antagonistic to protagonistic postures should divorce itself from Eurocentric and intrinsically anti-populist paradigms. While some populists may take an authoritarian turn while in government, turn into mainstream parties or even prove incapable of implementing their policies as conventional wisdom suggests, they can equally adopt an opposite presentation: exemplify democratic characteristics, sustaining their populist performativity and even passing legislation and implementing policy. This ‘paradox’ is only normative in its nature. Neither populism nor its ‘erosion’ in government can be solely assessed

10  Introduction through the policies it pursues, nor from the outcomes it renders visible. If it is, then the field distracts itself from the definition of populism and risks conflating the phenomenon with other notions superficially resembling it but which are by no means identical, i.e. authoritarianism and demagogy. As this book demonstrates, such characteristics are not exclusive to populism and cannot therefore be fundamentally constitutive of populism. Redirecting the discussion back to the operational criteria of people-centrism and anti-elitism, and building on the discursive and stylistic approaches, this study approaches populism by focusing on its very (defining) function to construct what it purports to represent – namely a collective identity in the name of ‘the people’. Such a take detaches analysis from essentialist prejudices against the notion of populism in general. It highlights that right-wing reactionary populist forces may pose a real threat to democracy, while left-wing egalitarian ones may earnestly seek to promote progressive social change. Put simply, ideology plays a pivotal role in populism’s impact. The category of populism should no longer serve as a general explanatory category that seeks to explain political discontinuities and setbacks.

Notes 1. Precise enumeration of ‘populist parties’ is inevitably contingent on one’s definition of populism. The Cypriot Symmachia Politon, Greek Golden Dawn and Greek Solution and German Pegida all appear in certain lists (see Zulianello, 2019, the PopuList, 2019). Beyond the mere question of whether these entities are in fact populist or not, additional conceptual and political hazards associated with this label deserve careful attention. We are ill-advised to use ‘populism’ as a euphemistic byword of convenience for especially objectionable political forms or a bridge to concepts such as xenophobic nationalism (Stavrakakis, 2013). For instance, Symmachia Politon was recently amalgamated into Kinima Sosialdimokraton, a technocratic post-ideological party of the centre (Venizelos, 2022). Despite recent vogue for the notion of ‘technocratic populism’ (see Buštíková & Guasti, 2019), more often than not, technocratic politics is postulated as the opposite of populism (see Ostiguy, 2017). As for the others, Greek Solution is a nationalist party with a penchant for conspiratorial rhetoric, Pegida’s populist characteristics are often weaker than their radical right tendencies and Golden Dawn were prosecuted and found guilty of criminal activities including launching pogroms and murdering migrants; the rubric ‘neo-Nazi’ is more apposite than ‘populist’ in such cases. The author chooses to exercise stricter restraint on the term ‘populist’ in this work. 2. Per van Kessel (2015:121), PiS’ ‘populism seemingly remain(s) a relatively loose supplement to its national-conservative core ideology’. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has likewise arguably passed from a populist to an authoritarian period, in which democratic rights have been restricted to such a degree that ‘his populist politics transform the state into an admittedly “illiberal” regime’ (Salzborn, 2018). Orbán’s ‘collective community’ is strictly defined by ethnicity, while the collective subject has shifted from ‘We the People to We the Nation’ (Toth, 2012). 3. Populists of the left or the right may implement fiscally, socially and politically liberal or conservative policy, respectively. Focusing on the ideological valence of policies implemented by populists in power can thus tell us whether they have remained left or right, but not whether they have remained populist.

Introduction 11 4. ‘The leader’ typically attracts central attention in populism research. His or her function is considered pivotal in articulating, interpellating, constructing and mobilising ‘the people’. Potential overemphasis on a leader has been subject to serious criticism (Weyland, 1996; Laclau, 2005a). On the academic-comparative level, many have underscored that not all populist projects rely on strict hierarchical relationships between leader and masses (Aslanidis, 2016; Gerbaudo, 2017; Kioupkiolis & Katsambekis, 2016; Stavrakakis et al., 2016). On the political level, left-wing thinkers especially have further problematised excessive leader-oriented analysis as an impediment to visions of a truly horizontal and democratic (and populist) left (Mazzolini & Borriello, 2021). One may critically argue that in Lacanian terms, the object of desire with which ‘masses’ identify and are infatuated with in the process of forming a community need not amount to ‘the figure of the leader’. A commodity, an idea, an ideology or a symbol can readily substitute ‘the leader’ (Zicman de Barros, 2021:516).

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12  Introduction Caiani, M., & Padoan, E. (2021). Populism and the (Italian) crisis: The voters and the context. Politics, 41(3), 334–350. Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political Studies, XLVII, 2–16. Canovan, M. (2005). The People. Cambridge: Polity Press. Casullo, M. E. (2020a). Populism and myth. In E. Eklundh & A. Knott (Eds.), The Populist Manifesto (pp. 25–38). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Casullo, M. E. (2020b). The body speaks before it even talk: Deliberation, populism and bodily representation. Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 16(1), 27–36. Conniff, M. (Ed.). (2012). Populism in Latin America (2nd ed.). Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Cossarini, P., & Vallespín, F. (Eds.). (2019). Populism and Passions: Democratic Legitimacy After Austerity. London: Routledge. Curato, N. (2021). Beyond demagogues and deplorables: Democratizing populist rhetoric in Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines. In P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, & B. Moffitt (Eds.), Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach (pp. 223– 239). London: Routledge. Dean, J., & Maiguashca, B. (2020). Did somebody say populism? Towards a renewal and reorientation of populism studies. Journal of Political Ideologies, 25(1), 11–27. De Cleen, B., Glynos, J., & Mondon, A. (2018). Critical research on populism: Nine rules of engagement. Organization, 1(13), 1–13. de la Torre, C. (2010). Populist Seduction in Latin America (2nd ed.). Ohio University Press. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j7x7p2 de la Torre, C. (2015). The Promise and Perils of Populism: Global Perspectives. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Della Porta, D., Andretta, M., Fernandes, T., O’Connor, F., Romanos, E., & Vogiatzoglou, M. (2017). Late Neoliberalism and its Discontents in the Economic Crisis. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Demertzis, N. (2020). The Political Sociology of Emotions: Essays on Trauma and Ressentiment. London: Routledge. Do Rosario, J., & Gillespie, P. (2019, October 28). Fernandez wins in Argentina as voters Rebuff Macri’s austerity. Bloomberg. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ 2019-10-28/fernandez-wins-in-argentina-as-voters-rebuff-macri-s-austerity Eklundh, E. (2019). Emotions, Protest, Democracy: Collective Identities in Contemporary Spain. London: Routledge. Font, N., Graziano, P., & Tsakatika, M. (2019). Varieties of inclusionary populism? SYRIZA, Podemos and the five star movement. Government and Opposition, 1–21. Fraser, N. (2017). Progressive neoliberalism versus reactionary populism: A Hobson’s choice. In H. Geiselberger (Ed.), The Great Regression. Cambridge: Polity. Galanopoulos, A., & Venizelos, G. (2022). Anti-populism and populist hype during the COVID-19 pandemic. Representation, 58(2), 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034 4893.2021.2017334. Gerbaudo, P. (2017). The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism and Global Protest. London: C Hurst & Co. Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2021). Faraway, so close: A spatial account of the Conte I government formation in Italy, 2018. Italian Political Science Review/ Rivista Italiana Di Scienza Politica, 1–18. Glynos, J., & Howarth, D. (2007). Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory. London: Routledge.

Introduction 13 Glynos, J., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2008). Lacan and political subjectivity: Fantasy and enjoyment in psychoanalysis and political theory. Subjectivity, 24(1), 256–274. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.23 Groppo, A. (2010). The Two Princes: Juan D. Perón and Getulio Vargas; A Comparative Study of Latin American Populism. Villa Maria: Eduvim. Gurhanli, H. (2018). Populism on steroids: Erdoğanists and their enemies in Turkey. In U. Kovala, E. Palonen, M. Ruotsalainen, & T. Saresma (Eds.), Populism on the Loose (pp. 53–80). Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto. Hawkins, K. A. (2009). Is Chávez populist?: Measuring populist discourse in comparative perspective. Comparative Political Studies, 42(8), 1040–1067. https://doi. org/10.1177/0010414009331721 Hawkins, K. A. (2010). Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hawkins, K. A., Rovira Kaltwasser, C., & Andreadis, I. (2018). The activation of populist attitudes. Government and Opposition, 1–25. Howarth, D., Norval, A., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2000). Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Huber, R. A., & Schimpf, C. H. (2017). On the distinct effects of left-wing and rightwing populism on democratic quality. Politics and Governance, 5(4), 146–165. Ivaldi, G., Lanzone, M. E., & Woods, D. (2017). Varieties of populism across a leftright spectrum: The case of the front national, the Northern league, Podemos and five star movement. Swiss Political Science Review, 23(4), 354–376. https://doi. org/10.1111/spsr.12278 Judis, J. (2016). The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New York: Columbia Global Reports. Katsambekis, G. (2016). Radical left populism in contemporary Greece: Syriza’s trajectory from minoritarian opposition to power. Constellations, 23(3), 391–403. Katsambekis, G. (2019). The populist radical left in Greece: Syriza in opposition and in power. In G. Katsambekis (Ed.), The Populist Radical Left in Europe. London: Routledge. Katsambekis, G. (2020). Constructing ‘the people’ of populism: A critique of the ideational approach from a discursive perspective. Journal of Political Ideologies, 1–22. Katsambekis, G., & Kioupkiolis, A. (Eds.). (2019). The Populist Radical Left in Europe. London: Routledge. Kim, S. (2020). Because the homeland cannot be in opposition: Analysing the discourses of Fidesz and law and justice (PiS) from opposition to power. East European Politics, 1–20. Kim, S. (2022). Discourse, Hegemony, and Populism in the Visegrád Four. London: Routledge. Kioupkiolis, A., & Katsambekis, G. (2016). Radical Democracy and Collective Movements Today the Biopolitics of the Multitude Versus the Hegemony of the People. London: Routledge. Kitschelt, H. (2006). Movement parties. In R. S. Katz & W. J. Crotty (Eds.), Handbook of Party Politics (pp. 278–290). New York: Sage. Krugman, P. (2016). Our unknown country. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/ interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/the-unknown-country Lacan, J. (1961). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book IX, Identification Seminar. C. Gallagher (trans.). Unpublished.

14  Introduction Laclau, E. (1977). Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005a). On Populist Reason. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005b). What’s in a name? In P. Frascisco (Ed.), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London: Verso. Laclau, E.,  & Mouffe, C. (2014 [1985]). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso. Macip, R. F. (2018). AMLO: The big man in Mexico City. Dialectical Anthropology, 42(3), 315–319. March, L. (2017). Left and right populism compared: The British case. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 19(2), 282–303. Mazzolini, S. (2021). Rafael Correa and the citizens’ revolution in Ecuador: A case of left-wing non-hegemonic. In P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, & B. Moffitt (Eds.), Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach (pp. 95–117). London: Routledge. Mazzolini, S., & Borriello, A. (2021). The normalization of left populism? The paradigmatic case of Podemos. European Politics and Society, 1–16. McDonnell, D., & Werner, A. (2019). International Populism: The Radical Right in the European Parliament. London: C Hurst & Co. McGuire, J. (1997). Peronism Without Perón: Unions, Parties, and Democracy in Argentina. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mendonça, R. F., & Caetano, R. D. (2021). Populism as parody: The visual self-presentation of Jair Bolsonaro on Instagram. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26(1), 210–235. Mény, Y., & Surel, Y. (2002). Democracies and the Populist Challenge. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mouffe, C. (2002). Politics and passions: Introduction. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 28(6), 615–616. https://doi.org/10.1177/019145370202800601 Mouzelis, N. P. (1986). Politics in the Semi-Periphery: Early Parliamentarism and Late Industrialization in the Balkans and Latin America. London: Macmillan Education. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 542–563. Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C. (2017). SYRIZA: The Failure of the Populist Promise. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Müller, J.-W. (2016). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Norris, P. (2019). Varieties of populist parties. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 45(9– 10), 981–1012. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oliva, M., & Shanahan, M. (Eds.). (2019). The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage (1st ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing, Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96325-9

Introduction 15 Ostiguy, P. (2009). The high and low in politics: A two-dimensional political space for comparative analysis and political studies. Kellogg Institute, Political Concepts Committee on Concepts and Methods Working Paper Series, 36. Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A socio-cultural approach. In C. Kaltwasser Rovira, P. Taggart, P. Espejo Ochoa, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ostiguy, P., Moffitt, B., & Panizza, F. (2021a). Introduction. In P. Ostiguy, B. Moffitt, & F. Panizza (Eds.), Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach (pp. 1–46). London: Routledge. Ott, B. L., & Dickinson, G. (2019). Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage. London: Routledge. Özdemir, Y. (2015). Turkey’s Justice and Development Party: An Utmost Case of Neoliberal Populism. ECPR General Conference, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada. Padoan, E. (2021). Anti-Neoliberal Populisms in Comparative Perspective: A Latinamericanization of Southern Europe? London: Routledge. Panizza, F. (Ed.). (2005). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London: Verso. Panizza, F. (2017). Populism and identification. In R. K. Cristobal, P. Taggart, P. Espejo Ochoa, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pappas, T. S. (2019). Populists in power. Journal of Democracy, 30(2), 70–84. Pappas, T. S., & Aslanidis, P. (2015). Greek populism: A political drama in five acts. In H. Kriesi & T. S. Pappas (Eds.), European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession (pp. 181–196). Colchester: ECPR Press. Pirro, A. L. P. (2015). The Populist Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe: Ideology, Impact, and Electoral Performance. London: Routledge. Prentoulis, M., & Thomassen, L. (2013). Political theory in the square: Protest, representation and subjectification. Contemporary Political Theory, 12(3), 166–184. Roberts, K. M. (2019). Bipolar disorders: Varieties of capitalism and populist out-flanking on the left and right. Polity, 51(4), 641–653. Rooduijn, M., & Akkerman, T. (2017). Flank attacks: Populism and left-right radicalism in Western Europe. Party Politics, 23(3), 193–204. Salmela, M., & von Scheve, C. (2018). Emotional dynamics of right- and left-wing political populism. Humanity & Society, 42(4), 434–454. Salzborn, S. (2018, August 15). Hugary and the end of democracy. Open Democracy. www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/samuel-salzborn/hungary-and-end-ofdemocracy Savage, R. (2018). Populist Discourse in Venezuela and the United States: American Unexceptionalism and Political Identity Formation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Self, D., & Hicken, A. (2016, November). Why Populism? How Parties Shape the Electoral Fortune of Populists. APSA Conference, Philadelphia. Stavrakakis, Y. (2004). Antinomies of formalism: Laclau’s theory of populism and the lessons from religious populism in Greece. Journal of Political Ideologies, 9(3), 253–264. Stavrakakis, Y. (2007). The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Poltiics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stavrakakis, Y. (2013). The European populist challenge. Anali Hrvatskog Politološkog Društva, 10(1), 25–39.

16  Introduction Stavrakakis, Y. (2017). Discourse theory in populism research: Three challenges and a dilemma. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4), 523–534. Stavrakakis, Y., Andreadis, I., & Katsambekis, G. (2017). A new populism index at work: Identifying populist candidates and parties in the contemporary Greek context. European Politics and Society, 18(4), 446–464. Stavrakakis, Y., & Jäger, A. (2018). Accomplishments and limitations of the ‘new’ mainstream in contemporary populism studies. European Journal of Social Theory, 21(4), 547–565. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431017723337 Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-wing populism in the European periphery: The case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Stavrakakis, Y., Kioupkiolis, A., Katsambekis, G., Nikisianis, N., & Siomos, T. (2016). Contemporary left-wing populism in Latin America: Leadership, horizontalism, and postdemocracy in Chávez’s Venezuela. Latin American Politics and Society, 58(3), 51–76. The PopuList (2019). An Overview of Populist, Far Right, Far Left and Eurosceptic Parties in Europe, www.popu-list.org. Thomassen, L. (2019). Representing the people: Laclau as a theorist of representation. New Political Science, 41(2), 329–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2019. 1596687 Torfing, J. (1999). New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Wiley-Blackwell. www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631195580.html Toth, G. A. (2012). Constitution for a Disunited Nation: On Hungary’s 2011 Fundamental Law. Central European University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/669549 van Kessel, S. (2015). Populist parties in Poland. In S. van Kessel (Ed.), Populist Parties in Europe: Agents of Discontent? (pp. 121–143). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Venizelos, G. (2020). Populism and the digital media: A necessarily symbiotic relationship? In R. Breeze & A. M. Fernández Vallejo (Eds.), Politics and Populism Across Modes and Media (pp. 47–78). New York: Peter Lang. Venizelos, G. (2022). Populism or nationalism? The paradoxical non-emergence of populism in Cyprus. Political Studies, 70(3), 797–818. https://doi.org/10.1177/00323 21721989157 Venizelos, G., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2022). Bound to fail? Assessing contemporary left populism. Constellations, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12638 [Online only]. Weyland, K. (1996). Neopopulism and neoliberalism in Latin America: Unexpected affinities. Studies in Comparative International Development, 31(3), 3–31. https:// doi.org/10.1007/BF02738987 Zicman de Barros, T. (2018, June). Brazil: Lula – a symbol of resistance. The Chartist, 292, 22. Zicman de Barros, T. (2021). Desire and collective identities: Decomposing Ernesto Laclau’s notion of demand. Constellations, 28(4), 511–521. https://doi. org/10.1111/1467-8675.12490 Zulianello, M. (2019). Varieties of populist parties and party systems in Europe: From state-of-the-art to the application of a novel classification scheme to 66 parties in 33 countries. Government and Opposition, 1–21.

1 Populism(s) in power

1.1. Introduction This chapter maps out and critically reviews the main perspectives on populism in power within the contemporary field of populism studies, highlighting certain analytical inconsistencies in the prevailing understanding of the transition of populism from opposition to government. It insists that in order to study populism in power, one needs to rethink the very notion of populism itself. This chapter situates current debates within the axiomatically anti-populist default adopted by academics and pundits when discussing populism and seeks to retrain this discussion on the definitive notions of people-centrism and anti-elitism. Building on the discursive and performative canon, this chapter places the notions of affect, political style and rhetoric at the core of the discussion about populism in government. It concludes that populism in power should be understood in terms of how its ability to performatively interpellate ‘the people’.

1.2. Dominant perspectives on populism in power Conventional wisdom maintains that populism and power are strange bedfellows. Evidence of this view abounds in a brief literature review of texts written by key scholars of populism and adjacent themes. This section provides a taxonomy of academic literature on populism in power, dividing it into two overarching tendencies – first (Section 1.2.1), the outcome-oriented approach, which is itself divided into two camps: those who argue that populists in government dissipate into mainstream politics and those who argue that populists in government descend into authoritarianism and second (Section 1.2.2), the policy-oriented approach, which is likewise divided into two camps: those who maintain that populists fail to implement policy and those who argue that populists are capable of implementing policy. Section 2.1.3 situates the analytical disunities between the reviewed approaches within a general ‘anti-populist’ climate in populism research, as a prelude to recalibrating conceptual attention to the real core of the populist phenomenon – its people-centrism and anti-elitism – as the proper locus of analytical explorations of populism in power. DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-2

18  Populism(s) in power 1.2.1. Outcome-driven approaches The first tendency within the outcome-driven approach maintains that the notions of ‘populism’ and ‘power’ are incompatible. Its foundational assumption is that populism is intrinsically an oppositional force and its survival rests purely on its antagonistic character. In other words, entry to institutions is regarded as cancelling the antagonistic dimension of populism by definition as populists surrender their anti-systemic and anti-establishment character. Even Laclau – a prominent advocate of progressive and democratic populism – characterises populism by its opposition to institutions. Institutions, he reasons, are grounded on the logic of difference (prioritising administrative control of politics, resolving particular demands in their specificity in order to avert alliance-building through other unsatisfied demands). Populism, by contrast, is grounded on the logic of equivalence, creating paratactical antagonisms between groups, demands and values and channelling popular frustration vertically from the bottom to the top. According to Laclau, when previously unmet demands are successfully addressed or absorbed by institutions of governance, populism’s dynamic disposition is neutralised (2005a:77, 81). Mény and Surel (2002:18) famously argued that ‘[p]opulist parties are by nature neither durable nor sustainable parties of government. Their fate is to be integrated into the mainstream, to disappear, or to remain permanently in opposition’. In a similar manner, Heinisch argued that populist parties ‘succeed in opposition and to do well at the game of elections. Once in government, their unique strengths turn into disadvantages. Significant structural weaknesses inherent in populist parties pose nearly insurmountable problems that make their long-term success in government questionable’ (2003:92). Likewise, Mudde (2017) ‘predicts’ (sic) that populism will consolidate into institutions of power; populist politicians will become conventional and populist parties will begin to mirror traditional ones. Perspectives of this kind are epitomised by a term ascribed to populism by Paul Taggart (2000:162): episodic. Taggart (2004:285) notes that, especially in Europe, the populist phenomenon seems ‘short-term’ with ‘limited potential’. He further elaborates that ‘populist politicians, movements and parties emerge and grow quickly and gain attention but find it difficult to sustain that momentum and therefore usually fade away’ (2002:270). Overall, populism is perceived as appearing at irregular intervals and having limited scope and duration. However, imagining populism solely as a counter-hegemonic force is not inconsequential. First, it implies that all oppositional forces are potentially populist just in virtue of being in opposition, and second, if populism is necessarily and solely an oppositional force, it cannot, by definition, exist in government. Critically, this approach is empirically unsubstantiated. Not only do the aforementioned frameworks fail to account for the veritable avalanche of populists in government in Latin America, but they could neither predict nor account for the ascendance – and ultimate electoral victory – of the Trump campaign in 2016 and several other populists in Europe, including SYRIZA.

Populism(s) in power 19 Against the tendency that anticipates the dissolution of populists during their transition from opposition to power, Müller argues that ‘[p]opulists can govern as populists’ (2016:4). He proposes that ‘populist governance exhibits three features: attempts to hijack the state apparatus, corruption and “mass clientelism” (trading material benefits or bureaucratic favours for political support by citizens who become the populists’ “clients”), and efforts systematically to suppress civil society’ (ibid.). For Müller, the essence of populist governance is the occupation of the state and the intimidation of political enemies (2016:45). In a similar vein, Pappas suggests that ‘without exception, populists in office have tried to enlarge the state and fill government jobs with political supporters in order to expand the populist leader and party’s control over crucial institutions’ (2019:73). For Pappas too, populists in power ‘colonise the state by appointing party loyalists at all levels of the state bureaucracy; . . . launch a massive assault on the liberal institutions; and . . . set up a new constitutional order that replaces institutions of horizontal accountability with other more vertical in nature’ (ibid.). ‘In the end’, Pappas argues, ‘populism may turn into outright autocracy’ (2019:74). Political theorist Nadia Urbinati’s position is similar: [p]opulism in power is an ideological construct that depicts only one part of the people as legitimate. Thus, once elected, the leader feels authorised to act unilaterally and make decisions without meaningful institutional consultation or mediations, while in permanent communication with the people outside the government, in order to reassure them that they are the master of the game while he is their knight. (Urbinati, 2019:120) The temptation of absolute power may indeed be a vice of some populists. But such a desire is not necessarily a desire of populists alone.1 Similarly, while populist actors are usually presented as those who intimidate political adversaries such as the media, anti-populist actors often seem just as capable of monstering their opponents through accusations, character assassination tactics and so on.2 Historian Federico Finchelstein (2017:247) places populism ‘somewhere between liberalism and fascism’ and argues that ‘populism is both historically and genetically linked to fascism’ (2017:251 [emphasis added]).3 Žižek (2018) sides with liberal anti-populists, claiming that populism is today’s opium for ‘the people’ and equates it with fascism (see Venizelos et al., 2019). Without downplaying populist instances of fascist politics, it is nonetheless critical to recognise the crucial differences between populism per se and fascism. As Ostiguy (2017:83) notes: First, populism displays its legitimacy through the repeated counting of votes, empirically ‘proving’ that the populist leader is ‘what the people want’. Fascism (a regime type) ends elections once it wins them;

20  Populism(s) in power populism appears to multiply them and often supplement them with referendums. Second, fascism tended to govern in a disciplined manner, from the state down. Populism is much more ambivalent: though it often uses the state apparatus with little délicatesse, it also fosters a myriad of not overly coordinated movements, organizations, circles, with a grassroots component. Potential hazards of populism in power must not be underestimated. Research has repeatedly underlined the negative impact the (populist) radical-right has on liberal democracies, human rights and basic freedoms (Akkerman, 2017). Nonetheless, this invites several further questions. First, does such analysis concern populist phenomena in the strict sense of the term, or are these actors merely framed as ‘populist’ because of the negative outcomes they have on institutions? Second, is the negative impact populist radical right parties inflict on liberal democracies a specific function of their populism, or rather of their nativism and/or authoritarianism? Third, are the effects of all populist phenomena equally negative to institutions and society, or are there other variants of populism that may have very different impacts on democracy? Analytically at least, one must distinguish populism from authoritarianism, nativism and so forth, as well as progressive from reactionary populist phenomena. Many of the authors who most urgently warn us against ‘the danger of populism’ are sympathetic to a fairly narrow liberal ideological paradigm; it is arguably their vision of democracy under threat, not democracy tout court. As Urbinati puts it, ‘the debate over the meaning of populism turns out to be a debate about the interpretation of democracy’ (1998:116). The final line of argumentation, which defines the phenomenon based on the observation of the outcomes and consequences of ‘populism’, risks becoming excessively teleological. Should outcomes and consequences be the starting point when approaching populism in government? To answer this question, it is necessary to first consider whether assaulting institutions and intimidating opponents is an exclusively populist feature and second, whether – in a Sartorian manner – the outcomes of ‘populism’ in power are necessary and sufficient conditions to classify a phenomenon as such. In Lyrintzis’ (1990) view, there may be evident consequences of populist politics in government germane to the aforementioned concerns; however, they are by no means constitutive characteristics of the phenomenon, neither in opposition nor consequently in power. Similarly, as Aslanidis (2020:68–69) observes, the sociopolitical output of populist mobilization is open-ended; it refuses to adhere to strict policy norms or to produce patterned outcomes as with an ideologically conscious program of action. Therefore, the continuities that other schools of thought indicate with regards to party organization, institutional break-down, and so on, are circumstantial artefacts that cannot be allowed definitional status.

Populism(s) in power 21 Paradoxically, while the populist phenomenon seems intrinsic to democratic politics (Canovan, 2005; Panizza, 2005; Laclau, 2005a), it is often framed as something that is both ‘anti-political’ (Taggart, 2000:5; Pasquino, 2008:21) and ‘blatantly anti-democratic’ (Müller, 2016:6). In cases where ‘populism in government’ is pejoratively connoted by association with authoritarian practices, negative consequences on the party system and so on, one risks conflating populism with other concepts such as authoritarianism. As Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser point out, ‘only a minority of strongmen are populists and only a minority of populists are strongmen’ (2017:63). In this sense, it is critical to rethink whether the very ontology of the political actor producing these changes is actually populist. 1.2.2. Policy-driven approaches The second prominent overarching tendency in the study of populism in power is to focus on the extent to which populists manage to implement their campaign promises. The first camp within this approach revolves around a widely endorsed prejudice that the ideas, visions and politics for which populists advocate are intrinsically illusory and unrealisable. A collection of essays written by Cas Mudde (2017) about the Greek left-populist party of SYRIZA carries the subtitle ‘The Failure of the Populist Promise’. Late political theorist and pioneer in the field Margaret Canovan (1999) suggested that when a populist actor ‘actually gets into power, its own inability to live up to its promises will be revealed’. Following suit, Mény and Surel (2002:18) argued that populists’ ‘weakness lies in the dream of an alternative form of democratic regime that they have been unable to articulate clearly, let alone establish’. The success or failure, continuity or discontinuity of populism in its transition from ‘challenger’ to ‘governor’ is often thought of in terms of policy implementation and is specifically determined through its ability or incapacity to realise its pre-electoral promises (see Sachs, 1989; Loew & Faas, 2019). Such a stance regrettably offers little for understanding populism, since it downplays contingent factors, such as institutional restrictions, external pressure, world economic developments, international affairs and so on; external to ‘populism’ but capable nonetheless of creating obstacles to the implementation of policies. Overemphasis on ‘populism’ as an explanation for nearly everything blurs the picture. Above all, populist politicians are not alone in failing to deliver on their promises; here they keep ample company with their non-populist counterparts. The forceful framing of populism as an unrealistic campaigning promise generates significant definitional problems. Populism is thereby conflated with ‘lies’, ‘manipulation’, ‘demagogy’, ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ (see Mercieca, 2019). Even Canovan’s (1999:9) more sober analysis associates populism with ‘redemptive democracy’ – a type of democracy hospitable to romanticism and juxtaposed to ‘pragmatic democracy’.4 Despite scholarly agreement on the

22  Populism(s) in power definitional criteria of populism (people-centrism/anti-elitism), connotations embedded in popular language about populism continue to shape the phenomenon’s meaning in the public sphere. In the dichotomy between realistic and unrealistic, rational and non-rational politics, populism is inevitably consigned to the latter side. The presumed ‘unavoidable failure’ of populists in power is belied by some exceptions provided in the existing literature. The second camp within the policyoriented tendency maintains that populists in government may be capable of drafting, legislating and implementing policy. In their empirically-oriented account, Albertazzi and McDonnell (2015) show that although short-lived experiences of populism in government are present, they are neither inevitably episodic nor necessarily destined to fail. On the contrary, many of these parties ‘have established structures and grassroots organisations that have remained in place for decades and are built to last beyond the current leadership’ (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015:3). Albertazzi and McDonnell (2015) show that populists in government are capable of drafting and implementing legislation that is closely proximate to their core ideological values. The experience of government need not inevitably augur electoral losses for populists, but perhaps even gains. Dissenting from the declaration that populism necessarily fails once in government, the authors show that populists are often able to seek and obtain re-election. Their answer to the question of populists’ viability in government is affirmative. However, the focus of their study centres on political actors’ programmatic promises rather than the people-centrism and anti-elitism that definitively classifies them as populists. A contradiction arises here. The basis of Albertazzi and McDonnell’s argument depends on the extent to which the experience of government ‘corrupts’ populists’ ideological core. However, does the ideological-programmatic core in fact define a phenomenon as populist? As Mudde has repeatedly argued, populism does not constitute a fully-fledged ideology but rather something that is ‘easily combined with very different (thin and full) other ideologies’ (e.g. socialism) (2004:544). Similarly, in the Essex School’s terms, populism is articulated with non-populist elements and political programmes (De Cleen et al., 2018; Panizza, 2008). In this sense, by focusing on the ‘thick core’ to which populism is attached, the focus of analysis lies not in the transformations of populism itself but the transformations of its ‘host’ ideology. Without downgrading the importance of analysing how populists in government engage with policy processes and examining the results, what Albertazzi and McDonnell (2015) essentially investigate is not what defines a party as populist. Rather, they investigate what makes a party right or left, conservative or socialist, inclusionary or exclusionary and egalitarian or xenophobic. Essentially, such a policy-driven approach that focuses on the degrees of moderation/radicalisation of political actors may be able to determine whether populists perform in line with their ideology but not whether they remain populists. The policy-driven approach principally studies the politics of the left–right axis as opposed to that of the ‘populist

Populism(s) in power 23 axis’, i.e. the juxtaposition of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. As a consequence, this approach strays from the defining locus (‘the form’) of populism. The effect of this shift from the form to the contents of populism can be observed in the paradigm of so-called ‘economic populism’. The term appeared in academic, political and pundit discourse cyclically; initially, to counter waves of Latin American populism (see Dornbusch & Edwards, 1991) resulting in the association of populism with clientelism (Mouzelis, 1985); then re-emerging in the post-2008 framework of Western politics (see Eichengreen, 2018) to associate populism with reckless economics, and juxtapose it to ‘pragmatism’ and ‘stability’ as political rhetoric connoting the ‘calm’ forces of the establishment (Acemoglu et al., 2013; Eichengreen, 2018; Guiso et al., 2017; Schrager & Bayrasli, 2019). Yet, as Aslanidis observes, from as early as the mid-1990s, ‘influential scholars of Latin American populism such as Roberts (1995) and Weyland (1996) decided to break ranks with economists to dismiss profligate economic policy as a defining characteristic of populism’ (2017:276–277). Bartha et al. (2020) focus on the ‘features of populist policy making’, thereby constructing a typology of populist decision-making in government. Unlike other researchers, who focus on the substantive content of populists’ policy, Bartha et al. (2020) draw on the central discursive components of ‘populism’ (people/elite). Theoretically, this secures the coherence of the concept (which is rarely even desired in other approaches). If there is indeed a populist type of policy, it will not be found in its substantive content, but in some formal underlying structure that pits materially, politically and symbolically excluded subjects against a self-serving class, or the establishment. But this logic can easily resemble that of socialism, and if this is the case – if populism resembles another political logic  – then it loses its specificity and usefulness. Furthermore, the ideal type of populist policy Bartha et al. (2020) develop suggests that populists adopt ‘paradigmatic reforms’ and show ‘excessive responsiveness’. Not only does this fail to escape populism’s conventional association with clientelism and demagogy, but moreover, the assumption that populists pursue ‘heterodox policies’ frames populists as ‘exceptional actors’, which itself amplifies their perceived extraordinariness and, perhaps, dangerousness. One aspect that could arguably be populist about a specific set of policies would be the manner of performative actions and narratives accompanying them while attempting to persuade the electorate to support a (potentially nonpopulist) policy via antagonistic division of society between those at ‘the bottom’ versus those at ‘the top’. Overall, the policy-oriented approach to populism is generally concerned with the capacity of a political actor to implement its promises and the extent to which it diverges from them, rather than whether and how much the effect of power has corrupted its populist identity. Evaluating populism by its policy outputs has several conceptual ramifications. As was shown, the concept may be ultimately reduced to manipulation and demagogy while the dichotomy between populism and pragmatism/rationality is sustained, as though

24  Populism(s) in power non-populist actors never court risk in governance. Per Laclau (1977, 2005b) and Canovan (1999), the study of populism requires a shift of attention from policy and ideology (content) to form: the people-centric/anti-elitist structure that defines the phenomenon (see also Mudde, 2004). Crucially, the approaches scrutinised earlier present certain limitations with important implications for the study of populism in power. Comparing these positions reveals that the attributes ascribed to populism are neither exclusive to nor constitutive of the phenomenon itself. It becomes clear that the aforementioned approaches render certain analytical inconsistencies visible, engaging with other concepts which are distinct from populism. The inconsistency takes place due to a shift from the form of populism to its contents or outcomes. 1.2.3.  Definitional issues: between populism and anti-populism As argued in the introduction of this book, in order to rethink the notion of populism in power and study its transition from opposition to government, one must first reflect on the very notion of populism. The analytical disunity identified earlier is arguably rooted in the normatively-loaded theorisations of populism and the profoundly anti-populist point of departure in academic, expert, political and public discussion (Stavrakakis, 2014; Moffitt, 2018; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). Although the field has nominally attained greater consensus on the operational definition of populism as revolving around ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ (see Weyland, 2001; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Caiani & Graziano, 2019), little else is agreed. The genus et differentia ascribed to populism (i.e. ideology, strategy, discourse) and its embedded epistemological assumptions influence the way the phenomenon is studied and ultimately talked about. Although differences between the different approaches to populism may seem insignificant or trivial to readers unfamiliar with the literature, they burden the topic with crucial implications on all theoretical, normative, methodological and empirical levels of analysis (Katsambekis, 2020). Advocates of the ideational approach frame populism as the opposite of pluralism (Mudde, 2004:543; Müller, 2016:81), while Pappas (2019) frames it as fundamentally ‘illiberal’. The view that ‘the people’ are always framed as ‘homogenous’ and ‘pure’ (Mudde, 2004) is indeed rooted in the fact that populism scholarship has so far predominantly focused on the right-wing manifestations currently thriving in the European context (see Ignazi, 1992; Betz, 1994; Ivarsflaten, 2005; Caiani & Della Porta, 2012). As a consequence, ‘region-specific manifestations of populism are erroneously promoted to defining properties of supposedly general applicability’ (Aslanidis, 2017:268). By ignoring a multitude of pluralistic, inclusionary, democratic and progressive populist phenomena on the political left, the geographically confined understanding of populism results in its nearly-exclusive association with nationalism, authoritarianism, the extreme right, racism and so on (van Kessel, 2015).5 Properties such as ‘moralism’ and ‘purity’ are critically regarded as ‘misleading positives’ (Ostiguy, 2017:91) which not only stretch the definition of

Populism(s) in power 25 populism (Aslanidis, 2015) but also influence how it is talked and thought about. Most crucially, such a point of departure preconditions negative expectations about the future of ‘populism in power’. As shown in the overview of the outcome-oriented approach, mainstream accounts expect populists to exhibit hostility towards minorities and political institutions (Abts & Rummens, 2007; Havlik, 2017; Rummens, 2017; Galston et al., 2018). Ernesto Laclau argued that ‘political practices do not express the nature of social agents but instead, constitute the latter’ (2005:33). Laclau gives ontological priority to the practices over the agent. In the process of classifying populism and populism in power, it is precisely the discursive actions, strategies and tactics of the actors that disclose the latter as populist or not. Correspondingly, it is not the actor that classifies a practice as populist. The mere application of the label ‘populist’ to an actor does not guarantee that its practices are or continue to be populist when in power. Needless to say, such an application very often functions as a political trope of anti-populist discourse, calculated by the labeller to differentiate themselves by delegitimising their enemies (Panizza & Stavrakakis, 2021). Conversely, if certain practices (policy failure or authoritarianism and corruption) are casually referred to as populist, this does not make the actor a populist. The study of populism in government presupposes knowledge of what populism before power looks like. As such, in order to study how populism changes in its moments of transition from opposition to power, one must begin at the beginning: the juxtaposition of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. The advancements that the discourse-theoretical perspective offered to the field of populism research allow one to evade the dangers of essentialism amply displayed earlier. Furthermore, discourse theory offers a close-up into the processes through which collective identities (such as ‘the people’ or ‘the nation’) are constructed and allows one to examine which political frontiers are placed between differential identities and how (Laclau  & Mouffe, 2014 [1985]; Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000). The analytical focus shifts from the ‘essential’ contents of political discourses (which ideology? which policy? which demands?) to the logic of articulation of those contents (how are these demands brought together?) (De Cleen et al., 2018). As such, this move allows one to determine the nature and orientation of populism. Drawing on discursive and performative perspectives (Laclau, 1977; Stavrakakis, 2017; Ostiguy et al., 2021a), this research conceptualises populism as a mode of political identification that constructs a collective identity in the name of ‘the people’ counterposed to an ‘other’ (the establishment or the elite) through discursive interpellation and affective investment. An approach of this kind does not reduce populist discourse to words and rhetoric. Instead, it revolves around an ontological understanding of populism highlighting the performative function of political discourse in mobilising affects, establishing ‘unexpected alliances’ and constructing antagonistic popular subjectivities (Howarth, 2000; Venizelos, 2021). Thus, the changes of populism in power are to be found in the continuities and discontinuities, fluctuations, changes, or

26  Populism(s) in power perhaps even in the cessation of such political performance, and its ability to interpellate collective identities, the populist actor is in government. For Laclauians and their allies, populism amounts to a particular logic of the political. This aids in the differentiation of populism from other phenomena, such as nationalism, with which the former is often conflated (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017). Given the ubiquity of the nation-state, ‘the people’ and ‘the nation’ have been closely articulated throughout history. As such cases of nationalist populism are not rare. It can therefore be acknowledged that ‘the people’ is a central signifier in both populism and nationalism (Anastasiou, 2020). However, it must be remembered that ‘political discourses emanate from a terrain of cultural sediments that mobilise resources such as memory and historical legacies embedded in the nation-state’ (Venizelos, 2022:800). Despite this superficial proximity between populism and nationalism, the logic that interpellates the subjects of each discourse exhibits profound differences (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017). At least at the conceptual level, the two phenomena must be distinguished in order to avoid the empirical, normative and analytical pitfalls reviewed in the previous sections. From a discursive point of view, ‘the people’ functions as the organising principle in populist discourse, while ‘the nation’ functions as the ‘organising principle’ in nationalist discourse. In De Cleen & Stavrakakis’ (2017:8) words, nationalism is ‘envisaged as a limited and sovereign community that exists through time and is tied to a certain space, and that is constructed through an in/out opposition between the nation and its out-groups’. This implies a membership based on race and blood, or at least on the physical territory. Populism, on the other hand, is structured ‘along the lines of a down/up antagonism in which “the people” is discursively constructed as a large powerless group through opposition to “the elite” conceived as a small and illegitimately powerful group’ (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017:8). In the case of populism then, the status of ‘the people’ is that of politically subaltern, marginalised or excluded subject – an underdog so to speak – and not necessarily an ethnos (i.e. a pure or homogenous entity). The enemy is not defined in ethnic terms, as it is in nationalism, and it is not excluded from within ‘the people’. In a way, ‘the people’ of populism exhibits some republican inflection in the sense that it assumes the role of a demos. In reiterating the thesis of Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (1977), Laclau (2005a:74) maintains that populism is grounded on ‘the formation of an internal antagonistic frontier separating “people” from power’. Peoplecentrism signifies the primacy of ‘the people’ as the collective identity serving as the political agent for social change.6 ‘The people’ functions as a nodal point – ‘a point of reference around which other peripheral and often politically antithetical signifiers and ideas can be articulated’ (Panizza & Stavrakakis, 2021:25) – and from which a particular political discourse is organised, thereby obtaining its meaning. From a discourse-theoretical perspective, ‘the people’ necessarily functions as an empty signifier (Laclau, 1996): the subject of populism is voided of all essences, positive/negative, as these are

Populism(s) in power 27 context-dependent (e.g. history, culture, legacy, memory) and actor-dependent (left/right). Thus, the collective subject becomes a terrain for re-articulation and redefinition by various socio-political imaginaries that attempt to establish their own hegemony. Anti-elitism refers to the construction of an antagonistic frontier that dichotomises the socio-political field and therefore structures political conflict into two antagonistic camps, ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. These two signifiers obtain their content from the referent actor who articulates the type of inclusion and exclusion that is to take place. For instance, one side may be styled ‘the majority’, ‘the unrepresented’ or ‘the 99%’, while the other – an ‘illegitimate’ or a ‘nefarious minority’ – may go by ‘the political establishment’, ‘the elite’, ‘the 1%’, ‘la casta’ and so on. In left-wing populisms, ‘the banks’, ‘the financial sector’, ‘the oligarchy’ and ‘the Eurocrats’ are commonly found in leftist descriptions of ‘the other’; in Latin American and Southern European (left) ‘patriotic populisms’ or inclusionary nationalist populisms, the enemy may appear under the banner of ‘American imperialism’, ‘the IMF’ or ‘Germany’. In right-wing populisms, a triadic structure prevails since ‘the establishment’ is blamed for allowing ‘ethnic others’ such as immigrants and refugees to suppress the rights and enjoyment of ‘the true people’(Judis, 2016).7 Using a similar logic, one could distinguish left- from right-populist phenomena by threading a knot between Bobbio’s (1996) classificatory criterion of ‘equality’, Alessandro Pizzorno’s (1993) inclusion/exclusion criterion and Dani Filc’s (2010) material, political and symbolic dimensions. Evidently, subjects are included or excluded from the collective ‘we’ according to the ethical-political visions articulated by political actors who advocate a particular societal order. Importantly though, in populist representations, ‘the people’ take the status of ‘excluded and underprivileged plebs’, which claim to be a legitimate community of ‘the people’ and the ‘democratic sovereign’ (Laclau, 2005a:81, 94, 98). The differences between types of populisms resonate with Casullo’s (2020a) distinction between upward-punching and downward-punching populisms: [w]hen punching upward, the elite is mainly defined in economic and financial terms: they are the wealthy, the capitalist, the rich and powerful of the country. When punching downward, the elite is described as an alliance between ‘high’, ‘leftist’, ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘intellectual’ groups (such as college professors or journalists) with ‘low’ religious or ethnic ‘foreigners’ that come from outside to threaten the unity and purity of the people. (Casullo, 2020a:31) All these distinctions echo Laclau’s argument that the logic of populism ‘is not to be found in any political or ideological content entering into the description of the practices of any particular group but in a particular mode of articulation of whatever social, political or ideological contents’ (Laclau, 2005b:34).

28  Populism(s) in power The existence of multiple socio-political antagonisms which result in a heterogeneous social terrain led Laclau to argue that the ultimate closure (qua homogeneity) of ‘the social’ is impossible (Laclau, 1990).8 This incomplete and open character in the social structure enables counter-hegemonic articulations to intervene, competing for hegemony (Laclau  & Mouffe, 1985). Of course, populism does not appear in vacuum. Scholars agree about the intimate relationship the phenomenon maintains with ‘crisis’(Kriesi, 2015; Knight, 1998; Roberts, 2015; Caiani & Padoan, 2021). As Panizza (2005:9) asserts, political mobilisation may ‘emerge out of the failure of existing social and political institutions to confine and regulate subjects into a relatively stable social order’. Similarly, for Laclau, ‘crisis’ lies ‘at the root of any populist, antiinstitutional outburst’ (Laclau, 2005b:137). Surely the relationship between the two is not causal but performative (Stavrakakis et al., 2017). In this respect, ‘an equivalential articulation of demands mak[es] the emergence of the “people” possible’ (Laclau, 2005a:74). The equivalential process pursues ‘the establishment of linkages between a series of initially heterogeneous unsatisfied demands, which enter into relations of equivalence thus forming a collective identity . . . through opposition towards a common enemy (the power bloc, the establishment)’ (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014:123).9

1.3. Populism as a collective identity Building on the discursive approach to populism outlined in the previous section, this section of the chapter is dedicated to advancing an alternative strategy for the study of populism power by bringing into the analysis some aspects of populism that seem core, albeit overlooked by mainstream accounts. These are related to the performative function of populism to generate affects and therefore collective identifications. 1.3.1. The performative function of populism Benjamin Moffitt ‘moves from seeing populism as a particular “thing” or entity towards viewing it as a political style that is performed, embodied and enacted’ (2016:3). In this sense, populism is not something that is, but something that is done. This anti-essentialist remedy is highly compatible with the approach of the Essex School as it aligns with its core argument that discourse comprises not only linguistic but also non-linguistic elements (see Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000). Ernesto Laclau’s (2005a:18) argument that populism ‘is a performative act endowed within a rationality of its own’ further underscores the affinities of the two approaches. It can be said that the performative lens can ‘practically’ demonstrate the allegedly abstract theorisations of the Essex School, thereby expanding the scope of meaning for ‘discursive practices’. The antagonism between a ‘people’ and an ‘elite’ is not real, but symbolic. In Moffitt’s stylistic approach, populist performances are defined as ‘repertoires of embodied, symbolically mediated performance made to audiences

Populism(s) in power 29 that are used to create and navigate the fields of power that comprise the political, stretching from the domain of government to everyday life’ (2016:153). Acts and gestures, symbols and aesthetics, ‘bad manners’ (Moffit, 2016) and ‘demeanours’ (Ostiguy, 2017) are intrinsically tied to the political spectacle which, of course, operates within the realm of discourse. Vision is not independent from discourse but rather mediated by it. Images convey messages which are rooted in a pre-existing culturally related context; the processing of those images is filtrated by the very same meaning that is shared and structured in the form of language (Venizelos, 2020:51). In highlighting the material (qua constitutive) function of discourse, Laclau (2005a:12) maintained that ‘if through rhetorical operations they managed to constitute broad popular identities which cut across many sectors of the population, they actually constituted populist subjects, and there is no point in dismissing this as mere rhetoric’. Ostiguy et al. (2021a:6) also agree that ‘performative presence and operations contribute to the actual creation of the equivalential chain, creating popular political identification in the process’. Clearly, if ‘words’ and ‘gestures’ have the institutive power to articulate and construct political identity, this further recommends the transfer of attention from the content of discourse to its actual function. Symbols, music, manners and so forth receive their meaning through historically and politically conditioned norms that are already shared by the community. As Grattan (2016:12) puts it, ‘social imaginaries are not simply ideas. They are produced by and inhabit an array of technologies, institutions and everyday practices; broad discourse and local idioms’. From sender (the populist) to receiver (the people), discourse is the mediating bridge that transmits political messages, often bidirectionally, and signals the pulse of political emotions and shifting political master frames in response to popular demand. Performativity, defined either as a style or rhetoric, has a constitutive role in collective identities. This is a praxis marked not by ‘properness’ and formality, but rather by informality and transgression. The informal stands in many ways as substantive content for both proximity and antagonism to a certain kind of establishment. Indeed, populism’s transgressive nature sets itself up in a clearly antagonistic relationship towards more ‘proper’ ways of doing politics, as well as proving it is bona fide in terms of proximity to the ‘real’ people. (Ostiguy et al., 2021a:5) Beyond political programmes, strictly speaking, populists symbolise an opposition to political, social, cultural and legal norms and taboos. Transgressive performances violate norms and question symbolic and moral authorities when these have been delegitimised by society (Venizelos, 2022). Aiolfi (2022:6–7) highlights that transgression is ‘an extremely versatile concept that encompasses a multiplicity of disruptive practices situated in the specific political context where they take place’ which include ‘(1) performances disrupting

30  Populism(s) in power interactional norms, (2) performances disrupting rhetoric norms and (3) performances disrupting theatrical norms’ (Aiolfi, 2022:7). Ostiguy (2017) conceives of this performative antagonism in a spatio-dimensionally relational manner. He conceptualises socio-political space orthogonally, with a high/low axis bisecting a left/right axis. In his view, the high/low axis is perhaps more concrete than the left/right axis.10 The high–low axis ‘has to do with ways of being and acting in politics [and ways of] relating to people; as such, they go beyond “discourses” as words. They certainly include issues of accent, levels of language, body language, gestures, and ways of dressing’ (Ostiguy, 2017:77). The socio-cultural component of political identification ‘encompasses manners, demeanours, ways of speaking and dressing, vocabulary and tastes displayed in the public’ (Ostiguy, 2017:79). These are ‘public manifestations of recognisably social aspects of the self in society (as well as of its desires) that contribute to creating a social sense of trust based on an assumption of sameness, or coded understanding’ (2017:81): On the high, politicians are ‘well behaved, proper, composed, and perhaps even bookish. Moreover, politicians on the high are often “wellmannered”, perhaps even polished, in public self-presentation, and tend to use either a rationalist (at times replete with jargon) or ethically oriented discourse. Negatively, they can appear as stiff, rigid, serious, colo[u]rless, somewhat distant, and boring’. On the low, ‘people frequently use a language that includes slang or folksy expressions and metaphors, are more demonstrative in their bodily or facial expressions as well as in their demeano[u]r, and display more raw, culturally popular tastes. They appear – to the observer on the high – as more “colourful” and, in the more extreme cases, somewhat grotesque, more direct, improvisational and politically incorrect’. (Ostiguy, 2017:78; emphasis added) The politico-cultural component, cutting diagonally from top-left to bottom right, ‘is about forms of political leadership and advocated models of decisionmaking in the polity’. On the high, ‘political appeals consist of claims to favour formal, impersonal, legalistic, institutionally mediated models of authority’ (Ostiguy, 2017:81). It favours institutionally mediated authority, rules and procedures (Roberts & Ostiguy, 2016:31). ‘The high’ then claims to represent and pursue normality and continuity. The low pole claims to be closer to ‘the people’ (2017:82); the actor claims to be ‘one of ours’ (2017:77).11 In Moffit’s (2016:57) terms, populist politicians disregard ‘appropriate ways’ of acting on a political stage, as they often perform ‘bad manners’. Notwithstanding the usefulness of the socio-cultural and stylistic approaches in distinguishing between ‘a style like that of the elites’ and ‘a style like that of the people’, their potential ramifications demand further attention. First, the high/low relation implies a hierarchy based on certain qualities – ‘ordinary and extraordinary’ and ‘conventional and exceptional’ – which may reduce

Populism(s) in power 31 populism to something alien to politics, a risk that may further mystify populism and reinvigorate the conventional anti-populist framing already discussed. Second, if regarded as ‘the low of politics’, ‘bad manners’ ‘masculinist’ and ‘improper’, populism may be further imagined as ‘unsophisticated’ or ‘inferior’. Third, populism as ‘low’ may be equated with the similar but distinct styles of demotic and popular (yet not populist) politics (see Venizelos, 2022, in press).12 Third, taken literally, ‘bad manners’ and ‘transgression’ may reinvigorate the anti-populist narrative that populists are necessarily a threat to democracy. 1.3.2.  Affect Politics is not only driven reason but also by affect. To recognise this is not to distinguish13 reason from emotion, but rather to emphasise that the semantic/ performative act of naming presupposes an affective investment. The fact that even today ‘emotions’ are largely disregarded in the dominant social-scientific paradigm (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2008; Cossarini & Vallespín, 2019)14 depreciates or even demonises the inextricable link between representation, affect and populism. This in turn disregards the agency of ‘the people’ in the affective relationship (Venizelos, 2022). Dean and Maiguashca (2020:3) report that ‘Mudde even goes so far as to say that what separates latent populist followers from other “protest prone” groups is “their reactiveness: they generally have to be mobilized by a populist actor, rather than taking the initiative themselves” ’ (Mudde, 2004:548). Mudde’s assumption downplays the role agency and desire play in mobilisations, collapsing populism into a top-down phenomenon and paving the way for an underlying normative association between populism, demagoguery and manipulation. This research studies populism relationally, ‘as a two-way street in which leaders of political parties and social movements as well as grassroots activists all participate in the construction of, and mobilize around, a shared political project’(Dean & Maiguashca, 2020). Taking relationality seriously has important implications for the study of populism in that it prioritises those who are supposedly central to the analysis of populism: ‘the people’. As Ostiguy et al. (2021a:3–4) put it, ‘[s]cholars in our tradition have always been puzzled by the lack of attention, if not straight disinterest . . . [as to] . . . what makes those followers actually follow [populist leaders], and often over a very long period of time and with a strong sense of loyalty’. Discursive operations, including rhetorical and performative acts, play an important role in structuring socio-political reality (Stavrakakis, 1999). It activates not only sentiments such as ressentiment and nostalgia but also euphoria and hope (Demertzis, 2013), and it draws individuals towards identification with slogans, flags, bodily performances and, of course, political actors (Casullo, 2020b). In psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and political science, as well as pundit repertoires, plenty of terms belonging to the general category of ‘emotions’ are used metonymically to signify that ‘internal force’

32  Populism(s) in power which drives individuals or collectives towards social mobilisation. Especially in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, terms such as ‘[popular] discontent’, ‘[political] alienation’, ‘indignation’, ‘frustration’, ‘antipathy’ or even ‘hatred’ towards political elites abounded. According to Demertzis (2013:15) though, ‘these terms are generic affective categories which may capture a variety of specific emotions’ rather than producing a general theory of affective mobilisation suitable for political analysis at the micro-level. The notion of ressentiment may open new paths in populism research, as it can be understood as a crucial driving force challenging political affects, interpellating and mobilising subaltern subjectivities. Following Nietzsche (2007), ressentiment refers to the acknowledgement of inferiority – for example, that of the slave in relation to the master, who leads an ‘evil’ way of life. A similar argument can be found in Weber who argued that ‘the unequal distribution of mundane goods is caused by the sinfulness and the illegality of the privileged’ (Weber, 1993:10) (Weber, 1993:10). Ressentiment may be the force of ‘chronic reliving of repressed and endless vindictiveness, hostility, envy, and indignation due to the self-perceived powerlessness of the subject expressing them’ (Demertzis, 2013:41). It is onto such terrain that populist mobilisation takes its first steps, tapping into and perhaps emancipating repressed affects (emancipatory or reactionary). An account of moral politics, as laid out by E.P. Thompson (1971), provides a crucial tool for the analysis of collective behaviour on these grounds. It maintains that grievances emerge when the popular consensus over the norms and obligations of a social community is breached. Lacanian psychoanalytic theory may prove useful to further deepen one’s understanding of processes of interpellation and mobilisation of subjectivities.15 If Lacan had been a thinker of populism, he would likely have declared that ‘the people do not exist!’. For him, the subject is never full or complete: it is the subject of lack. ‘The lack’ can never be filled; thus, identity is always impossible, incomplete and unstable (Lacan, 2015 [1960–1961]). This impossibility of fullness is often experienced as loss of the object that fixes identity. However, constitutive failure (a marker of difference) is psycho-socially productive (Stavrakakis, 2007) since ‘the subject consists in the coherence of a forced lack’ (Bosteels, 2002:185). The lack coexists with attempts to fill it, thus functioning as a locus for temporal, partial and always unstable identifications (Laclau, 1990:60), including ‘the people’ (as well as ‘the nation’, etc.). In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud (1991 [1921]) suggests that collective identifications are grounded in a libidinal erotic bond organised around the mobilisation of affects. This is what Lacanians would later refer to as ‘politics of enjoyment’, placing desire at the centre of subject formation (Zicman de Barros, 2021). Žižek, among others, argues that ‘the subject when in the thrall of a certain ideology, derives “surplus-enjoyment” from its symbolic and imaginary identifications’ (Žižek, 1989:125), because, in a way, politics ‘is nothing else than the – impossible, but necessary – attempt to institutionalize lack’ (Marchart, 2005:24).

Populism(s) in power 33 Collective identity formation is achieved through acts of performative repetition around which communities organise their enjoyments (Butler, 1988). In Laclau’s (2005a:27) words, repetition plays a multiplicity of roles in shaping social relations . . . it makes possible a community’s adjustment to its milieu; [a social group] acquires a sense of its own identity; through the presence of a set of rituals institutional arrangements, broad images and symbols, community acquires a sense of its temporal continuity. Butler maintained that bodies in protest play an important performative role in the process of subjectivity creation. In Rancière’s (1999) thought, protesting subjects are seen as the ‘unrepresented part’ laying claim to representation. Staging a claim is an act that renders the non-part visible (a political subject, so to speak). Populism’s attempt to represent the unrepresented and address perceived inequality resembles Honneth’s (1996) notion of recognition. Through affective acts, a sense of belonging (‘we-ness’) is constructed and the gap of impossibility in the structure of the subject is (thought to be) filled with the assistance of fantasmatic and symbolic resources that mobilise enjoyment (jouissance). Filling the gap at the collective level speaks to the idea of creating an ego ideal in relation to which members of the collective community identify (Freud, 1991[1921]). This is what Žižek (1995:192) refers to as the ‘beatific’ side of fantasy ‘a stabilising dimension, which is governed by the dream of a state without disturbances’. The fantasy of fullness cannot be reduced to an illusion though: it is a necessary precondition of socialisation, a structure for socio-political reality (Stavrakakis, 1999). As far as affect concerns populism, processes of political identification with ‘the self’ and against ‘the other’ point to what Žižek (1995:192) refers to as fantasy’s second, ‘destabilising dimension, whose elementary form is envy. It encompasses all that “irritates” me about the Other’. This resonates with Lacan’s (2014 [1963]) idea that enjoyment/desire is rooted in the desire to desire the other’s enjoyment. ‘The other’ – ‘the political establishment’, ‘the political adversary, ‘political class’, ‘the elite’ in populist ressentiment, or ‘the foreigner’, ‘the immigrant’, ‘the intruder’ in nationalist ressentiment – is perceived as stealing ‘the people’s’ or ‘the nation’s’ rightful enjoyment (cf. Miller, 1994; Žižek, 1995). Through politics and policies implemented by central powers and institutions (e.g. austerity measures or liberal immigration policies), the political caste is seen as taking away an ‘original state’ (a glorious past or a promised destiny) closely related to the fantasmatic idealisation of ‘the self’ and, by extension, society and community (Stavrakakis, 2007; Žižek, 1989). Collective communities rely on horizontal member-to-member bonds and vertical bonds between members and leadership. These, in turn, depend on collective narcissism (Lacan, 2006): an idealisation of the self that maintains bonds between subjects (Volkan, 2004). ‘Prohibition’, the theft of enjoyment

34  Populism(s) in power (i.e. the inability to fully enjoy one’s supposed identity), is critical for political identification, as it releases affective force potent enough to mobilise political desire towards the construction of collective affectivities (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2008). As long as challenger actors, in this case, populists, can convince ‘the people’ that they are one with them and against ‘the elites’ – that they can restore ‘the original promise’ – negative identification against ‘the elites’ (ressentiment) can be renovated into positive identification towards the populist leader or ideal (Venizelos et al., 2019). Borrowing Freud’s (1985) notion of the ‘return of the repressed’ for the purpose of political analysis, Mouffe (2005) argued that suppression of political conflict and demands by post-political and technocratic governments were followed by the ‘return of the political’; the revival of political antagonism as a collective demand for representation. Such appropriation cannot be absented from the context of populism. Stavrakakis (2014) spoke of the ‘return of the people’: the underdog who demands the restoration of democracy, however, defined. Although ‘populism’ is commonly treated as a monist category – and as a result, distinct varieties are disregarded – socio-political fantasies and desires (the supposed original state to be restored) vary typologically.16 They range from ‘national purity’ in nationalist narratives to ‘popular sovereignty’ in populist ones and many others. ‘In the case of populism, “the elites” are understood to be taking away satisfaction from “the people” and depriving them of their enjoyment of an original state (qua fantasy) closely attached to, and constitutive of, their identity’ (Venizelos, 2022:803). Needless to say, there is no clear-cut categorisation or translation of this notion into the left/right axis. Neither nationalism nor populism are exclusive properties of the right or left; similarly, closure can be observed in both. ‘The distinction between idealization and sublimation – that is, the distinction between the dynamics of desire and the drive, respectively – marks the distinction between anti-democratic and democratic modes of political mobilization’ (Zicman de Barros, 2021:5192w). Idealisation refers to a state in which ‘one is trapped in the metonymy of desire, passing from one idealized semblant of [the object of desire] that promises an impossible full enjoyment to another in an endless cycle’ (Zicman de Barros, 2021:519). On the contrary, in sublimation, the object is just a support and not the aim of the subject. What is at stake in sublimation is the satisfaction produced by repeatedly contouring the object, without actually grasping it. As a result, in sublimation one is dealing with a kind of satisfaction from what is destined to dissatisfaction (ibid). In the latter case then, collective subjectivities are not only in a position to recognise, but also to embrace, impossibility (Table 1.1). In anti-democratic (often but not exclusively nativist) imaginaries, the inability to register identity in the realm of impossibility disregards difference and the limits of objectivity and produces a hermetically closed notion of ‘we’(Laclau  & Mouffe, 1985). A  perceived ‘other’  – a foreign nation, an

Populism(s) in power 35 Table 1.1  Sublimation and idealisation Sublimation Idealisation

Accepts impossibility of closure Does not accept the impossibility of closure

Democratic affects Anti-democratic affects

Table based on Zicman De Barros (2021).

Table 1.2  Democratic and anti-democratic affects Anti-democratic affects Democratic affects

Sacrifice ‘the other’ who steals enjoyment Sacrifice desire

Inward-looking Outward-looking

Table based on Stavrakakis (2007)

immigrant, an intruder in general terms – is perceived as responsible for the theft of enjoyment, which is thus experienced as partially prohibiting the satisfaction of fully experiencing one’s identity (Žižek, 1989:47–50). This is often evident in right-wing and nationalist narratives’ recourse to a sense of nostalgia. The inability to mourn (the loss of identity, the decline of the nation, etc.) blocks the psycho-dynamically transformative processes of collective subjectivity. It gives space to a manic reaction that descends into melancholy: a stuck, isolated and backward-looking emotional state which in turn fuels resentment (Gibson-Graham, 2006). Such affects are most commonly evident in radicalised versions of right-wing politics, and these often take the form of nostalgic and authoritarian mobilisations. ‘[F]ar from being antithetical to jouissance, democratic subjectivity is capable of inspiring high passions’ too (Stavrakakis, 2007:278). However, democratic affects are profoundly dissimilar to regressive ones. ‘A community that embraces an ethics of radical democracy . . . is one which traverses fantasy and, instead of being lured by idealized objects promising to cope with subjective lack, accepts this subjective lack and finds ways to enjoy it’ (Zicman de Barros, 2021:519). In contrast to the blocked jouissance described earlier, democratic passions extend beyond ‘accumulation, domination and fantasy’ since enjoyment is centred around the non-whole (Table 1.2). ‘This is clearly the Lacanian orientation’, Stavrakakis (2007:278) argues. In his words, ‘Lacan directly connects the signifier of the lack in the Other – the radical, non-foundational foundation of democracy – with another (feminine) jouissance, situated on ‘the side of the not-whole’. ‘[T]his alternative mode of jouissance’, he goes on, ‘traverses the fantasy and encircles its own partiality: partial enjoyment involves enjoying one’s lack – what one doesn’t have, not what one does have’ (Stavrakakis, 2007:278–279). 1.3.3.  Studying populism in power through the discursive/ performative lenses The previous two subsections defined populism as an affectively constituted collective identity constructed through discursive/performative operations.

36  Populism(s) in power This subsection argues that the transformations of populism in power are relevant to how populists speak and act in government, how people identify with them (indicating whether populist ideas resonate with the public) and, above all, how a sense of community is constructed in a relational manner. Thus, one needs to reconsider the transformations that populism undergoes in power by placing ‘the logic of political articulation in the experience of populist governmentality, especially when it is traversed by affects and leadership’ at the centre of the analysis (Biglieri & Cadahia, 2021:64). Following this logic, Biglieri and Cadahia (2021:67) invite us to consider the possibility of a populist institutionality built by “those on the bottom”[;] [o]ne that incorporates the contentious dimension of equivalential logic to compete with those on top for these same (oligarchic or popular) state forms. In other words, the state (and institutions) become another antagonistic space in the dispute between those on the bottom and those on top. Thus, returning to an interpretation (à la Essex School) of the minimal definition, the way to study institutionalised populism is by focusing on the societal antagonism that it agitates and the forms of political organisation for which it advocates. Do populists continue to construct ‘the people’ antagonistically against ‘the elite’? Does their discourse consistently revolve around notions of popular sovereignty? Do they continue to perform on the socio-cultural low? Do they continue to mobilise the people affectively? These questions are fundamental to the study of populism in government. They emanate from the conceptual core of populism and seek to examine the phenomenon’s transformations in its transition from opposition to power by securing analytical coherence rather than stretching for it. The focus of the analysis therefore lies in populists’ ability to pursue, or maintain, antiestablishment repertoires from the position of institutions via convincingly presenting themselves as outsiders and simultaneously interpellating a collective popular subject of the excluded many through the effective affective conditioning. There are many ways to observe the repertoires of populism in power. As has been argued throughout, these do not necessarily reside either in the outcomes or in the policies of populists, but rather in the variety of performative operations, often thought of as ‘flaunting the low’, which are evident in populist actors’ discourse and style. These comprise rhetoric as well as their general habitus, their campaigning methods and strategies embedded in technologies of diffusion that can be both physical and digital. That we have criticised existing accounts and their embedded analytical discrepancies does not resolve the contradictions of populism in power. As Biglieri (2021:8) argues, there is an ineradicable gap between the moment of the populist rupture and the moment of its institutionalisation. . . . On the one hand, the moment

Populism(s) in power 37 of the irruption of populism implies an anti-status quo or anti-institutional impulse that has to deal with a set of sedimented institutions and practices; on the other hand, populisms incarnate . . . a counter-hegemonic will that attempts to create a new set of institutions. Populist rupture is by definition an ‘exceptional moment’, while the process of institutionalisation is by definition a process of normalisation (cf. Kalyvas, 2008). This tension, however, is of a productive nature. Institutional sedimentation cannot exhaustively absorb and thereby dissolve populist rupture, and conversely, populism cannot be totally absorbed by the process of institutionalisation. There will always be ‘a loss or remainder’ (Biglieri, 2021:9), or in other words, a surplus of meaning, a gap in either structure or an ‘incessant slipping or sliding of demands for future articulations in different signifying chains’ (ibid.). Nothing can guarantee that demands (absorbed or dormant) will not later be reactivated with renewed meanings. Similarly, populists in government can be disputed and contested. Demands, leaders, institutions, ideas and subjectivities are open structures and thus subject to reinterpretation. The notion of ‘demands’ plays a fundamental role in Laclau’s (2005a) understanding of populism. It weaves together heterogeneous components from the process of collective identity formation. Their satisfaction, their absorption or not by institutions once populism occupies the state may contribute to fading populist identification. As such, the loss of enthusiasm resulting from politico-affective disillusionment always lies at the core of decaying populist mobilisations.

1.4. Conclusion Having reviewed and taxonomised contemporary literature on populism, this chapter identified two overarching general tendencies in the existing literature on populism in power. First, the outcome-oriented approach, divisible into two camps: (a) those who think that the relationship between populists and power is absolutely impossible and a fortiori unworthy of further investigation and (b) those who anticipate that populists in government will fade into a mainstream party or disappear wholly from the political scene. Second, the policyoriented approach, which is also divisible into two camps: (a) those who argue that populists in government are incapable of drafting, legislating and implementing policy and (b) those who argue that they can succeed in doing so. This chapter has argued that the aforementioned approaches distract the study of populism from its conceptual core, namely the factors of people-centrism and anti-elitism, thereby risking the conflation of populism with a plethora of phenomena that perhaps resemble – but are distinct from – populism. Studying populism in power through the lens of outcomes leaves two possibilities: first, that populism cannot be a feature of government or, second, that the only outcome of populism in government is its transformation into an authoritarian force. Studying populism through the lens of policy risks reducing populism

38  Populism(s) in power to demagogic political actors who renege on their electoral promises or irresponsible actors who are not fully competent to govern. Additionally, reducing populism to a particular type of policy defies fundamental axioms of populism research, which identify the phenomenon as a particular political logic defined by its rhetorical tropes and compatibility with a range of (disparate) ideologies. Oddly, the features attributed to populism are neither constitutive nor sufficient to define the phenomenon. A simple empirical overview would also reveal that these are not even isolated to populism but are found abundantly in non-populist and even anti-populist actors. This analytical discrepancy is rooted in the default anti-populist point of departure for any mainstream discussion about populism. To overcome these limitations, this chapter proposed rethinking the notion of populism by thinking of populism in power. Building on the discursive and performative canon, this chapter emphasised the notions of discourse, performativity and emotions in constructing a collective identity in the name of and for ‘the people’ and against ‘the elite’. This approach, which redirects focus to the analytical core of populism qua concept, allows for a flexible yet rigorous conceptualisation of populism in government by disconnecting it from any essentialist connotations unduly attached to particular sets of outcomes and conditioned by Eurocentric biases. The question to ask then, when studying populists in government, is whether populists continue to promote antagonism between those ‘at the bottom’ and ‘those at the top’ while interpellating affectivelyinvested popular subjectivities and mobilising the masses to their side.

Notes 1. Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China and Paul Biya in Cameroon govern in an absolutist style but are not populists. They are better classified as examples of competitive authoritarianism (cf. Levitsky & Way, 2002). 2. A report on journalistic representation of Jeremy Corbyn – often characterised as ‘a progressive left populist’ – found that the ex-Labour party’s leader ‘was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader, with a strong mandate. This process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: 1) through lack of or distortion of voice; 2) through ridicule, scorn and personal attacks; and 3) through association, mainly with terrorism’ (Cammaerts et al., 2016). 3. This argument is reminiscent of a rhetorical manoeuvre of the influential RussoAmerican thinker Ayn Rand, who linked Franklin Roosevelt to Mussolini and Hitler on the basis that they held collectivist policies in common. Rand, an influential cultural personality, espoused a philosophy of self-dubbed objectivism, in fact comprising ideas celebrated by libertarians, neoliberals and free marketeers. Her influence shows the importance historical instances of articulation can have through the redefinition of existing terminology. 4. Obviously, Margaret Canovan’s argument is far more complex. And my presentation earlier may be reductive. But what is important to stress is that the choice of words leaves some connotative marks on ‘populism’. 5. Or, as Ostiguy (2017:91) argues, ‘the Manichean definition of populism comes ambiguously close to include militant Marxism and (discursively) the revolutionary

Populism(s) in power 39 rhetoric in Latin America, which considers “society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups”, the working people versus the parasitic owners, and “which argues that [decision making should be the expression of the volonté générale of the [working] people’. 6. While ‘the people’ is not exclusive to populist discourse but is rather a signifier central throughout all political modernity (Panizza, 2005), not all discourses that address to ‘the people’ can be classified as populist. 7. For a more complete catalogue of the different monikers the ‘collective subject’ and its ‘other’ can take, see Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2014), Ostiguy (2017) and Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2017). 8. Placing the notion of social heterogeneity in the accelerationist and consumerist models of neoliberalism (both principally found in the Western Hemisphere), the so-called ‘proliferation of identities’ which ultimately results in proliferation and most importantly decentralisation of demands, is more evident. Identities and demands do not emanate from a single constituency or from socio-economic groups that were often studied as voting blocs. While this moment crystallises the differential nature of the social field, the old ‘system’ in transition could not absorb unsatisfied demands, which in turn evolved into grievances revealing the differential-heterogeneous nature of society and raising the feeling of disincorporation (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). 9. Aren’t equivalential chains at the core of every political project? Yes. The question at stake, however, is the extent to which this chain connects disparate identities, either throwing a sharp demarcation in society between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in a bottom/p manner, or connecting the usual suspects and operating in a left/right manner. 10. Ostiguy’s theorisation is far more complex as the two axes (high/low–left/right) yield four quadrants: high-left and high-right, low-left and low-right. These quadrants are further connected by two diagonal axes which Ostiguy (2017) dubs ‘the political-cultural’ (top-left corner to right-bottom corner) and ‘the social-cultural components’ (top-right corner to bottom-left corner). Other notable innovations by Ostiguy include the constitutive dimensions of the left-right appeals in politics and what he calls ‘the wheel of polarisation’, neither of which are integrated in the following schema. They are by no means irrelevant; the selective use of certain parts of Ostiguy’s very comprehensive model owes itself only to their special utility in supplementing my specific analysis of populism. 11. Although Ostiguy convincingly illustrates how the low is not synonymous with the poor or with lower social strata, his formulation arguably courts the danger of framing ‘the low’ as folkloric. Additionally, though he capably observes that the populist is defined by a sort of ‘sameness’ with the people or a sense of being ‘from here’, ‘being native’ (see 2017:81), and may likewise skate thin ice over the problems that burden the ideational approach. 12. For example, McDonnell and Ondelli (2020:7) illustrate empirically that certain populist leaders are more complex in terms of ‘readability’, ‘lexical’ richness’, lexical density and ‘difficult words’, than others. Populists are therefore not necessarily as ‘rough’ and ‘coarse’ as received wisdom would have us expect. 13. Casual juxtaposition of ‘passions’ to ‘rationality’ encourages us to ignore the former. This salient divide between ‘emotions’ and ‘reason’ is the main point of departure in discourses about populism (Eklundh, 2019). ‘Emotional’ populists play the foil to ‘pragmatic’, ‘rational’ anti-populists (Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). It is often argued that populist politicians use emotional language or are more emotional than ‘normal’ politicians, while some scholars have even tried to measure populist emotions (Breeze, 2019). While this reinforces the ‘exceptionality’ of populism and contributes further to the mystification of the phenomenon, it

40  Populism(s) in power also downplays anti-populist, post-democratic and elitist affects (Gebhardt, 2019). Feminist approaches notably show how the (artificial) division between ‘rationality and emotion’ is gendered. The public sphere of ‘politics’ is nominally annotated as ‘masculine’ and consequently as ‘rational’, strong’, ‘pragmatic’, ‘emotion-free’ and therefore ‘good’ at maintaining order. The private sphere, represented as a legitimate venue for emotions to exist, is correspondingly feminized and therefore dismissed as irrational-qua-affective, a state of disorder (Ahmed, 2004; Gebhardt, 2019; Eklundh, 2020). 14. This may owe some explanatory blame to the crowd theories of the nineteenth (e.g., Le Bon, 2014 [1896]) and twentieth centuries (e.g., Schumpeter, 1976) which perceived mass political participation and mobilisation as irrational or even primitive. As Laclau (2005) has argued, these approaches epitomised the study of social agency and social action. They structured a salient dichotomy between reason and emotions, normal and pathological, borrowing from medical and especially psychiatric discourse in order to produce a pejorative connotation (2005:34–35). These perspectives framed the crowd as a hypnotised mob ‘susceptible to manipulation’, while ‘collective action was almost equated with collective madness’ (Eklundh, 2019:21). 15. We may wonder what psychoanalysis as a clinical practice on one’s own psyche has to offer to the analysis of social and political phenomena. Freud questioned the strict dichotomy between individual and social psychology. He argued that the individual, from the beginning of her or his life, is linked to somebody else as ‘a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent’ (1921:69). Individuals participate in society; they are not separate from it. ‘Language is a collective phenomenon, a key element of socialisation. Language is ruled by a symbolic order that is collective. It influences one’s norms and ideals. Through language, the collective realm is at the roots of one’s crisis of subjectivity, and it is also often in the collective that promises to solve this that crisis will emerge’ (Zicman de Barros, 2021:515). In this sense, individual psychology is at the same time social psychology. Complementarily, as Biglieri and Perelló put it, ‘[t]he influence of the psychoanalytic intervention should not be exclusively considered as the emergence of a new field for psychological or medical work, or as a new stream for philosophical reflection or for political theory, but rather, as a very modification at the ontological level which enables one to rethink the entire field of social objectivity’ (2019). 16. Although this move is somewhat reductionist and influenced by mainstream politico-scientific accounts preoccupied with categorisation and would perhaps upset allies such as Laclau (2005a), Mouffe (2018) and Biglieri and Cadahia (2021), it is nonetheless politically motivated. Are there perhaps some merits in this typology in that it facilitates distinction between regressive and emancipatory desires? How else could populism be disassociated from its exclusive association with the violent and extremist imaginaries of closure?

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2 Populism in Greece and the United States Politics, history, culture

2.1. Introduction This chapter traces Greek and American populisms from their genesis to the present. The main goal is to familiarise the reader with the context within which SYRIZA and Trump arose in their respective countries in the global aftermath of the Great Recession. The first part of the chapter provides thick descriptions of the two cases, highlighting their profound differences (e.g. ideology, organisational structure, political systems and national frameworks within which they emerged and operated, etc.) and similarities (e.g. their populist style). The second part of the chapter provides an overview of the histories of populism in the two countries and illustrates how the phenomenon constitutes a reactivating force. In neither Greece nor the United States can populism be considered a political anomaly. On the contrary, rich populist traditions of the past seem to inform the regenerated populisms of the present.

2.2. Contemporary populisms in the aftermath of the great recession SYRIZA, ‘the Coalition of the Radical Left’, emerged amidst a severe economic crisis with equally severe social implications that stress-tested the two-party system to the point of collapse. SYRIZA’s electoral promises were attractive not only to left-wing activists but also to ordinary citizens who had never previously supported a left-wing party. Due to its rapid multilevel transformations, SYRIZA also drew the attention of experts, commentators and political parties’ scholars (Spourdalakis, 2014; Katsourides, 2016). Balampanides (2019:9) accurately summarises the phenomenon of SYRIZA as follows: a party that emerged all of a sudden, unexpectedly, mobilised sociopolitical emotions and now seems to be establishing itself as an important actor institutional power, leaving its footprint in its very own era . . . most importantly, it has created awkwardness for experts, public commentators, who could not place the party and understand it within the hitherto known analytical-explanatory categories. DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-3

48  Populism in Greece and the United States SYRIZA belongs to a contemporary wave of radical left politics which emerged in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008, taking shape through the contentious repertoires of action characteristic of the antiausterity protests and so-called movements of the squares (Aganaktismeoi/ Indignados) (Kaika & Karaliotas, 2016; Sotiropoulos, 2017; Roussos, 2019; Malamidis, 2021). SYRIZA has its organisational roots in the Eurocommunist tradition (Balampanides, 2015), though in the 2000s, it made a turn towards social movements (evidenced by its active participation in the AlterGlobalisation protests and summits). Movement orientation was regarded as a strategy for the party to move out of isolation and communicate its vision to broader society, which would require building bridges with citizens’ organisations and networks (Papanikolopoulos, 2019). Formerly known as the ‘Coalition of the Left, the Movements, and Ecology’, the party sought to expand its appeal by connecting with the workers, feminist, economic, antiracist and internationalist movements and other movements concerned with political and social rights (Eleftheriou, 2019; Papanikolopoulos, 2019). The party backed the student movement’s opposition to privatising educational reforms (Souvlis & Gounari, 2019); it took up the cause of the ‘generation of 700 euros’ (Katsambekis, 2016) and became the only parliamentary party to openly support the youth rebellion that took place following the police murder of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos in December 2008 (Vradis & Dalakoglou, 2010). The shift from ‘the left’ to ‘the youth’ and ultimately ‘the people’ describes SYRIZA’s trajectory from minoritarian left, through protopopulism and into ultimately successful populism in power (Katsambekis, 2016). SYRIZA’s omnipresence in support of the various struggles that took place in Greece from the 2000s until 2012 played a critical role in its wide appeal (see also Chapter 3). Between 2012 and 2015, SYRIZA was caught at an intersection between ‘radical left’ (March, 2011) and ‘populism’ (see Laclau, 1977, 2005; Mouffe, 2019). What distinguished contemporary left populism from classic left politics was its aspiration to contest and achieve power. ‘New left populism’ (Kioupkiolis & Katsambekis, 2019) attempted to subvert rather than abandon the political arena, contesting the status quo and ultimately governing. New left populism altered its political vocabulary, its aesthetic sense and its style beyond the bounds of the orthodox left and centre left. It pointed to a new wave of political change, and possibly a new political cycle, in which reinforced ‘radical’ Left parties and renewed social democratic parties would be capable of concluding the era of austerity and the (non-)ideological coexistence of conservative-liberals and social democrats in their fight to occupy the political centre. (Agustín & Briziarelli, 2018:4) Notwithstanding the multiplicity of possible approaches to the case of SYRIZA, the populist component of its identity cannot be ignored. According

Populism in Greece and the United States 49 to Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2014), SYRIZA’s (paradigmatic) populist style contributed to its dynamic rise to prominence by connecting diverse social, economic and political demands into an electoral alliance that restacked the political agenda in Greece. On 25 January 2015, Alexis Tsipras, often portrayed as a danger to the European establishment (see Spiegel, 2012; Traynor, 2015), was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic and became the first leader of the Radical Left’s ‘party family’ to assume power following the financial crash and political mobilisation that followed it. Two seats short of forming a majority government (149/151), Tsipras struck an overnight deal with the populist, nativist right-wing party, ANEL (Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες [‘Independent Greeks’]). This seemingly paradoxical and unprecedented partnership between a radical left and a radical right party drew extensive public discussion and political analysis. Against the backdrop of a collapsing political establishment, two ‘outsiders’ leapt from the fringes of the party system to the centre stage. This unlikely pairing was less bizarre than it appeared. For all their obvious differences, SYRIZA and ANEL both partook of a populist antagonism rupturing from the incumbent political establishment, and both promised to restore popular sovereignty.1 This peculiar coalition proved more durable than expected and more appealing to the electorate than the ‘post-democratic’ and ‘post-ideological’ administrations which governed between 2010 and 2015 (Lamprinou, 2019). SYRIZA in power maintained significant levels of populist performativity. Within a fiscally and politically restricted framework, it attempted to implement social policy favourable to the lower socio-economic strata of Greek society. However, its capitulation to the demands of the troika, interwoven with other contingent factors, overshadowed its efforts and affected its ability to maintain the euphoric identification that catapulted it to power (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022; see also Chapter 5). On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump thrived in a right-wing political ecosystem accumulating at and outside the margins of bi-partisan political consensus and gradually taking an anti-systemic shape in echo of increasing polarisation in the country (Pierson, 2017). The diffusion and normalisation of radical right discourse were less reliant on the numerical and organisational dynamism of grassroots activism (including the nonetheless important Tea Party and alt-right networks) than on the movement’s growing media and online presence (Neiwert, 2017). In addition to political demands conventional to the US right-wing agenda, Trump’s discourse showed elements extending beyond this ‘expected’ paradigm. Economic nationalism, manifested in a protectionist, isolationist agenda calculated to appease the domestic ‘blue-collar worker’, promises about decreasing unemployment, reducing taxes, regenerating industry and reopening factories all distinguished Trump’s position from the Republican Party’s ordinary stock-in-trade (see Marsden, 2019:91). This agenda became synonymous with ‘Mak[ing] America Great Again’, i.e. restoring its former wealth and glory. Notwithstanding the white, male, older, Christian and more affluent

50  Populism in Greece and the United States demographic expected to bolster the Trump vote, Trump’s popularity with a high percentage of female voters (51%) and, to a lesser degree, surprisingly significant support from ethnic minority constituencies, should not be ignored. Trump led an outsider campaign which ‘splintered the conventional leftright axis’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016) and structured his rhetoric and style along a vertical, top-down axis which pitted ‘the people’ below against ‘the elites’ above (Lamont et al., 2017); ordinary American citizens forgotten by a political and cultural establishment that is putatively working towards the corruption of commonly-held values (cf. Judis, 2016). Research conducted by the CATO Institute (a right-wing libertarian think tank) suggests that Trump’s voters should not be perceived as a homogenous bloc with similar anxieties, concerns or motivations. On the contrary, his electorate was composed, according to CATO, of: ‘Staunch Conservatives’ (31%, steadfast fiscal conservatives embracing moral traditionalism and a moderately nativist conception of American identity); Free-Marketeers (25%, ‘small-government’ fiscal conservatives supportive of free trade, and liberal social policy); ‘American Preservationists’ (20%, economically progressive nativists who believe the political system is rigged and take a substantially ethnocultural view of American identity); ‘Anti-Elites’ (19%, characterised by shared contempt for the establishment) and ‘the Disengaged’ (5%, detached from and sceptical of politics, institutions and elites) (Elkins, 2017). Trump’s bid for power redrew the established electoral line and altered the traditional Republican constituency, constructing an electoral constellation capable of reconciling the pro-market and pro-free trade right (including some ‘establishment’ Republicans) with grassroots, anti-establishment and nativist elements. ‘In doing so, Trump demonstrated the folly of believing that there is a single cohesive conservative movement in the United States, as opposed to separate – not highly correlated, and perhaps unrelated – currents of market fundamentalism and sociocultural nativism’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016:28).2 On November 8 2016, Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. His victory against Hillary Clinton stunned expert political analysts who widely predicted the opposite, leaving the political establishment and cosmopolitan urban class speechless. Trump’s ‘outsider’ optic as a nonbeltway3 politician was an asset he sought to maintain once in office. His provocative and antagonistic style in opposition was equally characteristic of his presidency. His apoplectic and unprofessional social media presence became a symbol of his administration. He circumvented traditional media in order to communicate directly to his followers in a language of brash rhetoric, sarcastic memes and withering personal attacks. He tweeted an average of five times per day during his first year in the White House, and his tweets increasingly came to set the daily media agenda in current affairs (White, 2019). Trump was locked in a constant battle with the traditional media. He delighted in public, ad hominem bullying of his political opponents, media critics and even close former allies. This polarising political discourse continued unabated in office and was widely diffused at his ongoing political rallies. The Trump presidency,

Populism in Greece and the United States 51 Shanahan (2019:26) argues, ‘which had started with a snarl, settled into a routine of non-routine’. Essentially, Trump’s unconventional and unpredictable style of discursive governance changed the political paradigm both in the United States and globally. Trump’s strongman persona met with resistance from bureaucrats and civil servants who checked his efforts to achieve radical change in Washington. Only small tracts of the promised ‘Border Wall’ were actually built for example. This is not to say that the Trump administration achieved nothing; in fact, it undid eight years of relatively progressive reforms implemented by Obama (Marsden, 2019). It pursued ‘tax cuts for the wealthy, restrictions on social welfare programmes in particular and government spending in general, and a scaling back of regulations unwanted by major industries’ (Pierson, 2017). Trump used his executive prerogative to install several conservative judges who would later influence policy on key issues (particularly reproductive rights). While pundits assessed Trump’s discourse and record in government as incoherent and catastrophic, the presidency was less motivated by policy success than by electoral approval (Shanahan, 2019; Venizelos, 2022). 2.2.1.  Commonalities between SYRIZA and Donald Trump The leaderships of Alexis Tsipras and Donald Trump are two paradigmatic cases of contemporary populism: against theoretical expectations that populism would remain in perpetual opposition, not only did they emerge to prominence but successfully took power. Populist institutional achievements in both Greece and the United States had previously been restricted to the regional/ local level, occupying seats in their national parliaments and senates or at best serving as minor coalition partners. The attainment of national power by both Tsipras and Trump was therefore a departure from politics as usual in their respective countries. Further contradicting theoretical expectations that populism cannot be durably sustained once in government, both figures survived a full term in office despite external and internal institutional constraints that impeded the implementation of their most ambitious promises (e.g. to cancel EU-imposed austerity measures in Greece, or to build a 30-feet concrete barrier along the entire southern border of the United States). The self-evidently vast ideological, organisational and contextual differences between each actor (of which more later) should not rule out serious examination of the common stylistic performativity which has led scholars to overwhelmingly define both figures as populist (for SYRIZA, see Stavrakakis & Katsambekis 2014; Venizelos 2020; for Trump see Lowndes 2021; Savage 2018; Venizelos 2022). In terms of political style (Ostiguy et al., 2021), Tsipras exuded a ‘cool’ and ‘down-to-earth’ aesthetic, spurning the formality of a tie, wearing a scuba diving watch and demonstrating poor English language skills.4 Trump’s spontaneous, ‘amateurish yet authentic style’ (Enli, 2017:54) characterised by political incorrectness, boorish abuse of political rivals and general ignorance of current affairs all flagged a political actor situated on a

52  Populism in Greece and the United States socio-cultural ‘low’ register as opposed to the ‘high’ occupied by most establishment politicians (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016).5 Beyond the shared stylistic and socio-cultural unconventionality, SYRIZA and Donald Trump were pejoratively called ‘populists’ by anti-populist adversaries in order to dismiss or denounced them as dangerous (cf. De Cleen et al., 2018; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). As the American news channel CNBC reported, at first glance, the two politicians seem worlds apart: firebrand businessman turned political upstart US President Donald Trump, and left-wing Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, elected in 2015 to turn his country’s troubled, debt-ridden economy around . . . [however] the trajectories of both politicians are more similar than one might think . . . this goes back to populism. (Crabtree, 2017) Certainly CNBC uses ‘populism’ as a pejorative. In short, both actors triggered similar anti-populist reactions of aversion from pundits, establishment politicians, experts and commentators. For example, US News warned that ‘the solutions proposed by the likes of Donald Trump and Alexis Tsipras come with a hefty price tag’ (Rohac & Zilinsky, 2015). The contemporary picture in the European press is not much different. Major politico-economic journals maintained that ‘Alexis Tsipras must be stopped’ (Traynor, 2015). Der Spiegel (2012), for example, ranked Tsipras among ‘Europe’s 10 most dangerous politicians’ alongside Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán and Geert Wilders. Leading EU officials, such as Eurogroup’s (2013–2018) president Jeroen Dijsselbloem and the German (2009–2017) Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, framed SYRIZA as a threat to European democracy, warning Greeks about potential consequences of their future choice (BBC, 2014; Financial Times, 2017). On the other side of the Atlantic, Trump was variously framed as ‘erratic’ (McCarthy, 2019), ‘peculiar, irrational and self-destructive’ (Smith, 2019), a ‘risk to national security’ (Indivisible, 2019), while his supporters were caricatured as ‘ignorant’ and ‘uneducated’ (see Thompson, 2016). Trump’s victory reactivated ‘ “elite anxiety about the consequences of political ignorance”, something far from new to the extent that such fears [are] of democracy degenerating into . . . “rule by the ignorant, who will use their power to do the dumbest things” ’ (Galanopoulos & Stavrakakis, 2019:1). Reactions such as these are not wholly anomalous in public debates. Throughout the history of Greek and US politics, third-party candidates who challenged bipartisan dominance have been dismissed as irresponsible spoilers, lunatics and, above all, populists (Judis, 2016; Stavrakakis, 2019). Antipopulist reaction further incentivises the placement of these two heterogeneous populists in a position of comparative study. While their differences, mostly conditioned by their dissimilar ideologies and the contexts within which they arose, clearly mark distinguishably different types of populism, the consistency

Populism in Greece and the United States 53 Table 2.1  Similarities between SYRIZA and Donald Trump DIMENSION

SYRIZA

Trump Campaign

Organisational structure

Populist leadership (political party) Personal leadership (dominant current) emerged within a predominantly nonpopulist party Emerged and thrived as a result of crisis (economic, social, representational)

Populist leadership (political party) Personal leadership emerged within a nonpopulist party

Political opportunity structure

Identity characteristics

Response

Characteristics in power Theoretical implications Historical legacy

Mobilised the politically disaffected Extended its appeal beyond its constituency Subject to antipopulist backlash, both domestic and international Maintained power, against theoretical predictions Remained populist, against theoretical predictions Part of a long-standing populist tradition in Greek politics (Greek populism)

Emerged and thrived as a result of crisis (mostly representational and value-driven, but to some extent socioeconomic) Mobilised the politically disaffected Extended its appeal beyond its constituency Subject to anti-populist backlash, both domestic and international Maintained power, against theoretical predictions Remained populist, against theoretical predictions Part of a long-standing populist tradition in American politics (American populism)

of pundit anti-populism in both cases makes this seemingly counterintuitive comparison the legitimate object of serious enquiry (Table 2.1). 2.2.2.  Differences between SYRIZA and Donald Trump Notwithstanding the commonalities outlined earlier, the two actors present a conspicuous range of dissimilar characteristics. To begin with, the institutional, economic and historical frameworks in Greek and US politics seem to share little common ground. The United States has a presidential system, while Greece has a parliamentary one. Each country has distinct legislative procedures and different institutional legacies. Populism in power is difficult to achieve in the United States due to its Madisonian electoral system. ‘Compare[d] to most other democracies, . . . the US system offers much less opportunity for organised populist parties’ (Lee, 2020:370). The federalist constitution was a result of compromises but also

54  Populism in Greece and the United States explicitly designed to prevent a singular concentration of power and contain anti-executive sentiment and contempt for central power in the years that followed the American revolution. It divides governance between three branches, breaks up representation over space and time through staggered elections and overlapping electoral units, divides sovereignty between the national government and the subnational states, and dilutes popular political expression into two great parties. Thus there are no sharply defined ‘populist’ parties, nor the ready possibility of [C]aesarist control of the national political system. (Lowndes, 2021:119) Although the US electoral system limits prospects for populist parties, it offers ‘far more opportunity for populist candidacies’ (Lee, 2020:370). Taking into consideration the unpopularity of establishment parties and the representational gap their politics leaves behind (see Frank, 2005, 2017), structural constraints are increasingly turning into opportunities for individual US populists (cf. Tarrow, 1996; Mair, 2013). The Greek political system on the other hand is based on a parliamentary format comprising several parties that constitute a pluralistic democracy (Mavrogordatos, 1984). The last century saw a multitude of political parties appearing, dissolving and re-emerging. At the dawn of the last century, conflict was predominantly between republicans and royalists; the civil war in the middle of the century found nationalists and communists on opposing sides (Clogg, 1987); since its transition to democracy in 1974, Greece was mainly defined as a two-party system (Pappas, 2014). Mass parties like PASOK and New Democracy were until recently the main manifestations of political identification and participation. Yet there remained a highly fragmented political space, especially on the left of the spectrum (Lyrintzis, 1990). Such profound structural differences traditionally raise concerns about the viability of comparisons. The impact ‘national variables’ have on political mobilisation has been a central concern of mainstream political and social-scientific research, since a given institutional setting may encourage or discourage socio-political mobilisation (Kitschelt, 1986; Tarrow, 1989, 1996; Kriesi et al., 1995). However, such concerns may constrain research into inflexible paradigms, impeding its ability to capture and explain social change (Giugni, 2009). It was against the backdrop of such a supposedly robust structural paradigm that populism in Greece and the United States emerged to prominence, took power and performed in government. As already argued in Chapter 1, populism is defined by its affective performativity that interpellates collective subjectivities, regardless of the type of (and constraints imposed by) a given institutional setting. Thus, the key question regarding populism in government is not whether movements and parties face open or closed institutional opportunities, but rather the extent to which their claims resonate with the public, they must ultimately mobilise in order to obtain political power. Whether or

Populism in Greece and the United States 55 not institutional procedures, elite coalitions, elite resistance and so on (see Best & Higley, 2018) facilitate or obstruct populists in passing legislation and implementing policies is a question of secondary importance. This is, again, because populism is not defined by its ability to implement policy or by the impact it has on democracy, but by its ability to discursively construct a ‘people’ (see Chapter 1). A second crucial difference between the two cases is their organisational structure. On one hand, SYRIZA is a party (once a coalition of parties), while in Trump’s case, considering his outsider relationship to the Republic Party, it is perhaps more accurate to speak of a personal candidacy or leadership. Yet the picture is more complicated, as this contradiction is not exactly between a party and a leader. Rather, what is under examination are two populist leaderships which arose within non-populist parties, gradually securing the support of their intra- and extra-party audience (Eleftheriou, 2019; Veremis, 2019). Tsipras represented and led the biggest of the several ideological currents within the highly heterogeneous party of SYRIZA. The ambitious Tsipras emerged gradually to the fore against other factions vying for the party’s overall leadership (see Balampanides, 2015, 2019). Similarly, and perhaps even more sharply, Trump by no means – at least until the middle of his term – represented almost any of the core values of ‘the Great Old Party’ (GOP); he was enduringly perceived as an outsider (see Shanahan, 2019). Both figures contingently seized the political opportunity during specific conjunctures and, with the support of extra-party constituencies, gained the advantage (Skocpol & Williamson, 2016; Venizelos, 2020). In this sense, one cannot speak of SYRIZA or the Republicans as homogeneously populist parties, but as parties possessed of populist leaderships. The third vector of the fundamental difference between the two cases is ideological orientation: SYRIZA is located on the political left and Trump’s Republican Party on the right. The two leaderships offered their ‘people’ starkly contrasting socio-political imaginaries. SYRIZA is often characterised as a case of egalitarian, democratic or inclusionary populism (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014; Font et al., 2019), while Trump is characterised as one of authoritarian, regressive and exclusionary populism (see Mudde, 2018; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). However, the gradually increasing comparative research between left and right populisms indicates that ideological differences need not impede comparisons across the left–right political spectrum (see Ivaldi et al., 2017; March, 2017; Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2017). On the contrary, crossideological comparisons reveal that populists’ ‘host ideologies’ play a significant role in the type of collective socio-political vision they articulate, and it is these which have the most meaningful impacts on democracy (March, 2011; De Cleen et al., 2021; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). The three key differences reviewed earlier highlight the radically contrasting nature of the two cases compared in this book. However, the cases are considered as much in terms of the dimensions that divide them, as in terms of the dimension that unites them (namely populist performativity). The concept of

56  Populism in Greece and the United States populism is an analytically useful tool for comparative analysis. Giovanni Sartori’s (1970) notion of ‘the ladder of abstraction’ helps explicate this. At lower levels of abstraction, concepts have more properties (and are thus more intensive and less extensive, i.e. have narrower applicability). Features of specific populisms such as their organisational dynamics (leader-centrism, movementbasis, media-drive), ideological characteristics (left, right, centrist) and other morphological differences (e.g. patriotism) are, therefore, case-sensitive: they can appear in some populist phenomena, but not others. At higher levels of abstraction, the concept is less intensive and more extensive and can therefore be applied to many more cases by virtue of having fewer properties (van Kessel, 2014:111). Comparative populism research should train its sights on this higher level of abstraction; while case-specific characteristics (organisation, ideology, etc.) may be locally interesting, it is populism’s abstract characteristics (i.e. people-centrism/anti-elitism as the core style of an actor) that are definitive of the phenomenon (Table 2.2). This deployment of Sartori’s ‘minimal criteria’ analytically insulates ‘populism’ from concept-stretching and makes it ‘a concept that travels’ – whether across geographic space, or across ideological spectra – allowing it to capture distinct organisational typologies (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018). As Aslanidis (2017:267) has noted, ‘the rich collection of populist episodes – spanning three populous regions and several decades of political mobilisation – allows us to examine patterns of political behaviour unobservable to our earlier peers’. However, with some exceptions (see Mouzelis, 1986; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; de la Torre, 2015; Savage, 2018), populism research has been predominantly siloed within familiar regions. Despite the abundant literature on populism, ‘there is a dearth of scholarly attention to cross-regional research’ (Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012:85). ‘Most contributions remain empirically confined to the comfort zones of their authors – those regions or national case studies they have studied in-depth or experienced firsthand’ (Aslanidis, 2017). Cross-regional comparisons are important for social science. Globalisation brought political issues closer to the extent that many political events are no longer ‘national’ but ‘global’ phenomena. Therefore, as Lehner and Widmaier (2007) point out, when we compare national case studies, a supranational approach and an understanding of political systems as multilevel are appropriate.6 SYRIZA and Trump both emerged within consolidated liberal democracies, during the same general ‘wave of populism’, as a response to a neoliberal model characterised by the erosion of formerly Table 2.2  Differences between SYRIZA and Donald Trump

Institutional framework Ideology Organisational structure World system position

SYRIZA

Donald Trump

Parliamentary system Left Political party Semi-peripheral country

Presidential system Right Personal leadership Core country

Populism in Greece and the United States 57 dominant political and economic values. The quasi-simultaneous reinvigoration of populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond should be examined in the context of the global phenomenon of ‘post-democracy’ (Crouch, 2019). In Aslanidis’ words, [f]ailing to encompass the full spectrum of populist politics when generalising from particulars will inevitably lead to errors. By stipulating features for populism that only pertain to specific settings and are unable to travel further, scholars exhibit a regional bias, effectively treating their familiar cases as ideal types. (Aslanidis, 2017:268)

2.3. Populist genealogies in Greece and the United States Do the rise of Trump in the United States and of SYRIZA in Greece amount to political anomalies? Do they deviate from ‘political normality’, however defined? ‘Surprisingly’ the two provocateurs were not the first to adopt the ‘populist’ mantle in order to shake and reshape the politics of their respective countries. Long political traditions in each country in fact provide an ample discursive reservoir for emerging political projects with populist characteristics. The same goes for anti-populism, a steady force opposing movements, parties and leaderships that provoke the political consensus. This section provides brief overviews of historical ‘populism’ in each country. 2.3.1. American populism (and anti-populism) Historian Michael Kazin suggests that populism has served as ‘one vital way in which Americans have argued about politics’ (1995:1). In the early 1890s, corporations and collectives including the Kansas Farmers Alliance and Knights of Labour joined forces to form a nationwide reform party seeking to evoke ‘the moral outrage of rural and working-class Americans at the conditions that surrounded them and articulat[e] their shared sense of the proper role of the government in addressing the nation’s ills’ (McMath, 1992:161). This new third party would come to be known as the Peoples’ Party or ‘Populist Party’. The name was conceived, by one account, on the train ride home from Cincinnati, when leaders of the Kansas delegates discussed the need for a more succinct label for members of the People’s Party. From the Latin populus, for ‘people’, they invented the term ‘Populist’. And it stuck. (McMath, 1992:146) The Populists of the 1890s protested the federal government, framing it as corrupt and unrepresentative of the people, also heaping scorn on corporations and trusts, banking and other interests of ‘the money kings of Wall Street’ (Hofstadter, 1969:19). As several historians of American populism

58  Populism in Greece and the United States emphasise, the People’s Party was more than a protest party (i.e. whose existence was predicated purely on opposition to the political and economic elites of the time). In fact, the students of historical US Populism discovered an energetic and complex political organism (Kazin, 1995; Postel, 2009). The People’s Party raised concerns about increasing inequality, seeking to place some of the government’s institutions under the more direct control of ‘the people’ (Goodwyn, 1978). They formulated demands for collective bargaining, expansion of monetary policy, federally-controlled agricultural warehouses, a shorter working week and the establishment of a postal saving system (Kazin, 1995). The Populist manifesto was also referred to as a ‘second Declaration of Independence’ (Judis, 2016:25) and articulated demands for ‘public ownership of railroads rather than government regulation’ (McMath, 1992:160). ‘The movement was profoundly democratic in composition, mobilizing millions of often-marginalized citizens’ (Postel, 2009:18). Populist leaders mounted an intensive campaign to create an organized social base for a new party in almost every region of the United States. Prominent Populists and Populist-leaning reform leaders crisscrossed the nation in a frantic effort to replicate the successful Populist mobilization in Kansas. (McMath, 1992:153) The Populists launched educational campaigns employing every means at their disposal, including self-published newspapers and books. Their goal was to ‘rewrite the “curriculum” through which Americans were instructed in political economy’ (McMath, 1992:149). Challenging hegemonic laissez-faire capitalism, Minnesota Populist leader Ignatius Donnelly asserted that we actively [missing word?] that the powers of government – in other words, of the people – should be expanded . . . as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land. (Judis, 2016:25) Despite their programmatic radicalism, the Populists were traditionalists insofar as they drew from the past which was familiar and close at hand. They often cited biblical stories as well as Shakespeare, Cicero, and other literary sources. They freely quoted personalities from the past – Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Calhoun, and Lincoln  – who loomed large in nineteenth-century oratory. In that sense, the Populists’ ideas had roots in the traditions of their ancestors. (Postel, 2009:11)

Populism in Greece and the United States 59 This concords with Ostiguy’s (2017) assessment of modern populism, namely that populists talk and perform a language and a style that is ‘from here’. At the same time, the historical Populists were modernisers seeking profound change in the political, social and economic spheres of public life (Postel, 2009). As Postel recounts, the Populists engaged in intellectually sophisticated debates about the crises of their time. This historical moment is unknown to, or disregarded by, anti-populists who stereotype populism per se as an irrational, anachronistic, inward- and backward-looking movement (Hofstadter, 1965). The Populist Party sought to build an equivalential chain or a ‘coalition of the have-nots’ (McMath, 1992:161). Beyond blue-collar workers and farmers, the women’s suffrage movement was also constitutive of the Populist party, and it made a ‘courageous effort’ to challenge racial taboos in the country by seeking to unite white and black workers in a common struggle (Postel, 2009).7 For this reason, the Populists were ‘snuffed out by a relentless attack and manipulation of black voters’ orchestrated by the two main parties (McMath, 1992:161). Their efforts collapsed ‘under the traditional weight of white supremacy’ (Postel, 2009:19). Attacks on the Populists by the political establishment went beyond the verbal: as McMath (1992) notes, party members in the South often faced armed physical violence by their opponents. Aversion towards the historical Populists confirms Judis’ (2016) latter-day claim that challenger movements, parties and candidates in the United States are typically framed as extreme and dangerous. In his view, ‘American politics is structured to sustain prevailing worldviews. Its characteristics of winner takes all, first past the post, single-member districts have encouraged a two-party system. Third-party candidates are often dismissed as “spoilers” ’ (Judis, 2016). Decades after the decline of the Populists, the ideological-intellectual campaign to smear them was revived through the writings of Richard Hofstadter (1955, 1965) who, according to rival historians of populism, distorted the progressive identity of the populist movement. Hofstadter labelled Populism as ‘folkloric’ (Hofstadter, 1955), ‘unreasoned’ and ‘intolerant’, and its supporters as ‘agitators with paranoid tendencies, who are able to make a vocational asset out of their psychic disturbances’ (Hofstadter, 1955:71). His critics have it that he ‘reduced the Populists to a horde of xenophobic, anti-Semitic, delusional cranks’ (Collins, 1989:152; cf. Hofstadter, 1955:61). According to Robert M. Collins, Hofstadter ‘engendered an unusually bitter historiographical controversy’ which propounded an unduly revisionist history of American populism (1989:152). Hofstadter’s ‘revisionist turn’ is germane to contemporary studies on populism since these stereotypes ‘continue to plague most approaches to populism globally’ (Stavrakakis et al., 2017:5). Stavrakakis et al. (2017) argues that Hofstadter’s work formed the cornerstone of contemporary academic (journalistic and political) anti-populism. According to Stavrakakis et al. (2017:4) If one attempts to construct a genealogy of the academic trajectory of antipopulist arguments, she/he shall very soon recognize that its roots can be

60  Populism in Greece and the United States most likely traced back to the work of Richard Hofstadter in the 1950s as well as to the writings of his ‘liberal’ and ‘pluralist’ fellow-travellers’. These pejorative and normatively-loaded articulations of populism were not confined to the United States; they travelled across time and space. This is not to say that historical Populism was without problems or contradictions. The vision of the People’s Party was indeed radical, but it was nonetheless a vision for a reformed capitalism, not a form of anti-capitalism (Kazin, 1995; Postel, 2009). The Populist mobilisation in America was a movement of representation rather than one of contentious grassroots action (Kazin, 1995). As Postel (2009:18) reports, ‘[m]ost of the Populist “revolt” took place not in the streets but in lodge meetings and convention halls’. Like other populist movements and parties past and present, the People’s Party was a complex and at times contradictory movement; despite their wide appeal to millions across the United States, they fell short of organisational and ideological coherence in some respects (see McMath, 1992). As political scientist Elizabeth Sanders (1999) notes, the Peoples’ Party both protested state bureaucracy and at the same time sought to control it in order to implement change. While the party exhibited some profoundly democratising features, their vision was far from twenty-first-century democratic imaginaries concerned with decentralisation, localisation and consensual models of participation. The majoritarian tendencies of the People’s Party left little scope for minority rights. In a sense, then, the Populists pursued ‘business politics’ (Postel, 2009:18). Nevertheless, the 1892 Populist electoral bid attracted 8.5% of the ballot (Kazin, 1995). The Populist mobilisation was seen by many commentators as a premonition of the New Deal Franklin Roosevelt would promote in the 1930s. Despite its short-lived episodic appearance, the People’s Party set some preliminary foundations for the future of American populism. According to Savage (2018), the political heritage of the Populist movement of the 1890s informed a myriad of political figures in the intervening century. In the late 1920s, the ‘dictatorial and charismatic’ 40th Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long, carried on the populist tradition (Judis, 2016). Long’s populism was not an agrarian revolt against corporate power, but a Depression-era working-class struggle against the wealthy (Lee, 2006). Prototypical populist structure can be appraised in his speech: ‘[t]hey own the banks, they own the steel mills, they own the railroads, they own the bonds, they own the mortgages, they own the stores, and they have chained the country from one end to the other’ (Long, 1934). Long initiated a movement called ‘Share our Wealth’ whose central slogan was ‘every man a king, but no one wears a crown’ (Long, 1934). Having labelled Standard Oil an ‘invisible empire’ and thundered ‘I don’t want the bosses. I want the people on my side’ (Kazin, 1995:227), Long passed a law to tax oil extraction. He funded Louisina’s roads, public healthcare and schooling system and exempted low-income people from taxes (Lee, 2006). In the 1930s, the populist style migrated from the left to the right of the political spectrum. Father Charles Coughlin is a notable case of Catholic,

Populism in Greece and the United States 61 reactionary and nationalist populism (Judis, 2016). Coughlin, a Roman Catholic Priest, was an early adopter of radio broadcasting, first in order to air religious sermons and then as a medium to intercede on political and socioeconomic matters in the era of the Great Depression. ‘Coughlin became the voice of the people against the nation’s economic and financial elites. A charismatic orator, Coughlin became seen as the champion of the common man and referred to as the “Radio Messiah” ’ (Wang, 2021:3065). Like the Populists of the 1890s, Irish Catholic activists in the 1930s contemned the rich. ‘They demanded respect for manual workers and curbs on speculative wealth [but at the same time] they warned that increasing the powers of a centralized state could lead to communism’ (Kazin, 1995:111). The 1960s were punctuated by energetic movements of both the left and right, sometimes taking the form of mass outrage against powerful elites and the system they governed. But according to Kazin (1995:225), it was the right that learned most expediently how to express its anger in populist ways that gained a respectful hearing among a majority of voters. In the 1960s then, the four-time serving Governor of Alabama George Wallace marks an epitome in the conservative and racist rebranding of American populism who helped conceal southern philosophy, history and culture into a coherent conservative identity. (Lesher, 1994; Lee, 2006) Wallace’s vernacular style exhibited significant characteristics of American populism as he drew inspiration from so-called ‘middle-American radicalism’ which, like the original Populists, extolled the masculine virtues of the American farmer. George Wallace ‘portrayed himself as a principled fighter from humble origins who was eager and able to challenge entrenched power’ (Kazin, 1995:229) and ‘stood against Ivy League financiers, agents of collectivism, and bureaucratic social engineers (on behalf of racialized social classes)’ (Grattan, 2016:89). Wallace posed as the champion of any citizen harassed by arrogant but inept bureaucrats, slovenly and unpatriotic protesters, and criminal minorities – none of whom did anything useful for society. His ‘people’ had unglamorous jobs and a culture that prized close families and an unswerving faith in God and country. (Judis, 2016) Besides his populist characteristics, Wallace’s discourse was also profoundly conservative and racist; as one of the best-known segregationists in America, he situated biblical values and racial supremacy at the centre of his discourse, calling for stronger law enforcement and more punitive sentencing in order to mobilise white working-class anxieties about race relations. The collective subject he articulated was that of the white Southerner (Lowndes, 2005). Wallace

62  Populism in Greece and the United States unsuccessfully competed for the US presidency four times, nonetheless polling surprisingly well (Kazin, 1995). His failed electoral attempts secured ‘his national reputation as an “influential loser” ’ (Lee, 2006:368). According to Lowndes (2005:146), [t]he Wallace juggernaut was successful to the degree that it was politically disruptive, because creating a new collective political identity involves rending people out of old traditions and political identifications. Wallace did so by combatively cutting new cleavages across the electorate, dissolving old political bonds and forging new ones. Lowndes’ observation conforms with Judis’ a decade later. According to the latter, Wallace’s style would later ‘migrate into the Republican Party and become the basis of Donald Trump’s challenge to Republican orthodoxy in 2016’ (Judis, 2016). Trump did not appear in a vacuum. The financial crisis of 2008 sparked a tinderbox of grassroots reaction. On the political right, the Tea Party movement – a fiscally conservative, anti-taxation, small-government and anti-immigration alliance – syncretised elements of libertarianism, right-wing populism, grassroots conservatism and anti-neoliberalism (Skocpol & Williamson, 2016). Ideologically, it sat to the right of the Republican Party establishment, whose agenda trajectory was perceived as converging towards a mainstream bipartisan consensus. The Tea Party did not contest elections but instead functioned as a pressure group within the Republican Party itself. Organisationally, it consisted of myriad local groups across the nation, organised independently but connected through social media. The Tea Party movement arose rapidly in 2009 as a reactionary response to the election of Barack Obama and to his flagship policies, including the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) and his mortgage-relief plans for homeowners. Its rhetoric and protests attracted wide coverage, and conservative think-tanks devoted significant effort to promoting the new movement. The Tea Party piqued the attention of experts and politicians as it posed a potentially substantial challenge to the Obama administration and more generally to mainstream politics (Van Dyke & Meyer, 2014). The Tea Party ‘mounted colorful protests, established local groups and regional networks, and delivered powerful electoral punches in the GOP primaries and the November 2010 general election’ (Skocpol & Williamson, 2016:5). Its members used their mailing lists to fundraise for their preferred candidates. Sponsorship by corporate lobby groups, including FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, was also a major bankroll for the movement (Judis, 2016). By 2011, Tea Party membership was estimated at 160,000, but its electoral and social impact reached far beyond its own roster (Skocpol & Williamson, 2016). There was no common platform or programme for the various Tea Party groups, but a shared understanding of American politics unified their campaigns: they saw America as divided into two camps – makers and

Populism in Greece and the United States 63 takers – hardworking Americans who earn a living and pay taxes, and those who indolently live off them, respectively (Peck, 2019). According to Judis (2016:57): Many of the local Tea Party groups were part of the tradition of American populism and reflected opposition from the right to the neoliberal consensus. They objected to the residual elements of New Deal liberalism that neoliberalism had retained, even those popular among Republicans. If anything, they were a throwback to the Jacksonian proto-populists. The Tea Partiers’ argument about ‘makers’ and ‘takers’ recalled the ‘producerism’ of the Jacksonians and the People’s Party, which was rooted in a distinction between productive and unproductive elements of society. Bankers, land speculators, and gamblers were typically numbered among the unproductive – as were, for the populists, recent immigrants who took jobs from native-born Americans. The concurrent emergence of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement mobilised around the slogan ‘We are the 99%’ and was concerned with growing economic inequality. The movement opposed ‘the 1%’ an entity incorporating Wall Street financiers and the converged political system. This watchword demonstrates prototypically populist characteristics since it juxtaposes the social majority against a political and economic elite minority (Gerbaudo, 2017). In September 2011, over a thousand people gathered and camped in New York’s Zuccotti Park. The movement was replicated in many other American cities including Boston, Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles, Washington, Nashville, El Paso, Tupelo, Tampa, Wichita, Missoula, Birmingham, El Paso and over 650 local communities in the United States, expanding globally into 951 other cities across 82 countries. The Occupy Wall Street movement often incurred heavy-handed police responses. Its incapacity to articulate a sharply delimited political demand beyond its generalised critique of dominant economic and political values, together with its axiomatic rejection of hierarchical leadership and overreliance on disruptive tactics, limited the effectiveness of the movement and finally undid it (Dean, 2016). The prominence of populist challengers in the 2016 US election cycle, particularly Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, may be regarded as a contingent outcome of the growing popular frustration on both left and right in the preceding years. Both were perceived as a threat to elite establishment politicians within their own parties, who were understood to be converging in the centre. Sanders’ social-democratic platform posed a serious challenge to the Democratic establishment favourite Hillary Clinton. Despite his eventual elimination in the Democratic primaries, Sanders’ success was a symptom of radicalised tendencies in the American left (especially its youth component) during the Great Recession (Gautney, 2018). Trump was likewise able to capitalise on the radicalising right-wing ecosystem epitomised by the earlier Tea Party movement. The Fox and Breitbart News networks, and a profusion of blogs, talk

64  Populism in Greece and the United States shows and key public figures peripheral to Trump himself – elsewhere referred to as the ‘outrage industry’ (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014) – played a crucial role in the dissemination of white nationalist and conservative ideas and the inurement of these ideas’ sympathisers to Trump.8 The connection between the radical right, grassroots conservative activism, the Tea Party and finally Donald Trump is not a straightforward one. However, this loose network was an important precursor for the seismic events of 2016. Trump’s successful election campaign tapped into this pre-sown ground and mobilised around promises to reduce immigration, restrict travel from Muslim-majority countries, build an enormous concrete wall on the Mexican border, unequivocally support Israel and pursue a pro-life anti-abortion agenda (Marsden, 2019). 2.3.2. Greek populism (and anti-populism) Populism has been a recurring presence in Greek politics too. Unlike the United States, where populism faced significant institutional barriers to entry into the political mainstream, Greek populism was historically articulated by parliamentary parties themselves. Given the prominence of populist politics in the country, the local social-scientific community has paid significant attention to the study of the phenomenon. In fact, local scholarship on Greek populism spans three generations. It explored populism’s linkages with society and with social movements; its manner of organisation within (and outside) parliament, both in opposition and in power; its charismatic style and leadership; its relationship with clientelism; its progressive, democratic and reformist tendencies and its sometimes illusory promises (e.g. Lyrintzis, 1990; Elefantis, 1991; Diamandouros, 1994; Mouzelis, 1985, 1986; Stavrakakis, 2004; Pappas & Aslanidis, 2015; Galanopoulos, 2018; Andreadis & Stavrakakis, 2019; Katsambekis, 2019; Venizelos, 2020; Markou, 2021). Due to the familiarity of the phenomenon in the country’s domestic politics, Pappas has argued that ‘the Greek case offers near laboratory conditions for studying all possible facets and successive phases of populist development’ (2014:6). Political polarisation in Greece, which essentially structures the ideological lines across the left/right axis, has its roots in the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) (Legg & Roberts, 1997). The 40-year period following Greece’s transition to democracy in 1974 was characterised by the interchangeable governance of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia). Between the mid-1970s and late 1980s, both parties engaged in intense antagonistic rhetorical conflicts that mobilised the Greek public at both social and electoral levels. Importantly, while PASOK was commonly described as a paradigmatic case of populism and New Democracy as an anti-populist force, the latter also frequently hitched a ride on ‘the populist train’ (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019). According to Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2019), the two parties occasionally migrated between populist and anti-populist camps, effectively exchanging positions. This highlights the contingent and flexible character of the populist/anti-populist nexus (not only in the Greek context but perhaps beyond as well).

Populism in Greece and the United States 65 On the right of the ideological spectrum, New Democracy favoured a controlled transition from the military junta rather than a radical break from it (Pappas, 2014). Between 1974 and 1981, the paternalistic figure of its iconic conservative leader, Konstantinos Karamanlis, sought to transcend the right’s default anti-communism, instead promoting reconciliation and adopting comparatively progressive socio-economic policies to attract sectors of society that felt excluded from the previous regime (Lyrintzis, 1984). Under the banner of national unity, Karamanlis’ discourse was articulated around signifiers such as ‘stability’ and ‘progress’; traditional nostrums of the right. At the same time, he often stressed that his party ‘identifies the people with the nation and national sovereignty with popular sovereignty’, insinuating a right-wing version of populism co-articulated with nationalist elements (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017:6). On the left, PASOK presented an egalitarian programme centred around notions of ‘progress’ and ‘independence’, evincing a central polarity of the time: between pro-Western and European-oriented forces on the right, and Greek-oriented, patriotic and pro-independence forces on the left. The 1980s were predominantly characterised by PASOK’s hegemony under its charismatic leader Andreas Papandreou. Papandreou introduced socially liberal and progressive policies and values in Greek society through a left-wing populist repertoire, aiming to represent the marginalised lower strata often excluded from the national and political community and the overall processes of social, political and economic participation (Lyrintzis, 2005). In this sense, Papandreou sought to incorporate ‘the underdog’ into the polity, turning ‘the people’ into the true protagonist of Greek politics. He advanced the ‘demands of the so-called “non-privileged” for social justice, popular sovereignty and national independence against an “establishment” accused of monopolising political access and economic privilege in various ways since the end of the Civil War’ (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017:6). For this reason, Papandreou’s PASOK was repeatedly characterised as archetypally populist (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019). Beyond its discourse promising to represent and incorporate the marginalised ‘many’, PASOK’s leader also embodied significant stylistic characteristics resonant with the performative and socio-cultural facets of populism analysed in Chapter 1. Like Tsipras, Papandreou spurned wearing ties, preferring instead his signature turtleneck sweater. His overall aesthetic, unconventional by the political standards of his time, resonated more with non-privileged citizens than elite politicians. Papandreou’s rhetoric was generally politically incorrect, daring to ‘say the unsayable’, and his overall ‘low’ style contributed to his success (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019:4). Papandreou attracted thousands of loyal supporters and deliberated in front of ‘huge mass rallies – variously referred to as human seas, floods and earthquakes’ (Clogg, 1987:91). Beyond the euphoria he inspired in the 1980s, Papandreou assumed a cult-like status in contemporary Greece. The phenomenon of PASOK under Papandreou’s leadership left a legacy and is still discussed in contemporary socio-political debates. However, ‘modern’ PASOK under the leadership of his son George

66  Populism in Greece and the United States Papandreou and his successors is discussed under the neologism pasokification, a term alluding to the drastic decline in the party’s electoral share (from 43.92% in 2009 to 13.18% in May 2012, then to 12.28% in June 2012 and 4.68% in 2015) (Asimakopoulos &Tassis, 2018) . PASOK’s political strategy was often characterised by intense polarisation rather than consensus-seeking with New Democracy and other smaller parties. Drawing on the memory of the Greek Civil War and the junta, PASOK attempted to associate New Democracy with authoritarian and repressive legacies. The former often framed its right-wing counterpart as a ‘collaborator’, with the Security Battalions on the one hand and the military regime on the other (Pridham & Verney, 1991). However, New Democracy also engaged in intensely polarising tactics, framing PASOK as a danger to democracy and stability (Kalyvas, 1997). In highlighting the relational status of polarisation, Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2019:3) argue that it is never just one political force that polarises. In fact, ‘for every populist actor asserting its presence, there are other anti-populist actors antagonising it’. New Democracy’s old leader Konstantinos Mitsotakis rhetorically associated PASOK with irresponsibility, demagoguery and ultimately ‘populism’, unveiling the populism/ anti-populism divide through which antagonism took place in the 1980s. Political polarisation in Greece was not restrained to the elite level. Party polarisation affected the social fabric at a mass level as ‘society became bitterly divided between seemingly irreconcilable supporters of the two major parties’ (Andreadis & Stavrakakis, 2019); in cities, towns and villages, cultural associations and coffee shops were divided between ‘blue’ and ‘green’ according to a partisan affiliation (Pappas, 2014). In the 1990s, populism gradually retreated, ceasing to constitute a central vehicle for political articulation in Greek politics. The New Democracy government (1990–1993) that replaced PASOK ‘was probably the first one to be directly registered as “anti-populist” since it chose to attack PASOK and its leader with reference to their populism, demagoguery, irresponsibility’ (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019:5). As I shall argue, these signifiers are adopted by contemporary anti-populists too. In any case, in the early 1990s, PASOK’s archetypal populism started to fade. Following the ‘third-way’ trend in social-democratic politics, Papadnreou’s successor and former (1996–2004) Prime Minister, Costas Simitis, sought to develop a new, ‘modern’, outlook for his party bearing little resemblance to the parochial socialist-populism of his predecessor (Lyrintzis, 2005; Karayannis, 2021). According to Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2019:5), ‘Mitsotakis and Simitis can be regarded as key actors involved in the anti-populist swing of the pendulum away from populist rhetoric during the 1990s’. Despite the retreat of populism as the main vehicle of political articulation in Greece, new players came to the fore (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017). These included Archbishop Christodoulos, an idiosyncratic case of religious populist leadership (Stavrakakis, 2004); the populist extreme-right party Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) (Tsiras, 2012); the nationalist-populist Independent

Populism in Greece and the United States 67 Greeks (ANEL) (Pappas & Aslanidis, 2015) and of course SYRIZA (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014), analysis of which is a central theme of this book. The Aganaktismenoi, indignant protest events in Greek city squares, were the first signs of a resurgent populism in the aftermath of the Great Recession (Katsambekis, 2016). Alongside the collapse of the Greek economy and the electoral punishment of the hitherto dominant two-party system, intense cycles of contentious direct action involving significant numbers of citizens were observable. Protest events took place in workplaces and streets and took the forms of strikes, demonstrations and general assemblies, embodying collective resistance against austerity (Diani & Kousis, 2014). The anti-austerity movement became a symbol of accumulated popular frustration against the corrupt political establishment that had governed interchangeably since 1974. Besides its anger against the elites, the anti-austerity movement enacted forms of prefigurative politics that envisioned political alternatives in the forms of democratic assemblies, alternative cooperative economies and solidarity structures (Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2013; Kotronaki & Christou, 2019; Malamidis, 2021). As explored in the next chapter, SYRIZA played a pivotal role in translating grassroots demands into an electoral programme, bringing the various heterogeneous struggles, identities and demands of Greek popular revolt into equivalence and thereby constructing a new political subject, ‘the people’. Populist mobilisations throughout Greece’s transition to democracy in 1974 were followed by anti-populist reactions. Evidently influenced by modernisation theory (see Hofstadter, 1955; Germani, 1978; Lipset, 1981), Nikiforos Diamandouros (2000) understood Greek political culture as dualistic. In his view, the Greek socio-cultural space was divided between an underdog popular culture resisting modernisation and a progressive middle class promoting it. Of course, populism was characterised as an intrinsic feature of the underclass culture. The anti-populist schema re-emerged in crisis-ridden Greece as a mainstream language to talk derisively about populism. Politicians, journalists and scholars linked populism with demagogic manipulation and the far right, framing it as the opposite of liberalism, pluralism and democracy. Common adjectives attached to the term included ‘dangerous’, ‘fanatical’ and ‘irresponsible’, while references to ‘the people’ and ‘popular sovereignty’ were dismissively maligned as folksy or clientelist (Stavrakakis et al., 2017). As Nikisianis et al. (2019:278) note, the most common metaphors for populism borrow from medical discourse in analogising populism to pathological conditions of body or soul (e.g. populism as a cancer, a parasite, a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, madness, irrationality and so on). Another prominent derogatory metaphor is that of a devastating natural cataclysm (e.g. populism as a tsunami, a tidal wave, a storm, etc.). A final class of negative metaphor for populism identified by Nikisianis et al. (2019) is that of the mythological and animal world (e.g. populism as a monster, a beast, etc.). National and international hegemonic discourses framed Greece’s ‘emergency situation’ as a result of economic misbehaviour on the part of Greek citizens, occasioned by their supposedly backward cultural habits (Triandafyllidou

68  Populism in Greece and the United States et al., 2013). Greeks were ridiculed and condemned by political elites and major international media and framed as lazy and unproductive. Along with the inhabitants of other ‘disobedient’ or ‘abnormal’ European countries, Greeks were dehumanised as ‘PI(I)GS’. The (mis)management of the Greek debt crisis involved not only discursive operations that sought to control, regulate and discipline not only financial but also political aspects of Greece’s exercise of its own national sovereignty. Needless to say, the biopolitics of the ‘Greek crisis’ had severe consequences for established forms of subjectivity and produced newly indebted, monitored and pauperised subjects (Stavrakakis, 2013; Kioupkiolis, 2014). Any political actor who dared to challenge the hegemonic narrative was denounced as a populist; the persistence of anti-populism in contemporary Greece could not have been more plainly demonstrated than by this convention.

2.4 Research methods Although scholarship disagrees on the genus of populism (Strategy? Ideology? Discourse?) (Pappas, 2016), it can be generally accepted that empirical data for the study of populism are principally generated by political actors’ communication (de Vreese et al., 2018): their rhetoric, the campaign materials, the messages they send out via social and traditional media. This axiom is generally in line with the Essex School’s discursive approach, whose understanding of ‘discourse’ extends beyond the narrow sense of ‘words’ and ‘rhetoric’. This research likewise extends its understanding of discourse beyond ‘textual data’ and includes visual data, interviews, and ethnography. In so doing it employs and triangulates mixed methods, performing empirical analysis on 66 rhetorical data units, 69 visual data units, 11 ethnographic data units and a total of 56 interviews (see Appendix 1). 2.4.1. Discourse Analysis The 66 ‘rhetorical units’ under empirical consideration are divided almost equally between the two case studies. These rhetorical units are passages of speech or text gathered either from announcements (text sources) or videos displaying political actors talking and performing (video sources). These data were collected throughout the periods in which the examined actors performed in opposition and in government. In SYRIZA’s case, the specific periods are 2012–2015 for the first phase and 2015–2019 for the second phase. For Trump, they are 2015–2016 for the first phase and 2017–2020 for the second. For details of the speeches analysed, please visit Appendix A. 2.4.2. Visual Analysis Since politics is intrinsically tied to visual sense, images, symbols, and so on, this research also employs visual analysis (; Joffe, 2008) in order to

Populism in Greece and the United States 69 examine articulations of collective identity and their demarcation from the other through aesthetic representations, text, symbols, sound, bodily gestures, and demeanour. As far as the empirical analysis is concerned, 69 visual data are considered, 41 of which apply to SYRIZA and 28 of which apply to Trump. Visual data include campaign posters, leaflets, manifestos, stickers, and campaign broadcasts. The data were collected 1) online through the social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) of the actors, or from their official websites, and 2) physically during fieldwork at the headquarters of the parties, the offices of the relevant organisations, or at rallies, demonstrations and other relevant events. The author also photographed sites of interest from different cities visited during the data collection process. For a detailed visual data list please visit Appendix B. 2.4.3.  Interviews This study conducted a total of 56 semi-structured interviews: 27 with SYRIZA supporters and 29 with Trump supporters. The author interviewed a small number of experts (i.e., academics and journalists) to navigate opaque aspects of Greek and American populism. Mainly though, interviews were conducted with grassroots activists in key social movements and networks which, according to secondary literature and the results of the ‘snowball’ method, were constitutive of ‘the people’ in each case. The principal objective of the interviews was examine how ‘the people’ identified with the populist leadership, and/or justified their support or disidentification before and during the governmental phase. In Greece, movements included the workers’ movement (e.g., the VIOME factory), the Thessaloniki water anti-privatisation movement, the movement in support of the Public Broadcasting Station (ERT), the environmentalist anti-fracking movements in Halkidiki (‘Save Skouries/ SOS Halkidiki’), the antiracist movement, the social medical centre movement, various solidarity networks that organised social distribution of food and clothing, migrant solidarity networks, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. In the US interviewees were sought from and conducted with members of the following demographics and groups: ‘Evangelicals for Trump’, ‘Workers for Trump’, ‘Veterans’, ‘Black Voices’ and ‘Latinos for Trump’, Libertarians, Conservatives, the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association, and the Texas Alliance for Life. This research has also taken interviews with elites into consideration. In Greece these included: Nasos Iliopoulos (Deputy Minister of Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity from February 2018–February 2019), Lefteris Kretsos (Vice Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Information from August 2018–July 2019), Katerina Notopoulou (Deputy Minister of the Interior for Macedonia-Thrace from August–February 2019), the former Head of the Prime Minister Press Office, Head of the Strategic Planning Office and speechwriter of the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, various government advisors and consultants who wished to remain anonymous, and an independent

70  Populism in Greece and the United States MP who participated in the SYRIZA-ANEL government. In the US, local politicians in Scranton, PA and Ithaca, NY were also interviewed. For a detailed list of interviewees please visit Appendix C. 2.4.5.  Participant observation and ethnography In order to obtain direct knowledge of populism in Greece and the US, this study employed ethnographic and participant observation methods (see Marcus, 1995). The author participated in various forms of community practice in both countries that were deemed salient to key aspects of collective identification. In Greece, the author participated in government-sponsored events in Athens and Thessaloniki, including a Prime Minister’s rally to promote the ‘name deal’ between North Macedonia and Greece (December 2018); public events organised by the Ministry of Macedonia aiming to disarticulate hegemonic understandings of Greece’s national identity, history and past, and rearticulate them in progressive and inclusive terms (January 2019). Other events included a public discussion and an open air theatre performance on Thessaloniki’s working-class history and its connection with the Jewish community and working-class milieu. In Athens, the author participated in two events organised by the SYRIZA-sponsored Poulantzas Institute which focussed on left-wing governmentality (including themes of municipalism and neoliberal economy). To aid in understanding social movements’ views on the SYRIZA government, the author attended pro-SYRIZA protests and the annual congress of ‘Solidarity 4 All’ a forum for movements to annually evaluate their strategy and recalibrate it for the year to come. In the US, the author participated in a major ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ event and sermon outside Cincinnati, OH (March 2020); a Young Republicans’ meeting at Cornell University; a talk by Michael Cernovich (an antifeminist, ‘men’s rights activist’, and conspiracy theorist) organised by the Republicans United group at Arizona State University campus; and a Republican Party election event in Scranton, PA. The author travelled across the country in Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Texas, Arizona, and Ohio in order to observe the famous ‘urban/rural divide’ at first hand, and observed and photographed war veteran billboards on roadsides and proudly waving ‘TRUMP-PENCE 2020’ flags (and American flags) outside homes. Finally, the author entered ‘dive bars’ in the suburbs of Wilkes-Barre, PA and gun shops in Arizona, and discussed with members of the public there why they supported Trump. For details on ethnographic data please visit Appendix D.

2.5 Conclusion This chapter sought to familiarise the reader with SYRIZA and Trump’s successful populist campaigns and with the historical, political and economic contexts from which they emerged. In so doing, the first part of the chapter developed profiles of the two populist leaderships, outlining their individual

Populism in Greece and the United States 71 characteristics and highlighting their commonalities and distinctions. The second part of the chapter provided an overview of the long-standing populist traditions in both Greece and the United States. Despite contextual particularities contingently rooted in themes of a given era, the reactivating character of populist mobilisation against hegemonic convergence invites comparative analyses of unexplored terrains that go beyond the comfort zones of individual researchers. The background information supplied in this chapter has adumbrated the empirical analysis of the subsequent chapters, which will delve further into the discursive performativity of SYRIZA and Donald Trump, in opposition and government.

Notes 1. Political competition in crisis-ridden Greece played out less on a left/right axis than on a top/down one, demarcating those parties in favour of the memoranda and its associated austerity policies from those against (Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2013). This schema was often referred to as a populist/anti-populist (discursive) cleavage (Nikisianis et al., 2019). 2. Ostiguy and Roberts (2016) further argue that ‘[t]he bundling of these strands within a single party – the de facto political legacy of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” – is a politically contingent alignment, not one formed on ideological imperatives’ (ibid.) 3. ‘The Beltway’ refers to a literal circumferential highway encircling Washington, D.C., but is a widely-used metonym for federal government insiders, i.e. those ‘inside the beltway’ (Wall Street Journal, 2017). 4. See Chapter 4 for further treatment of the ‘low’ socio-cultural traits of Tsipras and other leading SYRIZA figures. 5. The same is true of several figures who surrounded Donald Trump and fit the definition of populists, such as Sarah Palin, but also of others who certainly do not fit that definition, such as such as Vice-President Mike Pence. 6. Stanley (2008:100) asserted that ‘there is little evidence of institutional elements indicating a common purpose or unity amongst populists . . . , no canon of key populist texts or calendar of significant moments; and the icons of populism are of local rather than universal appeal’. Pace Stanley, there is growing evidence of international cooperation between populist politicians, e.g. Nigel Farage’s enthusiastic advocacy for Trump’s campaign (Mason, 2016; Owen & Smith, 2017); Pablo Iglesias’ supportive joint ‘message of democratic change in Europe’ with Tsipras in 2015, and Tsipras’ reciprocal observance that ‘the people speak the same language when they fight’ (Grecia: Tsipras y Pablo Iglesias, abrazados en el mitin de cierre de campaña en Atenas, 2015). More recently in May 2018, ‘European [populist] far-right leaders gathered in Nice [France] to launch their continent-wide antiimmigration campaign ahead of the [2019] European Parliament elections. Marine Le Pen of the Front National was joined by Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom, Harald Vilmsky of Austria’s Freedom Party and Czech nationalist Tomio Okamura . . . Matteo Salvini of Lega . . . sent a video message of support to the gathering’ (Stone, 2018). 7. The question of race and its status in the People’s Party is contested. Historians such as Hofstadter (1965) argued that the party was openly hostile to Chinese immigrants and Jews. Critics of Hofstadter such as Collins (1989) and Vann Woodward (1981) counter that antisemitism and xenophobia were defaults for the political and economic elites who opposed the People’s Party (though this should not be uncritically accepted as an exculpatory apologia for the latter). Postel (2009) details the extent

72  Populism in Greece and the United States of the party’s internal struggle to define ‘the people’. Rejecting at least some of the dominant prejudices of their era, the Populists troubled themselves with questions such as: ‘Did the German, and other native-born English speaking, immigrant worker constitute part of the people? Were Mexican farmers nonwhite, or simply unfortunate captives of a nonprogressive culture and religion? Did Native Americans make for good Alliance members, or did progress require their imprisonment upon reservations?’ (Postel, 2009:174). The historical Populists’ inconsistent politics of race must not be overlooked or downplayed. While some regional organisations were evidently progressive, others were involved in overtly racist behaviour (McMath, 1992). Overall, in Postel’s view, the Populists’ ‘ideas about race ran the spectrum from relative tolerance to lynch-mob oppression and forced exclusion’ (Postel, 2009:174). 8. In 2011, Donald Trump said to Fox News ‘I think the people of the Tea Party like me, because I represent a lot of the ingredients of the Tea Party’ (Fox News, 2012). Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart, described the channel as a platform for the Alt-Right as well as the Tea Party (Marsden, 2019) while Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, suggested that Bannon turned Breitbart into Trump’s own Pravda (Meyer, 2016). With a 2016 page-view count of 2 billion, Breitbart’s support was a media kingmaker for the Trump campaign.

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3 SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015)

3.1. Introduction This chapter focuses on SYRIZA between 2012 and 2015, throughout which it formed the main party of the opposition in the Greek parliament. Focusing on SYRIZA’s political discourse, it examines speeches, posters, campaigning videos and 30 interviews with activists and supporters of the party. The chapter interrogates SYRIZA’s democratic and egalitarian left populism and seeks to understand how the party created broad social coalitions by affectively mobilising ‘the people’ in crisis-ridden Greece. The part of the chapter takes a deep dive into the core of SYRIZA’s discourse in order to evaluate the key components that structured its populist style. It further examines the content of its discourse in order to deliver insights into the characteristics of SYRIZA’s populism. The second part of the chapter consults the affectual narratives of ‘the people’ themselves in order to understand the socio-political emotions embedded in their identification with SYRIZA.

3.2. SYRIZA’s radical left populism This section concerns itself with SYRIZA’s populist performativity in opposition and investigates how the emerging party articulated people-centrism and anti-elitism. By drawing on a total of 25 data, comprising speeches and posters found on the discursive ‘supply’ side, it will discover (1) the key polarities embedded in the oppositional narrative of SYRIZA’s populism – who is included in the collective ‘people’ and who is defined as their political adversary? – and (2) the diagnosis the party offered in response to the socio-political crisis facing the country and the remedy it promised to administer once in government. 3.2.1. People-centrism and anti-elitism Empirical analysis should begin with the May 2012 elections. The left-hand poster of Figure 3.1 reads: ‘either us or them: together we can overthrow DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-4

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 81

 Figure 3.1 SYRIZA’s 2012 election campaign posters

them’, appended by ‘SYRIZA, Coalition of the Radical Left: Resistance, Disobedience, Solidarity’ (VM1). The right-hand poster of Figure 3.1 reads: ‘They decided without us. We move on without them. Upheaval in Greece. Message to Europe’ (VM.2). Here the populist polarisation is accompanied by a subversive – perhaps even revolutionary – connotation: the prospect of collision with the establishment and an urgent desire for change prevail in these two posters. The antagonism SYRIZA in opposition presented relied on the juxtaposition between itself and ‘the establishment’. Interestingly, while political polarisation is conventionally a byword for animosity, the numerous political dilemmas SYRIZA articulated drew on notions such as ‘equality’ (Tambakaki, 2019). SYRIZA presented itself as the egalitarian alternative to a political adversary framed as a violent and regressive entity: a constructed antagonism between positive signifiers (represented in its own name) and negative signifiers (represented in the name of ‘the establishment’). The central messages also had positive valence and alluded to democratic visions. Some of the dilemmatic frames in the data reveal juxtaposition of ‘the Greece of the enlightenment’ (represented by SYRIZA) and ‘the medieval Greece’ (represented by ‘the elite’) (SYR.3): i.e. ‘we respond to fear with hope and to terror with vision’ (SYR.1). ‘Elections’ were framed as referenda in which people must ratify either ‘SYRIZA or New Democracy’, ‘hope or memorandum’, or ‘prosperity or austerity’ (SYR.2). In line with theories of populism, during 2012– 2013, the party foregrounded sharply antagonistic delimitations, dividing the

82  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) socio-political space in two and assigning each side to a subject (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). Analysis of SYRIZA’s political discourse in this period indicates that the key political subject courted by the party was ‘the people’. The poster in Figure 3.2 evinces a paradigm of populist articulation. The poster was released in 2013 during SYRIZA’s first congress as a unitary party. The motivational message delivered by the poster proposes that a ‘strong SYRIZA’ equates to a sovereign, ‘independent people’ (VM.3). An identical frame was consistently repeated in all of SYRIZA’s electoral campaigns between 2012 and 2015, urging ‘the people’ to elevate the party towards majority government (SYR.1, SYR.2, SYR.3). However, the specific character of people-centrism in SYRIZA’s case seems more complex than the stereotypical association of populism with unmediated politics (see Urbinati, 1998; Taggart, 2004). Though SYRIZA made direct references to ‘the people’ (as do the majority of non-populist discourses), it did not seek to undermine representation. SYRIZA rarely framed itself simpliciter as a synecdoche of ‘the people’. Within SYRIZA’s people-centrism, there are arguably two

Figure 3.2 Poster from SYRIZA’s first congress in 2013

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 83 distinct subjects who relationally empower one another reciprocally in order to restore dignity. ‘The people’ appear as a co-partner to the party; the party as a co-partner to ‘the people’. Speeches of Tsipras during this period attest to this formula, e.g. ‘we have on our side a big weapon; the will of the people’ (SYR.3). Elsewhere, Tsipras conversely claimed that ‘our victory will not be a victory of SYRIZA but a triumph of the people’. On a different occasion, he claimed that political elites are ‘[determined] to stop, not the rise of SYRIZA, but the rise of “the people” to power’ (SYR.8). Although niche, there is arguably a significant difference between SYRIZA’s discourse (in which the party and ‘the people’ are collaborators) and the discourse of populist leaders such as Hugo Chávez (who claimed that ‘I am the people’). In a Chávez-style discourse, there is no distinction between the people and the populist – there is no representative or represented, as the leader takes up all space. People-centrism in SYRIZA’s political communication was most clearly articulated by its leader, Alexis Tsipras. In the main pre-electoral speech of 14 June 2012, at Omonoia square, Tsipras declared: This is the time for our people because what we are witnessing here today in front of us [i.e., the masses] does not fit into the narrow boundaries of the Left. [What we are witnessing today] is the wider patriotic, democratic gathering of our people . . . we welcome here today the thousands of democratic citizens, irrespective of their political orientation . . . even if until yesterday they voted for PASOK, New Democracy or the left. (SYR.2) This extract shows certain characteristics of populist discourse that are indispensable for understanding its nature. To begin with, the mere presence of the audience attending the speech is framed as ‘mass participation’ exceeding the frontiers of a single party (SYRIZA) and a single ideology (the left). The implicit consistency of the audience (which to be sure is typical of any political discourse) frames the collective subject not as a leftist subject but as a democratic and patriotic subject: a subject exhausted by austerity. The collective subject SYRIZA articulates is transversal. Albeit transversality constitutes, in theory at least, a core task of all politics, it is especially apparent in successful populist projects. SYRIZA’s framing in this context replaced the classical left–right axis for the populist–elitist one (see Ostiguy, 2017). ‘The people’ appear partially/temporally united against PASOK and New Democracy (framed as the common enemies of ‘the people’). All of the aforementioned leads us to the second operational criterion for the identification of populist phenomena: anti-elitism. Anti-elitism is also in evidence during Tsipras’ Omonoia square speech. The political adversary of ‘the people’ appears in several guises, e.g. ‘the twoparty system’, ‘the old establishment that governed the country for the last 40 years’, ‘those who brought the country into chaos and now are blackmailing “the people” ’ (SYR.2). Terms such as these typify SYRIZA’s political

84  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) communication throughout the 2012–2015 period. SYRIZA routinely split the enemy into two: the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ troika (SYR.3). The ‘internal’ troika denoted memorandum-oriented parties within Greece, irrespective of ideology, particularly PASOK and New Democracy: i.e. the established parties who governed in coalition until 2015. As Tsipras put it, the leaders of these parties ‘have a common political program’ (SYR.1). The ‘external’ (or sometimes ‘real’) troika denoted the European Commission, the Eurogroup and the IMF, embodied in personalities such as ‘Mrs. Merkel and her dogmatic neoliberal politics’ (SYR.1). Together, Tsipras claimed, the internal and external troikas imposed memoranda on Greece and brought catastrophe to the country (SYR.2). The antagonistic frontier against ‘the troikas’ was principally entrenched through anti-memorandum terrain, upon which SYRIZA articulated its political communication, proposals and promises during its years in opposition (Teperoglou & Tsatsanis, 2014). The left-hand poster of Figure 3.3 epitomises this polarisation against the dual enemy. Prepared in advance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Athens in April 2014, the poster depicts her alongside Antonis Samaras, leader of New Democracy and Greek Prime Minister at the time, presenting the pair as an ensemble enemy. The context of the ‘No more, Thank you’ (VM.4) slogan of the left-hand poster is clarified by that of its right-hand counterpart: ‘Memoranda: Never Again’ (VM.5). Beyond ‘the memorandum’ and its sympathisers, SYRIZA enumerated other political enemies including the ‘economic monopolies’, ‘banks’, ‘the stock

  Figure 3.3 SYRIZA’s posters for Angela Merkel’s visit to Athens in 2014

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 85 market’, ‘the profiteers’, ‘the media moguls’, ‘the big construction companies who turned the state into their own clients’, ‘the mediators who set their cartels and steal the produce of our people’ (SYR.2), ‘the 1% of Greek society’, ‘the 30 families that rule the country’, and ‘the old political elite’ (SYR.3). Overall, SYRIZA’s political enemies in the period 2012–2015 can be consolidated into what Alexis Tsipras dubbed ‘the sinful triangle’ which comprised ‘the corrupt two-party system, the bank-ocracy [trapezokratia] and the untransparent and corrupt media’ (SYR.2). The polarised landscape mapped by the party during this period is perhaps best summarised in Tsipras’ own words: we will always serve the public interest, the patriotic interest, the interests of the many, the interests of the people and not the interests of plutocracy and oligarchy. (SYR.1) This framework places – and therefore syntactically associates – ‘the public’ and ‘patriotic interests’ – which are presented as the interests of ‘the many’ or ‘the people’ – in fundamental opposition to the interests of ‘the plutocrats’ and ‘the oligarchs’. Tsipras’ rhetoric produces a syntactic bridge between these signifiers and ultimately constructs a master narrative – a ‘common sense’ in Gramscian terms – wherein the collective good of an economic agenda favouring the impoverished majority at the expense of self-indulgent elites is simultaneously presented as the patriotic choice. To deepen our analysis of SYRIZA in opposition, it is now necessary to grasp the nature of its populism and the status of ‘the people’ by deconstructing the party’s overall discourse. Investigation of how ‘the people’ was presented in SYRIZA’s discourse can be abetted by a close reading of the following extract: Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos wish that the people be fearful, subjugated, closed in their shell, to obey, and await their misery. Well, you have picked the wrong people, Mr. Venizelos and Mr. Samaras. This people never bent. This people never surrendered in the toughest times of their own history. Not even when the conquerors invaded our country. [The people] never lowered the flag of dignity, the flag of sovereignty, the flag of the struggle. [the people] will not do it now either . . . [the people] won’t follow you Mr. Samaras. We won’t lower the flag of dignity, the flag of hope the flag of popular sovereignty and national sovereignty. (SYR.1) Unlike canonical perspectives which frame ‘the people’ as necessarily virtuous or glorified in populist discourse, ‘the people’ in Alexis Tsipras’ discourse are presented as being perceived (by ‘the establishment’) as fearful. According to Tsipras’ narrative, the treatment of ‘the people’ as subordinate subjects has reduced them to misery (financial, social). Against the establishment’s view,

86  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) SYRIZA frames ‘the people’ as a ‘resisting subject’ which disobeys authorities seeking to suspend its sovereignty and preserves its dignity: No one can intImidate or blackmail a wounded people, a people who have been betrayed and humiliated. This coming Sunday, it is not the lenders or their representatives here who will be speaking. This Sunday, the Greek people will speak. And they will give the clearest answer: down with the memoranda; down with subjugation. The blackmail is over! (SYR.8) Another key task for the present analysis is to investigate the status of ‘the people’ in SYRIZA’s discourse. The view that populism articulates a homogenising, monist and monolithic view of identity has predominated in the existing literature (see Mudde, 2004; Müller, 2016). The popularity of this narrative has contributed to a near-exclusive association of populism with nationalism. Certainly, the extracts presented earlier resemble a nation-oriented discourse. But can SYRIZA’s discourse be simply reduced to nationalism or national/ ethno-populism (see Pantazopoulos, 2016)? Unless the saliency of patriotic narratives in Greek left-wing discourse is given proper consideration, there is a risk that ahistorical assumptions will guide analysis.1 The ample semantic reservoir for SYRIZA which Greek left-wing patriotism provided was born out of popular resistance against Nazi occupation in the 1940s, resistance against the colonels’ Junta and the collective memory of those exiled or imprisoned for it in the late 1960s, the anti-imperialist discourse of Andreas Papandreou in the 1980s and finally the anti-austerity protests of the early 2010s, which often targeted the German government and other international organisations for allegedly turning Greece into a debt colony (SYR.3). Undoubtedly, SYRIZA politically capitalised on the emotions and memory of left-wing Greek resistance from these periods, but nonetheless, SYRIZA’s discourse differs significantly from a typical nationalist and nativist discourse. ‘The homeland’ (πατρίδα) rather than ‘the ethnos’ (έθνος) is its central referent (see also Venizelos, 2022). At a 2014 rally while campaigning in the European Elections, Tsipras demanded: ‘Go back, Mrs. Merkel! Go back, Mr. Schäuble! Go back, ladies and gentlemen of the conservative nomenclature of Europe! Go back, Troika! Greece is not a lab rat’ (SYR.6). His refrain echoes the historic memory of 1944, when ‘Go back!’ was the watchword of communist partisans resisting the deployment of British troops to Mytilene (Paraskevaides, 1944). Synchronically, Tsipras’ ‘left patriotism’ has contemporary connotations associated with SYRIZA’s framing of the present-day EU as an economic caste, principally represented by Germany, which suppresses Greece’s national (qua political) but above all popular sovereignty. This polarisation takes place at the politico-economic level, rather than the symbolic or mythical which defines nationalism. ‘The enemy’ is not ‘the nation of Germany’ or its ‘nationals’ but ‘totalitarianism’, ‘the crimes of the Third Reich’, ‘the dark side of Europe’ (SYR.1) to which SYRIZA counter-proposes ‘solidarity’ and ‘social Europe’

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 87 (SYR.3). SYRIZA framed itself transnationally as a symbol of a changing Europe, ‘to strengthen all the voices, that in all the languages and in all the countries are resisting the austerity imposed to the many and the profits of the few’ (SYR.8). SYRIZA’s people’ is intrinsically constructed as a plurality. At the level of collective identity formation, SYRIZA’s solidarity is inclusive of ‘the peoples of Europe, the peoples of Spain, the peoples of Italy, the peoples of IrelanI.all those who want a different, democratic, future for Europe’ (SYR.1). SYRIZA’s prominent internationalism, as well as its determination to be inclusive of ‘people irrespective of gender, sexual orientation or race’ (SYR.1), disambiguates its populism from stereotypes of reactionary populist xenophobia and seats it instead within a pantheon of inclusive, egalitarian, left-wing populist phenomena in Europe and beyond. Its political vision moreover aimed to represent ‘those who are affected by the crisis the most’, i.e. ‘the non-privileged’ (SYR.2). SYRIZA’s political discourse in opposition makes obvious that its equivalential chain is fundamentally long and pluralistic; ‘the people’ of SYRIZA is neither a monist, single entity nor a homogenised collective subject. SYRIZA understood ‘the weak’, ‘the unemployed’, ‘the homeless’, ‘those who are queuing at the breadlines’, ‘the poor’, ‘the precarious workers’, ‘the peasants’, ‘the heavily indebted households’, ‘the youngsters of this country’ and ‘the young scientists who migrate abroad’ as constituents of ‘the people’ (SYR.2). The party explicitly sought to redress the grievances of a broad range of grassroots movements: ‘the workers’ movement’, ‘the water struggles’ (i.e. efforts to defend public ownership of Greek water infrastructure), ‘the journalists’ democratic struggle’ (following the controversial and purportedly anti-democratic closure of the public broadcasting channel by the Samaras administration), ‘the environmental struggle’ (especially plans for development in protected environmental areas by multinational corporations) and ‘the cleaners movement’ (following austerity-driven government layoffs). The hallmarks of left politics abounding in SYRIZA’s populist articulation unambiguously constructed the collective subject as politically subaltern and socially excluded. Tsipras’ framing of ‘the people’ reinforces this evaluation: ‘those who have been looted all these years but never bended’, ‘the pensioners who are brought to the edge of hunger’ and ‘those who live without electricity, without access to healthcare, even without the opportunity for a plate of food . . . the unemployed, the 99% of the Greek society’ (SYR.3). Figure 3.4 showcases the range of social groups SYRIZA addressed in its posters as constituents of ‘the people’. Posters from the 2014 European election construe ‘the people’ variously as manual workers, youth, pensioners, people with disabilities, children and immigrants. The posters of 3.4 read variously: ‘we vote for jobs and wages’, ‘. . . for our dreams and rights’, ‘. . . for pensions and dignity’, ‘. . . for healthcare and social security’, ‘. . . for the future of our children’ and ‘. . . for justice and equality’. The many social groups discursively included by SYRIZA were interchangeably identified as

88  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015)

 

 

 

 

Figure 3.4 SYRIZA’s posters from the 2014 European election campaign

members of ‘the people’, evincing an ‘open’ political horizon and exemplary visual representation of inclusive populism. That SYRIZA demonstrates the formal characteristics of pluralistic populism is abundantly clear from both the rhetorical and visual material fielded during this period. SYRIZA partitions the Greek socio-political space into two conceptual camps – ‘the many’ and ‘the few’ – but these take a variety of different

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 89 guises. Seemingly heterogeneous identities and groups are articulated systematically and brought into discursive equivalence. 3.2.2.  Diagnosis: neoliberal austerity; prognosis: popular sovereignty and welfare This chapter has so far investigated SYRIZA’s antagonistic narrative, deconstructing the notions of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ as they were articulated by the party in its posture as populism in opposition. In order to determine the party’s ethical-political horizon, this subsection focuses on diagnostic and prognostic frameworks, probing the central signifiers and frames SYRIZA used to identify problems and propose solutions in crisis-ridden Greece. Beginning with the diagnostic framing, SYRIZA engaged with the demands of the anti-austerity movement, trying to represent impoverished and disenfranchised social groups in its discourse, constructing and performing, in its way, its own version of the ‘crisis’, attributing the blame to the ‘old’ ‘two-party establishment’ (PASOK/ND) and to the neoliberal policies imposed by the EU and the IMF. (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019:43) SYRIZA blamed an unresponsive and alienating political establishment for the situation in Greece, a long tradition of corruption and the imposition of neoliberal austerity by the troika. This was how SYRIZA constructed the political enemy of ‘the people’, the target of blame taking the metonymic shapes of ‘the political establishment’, ‘the ancién regime’, ‘the internal and external troika’, ‘the political elites’, ‘PASOK and New Democracy’, ‘those who governed the country for forty years’ and so on. For SYRIZA, ‘they looted our homeland. They looted and impoverished our people. They lowered the Greek flag and gave it as a spoil [of war] to Angela Merkel’ (SYR.2). It should be noted that the anti-memorandum angle was the most important reservoir for SYRIZA, and the one responsible for its ultimate success. ‘The memorandum’ (SYR.3), which SYRIZA labelled ‘a barbaric policy’ (SYR.2), and subsequent ‘austerity’ precipitating ‘economic catastrophe’ (SYR.1), thereby bringing the Greek people to ‘despair’ (SYR.3), were consistently and repeatedly framed as the main issues facing Greek society. At the final electoral rally on June 2012, Tsipras announced, Greece changes this Sunday. It leaves behind fear, it leaves behind insecurity, it leaves behind those who attempted to poison the Greek people by terrorising them. It leaves behind the parties; those parties which guaranteed the memorandum and drove our people to catastrophe. It leaves behind their political personnel, Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos. It leaves behind New Democracy and PASOK – who turned ‘lying’ into their own flag in order to blackmail the Greek people. (SYR.2)

90  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) This extract shows how SYRIZA amalgamated the established political parties and European politico-economic caste and tied them all to the memorandum and its austerity doctrines, which in turn inflicted fear and terror upon the Greek people. The ‘primacy of the economy’, however, did not come at the expense of other contemporaneous struggles commonly formulated in particularistic (i.e. identity-political) terms, such as the LGBTQI+ movement (GR13). Anti-memorandum sentiment merely served as a common denominator which, per Laclau (2005), transmuted the differential relations between those identities into relations of equivalence (GR14). Beyond the centrally-articulated topic of the memorandum, ‘corruption’ and ‘lack of transparency’ made key appearances in the party’s discourse, portrayed as business-as-usual for ‘the establishment’ (SYR.3); as endemic and defining features of the forces of the ‘the old establishment’ (SYR.1); they were perceived as chronic practices of the two-party system and they were highly connected – both in SYRIZA’s discourse and in public opinion (GR4) – with the collapse of the Greek economy during the period. The campaign posters in Figure 3.5 illustrate SYRIZA’s reading of the state of play. Evidently, the chosen framing reflected the general social and economic conditions in Greece. The posters read: ‘our fridge is empty . . .’, ‘our money is gone . . .’, ‘our power supply is cut off . . .’, ‘our produce has rotten . . .’, ‘our medication has run out . . .’, ‘our pension is cut . . .’, ‘our businesses are closed down . . .’, ‘our children migrated . . .’ and ‘our voice is silenced; our patience is over’. The manner of presentation indicates no particular ideological affiliation to left or right since these issues affected a large part of the Greek population at the time (VM.13 to VM.21.) Moving to the prognostic frame, we now examine SYRIZA’s proposed solutions to the problems it identified. As a response to economic, social and political conditions in the country, Tsipras had faith that ‘the people will turn their backs to the parties of the establishment that governed the country for 40 years . . . those who brought the country into chaos and now are blackmailinIs . . . those who looted the country and impoverished our people’ (SYR.2). ‘From Monday onwards, the memoranda are over, the bailout is fIshed . . . the people will take their future in their own hands’ (SYR.2) – outside the framework of hard austerity but always ‘within the Eurozone’ (SYR.1; SYR.3). Operating within the framework of representative democracy, elections were SYRIZA’s desired path for change; the party defined ‘elections’ as ‘a profound process of popular and social emancipation and a social revolution’ (SYR.1) and a ‘redemption for the people (SYR.4). Between 2012 and 2015, Tsipras repeatedly reiterated that ‘from Monday [i.e. the day after the elections] we are done with national humiliation, the orders from abroad and the governance of our country through emails’ (SYR.1); ‘Greece will obtain voice and recognition’ (SYR.8). Elections were often presented as a ‘referendum on the memorandum that never took place in Greece’. As Tsipras stated, ‘in this critical referendum on Sunday [i.e., the elections] our people have already chIn hope . . . SYRIZA . . . change . . . popular sovereignty’ (SYR.2). Not only

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 91

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3.5  2014 European election campaign posters expressing SYRIZA’s core demands

does this discourse supply counterevidence to the argument that populism is necessarily anti-democratic or illiberal, but it specifically supports the view that populists may well propose a different type of democracy – with radical institutionalist attributes.

92  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) As to the specific proposals: at the electoral rallies for the 2015 elections, Tsipras stated that SYRIZA puts an end to the politics that shut down the high streets, that drove the peasants to desperation, that pushes away the young people to look for a job and hope abroad. The people with its vote puts an end to the politics that demolished the welfare state, the social security funds, the publIhealthcare . . . the politics that looted the labour, sweat, and dignity of the middle strata (SYR.3). Though not definitive of the party’s populist identity per se – but rather indicative of core ideology of the party – the programmatic proposals of SYRIZA will help flesh out how, in practical terms, Tsipras’ party’s proposals to solve the Greek crisis. The so-called Thessaloniki Programme (the manifesto SYRIZA launched on 13 September 2014) was the party’s roadmap to ‘end austerity’ and ‘reverse all memorandum injustices’. It was on the basis of these programmatic proposals SYRIZA was successfully elected a year later. The Thessaloniki Programme sought a European New Deal based on four pillars amounting to a ‘National Reconstruction Plan’: (1) to confront the humanitarian crisis by providing free electricity to those living under the poverty line, by providing meal subsidies to the thousands of families without income, guaranteeing housing and rebuilding the welfare state; (2) to reboot the economy and promote economic justice by alleviating tax suppression of the real economy, relieving citizens of financial burdens while imposing heavier taxation on the middle class and cracking down on tax evasion; (3) to repair industrial relations by restoring legal frameworks protecting employment rights, and gradually restoring salaries and pensions gutted by the Memoranda; and (4) to reform the political system, restore rule of law, create a meritocratic state and deepen democracy through regional government projects and empowerment of citizens’ participation (SYR.5). In essence, the types of political solutions proposed by SYRIZA in response to the Greek crisis – at least in its manifesto – are indicative also of the ‘thick ideology’ of the party, definable as neo-Keynesian or left social-democratic (SYR.7). It should be emphasised, however, that programmatic policy proposals do not dissolve the populist character of SYRIZA. Neither of the ‘two’ identities of SYRIZA should be studied in an ‘either/or’ manner; on the contrary, it is more productive to study them as a matter of co-articulation between a – broadly speaking – leftist discourse and a populist one; a leftist discourse communicated in a populist manner (see Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). To an extent, it can be argued that the populist framing SYRIZA communicated, interwoven with factors such as the ‘purity’ of the party and the presence of deep socio-economic dislocations, amplified SYRIZA’s capability to mediate its (leftist) political proposals to the wider public. The 36% result that elevated SYRIZA to power in the 2015 elections extended beyond its leftist base. In contrast to an orthodox leftist mode of political communication pitting ‘the working class’ against ‘capital’ in the name of a socialist revolution,

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 93 SYRIZA juxtaposed ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’ in the name of popular sovereignty. In this sense, not only does popular sovereignty seem analytically distinct from both the national sovereignty analysed in the previous section and class ‘sovereignty’, but it traverses both, thereby creating a wider political net which resonated with the post-democratic spirit of the age (see Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). Despite the intense rhetorical polarisation in which SYRIZA indulged, the political vision revealed on close inspection of its statements is thoroughly egalitarian. Central signifiers in the party’s discourse included ‘unity’, ‘negotiation with Europe’, ‘alliances’, ‘progress’, ‘development’, ‘social solidarity’, ‘social cohesion’ and ‘the restoration of democracy (SYR.1). Crucially, the central signifier of the 2015 campaign that led SYRIZA to power was hope. SYRIZA launched a ‘hopeful’ electoral campaign anticipated the upcoming reversal of the grim mood in crisis-ridden Greece. This is most evident in the 30-second campaign broadcasts, which are contrived by SYRIZA to rapidly change the mood from the pessimism of current affairs to the ostensible optimism of the future to come. In Figure 3.6, the screenshot on the left shows a

Figure 3.6 Stills from SYRIZA’s election campaign broadcasts in January 2015

94  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) profusion of ‘For Sale’ and ‘For Rent’ signs. It narrates a commonplace situation of people living in fear of losing their homes during the crisis (VM.59). The screenshot on the right portrays a female pensioner receiving ‘300 euros per month which are not enough even for basic medication’ (VM.22). Towards the end of the campaign broadcast, the scenario is completely overturned. The melancholy music and colours are replaced by optimistic visuals. Each campaign video that touches on a different social issue ends with the message: ‘this coming victory allows me to hope. Greece moves forward. Europe is changing. Hope is coming’ (ibid.).

3.3. Collective identity: a pluralistic, egalitarian subject of the left The analysis presented hitherto focused on the ‘supply’ side of political discourse. It has shown how SYRIZA – by framing diverse demands at diverse social and economic sectors as part of the same overall diagnostic narrative about the crisis – articulated a collective identity in the name of ‘the people’ and against an unresponsive and corrupt ‘elite’. In line with the motivation of this research, this chapter now turns to the theme of affects in order to explore socio-political emotions in the period 2012–2015. Per Laclau, there is no collective identity without a release of libidinal energies that would result in a cathectic investment (Parkin-Gounelas, 2012). From 4.6% in 2009, SYRIZA jumped to 16.8% and 26.9% in 2012 and the victorious 36.3% in 2015, thereby disrupting a political consensus that had persisted since the country’s passage to the democratic era. As the analysis of affectual narratives among ‘the people’ reveals, an important factor for the success of SYRIZA’s discourse was its ability to mobilise socio-political affects by channelling citizens’ ‘anger’, ‘frustration’ and ‘indignation’ whilst simultaneously transforming them into ‘hope’ (GR1; GR4; GR17). The depth of the economic crisis was a central factor in turning the political scene ‘upside-down’. Researchers described Greece as ‘a particularly violent case’ of austerity, with evident anthropological implications (Powers & Rakopoulos, 2019). This view was shared by interviewees. An activist in the ‘solidarity networks’ said that ‘the people were pauperised’: ‘middle-aged men, fathers, were searching for food in the dumpsters. Mothers visited the food line twice a day. People hadn’t seen any income in weeks or months’. In line with theories of crisis (Roberts, 2015; Moffitt, 2015), the economic situation resulted in a social – and ultimately representational – crisis, which completely dislocated the socio-political norms, opening space for new identifications, e.g. with SYRIZA (Stavrakakis et al., 2017). In the next subsections, the processes of collective identity formation and the reasons for SYRIZA’s rise to prominence in the political struggle for hegemony will be examined. The second part of the chapter draws on 30 interviews conducted with ‘the people’, allowing the subjects themselves to reveal how and why they identified with the radical left-populist party.

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 95 3.3.1.  Turning difference into equivalence Discussions with SYRIZA’s sympathisers indicate that an important contributory factor to the radical left party’s dynamism was its intimate relationship with social movements. For this reason, SYRIZA was often described as a movement party (Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2020). Clearly, ‘the movements’ was not simply a byword for ‘the people’, since the latter extended beyond the militant left. However, the relationship SYRIZA had with social movements was pivotal in disseminating their anti-austerity message across different ‘sectors’ of, and ‘identities’ within, society. The movements, auguring the ‘electoral revolution’ that was to follow, functioned as a transmission vector for the pulse of the various protest cycles between 2008 and 2013, culminating in the Aganaktismenoi – a large demonstration by indignant citizens’ in the squares. This ‘pulse’ echoed an avalanche of emotions: anger, fear and indignation, but also joy, an affective landscape also evident in the general population. Most significant among the struggles that emerged during the anti-austerity protests – leaders and members of which were interviewed for this study – included: the environmental struggle of the villages in Skouries (Northern Greece) against fracking; the struggle against water privatisation in Thessaloniki; the laid-off cleaners and school guards struggle; campaigns against the closure of the public broadcaster (ERT) by the Samaras administration; organised components of the workers’ movement and various solidarity networks who sought to act as a ‘substitute’ for weakened public services such as healthcare (see Katsambekis, 2019). How do social movements and networks become a collective body seeking access to the central arena of political representation? How do their isolated demands become collective ones? In the early 2010s, relatively weak inter-movement communication was the norm. As activists involved with various specific struggles explained in interviews, the siloed condition of each movement was evident. In an activist’s own words, ‘before we would communicate with similar types of movements, for example those who fought about the same or similar issues, or at best movements that operated in the same city or region’ (GR9). As the crisis intensified, bringing with it deepening sentiments of indignation, anger and the perceived unresponsiveness of the political establishment, ‘things changed’ (GR8). As the interviewees explained, the decision of the New Democracy government in June 2013 to close the Greek Public Broadcaster ERT was a catalyst for a major change of trajectory within grassroots politics (GR1; GR4; GR9). The forced closure of ERT generated wide mobilisation far beyond existing leftwing activist circles. The government’s unexpected decision was perceived as ‘an assault on democracy’ in the insistent words of a journalist sacked during the closure (GR2). In explaining the formative character of these eventualities, a leading activist in the struggle against water privatisation in Thessaloniki recounted how ‘the event’ brought heterogeneous struggles together under the banner of ‘democracy’. In his own words: ‘we had an assembly when we got informed that ERT was forced shut. We all left instantly for the station’s headquarters and took our

96  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) own banners with us’ (GR1). Banners from the movement against water privatisation – an ostensibly unrelated struggle – were brought to a protest venue that was later occupied by journalists. ‘Democracy’ – the central watchword of the aggrieved journalists – proved an empty signifier capable of subsuming multiple struggles in Thessaloniki before they become national struggles. One movement responded with solidarity to attacks on another, exemplifying how heterogeneous struggles began to merge and ultimately forge a universal movement against ‘a common enemy’. At the height of the economic crisis and resultant anti-austerity protests, the then-occupied headquarters of ERT, broadcasting online, became a central place for the organisation of movements and ideas that would receive wide exposure to the public as a counter-hegemonic project (GR2). The blending and linking of banners, slogans and demands under a common roof are typical of the political process that followed in Greece. Differential relations started turning into equivalence, to borrow Laclau and Mouffe’s (2014 [1985]) vocabulary. As a journalist who assumed a central activist position explained, ‘we gradually started marching together as one. We exchanged slogans and borrowed each other’s symbols’ (GR2). Disparate movements ceased to pursue isolated struggles and make isolated demands. In demonstrating how the ‘abstract’ notion of chain of equivalence was performed empirically, an anti-water-privatisation campaigner explained how that movement, like all other particular struggles and demands, entered a process of transformation, incorporating itself into a general movement; a movement of movements, a movement of citizens from different backgrounds who demanded general political, social and economic change: ‘we stopped talking only about “the trees”, “fracking”, or “water” and we started talking about “nature” in general . . . there was a coherence. Later we spoke about “democracy” in the name of “the people” and against “the corrupt establishment” ’ (GR1). The argument that particularities were weakening and links between different groups deepening is also highlighted in Della Porta et al. (2017:43): while protest was escalating in terms of numbers of participants, repertoires of action, and geographical diffusion, collective action had a tremendous impact upon institutional and party politics; but it was also the definition of the movement itself that was changing: this became evident in the squares during the summer of 2011, when ultra-leftists met with SYRIZA party members or anarchists with (ex-)PASOK voters, all of them opposing the same political establishment and asking for a more fair and equal world. Although the reciprocal benefit between SYRIZA and the movements is clear, social movements literature as well as activists who participated in this research show that their relationship was not straightforward. ‘The movements’ were not a property of SYRIZA, and SYRIZA was not a product of the movements (Kouki, 2018; Kotronaki, 2018). Rather, each engaged with

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 97 the other dialectically and relationally, revealing, amplifying and diffusing an already energised political pulse in Greece. SYRIZA provided potent master frames that tapped into discontent and ‘cleverly steered affect and attracted voters’ support’ (Tambakaki, 2019:117). Through this political process, salient popular frustration against the incumbent government began to translate into political action. SYRIZA became a political vehicle for the movements’ agendas, and they aspired to transfer their demands from the streets to parliament. The party’s antagonistic narrative generated political-libidinal energies, mobilising the previously disaffected electorate and constructing a collective identity. The issue of framing, then, is central to political identification in that it provides coherent links through the various independent struggles of diverse movements. The verticality of hegemonic politics bisected the horizontally situated autonomous struggles in an alchemy of collective identification. 3.3.2.  Why SYRIZA? The heterogeneity and ambiguity of ‘the people’ as a collective subject were highlighted in the previous section.2 Amid this contingent choreography of subjects and actors, why did SYRIZA rise to prominence and eventually take power rather than other potential challengers, such as the Communist Party or other marginal left formations that articulated similarly barbed opposition to neoliberalism, or indeed why not the nativist populist right ANEL or neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, who also took aim at the economic establishment (though also at immigrants)? For some of the interviewees, especially those in the most radical sectors of the movement, SYRIZA was the natural option; ‘it was the left choice’ (GR11). At worst, it was seen as ‘a radical alternative in the mainstream of politics’ (GR17). The party was perceived as their channel of choice for political change, delivering radical demands from the streets into the parliament. For newly politicised citizens, SYRIZA appeared ‘consistent’ (GR1) and ‘honest’ (GR3) because it was ‘always present’ (GR12) in the struggles in which they, as common citizens, participated. Interviewees reported that this party of the radical left was omnipresent: in their neighbourhoods, at demonstrations, within the food solidarity struggles (GR5; GR10); sometimes even opening the premises of its local branches for group meetings (GR12). As interviewees further explained, SYRIZA was welcomed by most social movements thanks to its perception as a ‘clean’ party, a party unequivocal about its support for the protests. After all, having never governed, it had never yet enjoyed the opportunity to prove itself untrustworthy (GR3, GR7). These factors in combination sufficed to create a sentiment of ‘trust’ towards SYRIZA (GR2). The proximity between the radical left party and ‘the people’ was evident from the fact that many local activists – not necessarily party members, of which several were also interviewed in this study – stood as SYRIZA candidates in local, national and European elections between 2012–2015 (GR1;

98  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) GR6; GR14). As will be seen in the following chapter, some of these (often framed as ‘our friends’, ‘colleagues’ and ‘neighbours’ by other interviewees) went on to become MPs or ministers (GR19; GR20; GR21; GR22). As Kouki and González (2018:130) note, SYRIZA’s ‘party members were ordinary people and not part of the well-known, corrupted political elites. Even if none of these protest events or spaces were the product of the party’s steering, SYRIZA was present in most social struggles publicly supporting anti-austerity claims’. SYRIZA’s break with the traditionally class-preoccupied orthodox left, interwoven with its expansive and pluralistic political project that aimed to govern (see also Chapter 2), placed the radical left party in a privileged position. The party’s upward trajectory was abetted by the types of organisational patterns it contingently developed across time (GR14). Its interactions with social movements played a significant role in formulating, then updating, its discourse and strategy in a vibrant and fresh-faced manner (Eleftheriou, 2019). Nor was its loose organisational character irrelevant to the populist trajectory it would adopt later; though signs of minoritarian populism were already evident from the early 2000s (Katsambekis, 2016). Unlike other marginal parties, SYRIZA was perceived as a realistic alternative articulating a vision and plan for change. At the same time, it was also on the side of the common people. In contrast, other (left) parties exhibited a certain elitism, appearing almost buried in their stagnant theoretical textbooks (see Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). The Communist Party, for example, disregarded neighbourhood-level solidarity campaigns to provide food and clothes to impoverished citizens, with the apology that ‘feeding people is an obstacle to the revolution’ (GR12). As this leading member in the ‘Solidarity 4 All’ movement said, solidarity structures were gradually politicised and rallied to the side of SYRIZA (GR12). Citizens’ participation, not only in protests but also in neighbourhood-level projects, engendered a sense of community and belonging. Solidarity emerged as a remedy to the social frailty that had prevailed since 2010 (GR8; GR9; GR12). Sentiments of social, political and economic isolation were transmuted into hope when SYRIZA arose (GR4). Political engagement generated feelings such as ‘euphoria’ and ‘joy’ according to interviewees (GR11). In this sense, street politics and mobilisation in the neighbourhoods and squares, but also at the representative, official-political level, produced an array of affects that are profoundly explanatory of SYRIZA’s ascent to prominence in the crisis context in Greece.

3.4. Conclusion This chapter dealt with SYRIZA’s populist performativity in opposition. Through its well-framed diagnosis of the crisis as a symptom of the corruptive practices of the old establishment, SYRIZA’s discourse completed the missing pieces of the puzzle and forged links between dispersed sectors of society, who felt excluded, marginalised and impoverished by the political status quo. This popular frustration was capably channelled into a new political subjectivity

SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 99 with leftist characteristics. SYRIZA deployed populism as its weapon, juxtaposing ‘the people’ and the neoliberal austerity of the internal ‘political establishment’ and the external ‘troika’. In times of total dislocation rooted in the combined economic, social and representational crisis, SYRIZA’s narrative appealed to the wider electorate, far beyond the bounds of the existing left, mobilising an avalanche of variable affects from rage to hope, but most crucially mobilising these towards a goal which offered agency and a realistic prospect of having an effect. Following the empirical analysis of a total of 40 units located on the ‘supply’ side of communication (including speeches, videos and posters) in combination with the 30 interviews conducted with SYRIZA supporters, several important observations with respect to the party’s type of populism can be made. First, while populism – at least in Europe – is habitually associated with the (extreme) right and its attendant nationalism and xenophobia, SYRIZA’s populism in contrast promoted a leftist political programme revealing a progressive rather than regressive vision of society. References to ‘the nation’ were by no means absent from the party’s discourse. Crucially, however, this invocation of the nation diverged widely from typical nationalist discourse: it is to the secular ‘homeland’ (patrida) rather than ethnic ‘nation’ (ethnos) that SYRIZA rallies its supporters. This ‘homeland’ has no enemy defined by culture or blood, but rather an economic and political elite that is both internal and external to the Greek nation. The ‘patriotic subject’ interpellated by SYRIZA was one resisting neo-colonisation, not one of national purity. Moreover, the identity of the homeland/patriot is not defined by the exclusion of foreigners. On the contrary, immigrants and foreigners were prominent constituents in SYRIZA’s definition of ‘the people’. Fundamentally, the party endorsed an idea of popular rather than national sovereignty. Additionally, contrary to conventional understandings of populism, ‘the people’ articulated by SYRIZA was neither homogenous nor monolithic. Rather, the interchangeable syncretisation of ‘the people’ with its constituent identities (e.g. ‘the immigrants’) revealed the pluralistic and inclusive character of this collective identity. It follows that SYRIZA’s discourse between 2012 and 2015 was not necessarily illiberal or anti-institutional; rather, it sought cooperation (for example with the European institutions) and far preferred subversion of the rules of the game to ‘flipping over the table’. SYRIZA’s populist strategy is to capture the state and subvert the rules of the game rather than abandoning the mainstream electoral arena and treating it as a useless tool. The next chapter examines SYRIZA’s populist performativity in government in the years 2015–2019 and seeks to understand continuities and discontinuities.

Notes 1. Patriotism in the Greek context resonates with a particular left-wing identity, rooted in historic communist partisan resistance against Nazi occupation in the 1940s. Later social-democratic iterations of the Greek Left drew inspiration from it,

100  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) particularly those associated with PASOK and the figure of Andreas Papandreou in the 1980s. While left-wing patriotism is not quite a unified, crystalline ideological family within Greek politics, it resonates widely with diverse groups. Moreover, the valorised inflection of ‘patriotism’ (e.g., ‘one cannot be anti-patriotic’) can potentially mobilise constituencies outside of the patriotic left, or even the left in general. A renaissance in this mode of thought emerged from 2010 to 2015, against a backdrop of extreme European financial and political intervention which was often perceived as a suspension of national and political sovereignty. Germany’s leading role in the contemporary crisis played favourably for anti-austerity parties like SYRIZA, who were able to draw evocative rhetorical links between present-day German interference in Greek affairs and the desperate antifascist struggles of the 1940s (for analyses of nationalism in Greece, see Gavriilidis [2006] and Svoronos [2017]). 2. The heterogeneity of the movements and ambiguity of ‘the people’ in crisis-ridden Greece is also manifested in the multifaceted phenomenon of Aganaktismenoi, specifically the existence of two parts of the ‘square’: ‘the lower’ and ‘upper’. While in the larger lower section, experiments in democratic deliberation took central priority, in the upper square, radical right-wing and nationalist elements were more dominant (Kaika & Karaliotas, 2016; Sotiropoulos, 2017). This speaks to the view that ‘the people’ was not necessarily a mere byword for the left, that the movements were not of SYRIZA and vice versa.

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SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) 101 του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ (2010–2015)]. In Aspects of the Greek Crisis: Contentious Cycle of Protest and Institutional Outcomes [Όψεις τις Ελληνικής Κρίσης: Συγκρουσιακός κύκλος διαμαρτυρίας & Θεσμικές εκβασεις] (pp. 108–134). Athens: Gutenberg. Kouki, H., & González, J. F. (2018). Syriza, Podemos and mobilizations against austerity: Movements, parties or movement-parties? In J. Roose, M. Sommer, & F. Scholl (Eds.), Europas Zivilgesellschaft in der Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise (pp. 123–140). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. Moffitt, B. (2015). How to perform crisis: A model for understanding the key role of crisis in contemporary populism. Government and Opposition, 50(2), 189–217. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 542–563. Müller, J.-W. (2016). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A socio-cultural approach. In C. Kaltwasser Rovira, P. Taggart, P. Espejo Ochoa, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pantazopulos, A. (2016). Ο Αριστερός Εθνικολαικισμός – απο την αντιπολίτευση στην εξουσια [The Left Ethno-Populism  – from the Opposition to Power]. Thessalonik: Epikentro. Paraskevaides, S. (1944). When the people awakes [Oταν ο Λαός ξυπνά]. Personal Memoire. www.24-ores.com/2018/12/1944-73-go-back.html#.YDeEv2gzY2w Parkin-Gounelas, R. (2012). Interview with Ernesto Laclau. In The Psychology and Politics of the Collective: Groups, Crowds and Mass Identificaitons (pp. 50–66). New York: New York University Press. Powers, T., & Rajopoulos, T. (2019). The Anthropology of austerity. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 83(1), 1–12. Prentoulis, M., & Thomassen, L. (2020). Movement parties: A new hybrid form of politics? In C. Flesher Fominaya (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary European Social Movements: Protest in Turbulent Times (p. chapter 24). Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Roberts, K. M. (2015). Populism, political mobilisations, and crises of political representation. In The Promise and Perils of Populism (pp. 140–158). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Sotiropoulos, G. (2017). Staging democracy: The Aganaktismenoi of Greece and the squares movement(s). Contention, 5(1). Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-wing populism in the European periphery: The case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2019). The populism/anti-populism frontier and its mediation in crisis-ridden Greece: From discursive divide to emerging cleavage? European Political Science, 18(1), 37–52. Stavrakakis, Y., Katsambekis, G., Kioupkiolis, A., Nikisianis, N., & Siomos, T. (2017). Populism, anti-populism and crisis. Contemporary Political Theory, 1–24. Svoronos, N. (2017). The Greek Nation: The Genesis and Configuration of New Hellenism [To Ελληνικό έθνος: η γένεση και διαμόρφωση του νεου Ελληνισμού]. Athens: Polis. Taggart, P. (2004). Populism and representative politics in contemporary Europe. Journal of Political Ideologies, 9, 269–288. Tambakaki, P. (2019). Populism and the use of tropes. In P. Cossarini & F. Vallespín (Eds.), Populism and Passions: Democratic Legitimacy after Austerity. New York: Routledge.

102  SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) Teperoglou, E., & Tsatsanis, E. (2014). Dealignment, de-legitimation and the implosion of the two-party system in Greece: The earthquake election of 6 May 2012. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 24(2), 222–242. Urbinati, N. (1998). Democracy and populism. Constellations, 5(1), 110–124. Venizelos, G. (2022). Populism or nationalism? The paradoxical non-emergence of populism in Cyprus. Political Studies, 70(3), 797–818. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0032321721989157 Venizelos, G., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2022). Bound to fail? Assessing contemporary left populism. Constellations, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12638 [Online only].

4 SYRIZA in government (2015–2019)

4.1. Introduction This chapter examines SYRIZA’s populism in government (2015–2019) through the discursive and socio-cultural perspective (Ostiguy et al., 2021). Going beyond the success/failure paradigm in the study of populism in power, the chapter shows that SYRIZA’s populism not only persisted but constantly reinvented itself during its term in office. This modus operandi involved combining its main populist canon with non-populist frames revolving around socio-political issues as they emerged. However, populist performativity alone does not suffice to maintain affective popular identifications. SYRIZA’s capitulation to the demands of the troika represented the gradual abandonment of its anti-neoliberal manifesto and served as a catalyst for the downward trajectory of passionate popular identification that followed. However, notwithstanding the disillusionment of the radical left and the ultimate electoral defeat the party met with in 2019, SYRIZA still garnered a significant vote, establishing itself as a durably important political force in the country. To deliver its main findings, this chapter is divided into two parts. Drawing from a sum of 37 discursive data, including speeches and social media posts located on the ‘supply’ side of communication, the first part examines how the SYRIZA government articulated its discourse. Drawing on a set of 27 interviews, the second part gives priority to ‘the people’ and their affectual narratives, investigating how collective identification and de-identification with the populist actor played out. Before embarking on the main analysis, the next section provides an overview of SYRIZA’s term in office.

4.2. Left populism in power Against conventional wisdom and theoretical presuppositions expecting populism to ‘fade out’ once in power (see Chapter 1), populism continued to serve as SYRIZA’s main repertoire in government. Indeed, its populist rhetoric and style did not remain unchanged but rather obtained new content and were articulated with other keyframes emerging from ongoing political developments in Greece. In what follows, the chapter explores the new meanings SYRIZA’s populism in power obtained. DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-5

104  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 4.2.1.  People-centric and anti-establishment discourse This section focuses on how the SYRIZA-led government articulated and performed people-centrism and anti-elitism in government. In its first phase of power, the newly-formed populist government upheld its outsider status by attacking the international and European establishment: an establishment higher that the highest of Greece’s national office. The (external) establishment was constituted by the troika, EU member-states such as Germany, the Netherlands and other ‘Northern’ countries who adopted a harsh stance towards Greece during the negotiating process. Besides its international enemies, the government continued to antagonise the domestic enemies already identified while in opposition (see Chapter 3). Chief amongst these were ‘the two parties that for forty years governed the country interchangeably’ (SYR.9). PASOK and New Democracy continued to be presented homogeneously, under monikers such as ‘the old regime’ (SYR.9), ‘the bipartisan system’, ‘the clientelistic state’ (SYR.10) and ‘the politically bankrupt parties’ (SYR.17) who ‘covered-up for corrupt businessmen’ (SYR.9). SYRIZA in government continued to attack ‘the oligarchs’, ‘the bankers’ (SYR.10), ‘the few’ and ‘the neoliberal technocrats’ (SYR.17) as well as ‘the media system’ the latter of which was framed as ‘corrupt’, ‘politically motivated’ (SYR.18) and ‘liv[ing] on the shoulders of the common people who pay for their debts’ (SYR.9). SYRIZA in government continued to regard the media as part of ‘the establishment’ and launched a war against media moguls, politicising the fact that the private channel owners (who were incidentally shipping magnates as well) had close familial relations with the two big parties’ leaders (SYR.16). The newly dethroned opposition (especially New Democracy) was framed as a corrupt ally of big TV interests, seeking to obstruct SYRIZA’s regulatory agenda for the media landscape (SYR.18). Economic interests could not remain absent from the discussion. Tsipras asserted that ‘some channels have direct access, and therefore benefits, from banks’ (SYR.16). ‘The enemy’ in SYRIZA’s governmental rhetoric remained a heterogeneous rather than monist entity. For instance, the Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, maintained that ‘political power feeds economic and media power, and media power in turn offers total support to politicians to reproduce the very same corrupt system that brought the country to bankruptcy’ (SYR.16). In its definition of ‘the people’, SYRIZA consistently included ‘the Greeks’, ‘the many’, ‘the social majority’, ‘those who paid for the crisis’ (SYR.14) and those of ‘the new generation’ (SYR.16) who often took the names of ‘the cleaners’ and ‘the school guards’ (SYR.10), who were framed as excluded, marginalised, politically subaltern victims of ‘the memorandum barbarism’ (SYR.14). Adding a leftist dimension to its populist canon, the government occasionally included ‘the left’ and ‘comrades’ as reference points for its collective subject. The government’s antagonistic framing reveals a vertical (bottom-up) relationship of exclusion typical of populism: framing the collective subject as being

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 105 powerless and suppressed by a gang of the privileged few (cf. De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017). Popular sovereignty continued to assume a central role in SYRIZA’s discourse. As the new Prime Minister averred, ‘we won’t negotiate the popular mandate’ (SYR.14). In his programmatic statements before the newly elected parliament, Tsipras assured ‘the people’ that ‘for the first time the Greek government won’t be receiving commands from abroad through emails’ (SYR.10).1 This cutting statement, at once celebrating popular resistance and promising the rebirth of an autonomous, sovereign and independent Greek people, attacked both the two-party system (framed as a slave of the international monitoring organisations)2 and those very international organisations themselves, referring to them even as ‘colonisers’ (SYR.9). Tsipras stressed that the aim of the government was to ‘regain popular sovereignty and restore the dignity of the Greek people’ (SYR.10). Although invocations of ‘the sovereign’ are often dismissed as nationalist, the SYRIZA government was incompatible with the xenophobic nativism that is stereotypically associated with populism. Tsipras did not frame the ‘Greek nation’ as superior but sought only that it should have an ‘equal role in the EU’ (SYR.10). His diagnosis of ‘the big issue’ in crisis-ridden Greece was not a consequence of immigration but rather the ‘profound humanitarian crisis’ caused by austerity (SYR.10). His prognostic solution was not found in attacking minority rights or scapegoating the foreign other but rather in ‘social justice’. The Prime Minister framed his government as ‘a government of social salvation’ (SYR.10). Without wishing to downplay the presence of nationalistic elements in the government’s rhetoric, it must be understood that SYRIZA’s discourse in power continued to exhibit inclusive and patriotic variants of nationalist discourse. Throughout its term in office, ‘democracy’ remained central in SYRIZA’s discourse. The political vision evident in the government’s rhetoric was that ‘democracy returns to Europe and Europe returns to its foundational principles’ (SYR.11). Thus, although SYRIZA did remain highly polarising in government, its antagonistic performances do not meet the expectations of those who frame populism as necessarily anti-democratic. SYRIZA’s populist rupture aimed at a type of politicisation that was inseparably democratic in nature. In this sense, the SYRIZA-led government, especially in its first term in office, ‘revived, in a performative way, the notion of democratic representation and popular sovereignty [. . . and sought to . . .] implement a programme that was supported by the popular mandate, breaking with the tradition of unresponsive and unreliable elites’ (Katsambekis, 2019:36). Tsipras called for a referendum in July 2015,3 after a deadlock in negotiations with European partners4 delivered an ultimatum, bringing Greece to the edge of yet another bailout with further demands for austerity. The Greek Prime Minister argued that the ideas of ‘democracy’ and ‘popular sovereignty’ were being suppressed by the oversight mechanisms. ‘In this country, where democracy was born, we cannot ask permission from Mr. Schäuble and

106  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) Mr Dijsselbloem in order to give voice to the Greek people’, Tsipras said to the parliament while justifying his decision to call for a referendum (SYR.11). The referendum was framed as a democratic response to what he characterised as ‘pressure, blackmailing, ultimatums and fiscal asphyxia’ coming from ‘Brussels’ (SYR.11). Amid intense political polarisation, Tsipras declared that ‘the referendum will take place despite ‘the European partners’ opposition’ (SYR.12). His antiestablishment rhetoric combined with intense people-centrism in the sense that, beyond antagonism with the political adversary (‘the EU’, ‘the troika’, ‘Germany’, ‘the internal elites’, etc.), the notion of popular sovereignty was again at the centre of SYRIZA’s narrative. Standing in Syntagma square, Tsipras addressed tens of thousands who had gathered to support the ‘OXI’ campaign: Today we do not protest. Today we celebrate democracy . . . Today we take our destiny in our hands and give voice to the Greek people. Today we celebrate and sing. To overcome fear, to overcome blackmailing . . . Tonight Europe and the whole world has turned its eyes the Greek people. On the 3 million poor people. On the 1.5 million unemployed people. (SYR.12)5 With chants of ‘OXI . . . OXI . . . OXI’ (NO . . . NO . . . NO) echoing in the background at Syntagma (VM.40), the Prime Minister, seeming to have assumed again the role of campaigner, said that ‘the resistance of our people became a flag for the struggle of all the people around the world’ and ‘our claim to end austerity finally gets recognised’ (SYR.12). Unable to strike a better deal with ‘the institutions’ however, the Prime Minister resigned and called for snap elections on 5 July 2015. Addressing his citizens, Tsipras said that ‘the popular mandate of January 25 has expired. Now it is the time for the sovereign people to have a say anew’ (SYR.13). The period that followed marked a major shift in SYRIZA’s discourse. The consistency of its ‘the enemy’ changed as references to ‘the troika’, ‘Brussels’, ‘Germany’ and ‘Merkel’, to which SYRIZA ‘capitulated’ (Nikolakakis, 2017), were reduced dramatically as the party retreated from its core promises. However, attacks against the ‘domestic’ establishment were sustained and even increased. Despite this refocused definition of ‘the elite’, SYRIZA government’s people-centrism remained alive. Stylistically, the Prime Minister and the great majority of his cabinet presented social, cultural and political traits that appeared ‘antithetical’ to the way conventional politics, and especially government, are often imagined. As Prime Minister, Tsipras persisted in his rejection of neckties (this was seen as ‘an exemplary piece of political stagecraft’ [Friedman, 2015]) and maintained his smart-casual dress code. His style attracted the attention of major media outlets around the world. So did his home residence, a flat in the area of Kypseli (one of the most densely populated areas of Athens, with a high

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 107 migrant and working-class presence). In action, Tsipras’ discourse revealed a unique and charismatic style of political leadership that combined irony, cynicism and humour, a simple but not necessarily simplistic way of speaking. This was employed both as a manner of direct address to his adversaries and for delivering polemic and disruptive rhetoric that undermined the legitimacy of his political enemies. The Prime Minister was not shy in making direct references (e.g. naming-and-shaming politicians involved in international tax evasion; or exposed by the Lagarde list,6 while he also repeatedly referred to other public scandals, e.g. the Siemens fiasco,7 drug lord affiliations to football, media, and to the Mitsotakis family).8 These attacks were structured in a vertical, bottom-up way that is typical of populist rupture. The new Prime Minister epitomised the unconventional style of SYRIZA’s politicians, but he was not the exception within its fold. Deputy Minister of Health, Pavlos Polakis, was renowned for his macho alpha-male style characterised by open (and sometimes profanity-laden) confrontations with journalists and politicians. Polakis often appeared unshaved, never wearing a tie. He famously lit a cigarette whilst sitting on the panel of an anti-tobacco conference. His habitus resonated well with the socio-cultural low in a manner often thought anathema to the behavioural norms of an institutional politician. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was another emblem of SYRIZA’s divergence from the political mainstream, for which his detractors often derided him as narcissistic and erratic. Varoufakis rode his motorbike to work; he attended a meeting with the Prime Minister at the Maximos Mansion (Μέγαρο Μαξίμου)

  Figure 4.1 Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras performing on the socio-cultural low. Both photographs are taken from his social media channels. On the left-hand side, he wears the black Greek NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounpo’s jersey as an anti-racist gesture (VM.23). On the right-hand side, he enjoys a pint of beer, watching a World Cup game at a London pub following the Western Balkan summit (VM.23). In comparison to conventional institutional politics where politicians appear ‘bookish and proper’, to borrow Ostiguy’s terms, Tsipras appears casual, breaking the rules of expected political public image (Venizelos, 2020)

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Figure 4.2 Transgressing the socio-political high 1. Deputy Minister of Health, Pavlos Polakis in his signature leather jacket outside his office (right), megaphone-in-hand to address protestors demonstrating against his own policies (VM.26; VM.27). On the right, he appears to be taking part in a protest in his home place, Crete, on a motorcycle

 Figure 4.3 Transgressing the socio-political high 2. From left to right: Varoufakis visits the Prime Minister; Varoufakis gives a ride to then-deputy finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos (VM.28; VM.29)

attired in a t-shirt and red backpack (VM.25); at other times his penchant for patterned and floral clothing was described as eccentric (at least in contrast to the conventional political dress code). Varoufakis paid an official visit to the British Finance Minister, George Osborne, wearing a leather jacket and loose, untucked blue shirt. The Guardian wrote that Varoufakis ‘goes casual at number 10’ (Fox, 2015) and The Independent compared Varoufakis’s ‘rock’ and

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 109 ‘edgy’ style with Osborne’s ‘boring’ outfit, framing the aesthetic comparison between the two ministers as a ‘ridiculous contrast’ (Nianias, 2015). This aesthetic and behavioural style, first evident during the rise of SYRIZA from the margins of the political system, visibly persisted during its term in office. Once elected, public attention to Tsipras’ casual style extended to those surrounding him, who by consciously projecting similar relaxation amplified this visual messaging. One’s habitus is not subject to easy change, so to an extent, SYRIZA’s casual look can be regarded as authentic. Of course, nor should it be ruled out that, aware of their own existing idiosyncrasies, SYRIZA’s leading figures maximised these for purpose of political theatricality. Either way, the resulting optic of relatability played a critical role in political identification between ‘the people’ and the party. SYRIZA’s wardrobe politics are relevant to the present analysis, not because SYRIZA’s politicians masqueraded deliberately in order to attract voters, but because is evident that SYRIZA’s MPs and ministers were not conventional politicians to begin with; they were activists whose political emergence took place in the alter-globalisation movement and the squares; otherwise, they were academics and intellectuals, and in certain cases, were the leading figures within a marginal and loosely-structured political organisation. Their general existing habitus – from attire to public manners – resonated more with the common people than with members of the incumbent political class. The dialectic relationship between conventional and unconventional political identity in SYRIZA’s style whilst in power alludes to the inherent tension between people-centrism and anti-elitism. Tsipras and many of his ministers and MPs courted the socio-cultural low with leftist cult habitus, spurning the register of the socio-political high, which expects politicians to be prim and

 

Figure 4.4 Transgressing the socio-political high 3. From top to the bottom: Yanis Varoufakis in the Greek Parliament wearing a patterned shirt; Varoufakis sits on the floor during a parliamentary debate; SYRIZA MP and Education Minister Nikos Filis on the podium dressed in ordinary clothing (VM.31; VM.32; VM.33).

110  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) proper (cf. Ostiguy, 2017). The antagonistic populist polarisation between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ becomes sartorially and behaviourally, as well as rhetorically, evident in SYRIZA’s case. A vocal critic of the neoliberal model and associated austerity measures being implemented by ‘Europe’, Varoufakis provocatively referred to the bailout deal offered to Greece as a ‘fiscal waterboarding’ (SYR.22). He maintained that Greece should have defaulted to its creditors in the Eurozone and thereby ‘stuck the finger to Germany’ (SYR.23). In a joint meeting with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Varoufakis lambasted the troika as ‘a rotten committee’ and announced that Greece would no longer cooperate with it (SYR.24). Varoufakis’ casual, low-register aesthetic was clearly, therefore, mirrored in his rhetorical style. Moving from rhetoric and style to (the politicisation of) policy, the SYRIZA government attempted to ‘apply’ populism through its policies and interactions with institutional channels. After three months in government, SYRIZA established (through parliamentary procedures) a committee to investigate ‘the subjugation of Greece to the supervision regime of memoranda and any other matter’, i.e. the imposition of austerity measures, as well as other economic ‘scandals’ which took place in the preceding years (SYR.21).9 This process, though institutional in format, reveals a populist core: it foregrounded the notion of justice for the social majority and an antagonistic opposition to ‘the corrupt elites’ responsible for the sufferings of ‘the people’.10 Another important anti-corruption manoeuvre that was regarded as an assault on ‘the old establishment’ was the government’s investigation into one the biggest scandals then taking place in Greece – revolving around the international pharmaceutical corporation Novartis11 – in which several high-ranking establishment politicians and ministers were compromisingly embroiled. The SYRIZA-led coalition initiated an auction for broadcast licences to regulate and enhance transparency in the media sector, which was framed as corrupt and venal. Private media interests were accused of operating ‘for 27 years without licences and taxes to the state’ (SYR.16). The aim, according to a party TV broadcast, was to ‘end private monopoly’ and make media moguls pay their share for the first time in history (VM.39). At SYRIZA’s second congress, the Prime Minister vowed to entertain ‘no deals under the table, no special treatment for anyone’ (SYR.9). The government invited all interested parties to an open bidding contest for the broadcasting licences. Media owners were locked away for more than three days, in a blind auction where mobile phones were banned. They were offered hospital-like cot beds and meals. Leading channels were eliminated by the competition (GR20). At a first glance, this may seem to reinforce Müller’s (2016) conviction that populists foreclose freedom of speech and attack media.12 However, SYRIZA’s ‘war on media’ differed significantly from those fearfully envisioned by liberal anti-populists. The government’s narrative was oriented around the concepts of democracy and legality, in the name of constitutionality and transparency. Responding to mainstream media and established parties’ reactions

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 111 to SYRIZA’s media-licencing competition, Tsipras retorted that ‘the political pressure and the pressure of the economic elite towards the judges should end. The judges should be left alone to do their job’, and he added that ‘democracy cannot be blocked and cannot be boycotted. The laws of the state will be implemented’ (SYR.16). Elsewhere the Prime Minister called reactions against his media policy ‘games with the political institutions’ and contemned them as contradictory to the very essence of democracy. ‘We’, he affirmed, ‘are here to defend democracy and its institutions’ (SYR.9). The auction was framed as a question of tax justice and social justice as well.13 Lefteris Kretsos, the Deputy Minister of Digital Policy – who was interviewed for the purpose of this study – regarded public broadcasting as a public good that should belong to ‘the people’ and not ‘the few’ (GR23). The Minister denied that there was any ulterior motive behind either the polemics against media moguls or the unique competition process. ‘The process was long because we wanted to guarantee transparency and deal effectively with any possible collusion practices’, he explained. In his view, the entire process was about assuring pluralism, while the interests of media oligarchs represented the opposite. Media magnates were expectably believed to represent the interests of the few and not those of the multitude. 4.2.2. Patriotic articulations A key frame by which SYRIZA’s populism in government was articulated was that of ‘πατρίδα’ [homeland]. The adjacent notions of ‘national sovereignty’, ‘independence’ and ‘autonomy’ continued to play a significant role too. Yet SYRIZA’s invocations of ‘the national’ differed significantly from nativist discourses. The government’s ‘nationalism’ (or what SYRIZA called patriotism) continued to be inclusive and posed itself against a political and economic ‘other’ rather than an ethno-national one. Immediately after his inauguration on 26 January, Tsipras visited the shooting range in Kassariani, Athens, where he laid roses on the memorial dedicated to the thousands of Greek communists and resistance fighters who were executed by the Nazi regime on 1 May 1944 (VM.34). Tsipras’ first act as a Prime Minister had utmost symbolic importance. It sewed together the traditional Greek left identity, rooted in the communist resistance, with contemporary anti-austerity mobilisations, under the umbrella of patriotic consciousness and the desire for popular sovereignty. His move was interpreted as an act of defiance towards Germany, whose role in the contemporary Greek debt crisis was heavily condemned by the leftist party.14 The anti-Germanism of the SYRIZA government cannot be reduced to nativism. Its nationalism maintained the inclusive characteristics it had in the opposition. It opposed Germany as a political entity that financially suppressed Greece through its neo-colonial strategy (vertical exclusion, punching-up) and not on the basis of race (horizontal exclusion) (see also Markou, 2020:40). At the same time, the government maintained a humanitarian perspective towards immigrants

112  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) and refugees. In criticising borders and stressing the value of cooperation, Tsipras addressed the second congress of his party saying that ‘I feel proud [because while] other countries close borders, build fences and throw tear gas to the refugees, . . . Greece . . . showed to Europe the meaning of solidarity and defended the real European value’ (SYR.9). He also repeatedly stressed that his government serves ‘the people’ ‘without exclusions and without exemptions’ (SYR.10). Amid the highly divisive ‘Prespa agreement’ – a proposed settlement of the long dispute over the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) by alighting on ‘North Macedonia’ as the new name for Greece’s neighbour – the idea of ‘the nation’ received focal attention. SYRIZA’s policy to give up the name of ‘Macedonia’ to its northern neighbour was perceived as an act of betrayal by the right. It brought an end to the coalition with the nativist populist ANEL and sparked unprecedented, and often violent, grassroots nationalist mobilisation. Against this background, however, Tsipras sought to subvert the meaning of the ‘nation’ and ‘homeland’. Patriotism, he said: is loving your own country, not hating the neighbour, patriotism means not to stand in silence in front of the monster of fascism. [Patriotism is] to stand up against those who humiliate the (Greek) flag dipping it into the blood of the innocent and the weak, those who have (tattooed) the sun of Vergina on the one hand and the Nazi symbol on the other. (SYR.25) The leftist leader did not hesitate to make references to the Greek flag. Even more, he sought to reinvent its meaning through a leftist perspective, drawing on the rhetorical toolbox of the traditional Greek left: [T]he blue and white [flag (η γαλανόλευκη)] that was waved in the villages of resistance by EAM which kicked out the occupier (the fascists/Nazis), the blue and white [flag] that was raised by the students of the Polytechnic University before it turned red from their blood. (SYR.25) Subversive left inclusionary patriotism was amplified and diffused by an array of governmental and party bodies as well as affiliated media. The Ministry of the Macedonia region in Thessaloniki organised several events (including public discussions, and cultural events involving theatrical and music performances) that sought to re-interpret the history of the country and the city outside the canonical (Greek) exceptionalism. Such events drew on the nation’s history but went beyond the mainstream nationalist narrative and stressed the notions of ‘solidarity’ (e.g. with Jews in the 1940s and with migrants in contemporary times) as well as ‘cooperation’ (i.e. with neighbouring nations) (F.GR1; F.GR2; F.GR3). Importantly, while the rhetoric drew thematically from a semantic reservoir rooted in the patriotic frame, it was simultaneously structured in a populist

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 113 form, revealing what Snow et al. (1986) call frame bridging. The political antagonism revolving around this national issue took place vertically, pitting those at the bottom (defined as the progressive, democratic Greek citizens) against those at the top (defined as the very same old elite). While the solution proposed by the government was presented as the patriotic solution, the political adversary was framed as ‘the elite which threw Greece to the rocks, destroyed its economy and brought malaise to the people now attempts to isolate us internationally with their fake nationalism’ (SYR.25). The former director of the Prime Minister’s press office who was responsible for Tsipras’ communication strategy and also served as one of his speechwriters stated that ‘the government does not talk about “the nation” [ethnos]. It talks about “the homeland” [patrida]’. In his view, his party does not endorse nationalism but patriotism. ‘The homeland is not something that should be left to the extreme-right and the ultra-nationalists (εθνικαράδες)’ (GR24). ‘To talk about “the nation” ’, he continued, ‘you need hegemony’. The left does not have it. Not even among its own ideological space. Many leftists are allergic to notions such as ‘nation’ and ‘homeland’ (GR24). 4.2.3.  A dilemma between left and right Towards the end of its administration, the SYRIZA government amplified its references to ‘the left’ which were infused in its populist rhetorical canon. In the poster shown in Figure 4.5, released in the context of the 2019 European elections, this intertwining between ‘left’ and ‘populist’ discourse is in evidence. The poster employs the term ‘progressive’ (one of the key signifiers during SYRIZA’s last months in office) and advocates ‘a Europe for the many’, a telling echo of Jeremy Corbyn’s core left-populist slogan (‘for the many not the few’) (VM.35).

Figure 4.5 SYRIZA’s poster for the 2019 European elections

114  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) Tsipras made direct references to other European left parties, such as Spain’s Podemos, and to other left leaders, such as UK Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn (SYR.9), while he also invited Bolivia’s Evo Morales for an official visit to Greece in 2019. As the relevance of the memorandum/anti-memorandum frame faded gradually (especially after the government’s declaration that Greece had exited the memoranda), the left/right axis made its reappearance felt. During the final six months of SYRIZA’s administration, issues that emerged in political discourse ‘played out along more familiar ideological fault lines, reawakening traditional political identities and bringing the left-right dimension back to relevance’ (Tsatsanis et al., 2020:4). Left-wing politics cannot exist without its constitutive other, namely rightwing politics. The exit of ANEL from the populist coalition empowered SYRIZA to amplify its anti-right repertoires. During the same period, the government and its proxies unleashed severe rhetorical attacks against ‘the right’ in order to repair SYRIZA’s left-wing credentials. Four main metonymic dichotomies for the key ‘left or right’ dilemma that the government rhetorically constructed are discernible. In amplifying degrees, SYRIZA articulated a dilemma between (1) ‘progress or conservatism’, (2) ‘moving forward or returning to “the old” ’ or even (3) ‘medieval times’, (4) ‘SYRIZA and the right’ and (5) ‘SYIZA and New Democracy, the right and the far right’. SYRIZA associated itself with the positively loaded signifiers and ascribed the negative ones to its adversaries. At the second congress of the party in 2016, Tsipras denounced Golden Dawn15 as a fascist organisation that often acts with the legitimacy of political parties when political parties don’t contribute to the construction of a common front against xenophobia, against racism, against fascism, to build a front for the defend of the humanitarian values and solidarity (SYR.9). The Deputy Minister of Interior, responsible for Macedonia and Thrace, assumed office ‘in a region that had repeatedly expressed nationalist concerns’. She was called upon to lead an institution that in the past years was transformed into ‘a museum of the extreme right ideology’ (GR22). SYRIZA-leaning newspapers amplified the government’s narrative by endorsing anti-right and pro-left discourse. They supplemented their Sunday issues with pamphlets dedicated to the Golden Dawn trial (F.GR4), the youth riots (described as ‘the December of Rage and the youth uprising of 2008’) (F.GR5) and the history of Greek communism (F.GR6). Left-right polarisation was not a product of the populist SYRIZA alone. The opposition was highly involved and at times initiated severe rhetorical attacks against the government. A close collaborator of the Prime Minister said that ‘polarisation is a tool that New Democracy employs because it does not want to legitimise the government . . . it does not accept that it lost power in 2015’ (GR24).

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 115

 

 

Figure 4.6 Pamphlets included in the SYRIZA-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton

4.2.4.  Exiting the memoranda? A core frame attached to the central populist canon of the SYRIZA government was Greece’s so-called ‘exit from the memoranda’. This frame became prominent after the summer of 2018 when the country nominally exited the monitoring programme after eight years. With the summer 2019 elections impending, rhetoric celebrating SYRIZA’s self-proclaimed achievement amplified. Ministers, MPs and party-affiliated and -leaning newspapers reproduced the frame of ‘Greece’s exit from the memoranda’. The discourse on Greece’s ‘exit from the memoranda’ proclaiming the ‘end of austerity’ and the exodus of the monitoring mechanisms from the country blended with patriotic repertoires as well as the core populist frame. The notions of national and popular sovereignty, and of independence and autonomy, prevailed once again. Following the ‘end of austerity’, the government maintained that brighter days would come. The overall discourse reveals elements of inclusionary nationalism, populism and progressivism. In Figure 4.7, Tsipras tweets: After eight difficult years, we become once again owners of our own homeland. Our future is again on our own hands. The country changes. It gains confidence and vision. It becomes more just, more modern, and more democratic. With values, rules, equality for and respect to every citizen individually. This tweet is not particularly populist, but the notion of ‘sovereignty’ is prevalent. At the same time, Tsipras’ discourse is combined with the non-populist, perhaps even elitist/institutionalist and liberal nodal points of ‘progress’, ‘legality’ and ‘equality’ (VM.36) The announcement of the end of the monitoring programmes was celebrated performatively. The Prime Minister appeared at Zappeion wearing one

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Figure 4.7 Alexis Tsipras announces Greece’s exit from the memoranda

Figure 4.8 Alexis Tsipras appears wearing a tie for the first time

(VM.37). This was a symbolic throwback to Tsipras’ refusal of a tie offered to him by fellow state leaders on the grounds that he would only wear one once he had achieved his goal: to lead Greece out of the suffocating austerity programme. This temporary, admittedly humorous, symbolic-performative shift from ‘the low’ to ‘the high’ (cf. Ostiguy, 2017) is more telling of the SYRIZA paradigm in government as it reflects on the complex dynamics of populism

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 117 in power: SYRIZA occasionally syncretised the status of a responsive (to the popular mandate) actor and simultaneously responsible actor (i.e. which accomplished its political goals, paradoxically related to meeting European requirements). The theme of the co-articulation of the popular and the institutional will receive greater attention in the next section. 4.2.5. Technocratic and managerial articulations Although populism and institutionality reside on conceptually opposed poles (Ostiguy, 2015:362 in Miró, 2020), the case of SYRIZA in power illustrates how the two notions can be combined. This ‘paradox’ was even addressed by SYRIZA itself. Key politicians, as well as intellectuals and academics who served as Ministers and MPs in the SYRIZA cabinet, distinguished ‘government’ from ‘power’ (see Douzinas, 2017; Baltas, 2018, 2019). They saw the former as a type of administration (cf. Mouffe, 2005; Crouch, 2004) and the latter as a broader notion more related to the theories of material and ideological relations articulated in the theories of hegemony (cf. Laclau & Mouffe, 1985), biopower (cf. Foucault, 1983) and social reproduction (cf. Althusser, 2014 [1975]; Federici, 2012). According to this narrative, SYRIZA was indeed in office but did not capture power (SYR.19). The government maintained that those really in power were the domestic and external establishment that continued to rule despite their formal absence from the seat of government (see Section 4.2.1). On the one hand, those whom SYRIZA had only recently ousted (i.e. New Democracy and PASOK), who over the last three decades had insinuated themselves into corrupt mechanisms of political influence that remained in place post-election. On the other hand, the European and international establishment: an alliance of economic and political interests which through their various monitoring institutions enforced their will over the obedient domestic establishment. The SYRIZA government sustained a perfect contradiction: it pursued an anti-establishment character and simultaneously endorsed and performed a technocratic political style and solutions that coexisted quasi-organically with its populist narrative. While Laclau’s work implies that populism and institutionality lie at opposite ends of the conceptual spectrum (Laclau, 1977, 2005), such a perspective betrays the ethics of contingency and fluidity for which discourse theory advocates. A performative perspective by contrast conceptually permits the seemingly incompatible logics of populism and institutional/technocratic practice that often lead to technocratic/managerial-populist hybrids (Drápalová & Wegrich, 2020; de la Torre, 2013). SYRIZA in government stitched together the populist style of ‘the low’ and the managerial style of the institutional ‘high’ (cf. Ostiguy, 2015). It articulated a profoundly populist rhetoric revolving around popular sovereignty while simultaneously implementing policy through institutional channels. Approaching this as a fundamental impossibility leads to an analytical and empirical deadlock, as does the teleological perspective that populism is destined to fail

118  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) once in power. The amalgamation of populist and institutionalist logics is a necessary contradiction. Populism claims an outsider position but is nonetheless a power-seeking project. It is, by definition, a political project that aims to bring the marginalised into the political limelight. Thus, for a fruitful political analysis, the tension between populism and power should be regarded as a highly productive one. Tsipras’ administration negotiated this tension in terms of what Ostiguy (2015) called ‘dirty institutionality’: it presented itself as both inside and outside the state, at once government and opposition and state and people, turning up at both the institutions and the protests (cf. Miró, 2020). In a sense, certain political processes mediated by committees and laws are by definition technocratic in nature. But policymaking is political (i.e. the choices are not neutral); so is the public narrative surrounding it. The government performed a discursive manoeuvre by identifying ‘the troika’ and ‘the Eurogroup’ as ‘institutions’. This was part of a broader language game that the new Greek government performatively enacted in pursuit of a new framework for the reception of social, political and economic realities in the country. This strategy aimed to disarticulate and rearticulate hegemonic signifiers (e.g. democracy’, ‘homeland’ and ‘popular sovereignty’). The transformation of ‘troika’ into ‘institutions’ amounted to a non-recognition of those supranational, non-sovereign, technocratic bodies monitoring Greece, a narrative gambit seeking to delegitimise their role. The repertoires the government supplied were well received in the public sphere, as they were latterly adopted by opposition parties, media and the public, highlighting the performative effects of discourse. Performativity works both ways, however. Such rhetorical manoeuvres often sought to justify failure or conceal contradictions. For example, what SYRIZA’s critics called ‘capitulation’, SYRIZA called ‘honourable compromise’ (SYR.28). Between 2012 and 2015, ‘the troika’ was public enemy number one for ‘the people’. It was a politically and emotionally loaded term, and the main actor responsible for this framing was SYRIZA in opposition (2012–2015) who was after all elected on an ‘anti-troika platform’. After July 2015, ‘the troika’ was reduced to a technocratic body, cleansing the affective semantics that had previously channelled popular frustration into electoral mobilisation. In essence, the role of ‘the troika’ underwent a depoliticisation; it no longer assumed the shape of superior, coercive political and economic interests, but rather a group of technocrats seeking to find ways for Greece to get out of the economic crisis. In sum, the rhetorical displacement of contradiction could be understood in terms of what SYRIZA called ‘creative ambiguity’ (SYR.27). There were also moments when SYRIZA’s managerial style of governance was even more apparent, to the extent that it predominated over its populism. In Figure 4.9, Tsipras appears alongside six state leaders at the Mediterranean and South European Countries’ Summit (VM.38). This highly institutional (all-male) setting is a visual epitome of conventional political practice. This image clearly registers on Ostiguy’s ‘high’ axis, albeit Tsipras is the only

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Figure 4.9 Alexis Tsipras on the ‘high’ of the populism/elitism spectrum

tieless politician in the shot: perhaps a fitting metaphor for the uneasy – yet possible – cooccurrence of populism and institutionality (Venizelos, 2020). SYRIZA’s approach to the ‘Macedonian Question’ could be characterised as purely technocratic. The negotiations took place behind closed doors and at the highest political level since the key decision-makers were the respective Prime Ministers, Foreign Affairs Ministers and their technical committees. ‘The people’ received updates related to political developments through media channels and public statements but were not called on to decide by referendum, like in July 2015. The government condemned those who protested the ‘Prespa Agreement’, framing them as extremists and nationalists. Most interestingly, Tsipras took an uncharacteristic discursive leap onto the anti-populist wagon by dismissing the demonstrators as ‘irrational’ and ‘populists’ (SYR.26) – a direct reversal of the aspersions SYRIZA itself had often received from anti-populists wishing to frame the party as dangerous by virtue of irrationality. Dipping its toes into ‘political pragmatism’, and following a fast-track process of ‘political maturation’16 (SYR.29), the government transformed itself from a ‘responsive’ (to the demands of the people) to a ‘responsible’ actor (playing by the rules in order to maintain political and economic stability from external pressure) (cf. Mair, 2014). Key personnel often sought to justify SYRIZA’s transformation into a language of responsibility and rationalism. Features that ‘populism studies’ classify as populist were not seen as such by the ‘populist actors’ themselves. The editor of Avgi, SYRIZA’s own newspaper, claimed that Tsipras was not a charismatic leader but an exceptional problem solver (GR24). The editor, who served as the director of the Prime Minister’s press office and as Tsipras’ personal speechwriter, was sceptical of the term ‘populism’ as a descriptor of SYRIZA. The Deputy Minister of Digital Policy disavowed the implication that the government’s rhetorical repertoires were

120  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) part of a broader strategy, rather than arguing that ‘it is just the way we think we should govern and distribute public goods, unlike other political forces that want to perpetuate austerity’ (GR23). In a similar manner, the Deputy Minister of Labour rebuffed the label ‘populist’ for SYRIZA, noting the word’s apparent earlier association with the faded PASOK (GR21). Only a regional leader of SYRIZA’s youth branch embraced the term, saying that ‘if populism means fighting for the poor, then yes, we are populists’ (GR18). The tension lies not only between populism and power but also between power and ‘the left’. As Douzinas (2017:62) notes, when a radical left party takes charge of the state, it encounters a hostile institution organised to prevent its ascendancy and frustrate its plans. Marxist political and legal theory has considered state and law antagonistic to the Left in content and form. Even when it failed to deliver its key promise to cancel austerity, the government framed its handling as an attempt to negotiate and modify the troika’s suggestions in favour of ‘the will of the people’. The SYRIZA government retreated from its own promise to ‘tear apart the memoranda, signing a third memorandum, and thereby implementing neoliberal policies’. To justify measures taken that were not in line with its own ideology, it often referred to the complexities of being in government and the consequent (external) restraints. In order to ameliorate the consequences of the July 2015 compromise, SYRIZA introduced what has become known as ‘the parallel program’. The parallel program sought space to manoeuvre within the seemingly asphyxiating institutional and fiscal constraints which blocked class politics. Operating within the neoliberal framework of austerity and reduced sovereignty resulting from the international monitoring mechanisms, the government sought to mitigate austerity through social policy that would soothe the burden of ‘the popular classes’ (SYR.20), ‘the lower, marginalised and underprivileged strata’ (SYR.14), while it also sought to expand social rights. In Douzinas’ understanding, the parallel program ‘both completes and undermines memorandum policies’ (Douzinas, 2017:70). The aporia of whether SYRIZA has failed remains unresolved. This is a normative and formless question. What does it mean to fail? What exactly has failed, and why? For some, the SYRIZA story has a clear – and tragic – end. SYRIZA has indeed failed to cancel austerity and deliver the key promise upon which it was elected. Importantly though, drawing on the analytically sharp distinction between populism and policy outlined in the theoretical chapter, this suggests, by definition, not the defeat of populism but the defeat of the ‘thick ideology’ (cf. Mudde, 2004) that accompanied SYRIZA’s populist repertoire. The gradual abandonment of its anti-neoliberal commitments highlights that it is the ‘radical left’ component of the party that has eroded in government. On the contrary, populist repertoires continued to be articulated as SYRIZA’s predominant mode of communication (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2020; 2022).

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 121 Nevertheless, as populism cannot be reduced to rhetoric, identification is not just a matter of framing. Articulation presupposes affective investment. Thus, what remains to be seen is whether ‘the people’ maintained affective attachments with the populist SYRIZA. This is the task of the second part of this chapter.

4.3. Collective identity in the age of governing populism This part of the chapter focuses on the emotional dynamics of collective identity. The aim is to identify continuities and discontinuities in how ‘the people’ identified with SYRIZA in power. 4.3.1.  Α left parenthesis? During their first six months in office, SYRIZA enjoyed impressively high approval ratings. Whereas in the five years that preceded 2015, Greek governments were used to being confronted by mass protests outside the Hellenic Parliament, in February 2015, thousands of people were gathered in Syntagma square in a pro-government rally to show their solidarity with their delegation in Brussels headed by Tsipras and Varoufakis. For the first time in years, the police fence blocking the entry to the Greek parliament was removed. Even SYRIZA’s first moves in government were symbolic and had little impact on the citizens, the image of a Greek government that was voicing the people’s rejection of austerity, making it heard to Brussels and beyond, seemed to symbolically restore the hurt dignity and pride of the Greek people, who up until then were used to their governments accepting rather passively the dictates of the ‘troika’. (Katsambekis, 2019:35–36) SYRIZA’s first six months in office were characterised by a ‘wait and see’ approach. The government spent its energy negotiating with Brussels, leaving scant capacity for policy implementation at the domestic level. (Left) critics characterised this period as an interval – a leftist ‘parenthesis’ in a sea of neoliberalism that has closed badly – the party fought against the European economic and political establishment and lost. What followed was a return to business as usual. As the Deputy Minister of Labour, Nasos Iliopoulos, put it, ‘SYRIZA’s biggest mistake was that it underestimated how important it was for the European Union to defeat us in a paradigmatic way’. The Deputy Minister referred to the EU’s stance as a ‘coup d’état’ with two aims: ‘first, to block the Greek government from exiting the existing memorandum and second, to overthrow the Greek government. Via the referendum, the SYRIZA government managed to block the second leg of the coup’ (GR21). The government’s narrative portrayed itself as a resisting force against the establishment, and this narrative was endorsed by many within and, importantly, outside Greece.

122  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) In line with SYRIZA’s narrative, party members and sympathisers perceived the government’s politics as an attempt to manoeuvre, readjust and deliver progressive domestic social policy within a very restricted political and economic framework (see Baltas, 2019). Politicians and policymakers who were interviewed maintained that this was ‘a proof’ of contemporary (radical) left policymaking in an era of a collapsing neoliberalism starting to present its morbid symptoms (GR23; GR24). As the Deputy Minister of Labour stated, ‘we abolished the subminimum wage. For the first time Greece achieved pay rise in salaries and we reduced unemployment. This is hard data’ (GR21). But could SYRIZA govern as a radical party following capitulation? Did the policies that the government put forward in order to soothe the social crisis suffice to maintain the affective bond with the core of its grassroots? Or was SYRIZA’s experience of power a short leftist exception to the TINA (There is No Alternative) dogma? Different perspectives yield different answers. Moderate left voters and party sympathisers justified SYRIZA’s failure, putting the blame on ‘the troika’, ‘the IMF’, ‘Merkel’ and so on. They still identified with the party, to an extent. But the enthusiasm that prevailed before SYRIZA’s capitulation was long-gone. A former activist and candidate, for example, recognised that ‘SYRIZA has indeed signed a memorandum’. However, in his perception, despite its failure to realise its promise, Tsipras’ leftist government was incomparable to the former governments of PASOK and ND. In his perception, ‘SYRIZA has at least tried to incorporate the excluded sectors and provide basic welfare to the super-poor’ (GR14). This activist was referring to the ‘Social Solidarity Allowance’ reintroduced by SYRIZA in order to eradicate extreme poverty (Kyriakides, 2016). In reinforcing the view that the SYRIZA government contributed towards socio-economic change, an activist involved in the ‘food network’ explained that during the peak of the economic crisis, ‘some people who were fed from the solidarity structures haven’t seen a single coin in months. The 200–300 euros that they received from the government was a huge amount for them’ (GR12). In her view, the fact that after 2016 the number of people who relied on solidarity structures for food was reduced was the direct result of governmental efforts. ‘Some local structures and networks shut, because they were no longer necessary. Unemployment was also reduced’, she said. 4.3.2.  The great betrayal SYRIZA’s experience in government was marred by its failure to deliver its key economic promise. The capitulation of the party to troika’s demands would prove a critical juncture for how different sectors of society identified with the government. The forcefully reassuring governmental narrative of success dissected in the first part of the chapter was not embraced by radical activists. Ex-voters admitted that ‘SYRIZA is not worse than other parties. It may even be better. But this is not enough, it is actually too little’ (GR16). People’s expectations were so high that the fall from grace was crushing. Despite SYRIZA’s earnest efforts to alleviate poverty among the most excluded sectors

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 123 of society, outgoing members of the party’s central committee and critics of the ‘neoliberal’ turn that SYRIZA took saw this as a redistribution of poverty rather than of wealth (GR14). As a disillusioned party militant who eventually left the party said, ‘after SYRIZA turned “NO” into a “Yes” it has transformed itself into a different party’ (GR17). This is not to say that electoral support for the government declined but rather that passionate identification with the ‘radical left party’ was undeniably soured by the bitter pill of the failed troika negotiations. Collective identification cannot be reduced to electoral percentages or voting intention surveys. Different sectors of the population, different movements – fragments of ‘the people’ so to speak – experienced SYRIZA’s administration in different ways and held different perceptions about the government depending, for example on the extent to which ‘their’ demands were met. The most radical components of ‘the people’ – namely those who participated actively in ‘the movement’ within or outside the party – were undoubtedly the most disillusioned elements of the collective identity. Others, including less overtly politicised members of the LGBT community, expressed their satisfaction with the enactment of a human rights bill that legalised civil partnership agreements between samesex couples (GR13). Yet, for components of the LGBT community who were heavily involved in ‘the movement’, the betrayal over the economic promise prevailed, resulting in negative emotions against the governing party (GR17). Radical, internationalist, but also centrist variants of the left alike, as well as liberals, gave credit to the government for achieving the ‘Prespa Agreement’ with North Macedonia (GR3; GR7; GR14). Activists acknowledged the government’s institutional achievements to grant social and legal rights to immigrants and LGBT people, but they questioned how ‘radical’ a move these concessions really were. ‘This should have been common sense’ (GR10), one interviewee said; another interviewee maintained that this is a ‘liberal or social democratic policy at best, not a radical one’ (GR15). These most radical components of ‘the people’ shamed SYRIZA for using statist tactics and permitting the police to evict squats and exclude migrants from universal access to society and healthcare institutions (GR4; GR11; GR15; GR16). In certain cases, SYRIZA members participating in demonstrations were bullied by the extra-parliamentary left. Activists with Marxist background placed the issue of ‘economic exclusion’ at the core of their narrative, putting other demands such as gender and race in a relatively secondary position. SYRIZA’s retreat was perceived as a great betrayal by radicals and was digested as a total failure. Talking about the referendum and what followed, one activist said that ‘every time I think about it, it hurts’. An activist, who was heavily involved in the movement, explains how those days were very different than any other period in her life: I remember the week of the referendum as if it was a film – a film that I was playing in. I remember where I was when I first heard that Tsipras

124  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) announced a referendum . . . I remember what I was discussing that night . . . I remember the assembly the day after. The events of 5 July 2015 exhibited high degrees of polarisation as Greeks split themselves into ‘NO’ and ‘YES’ camps. The former sided with the government and articulated notions of resistance and sovereignty. The latter opposed the government and aligned with the opposition in espousing a ‘pro-European’ (and often elitist) stance. In activists’ perception, those days were ecstatic and euphoric: ‘everything was on whole new level. We believed that social and political change was at the gates. The ambience . . . it was as if there was a sweet conspiracy . . . it was as if something was about to kick off’, she said (GR11). For many on the left, the referendum was a ‘real manifestation of a class struggle’ (GR9). The referendum generated unprecedented politicisation and mobilisation: The banks were closed. The Greek petit bourgeoisie could not pick up cash from the ATM, yet they would still go against ‘their interests’ and vote NO! All media outlets, the political system and the bosses backed ‘YES’ to the referendum. In workspaces, employers were blackmailing employees . . . We were blackmailed by the European Union. But we continued to hand out leaflets . . . everywhere in Athens you could see people to hand out flyers in favour of ‘NO’. The more they (the establishment) amplified their propaganda in favour of ‘YES’. . . the more we flooded the squares to support NO. People got mobilised. Passing by the squares one could see people handing out flyers. You took a flyer, people were smiling, they winked their eye as if they were saying to you ‘LET’S GO!’ (GR11) The euphoria of those days was followed by anti-climax. SYRIZA’s retreat was a traumatic experience for ‘the people’ and especially for the organised sectors of the left. Activists’ emotions could be summarised in four words: ‘unconceivable’, ‘defeat’, ‘heavy’ and ‘betrayal’ (GR11, GR17, GR9). But it was nonetheless hard to articulate those emotions. From this point forth, activists viewed SYRIZA as part of the problem. It was seen as a different, ‘leader-based’ (GR16), ‘mainstream’ (GR9), ‘established’(GR7) ‘social democratic’ (GR15) and even ‘neoliberal’ (GR14) party from that of 2015. ‘The only way that the government could have maintained any relationship with the movements was conditioned on whether it could have kept its promises’, a former party member said (GR17). 4.3.3.  Social movements in decline? After the referendum, political enthusiasm dissipated. This can be rooted in at least five interconnected reasons. First, per the previous section, movements

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 125 were ‘put on hold’, waiting to see the first moves of SYRIZA in power. Second, once their representatives achieved the first phase of its goal (to win the state), ‘the people’ put their faith in the government, ‘allowing’ it to act on their behalf. In a sense, by absolving themselves of continuing responsibility, ‘the people’ gave up their agency to SYRIZA, treating the party as a redeemer. Third, following the massive defeat by the European establishment, ‘the people’ were deeply disappointed and disillusioned, leading many of them to give up. In line with resource mobilisation theory (McCarthy & Zald, 1977), the long (and not necessarily linear) political cycle of mobilisation exhausted immaterial resources such as energy, will and passion to continue the struggle, while the cumulative effects of austerity exerted pressure on the material resources available at both individual and collective levels (GR11; GR16; GR17). Fourth, the jubilant experience of the left in power created an identity crisis for the movements. As an ex-activist, the Deputy Minister of Interior, responsible for the region of Macedonia and Thrace said that before 2015, SYRIZA was ‘the movements’. After 2015 it became extremely difficult to continue being the movements. Not because we changed mentality. The party was too small and some of its personnel were moved to the government. Additionally, some movements were dissolved as the government provided institutional responses to issues such as access to basic healthcare and food to the poor and the non-insured citizens (GR22). Her view was not shared by the most radical components of the movement. In the radical’s view, institutions are generally considered hostile – even alien – to leftist claims. At the same time, their representative, who was now seen as a traitor, had appropriated their movement’s language, articulating it from the power of the state, but not delivering its content. This had a significant impact on movement strategy. SYRIZA was perceived to use or ‘steal the language that the movements were talking all these years’ (GR14), leaving grassroots politics bereft of authentic terminology with which to establish (counter-) hegemonic frames. The fact that SYRIZA was in government and had relative control over powerful mechanisms of ideological reproduction meant that it had the upper hand to co-opt and diffuse leftist messages, leaving the movements disarmed and neutralised. Fifth, contentious activity was in decline, following a trajectory of depoliticisation. Some movements were co-opted by the leftist government, while others were deemed unnecessary (Kotronaki & Christou, 2019). However, contentious activity did not simply decline as a result of SYRIZA being in power. Already from 2012, grassroots mobilisation reinvented itself in novel forms of resistance, moving from the streets and institutional claims to decentralised forms of resistance at the neighbourhood level, envisioning alternative and reteritorialised commons (Roussos, 2019; Malamidis, 2021).

126  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 4.3.4.  Populism without ‘the people’ The disillusionment of SYRIZA’s left base is not synonymous with electoral defeat. Looking at the polls, the 31.53% obtained by the outgoing government in the 2019 elections was a significantly high proportion of the popular vote, despite the party’s relegation to opposition. In fact, SYRIZA scored only 4.75 % lower than in September  2015, when it assumed office. Considering the delegitimisation of the government following the 2015 capitulation, SYRIZA’s actual electoral damage can be considered mild. In addition, several electoral surveys showed that SYRIZA’s electoral loss was a combination of ‘the radical vote’s’ shift to Varoufakis’ newly established ΜέΡΑ25 (DiEM25) or towards outright abstention,17 as well as the mobilisation of the nationalist right against SYRIZA in light of the Macedonia-naming dispute (Public Issue, 2019). Nevertheless, when comparing the pre-2012 and post-2015 SYRIZA, one cannot overlook the fact that the percentage the party lost in 2019 is nearly equal to the one it once had when it was located at the fringes of the party system. A possible interpretation is that the outgoing militant component was the ‘leftover’ of SYRIZA’s populist strategy. ‘Success’ can sometimes require sacrifice, and the institutionalisation of left populism has evident consequences. This brings the focus onto the tension between left populism and class purity. As argued elsewhere though, ‘reformism and populism are neither synonymous nor antithetical. Populist strategy cannot be reduced to reformism, but can inform a vernacular revolutionary politics, which can also be explicitly socialist’ (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2020). Nonetheless, the consequences of narrowing down or expanding one’s political terrain need not be overlooked. Is the 31.55% (or the loss of ‘only’ 4.75%) a proof of sustained degrees of collective identification between ‘the people’ and the populist? Certainly not. Political identification cannot be reduced to electoral percentages. The 31.53% SYRIZA gained in 2019 is no indicator of collective identification. Political identification is indexical to the enthusiasm of the masses, the libidinal energies and the passion for being involved in politics. This was precisely what was lacking in the picture. Although SYRIZA in government maintained, with some success, its populist profile at the (superficial) level of communication, the vibrant affective mobilisation evident in the pre-2015 years was no longer apparent. What remained was a dormant electorate that either voted for SYRIZA in fear of the triumphalist return of the right or simply because it was content with what the activist core would regard as a mediocre, unsatisfying or moderate social agenda. In a sense, Greek politics may have returned to ‘business as usual’.

4.4. Conclusion This chapter analysed populist performativity and collective identity concerning the case of SYRIZA in government. Having analysed political communication of the party in the forms of speeches, bodily choreographies and visual

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 127 styles, the first part of this chapter showed not only that populism remained SYRIZA’s principal rhetorical canon in power, but it also transformed and reinvented itself as it was combined with distinct non-populist frames drawing on political developments as well as pre-existing cultural narratives. This is an important development for populism research as it challenges the conventional view that populism is not durable in power. The second part of the chapter focused on the neglected topic of populist collective identification, giving voice to a sample of ‘the people’ in search of the manner and extent to which affective attachment to SYRIZA changed. Expectably, there are both sympathisers and critics. The 31.55% that SYRIZA gained in the 2019 elections turned it from an underdog challenger into a consolidated actor in Greek politics and shows that the damage in the image of the party following its bitter capitulation to the demands of its number one enemy, the troika, was electorally (though perhaps not affectively) softer than might have been expected.

Notes 1. This reference constitutes an accusation against the previous government led by New Democracy and PASOK. What Tsipras means is that the ‘memoranda-­ governments’ received orders from ‘the troika’ through emails and uncritically carried them out. This resonates with SYRIZA’s narrative that, through such misbehaviours, Greece lost its national and political sovereignty. 2. These included the so-called Troika, comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 3. Due to regular calls for referenda by Latin American populists, this practice is often perceived as characteristically populist (Roberts, 2012), though is often denounced as demagogic or folksy, despite referenda routinely occurring in non-populist contexts (e.g. in Switzerland). Referenda should not be understood as a practice that is constitutive of the populist phenomenon. One can observe fundamental qualitative differences between Tsipras’ discursive repertoire around the referendum event and other populist leaders who sought to increase their power, strengthen their rule and manipulate the constitution through referenda (for Turkey, see Gurhanli, 2018; for Hungary, see van Eeden, 2019). 4. Aiming to discursively reshuffle political power relations, SYRIZA dropped the name ‘troika’ and labelled its adversaries as ‘partners’. As a term, ‘partners’ was strategically vague. It included not only the European Commission, the Eurogroup, but also the German government or leaders of other states as well as the European Stability Mechanism; in other words, stakeholders that may or may not be part of ‘the troika’. This strategic vagueness was embraced by the party in that it attempted to camouflage its failure by leaving behind terms (i.e. the troika) with charged connotations. 5. In reinforcing the democratic character of the politics of ‘the people’, Tsipras at Syntagma square stated that ‘whatever the outcome will be on Monday, we are already the winners’. 6. Named for former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, the Lagarde List is a spreadsheet naming roughly 2,000 individuals with undeclared accounts at the Swiss HSBC bank, including ex-Ministers Voulgarakis and Papakonstantinou. In October  2010, the list was shared with Greek officials to help them combat tax evasion. The Lagarde List only became known to the wider public two years later, when investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis published it in his magazine Hot Doc (TVXS, 2012).

128  SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 7. The Siemens scandal refers to a case of corruption and bribery between the company and Greek government officials during the  2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, concerning the tendering of contracts for security systems and purchases by OTE (public telecoms) in the 1990s (Reuters, 2017). 8. Marinakis, a media magnate, football team owner and Mitsotakis confidante was compromisingly implicated in drug-trafficking (see Helliniscope, 2020). 9. The Tsipras government made clear it would not indulge in retaliatory prosecutions (against the neoliberal establishment who implemented austerity in Greece), since ‘establishment parties have been already prosecuted by “the people” in the elections’ (SYR.9). 10. Probing various symbolic moves made by the government, several populist elements are identifiable. For example, Tsipras announced the abolition of numerous consulting posts in ministries – widely regarded as a waste of money – and other choice reductions of staffing and resources, e.g. security guards at Maximos Palace, and the parliamentary privilege of complementary cars for MPs who could easily afford their own (SYR.9). Tsipras identified this as a new governing ethos. 11. The US Department of Justice conducted an investigation against Novartis which found it had bribed high-ranking Greek politicians including two ex-Prime Ministers, Antonis Samaras and Panayotis Pikrammenos, as well as numerous ex-Ministers such as Stournaras, Avraamopoulos, Adonis Georgiadis, Evangelos Venizelos, Andreas Loverdos and others (Chryssopoulos, 2018). 12. Accusations of autocratic or illiberal practices were in fact levelled at the government by political and media opposition. Indeed, in the years between 2012 and 2015, the mainstream media opposed the rise of the radical left party with every resource at their disposal; the possibility of retaliatory motives (or at least the appearance thereof) cannot be discounted. 13. In fact, the Greek state obtained a revenue of €250 million euros from the auction. 14. Tsipras’ anti-German narrative drew on the memories of the Nazi occupation of Greece, when his country suffered the German war crimes and inherited an enormous financial burden that resulted from damaged infrastructure and a forced loan. Although the issue of German reparations was subject to periodic discussions in the Greek political discourse, it was Alexis Tsipras who, both as an opposition leader and as a Prime Minister, persistently raised it and sought to discuss it in the process of negotiating for the Greek debt. 15. An ultranationalist organisation in Greece that openly embraced Nazism. It operated at grassroots level, often through pogroms against migrants, and rose to prominence during the economic crisis. The organisation managed to secure over 7% of the vote, effectively entering the Greek parliament as the third most popular party. Following the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas by a member of Golden Dawn, the Greek authorities initiated an investigation, arresting and bringing to justice several leading members of the organisation. The trial of the Golden Dawn leaders, often described as the biggest Nazi trial since Nuremberg, lasted more than five years. The leadership were sentenced to 13 years imprisonment, and the organisation itself was outlawed (Kampagiannis, 2020). 16. Yannis Dragasakis, a key SYRIZA figure who served as a Deputy Prime Minister in 2015 and Minister of Economy and Development in 2018, has coined the term violent (or forceful) maturation (βίαιη ωρίμανση) referring to a left party’s transformation from a fringe to a unified political actor that is potent to compete, challenge and take up responsibilities in the contemporary era. 17. Systematic data on voting shifts are lacking; however, the survey contacted by Poulantzas Institute (2020) which considers data from 11 surveying companies in Greece helps one assemble this puzzle.

SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 129

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SYRIZA in government (2015–2019) 131 Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464. Tsatsanis, E., Teperoglou, E., & Seriatos, A. (2020). Two-partyism reloaded: Polarisation, negative partisanship, and the return of the left-right Divide in the Greek Elections of 2019. South European Society and Politics, 1–30. TVXS. (2012). The Lagard list. https://tvxs.gr/news/ellada/idoy-i-lista-lagkarnt-katahot-doc van Eeden, P. (2019). Discover, instrumentalize, monopolize: Fidesz’s three-step blueprint for a populist take-over of referendums. East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures, 33(3), 705–732. Venizelos, G. (2020). Populism and the digital media: A necessarily symbiotic relationship? In R. Breeze & A. M. Fernández Vallejo (Eds.), Politics and Populism Across Modes and Media (pp. 47–78). Bern: Peter Lang. Venizelos, G., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2020). Left populism is down but not out. Jacobin Magazine. www.jacobinmag.com/2020/03/left-populism-political-strategy-class-power Venizelos, G., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2022). Bound to fail? Assessing contemporary left populism. Constellations, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12638 [Online only].

5 The rise of Donald Trump ‘Make America Great Again!’

5.1. Introduction This chapter explores Donald Trump’s political campaign for the American presidency in 2016 and assesses the degree of people-centrism and anti-elitism therein through the discursive, socio-cultural and stylistic approaches (Moffitt, 2016; Ostiguy, 2017; Stavrakakis, 2017). It emphasises that Trump’s profound populist performativity and ‘charisma’ were rooted in his transgressive style, which flaunted the ‘socio-cultural low’. The candidate’s ‘politics of exceptionality’ played a pivotal role in interpellating popular subjectivity through ecstatic affective identifications. Having provoked the hegemonic political and cultural norms of the US establishment, Trump invited the so-called ‘silent majority’ to speak ‘truth’ to power. Yet, alongside his populism, an abundance of other elements that are external to populism, including nativism and protectionism, was simultaneously present. This chapter is divided into two parts. Drawing from 72 discursive data, comprising campaigning speeches, tweets and performative choreographies, the first part focuses on Trump’s performativity, i.e. the rhetorical and corporeal manner in which he communicated his people-centrism and anti-elitism. The second part explores collective affects through 29 interviews conducted with Trump supporters and surveys their emotions of resentment, anger, abandonment and underrepresentation.

5.2. Downward-punching nostalgic populism On 16 June 2015, billionaire businessman, real-estate tycoon and reality TV personality Donald Trump descended the gold-plated escalators of New York’s Trump Tower in order to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. He railed against China, Japan and Mexico; spoke of ‘real’ borders no longer comprising lines on maps but literal-minded concrete walls and heaped blame on the foreign other (TRUMP.1). This event significantly disrupted the ordinary daily cycle of American politics. Along with ‘the foreign other’, and ‘the left’  – hostile signifiers traditionally associated with conservative DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-6

The rise of Donald Trump 133 nationalist discourse – Trump identified ‘liberalism’ and ‘the political elites’ as a source of economic, political and social malaise in the United States. He promised to restore the definitive American values – ostensibly lost – in order to ‘Make American Great Again’ (‘MAGA’). This part of the chapter deconstructs Trump’s campaigning discourse and style, highlighting that while populism constituted the main cannon in his discourse, nationalism, nativism and protectionism were also key adjunct features of his discourse. 5.2.1.  People-centrism in Donald Trump’s discourse ‘The people’ took centre stage Donald Trump’s campaign discourse for the 2016 elections. Throughout his political campaign – from Republican nomination race to presidential contest – Trump addressed not only ‘the middle class’ (TRUMP.6) but also ‘the coal miners who are dying for work’ (TRUMP.4), ‘steel workers’ (TRUMP.2), ‘the firefighters’ (TRUMP.11), those who work in construction and infrastructure and the automobile industry (TRUMP.3). Importantly, ‘the people’ was predominantly framed as ‘a nation’. The collective subject, or ‘the people’, articulated as the social majority, went by a plethora of bynames: ‘the common people’; the great or hardworking Americans and the silent, majority – a throwback to Nixon’s expansive rhetorical posture in relation to the southern strategy (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016; Polletta & Callahan, 2019). Frequently, ‘the people’ were framed as ‘the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice’ (TRUMP.2). Thus, though Trump often praised his contemporary audience as ‘great’ or ‘amazing’, a strong undercurrent of nostalgia flowed through it: ‘the people’ of Trumpian narrative used to be glorious but have fallen from grace: cheated or abandoned by those at the top, the institutional ‘swamp’ in Trump’s words (TRUMP.4). Scorning the ‘dishonest political establishment’, Trump told his supporters that ‘the only thing that can stop this corrupt machine is you. The only force strong enough to save our country is us. The only people brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment is you, the American people’ (TRUMP.5). This frame reveals a people-centrism in which collective subjectivity is channelled through the person of the leader (you, me, us) – ‘I see you and I hear you. I am your voice’ (TRUMP.5) – a voice that professed its desire to tender ‘a contract with the American voter’ (TRUMP.3). Shortly after acceptance of the Republican nomination, Trump declared, ‘I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on the people who cannot defend themselves’ (TRUMP.6). This ‘people’ is simultaneously juxtaposed with a nefarious establishment that ignored its citizens. But with Trump, ‘the government will listen to the people once again. The voters, not the special interests, will be in charge’ (TRUMP.7). The political elites amenable to these latter special interests are represented as an obstacle to realisation of change.

134  The rise of Donald Trump 5.2.2.  Diagnosis: ‘bad hombres’ and ‘elites’ From the outset, Trump was unequivocal that the foreigner constituted a fundamental threat to the American way of life. Mexicans – the ‘bad hombres’ (TRUMP.8) of Trumpian vernacular – were special targets of his campaign discourse and paradigms of the othering process. In the leader’s own voice: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. (TRUMP.1) Mexicans were by no means the only foreign menace to the values of the American ethnos in Trump’s discourse: ‘think of this in terms of the people we are letting in by the thousands’, he mused, ‘especially from Syria’. Frequent signifiers in the rhetorical domain of ‘the foreign other’ included ‘ISIS’ (TRUMP.5), ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ (TRUMP.3), ‘Middle East’(TRUMP.8), ‘Muslims’ (TRUMP.15), ‘criminal aliens’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘murderers’ ‘drug lords’, ‘gang members’, ‘borders’ and ‘problems’ (TRUMP.5.). Alongside the corrupting influence of the ‘foreign other’, the Trump campaign positively inflected ‘labour participation’ and ‘jobs’ as critical issues for US domestic policy (TRUMP.7). While ‘do-nothing’ politicians earned a share of Trump’s consternation for the state of the job market, third parties further afield were as readily blamed: ‘[a] lot of people up there can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs’ (TRUMP.1). The pervasiveness of the foreign other in Trump’s diagnosis is inescapable. It was seamlessly interwoven with Trump’s more general rhetorical centrality of the nation: ‘we’re gonna take our nation back, remember it. We’re gonna bring it back’ (TRUMP.5). Anti-elitism, the second component of populist discourse played a similarly central role in Donald Trump’s campaign. In Trump’s case, anti-elitism is best understood as opposition to political and cultural elites of the country, including politicians, judges, high-ranking FBI and Justice Department personnel, as well as journalists and the media. In Trump’s discourse, these amounted to the hated ‘establishment’. ‘The establishment’ was diagnosed as the main internal factor responsible for the political, economic and social crises faced by the United States. Trump repeatedly derided ‘the system’ as ‘rigged’ (TRUMP.6); infiltrated by ‘special interests’ and ‘corruption’(TRUMP.7). Politicians were castigated for having ‘heaped scorn and disdain on these wonderful Americans’ (TRUMP.2). ‘Politicians’, Trump claimed, are ‘controlled fully – they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests – fully’(TRUMP.1).

The rise of Donald Trump 135 Trump agitated for profound polarisation, dividing the socio-political space into two camps: himself and his followers on the one hand and ‘the elites’ and their followers on the other. He repeatedly claimed that ‘the establishment’ opposed the interests of the common people whom he purportedly represented. ‘The media are not just against me, they are also against you, against what we represent’, he claimed (TRUMP.5). Establishment opposition to Trump’s campaign only added self-perceived moral legitimacy to his cause: ‘[t]he fact that the Washington establishment has tried so hard to stop our campaign, is only more proof that our campaign represents the kind of change that only arrives once in a lifetime. And it’s true’ (TRUMP.5). Since the media were also components of Trump’s ‘establishment’, they were routinely subjected to rhetorical attack as ‘dishonest’ (TRUMP.6) and ‘fake’ (TRUMP.7). This ‘dishonesty’ and ‘fakery’ had, according to Trump, a twofold root. Not only did the media neglect to provide enough coverage of Trump’s movement, but when they did, it was negative: ‘[y]ou don’t read about that in the New York Times, you don’t read about that in the other newspapers, because the system is corrupt, the system is broken’ (TRUMP.5). According to Trump’s narrative, the journalistic class served special interests in contradistinction to the interests of ‘the people’: ‘the pundits dislike me and dislike you’ (TRUMP.5). Trump articulated his relationship with ‘the people’ as symbiotic, as if the interests of the common people could only be realised through him. ‘The people’ and Trump were discursively constructed as a unity; thus, those who opposed Trump’s aspirations opposed the aspirations of ‘the people’. Trump’s own personal enemies were correspondingly framed as enemies of ‘the people’. In reinforcing the polarisation between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’, the candidate claimed that the media, as a component of the establishment, opposed the aspirations of the so-called ‘Trump movement’: ‘The media are not just against me, they are also against you, against what we represent’, he claimed (TRUMP.5). ‘The establishment’ wore many faces in Trump’s discourse, but none was more prominent and personally demonic than that of Trump’s presidential opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump described Clinton as ‘crooked’, ‘corrupt’ and ‘evil’. He charged his opponent with ‘crimes against our nation’ (TRUMP.5). ‘Hillary breached and deleted 33,000 e-mails, lied to Congress under oath, made 13 telephones disappear, some with a hammer, and then told the FBI she couldn’t remember 39 different times’ (TRUMP.5), he declared. In Trump’s understanding, the long political dynasty of the Clintons had a deeply corrupting influence on the US government (TRUMP.5). Ultimately, the US political establishment became collapsible into the person of Hillary Clinton. ‘The best evidence that our system is rigged is the fact that Hillary Clinton, despite her many crimes was even allowed to run for president in the first place’ (TRUMP.5). ‘Here is how all of this affects you’, advised Trump: [w]hen the people who control political power in our society can rig investigations . . . [like Clinton’s] . . . [they] can rig polls – you see these

136  The rise of Donald Trump phony polls . . . [they] can rig the media, they can wield absolute power over your life, your economy and your country and benefit big-time by it (TRUMP.5). Trump’s mode of political antagonism concords with theories of populism which hold that ‘the power bloc’ – however defined in a specific context – is represented as a force obstructing the sovereignty of the majority of common people whose interests and joy are thereby removed. But is ‘populism’ the only element that describes Trump’s discourse? 5.2.3. Make America great again (the death of American exceptionalism) That Donald Trump’s style can be described as populist does not preclude other components of his political rhetoric. As is well known, Trump’s rhetoric imparted ideological content highly resonant with the nativist, racist and misogynist sections of the grassroots right (Neiwert, 2017; Ott & Dickinson, 2019), though he also polled well with the conservative and Christian right (Marsden, 2019). However, Trump articulated an amalgam of positions outside conventional Republican orthodoxy, including opposition to free trade, calls for increased corporate taxation and opposition to American military interventions abroad (Lowndes, 2021). Trump’s particularity owed much to Steve Bannon’s philosophy – a blend of seemingly ‘contradictory’ cultural economic and political positions: a return to supposedly Judeo-Christian values in capitalism, delivered by restrictions on creation and distribution of wealth, with a composite imperative to devote such wealth to job creation and to the putative defence of the western world from a civilisational clash against forces of Islamist jihadism (Marsden, 2019:91). In the Trump Tower lobby speech of 16 June 2015, Trump opened as follows: Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories but we don’t hav’em. When was the last time anybody saw us beating – let’s say – China . . . in a trade deal. They’d kills us. I beat China all the time. All the time. When did we beat Japan? At anything. They send their cars over, by the millions. And what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. (TRUMP.1) This early extract disclosed the elements that would remain cornerstones of the Trump campaign throughout its lifecycle, from Republican nomination to presidency of the United States. The spectre of the foreign other lurks persistently

The rise of Donald Trump 137 as a vital threat to the nation. The precise threat posed by this ghoulish other, however, varied according to convenience. The first was the ‘classic’ xenophobic formula: the foreign other poses a threat to our culture, purity and values (i.e. ‘Mexico at the border’). The second – incidentally cultural or ethnic, but essentially economic in character – positioned foreign others, such as China and Japan, as competitors rather than invaders, germane to the question of ‘who is running the world’, economically speaking. Trump’s opening salvo revealed another congruence with the threefold Bannonian philosophy: the restoration of once-great American values in economics, politics and culture. A latent proposal imported by this framework is that the omnipresent, durable and mighty American exceptionalism (i.e. America is Great, no question!) has ceased to exist (thus it has to become ‘. . . Great Again’). The United States assumes the rhetorical role of a wounded ‘third world country’ and ‘everybody’s dumping ground’. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in the campaign’s pronouncement that ‘the American Dream is dead’ (TRUMP.1). The strong, leading and exceptional America imagined by politicians, Hollywood and citizens of yesteryear is now presented as declining. ‘Our enemies’, Trump said, ‘are getting stronger and stronger by the day and we are getting weaker and weaker’ (ibid.). Enter the ‘Chevy’. Excavations of bygone American popular culture exhume the General Motors Chevrolet automobile as a symbol deeply embedded in the American socio-cultural imaginary. Grattan’s (2016) cultural analysis shows how Chevrolet’s commercials tapped into ‘very American’ visions of freedom, unity, memories of the 1960s anti-Vietnam protests and Martin Luther King and other cameos of American’s ‘great past’. Chevrolet’s advertisement Our Country, Our Truck ‘celebrates “the American people” rebuilding their nation amid crisis as it seeks to revive American democracy from the ruins of abandoned Chevrolet factories (Grattan, 2016:16). Chevrolet’s nostalgic revival, then, is a microcosmic representation of the nation’s own revival in Trump’s campaign discourse. Trump’s solution to the ‘problem of America’ takes shape in economic proposals such as withdrawal from NAFTA and TTIP and increased tariffs on European imports of cars and steel so as to protect domestic production. Additionally, throughout his campaign, Trump vowed consistently to ‘repeal and replace Obamacare’ (TRUMP.5). Though nostalgic in its domestic-economic dimension, Trump’s foreign policy discourse was uncharacteristically isolationist, urging for the return of American troops from abroad: ‘We spent $2 trillion in Iraq, $2 trillion. We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq’ (TRUMP.5). In this, Trump broke markedly from a halfcentury of consistently interventionist US doctrine. The revival of American democracy presupposed ‘clean[ing] up the nation’s capital’ (TRUMP.5), attesting to the centrality of ‘anti-corruption’ in Trumpian discourse. Repetitive claims were made that the system was rigged and broken, and that in order to ‘deliver real change that once again puts America first’ and guarantee transparency, his movement in power would ‘have to investigate the investigation’ (TRUMP.5). His sense of anti-corruption became synonymous

138  The rise of Donald Trump with keeping ‘special interests out of business’ (TRUMP.7). Taking into account Trump’s pro-business and pro-market agenda, one could argue that he exhibits a reversed understanding of anti-corruption. Unlike left populists, such as Democrat Bernie Sanders, who aspired to keep business out of the state, Donald Trump aspired to keep state intervention out of the market. This chapter has so far analysed Trump’s rhetoric during the 2016 campaign for the presidency of the United States. Discursively he amalgamated elements from interventionist economics, exclusionary nationalism and a ‘no boots on the ground’ take on foreign affairs. This unusual cocktail not only perplexed political analysts but also Republican politicians themselves (Schneiker, 2020). At the same time, his discourse evinces a high degree of populism. An evident people-centric and anti-elitist form structures and accompanies the candidate’s overall rhetoric. In Trump’s discourse though, ‘the people’ were imbued with an implicitly ethnic connotation since ‘the adversary’ was mainly defined as a foreign other; however, this ethnic dimension dovetailed with attacks on domestic elites as well which were framed as evil, corrupt and guilty of conspiracies against the interests of the common people. The bifurcation of the political adversary in Trump’s rhetoric supports Judis’ (2016) argument that right-wing populism is triadic; along with the vintage (populist) antagonism operating on a vertical axis – pitting the popular bottom against the elite top – it also horizontally implicates a ‘foreign other’ who, at the license of political elites, corrupts ‘our’ national values and interests. The ‘secret’ of Trump’s success should be sought beyond his discourse and ideology, which were often labelled as incoherent (Schneiker, 2020). Attention should instead be paid to the disruptive affectual narrative intrinsic to populist discourse. The next part of the chapter aims to give voice to ‘the people’ in order to examine the appeal Trump’s discourse had to his followers. By assessing the emotional narratives of ‘those below’, the second part examines the affective bond Trump sustained with his supporters.

5.3. The affectual narrative of the Trumpian voter Emotions centrally guided the political identification process towards Trump in the 2016 election. While experts perceived Hillary Clinton as the most prepared and ‘solid candidate’ (US17), a part of the population experienced her as ‘boring’ (US9). Her opponent, on the contrary, brought an excitement capable of mobilising the disaffected electorate. Trump’s transgressive performativity – haracterized by a ‘low’ social, political and cultural habitus – registered well with ‘the common people’ and played a key role in mobilising those who felt ‘forgotten’ and ‘underrepresented’ by a political establishment whom Trump delighted in assailing (Bradlee, 2018; Venizelos, 2022). 5.3.1. The forgotten A fruitful first step is to unpack the constituent parts of ‘the people’ and examine which sentiments the affective bond of each part is grounded. How do they

The rise of Donald Trump 139 narrate their emotions and how do they make sense of politics? Giving voice to the people goes a long way towards answering why Donald Trump was elected in the first place. The so-called ‘middle Americans’, or the people of the ‘flyover country’, felt increasingly neglected and forgotten over the preceding few decades (Bradlee, 2018). In states like Pennsylvania, the collapse of the mining industry in the 1970s and a general decline in an industry that followed left parts of the state in disrepair. ‘Economically, we were a very industrial area. We had factories, they are all gone. This is a post-industrial area – the Rust-Belt outside the Midwest’, explains historian Mark Riccetti Jr. of the Luzerne County [PA] Historical Society (US5). An older interviewee – a convinced Trump supporter – corroborated this narrative directly: when I graduated college in the ’70s there were no jobs here in Scranton [PA]. So I went to Texas. Then I moved to Florida. I got into industrial sales. In 2008 we got back to Pennsylvania and nothing has changed. There are still no jobs (US17). Due to the traditionally industrial and working-class character of Pennsylvania, the area was, until 2016, considered to be part of the ‘Blue Wall’; a Democrat stronghold since the Great Depression. Attesting the ancient Democratic character of Luzerne County in particular, Ricetti noted that ‘we didn’t even vote for Lincoln here – we voted for Breckinridge!’. Scranton and Wilkes-Barre were of particular significance to Democrats, ‘because Hillary Clinton who had family ties to the state, had put it firmly in her column and considered it perhaps her most critical fire wall’ (Bradlee, 2018). Many of the ‘converted’ Trump supporters interviewed explained that their parents and grandparents were hardworking steelworkers, proud trade unionists and Democrats (US1; US9). Twentieth-century structural transformations deeply impacted the demography of Pennsylvania. As citizens of Luzerne County explained, ‘people go to college away and never come back or they go to college here and go away to find jobs’ (US5). Essentially ‘you end up with an older, whiter and socially conservative population (US30). As Ricetti explained, in Wyoming Valley, PA where he lived, unemployment rates are higher than the state average. Obesity rates are higher than the state average. Smoking rates are higher than the state average. Alcoholism rates are higher than the state average. There are many households in which the husband does two jobs (US5). In turn, the changing demographics were to occasion changing voting patterns. Along with changing structural conditions, citizens felt increasingly neglected. As Frank (2005:3) argues, the Democrats – ‘the party of workers, of poor, of the weak and the victimised’ – shifted rightward, morphing into an

140  The rise of Donald Trump elitist entity with open ‘contempt for average, non-Ivy League Americans’. According to Bradlee (2018:10), Americans of the so-called middle country ‘feel like everyone’s punching bag, and that their way of life is dying. They sense a loss of dignity and stature’. The gradual feeling of being abandoned resulted in an abrupt shift in political sentiment which was key to Trump’s success in 2016. The sentiment of feeling forgotten is experienced variously, depending on the ‘subject-position’.1 For Christians (or the Christian right), being forgotten had a moral implication and was rooted in their resistance to certain ‘evil ideas’ subversive and corrosive to the American way of life (Horowitz, 2002). Melanie, a local organiser for Trump’s 2020 campaign in Cincinnati, OH explained that what some people perceive as ‘change forward’ or ‘progress’ may not find all people in agreement: ‘[w]e used to be a very Christian nation. People are forgetting Christianity. They are living secular lives and not paying attention to matters of faith. The nation is losing its soul’ (US23). Some Trump supporters felt that ‘the most devastating changes they experienced [was] in labour rights’ (US28), a perceived result of NAFTA, the WTO or ‘China taking over our industries’ (US23; US15). Veterans felt that they risked their lives abroad to protect their nation.2 But they felt betrayed by elites, liberals and the anti-war movement. Their love of nation was manipulated. They returned home to find no job (Frank, 2005). Many became homeless (Freeman, 2017). They were bullied for their patriotism (Bradlee, 2018).

Figure 5.1 An abandoned warehouse next to a newly constructed mosque affords a snapshot of contemporary suburban Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre, PA Source: Photo taken by the author

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Figure 5.2 Billboards outside Scranton, PA advertise the US Marine Corps. In the same districts, sepia images of veterans captioned with patriotic messages were hung from lamp posts, and homes proudly flew the American flag Source: Photo taken by the author

Beyond deep economic inequalities, the United States also plays host to stark cultural differences often referred to as a ‘clash of worldviews’. The wellstudied topic of polarisation in the United States points, metaphorically, to the existence of two Americas (Campbell, 2016; McCarty et al., 2008). ‘On the one side are the unpretentious millions of authentic-Americans’ (Frank, 2005:13). According to Cramer (2016), these people are often labelled as ignorant. Such characterisation, or attitude more broadly, is typical of anti-populist dismissals of common people. On the other side, there are, supposedly, those ‘bookish, all-powerful liberals who run the country but are contemptuous of the tastes and beliefs of the people who inhabit it’ (Frank, 2005:13). Of course, the understanding of this cleavage is increasingly ‘complex, many layered and grounded in fundamental identities’ (Cramer, 2016:5). Cramer’s study of Wisconsin emphasises that ‘rural consciousness’ plays an important role in understanding the political identity of the overlooked in America. Rural consciousness is by no means an essentialist reduction of the rural population to a backwards culture. In Cramer’s (2016:5–6) words: [a]n identity as a rural person includes much more than attachment to place. It includes a sense that decision makers routinely ignore rural places and fail to give rural communities their fair share of resources, as well

142  The rise of Donald Trump as a sense that rural folks are fundamentally different from urbanities in terms of lifestyles, values and work ethic. Rural consciousness signals an identification with rural people and rural places and denotes a multifaceted resentment against cities. To be sure, this stark socio-political division is nothing else than what political and social scientists often refer to as the urban/rural divide. Participants in this study recognised this perceived divide themselves. They placed themselves on the side of ‘the common people’, those at the bottom of society, and expressed their profound antipathy towards those at the top, ‘the establishment’, which took many shapes such as ‘Hillary’, ‘the liberals’, ‘the media’ and particularly ‘The New York Times’.3 At the core of this distinction, lies a lifestyle that can be understood through Bourdieu’s (2010) notion ‘taste’ – and which operates on Ostiguy’s (2017) high/low socio-cultural axis. Little surprise then that ‘political correctness’ was a prominent theme appearing to structure the aforementioned divide. ‘Political correctness’ signified a shift in cultural norms into which those on ‘the low’ felt coerced into conformity. Especially for the younger generation of Trump supporters, and particularly those with profound anti-establishment sentiments (whether libertarians, alt-rightists or Christians), the notion of political correctness was a term of popular contempt for a culture which, though widely perceived as progressive, they themselves experienced as a repressive and foreign insinuation into their way of life. Political correctness was perceived as top-down, forced and artificial (Conway et al., 2017), as a form of ‘censorship’ and ‘policing’ speech, behaviour and personality (US8), imposed by cosmopolitan elites of the ‘urban centres’ and ‘two coasts’ (US3). ‘It feels like a wind against the culture we are supposed to have in America’, a young Trump fan stated, explaining ‘we were raised in a society where we were told not to treat people different because of what they look like. And here comes a movement that professes that and goes after people who think or act differently’ (US18). Interestingly, a commonly shared variation – or even reversal of – the meaning of ‘political correctness’ emerged in Trump supporters’ narratives. One interviewee who ‘got into politics as a reaction to the big wave of feminism [consuming his] area, community and school’ believed that ‘identity politics is divisive’ because it jeopardises the foundational principles of his country, including liberty and diversity. In his view, political correctness places tags onto people: ‘[a]ssuming people because of their skin colour, their race, their gender is wrong!’ (US18). Though liberals and progressives conceived identity politics and political correctness in defence of minority and oppressed groups (from racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and so on), Trump supporters contemned them as a totalitarian movement of leftist puritanism which ideologically scapegoated people and limited free speech (see also Esposito & Finley, 2019). Part of the definition of a populist mobilisation presupposes an opposition against traditional institutions, structures of power and the hegemonic norms of an era (Canovan, 1999). ‘Political correctness’ can undeniably be appended

The rise of Donald Trump 143 to these dominant ideas. The psychological study of cultural revolt in the age of Trump conducted by Conway et al. (2017) shows that the latter ‘is not the cause of cultural deviance – rather, support for him is (in part) the product of the salience of restrictive communication norms’ (2017:246). In other words, norms produced and maintained by ‘movements’ espousing ‘political correctness’ may eventually produce ‘a crack on the cultural pane of glass’ (ibid.). Trump’s reactive ascendancy may prove an example of the phenomenon. The structural conditions described earlier, interwoven with feelings of not being represented by ‘the party of the people’ extending even into the cultural realm, caused a derangement of the political scene: the Democrats retreated from space and constituencies that used to be pillars of their success (Frank, 2017). ‘Suddenly’, comes Donald Trump with a revamped conservatism echoing Nixon’s address to ‘the silent majority’, presenting himself as a champion of the working people by tapping into their deepest fears and anxieties. As the citizens of Luzerne County explained, ‘he is talking about industries leaving and job losses, but also illegal immigration and crime’ (US5). ‘Trump is for agriculture. He is for blue-collar workers’, another person from Wilkes-Barre added (US9). All of this has shown that the feelings of being forgotten  – understood differently by different sectors of Trump’s eventual support base – centrally fuelled the populist identification of rural voters with Trump’s 2016 campaign. 5.3.2.  Anti-establishment sentiments Besides demographic ascriptions of analysts to the population under study, as well as the sentiments of being abandoned, Trump supporters revealed another underlying commonality: open contempt for Washington, DC, or its many aliases. Long before the 2016 election, a general perception proliferated that the Democrats and Republicans gradually ideologically converged. This was often ‘manifested by bi-partisan policy’ (US1). This perceived ideological consensus led many Trump supporters to frame the two-party system, and especially its representative elites, as ‘a different side of the same coin’ (US3) or even to have ‘switched ideologies’ (US9). ‘Before Donald Trump it was all about ideological consensus’, a self-defined ‘anti-establishment voter’ reported when interviewed (US1). Mary, a former Tea Party activist in Kansas, who gradually solidified into a Trump supporter, said that Americans ‘were really being ruled by one party called Washington DC’. She characterised ‘Washington’ as ‘an old boys club that has determined America’s destiny’ (US28). In her view, too much power and control were ceded from the state to the federal government, thereby stripping decision-making from ‘the people’. An interviewee from upstate New York explained that by ‘political establishment’, he meant those who have held power in Washington for a long time (US1). Echoing this line of thought, Hillary Clinton was a metonym for ‘the establishment’ in many interviewees’ esteem: ‘She’s been around for ever. She’s been the first lady, she was a senator, she was on Obama’s cabinet . . .

144  The rise of Donald Trump She is the embodiment of the establishment’(US5). Many of the interviewees did not hide their aversion towards her: ‘Hillary sent me red flags’ (US8); ‘She is evil, she is corrupt. All the email scandals, the Clinton Foundation prove it’ (US9). Hillary, or the Clintons, as well as the Democratic establishment was in a sense perceived as post-democratic: ‘We had an 8 year-long Democratic administration with Obama and we wanted to see change forward’ (US8). Discussions with Trump supporters reveal that the political establishment is widely perceived as corrupt. As Mary affirmed, corruption in Washington was great. Because of how wealthy our public servants became. They are becoming millionaires and billionaires by working there. They are stealing money from the American people. Their kids and cousins and nephews are all getting rich too. That goes for the Republicans and the Democrats. They are all career politicians. Donald Trump is not (US28). For interviewees with libertarian views on society and politics, ‘the establishment’ is perceived as an incremental limiter of ordinary Americans’ rights and freedoms through its various intrusions into the ostensibly private realms of social, political and economic life. The interventionist foreign policy consensus, the expansion of government programs, increasingly complete surveillance regimes, rising taxation and firearm regulation are a few examples which, in libertarian discourse, lay bare the ideological consensus of the political class in limiting popular rights (US1; US5; US28). Many of the perceptions expressed by interviewees were engendered by the editorial discourse of the Fox News Channel (Peck, 2019). Resentment against the elites was abundant in Trump supporters’ discourse. Yet, as this subsection has shown, it was also profoundly entrenched in the interviewees’ own ideological identity and thus articulated under various guises. Hatred towards ‘Washington’ and ‘political elites’ (and the way this was narrated) varied depending on the distinct subject-position of each individual. This and the previous subsection relay a common train of thought: sentiments of nonrepresentation, conjoined with anti-establishment dispositions, were central in the US election. However, identification is subject to interpellation. The following section will focus on the role Trump’s style played in mobilising the electorate in his favour. 5.3.3. The politics of exceptionality The analysis of this chapter so far dealt with the heterogeneity of constituencies mobilised by Trump’s 2016 discourse and has elaborated their shared contempt of the political establishment. The constitution of collective identities cannot, however, be wholly reduced to an aggregate of individuals, ‘groups’ or ‘sectors’ who together amount to ‘the people’. Explanation beyond this rationalistic model can be fruitfully sought using what Hochschild (2016) calls an

The rise of Donald Trump 145 ‘inventorying approach’ and a retrained focus towards the psychosocial and performative dynamics of political discourse. These constitute a productive force that is critical in the instantiation of political identity, and this subsection seeks them out. The emergence of Trump augured a manifold breach in American politics. His disruptive figure was a break from ‘a politics of bureaucratic rules, forms, and policies’ (Wagner-Pacifici & Tavory, 2019:30). It not only challenged the political orthodoxy of the converging centrism of the two-party system but also challenged how politics had been thought about – and carried out – for years. Donald Trump’s disruptive performativity constructed new collective identities. His transgressive style provoked hegemonic norms and invited ‘the silent majority’ to assert itself in the face of a perceived suppressive power. His transgressive habitus recalled ‘Weber’s definition of charisma as an extraordinary force of symbolic change and an institutional-legal creation able to break with the limitations and constraints of traditionalism, formal legal-rational authority, and bureaucratic rule’ (Kalyvas, 2008:11). Alluding to this ‘disruptiveness’, one excited interviewee raised in Texas explained that he ‘grew up expecting politicians to be very formal. I grew up with George Bush and Obama. These two are very good public speakers indeed. They are class act. But . . .’ (US18). The interviewee further explained that the behavioural expectations politicians adhered to were not so far from how he was expected to behave in public. He described this as ‘a sort of repression’ (US18). In contrast to the conventional political style, the interviewee enthused that ‘this guy [Trump] breaks the rules’. Connecting this to the social expectations of his upbringing, the interviewee went on that Trump’s style exudes ‘the freedom of doing what you want’ (US18). Clearly, Trump’s disruptiveness extended beyond the narrow bounds of the term, as an opposition to the political establishment, and towards a broader, social and cultural, antagonism to the dominant norms and values of society. Trump was perceived as breaking norms and political and cultural taboos in an age of post-political mutation. An older interviewee who grew up in the 1970s said that he found Trump’s style ‘refreshing’: ‘If you are crook he calls you crooked Wow. This doesn’t happen very often in politics’ (US17). Trump’s disruptive politics broke from what many saw as ‘America’s inevitable movement toward a more diverse, more liberal future, and a concomitant vacation from the political culture of political correctness’ (Wagner-Pacifici & Tavory, 2019:30). While some cosmopolitan Americans believed the country was steadily becoming more and more progressive, and that having elected its first black president, America was ready to elect its first woman president too (US31), and others in the suburban and rural periphery felt suffocated by political correctness. A 20-year-old student from Wilkes-Barre, PA, worried that ‘choosing the wrong word could backfire these days’. He said ‘I don’t want to disrespect anyone but things like gender issues have become so exaggerated. If you address the wrong person in the wrong way you can get in trouble . . . it can be career-ending’ (US3). There remains the question of how

146  The rise of Donald Trump this pervasiveness of political correctness relates specifically to Trump. In the interviewee’s words, ‘Trump wants to end that. He doesn’t believe in political correctness. He believes in freedom of speech’ (US3). Trump’s self-granted entitlement to offend, to be unconstrained by manners, was perceived as a manifestation of the freedom to behave however one desires in public. Trump even made the same diagnosis himself: ‘the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness’ (TRUMP.10). In Schumpeterian terms, a populist disruption like Trump’s is a ‘creative destruction’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016): beyond the break with ‘the old’, ‘the conventional’ and ‘the proper’ which Trump’s candidacy signified, it also functioned as a unifying point, rallying ‘forgotten’ Americans who felt abandoned, detached, underrepresented or looked down upon (US2). In other words, Trump’s candidacy swayed ‘between rupture and rapture’ (WagnerPacifici  & Tavory, 2019:30). It turned negative partisanship  – the accumulated resentment against elites recounted in the previous sections – into a powerful libidinal energy, i.e. a force of identification between the base and the leader. Trump’s assumed the figure of ‘the Father’, promising to restore the ‘lost’ values of American society, in the sense of George Lakoff’s (1996) notion of strict paternal morality – a figure who at once protects, disciplines and controls the family – and other related (conservative) values.4 Underneath his flamboyant style, promiscuous mannerisms and scandalous rhetoric, Trump’s ‘incorrectness’ embodied opposition to a way of life perceived by his supporters as morally corrupt, imposed by political and cultural elites, liberal university professors and intellectuals and urbanites.5 These theoretical considerations are reflected by the empirical findings. The Texan interviewee enamoured by this ‘moral’, yet defiant model of leadership hypothesised that ‘Donald Trump is so popular is because he is so Alpha’: ‘If you look at the Republican debates [2016] he just interrupts people. And if they keep talking he keeps starting his sentence until they shut up’ (US18). Trump’s political incorrectness, his demeanour and irreverent style, is not something his supporters see as truly improper. His style is politically incorrect ‘only’ in the eyes of politically correct people. Trump’s followers did not by and large perceive their leader’s behaviour as negative by their own standards but as positive evidence of ‘honesty’ (US3) and ‘strength’ (US16). As one Pennsylvanian Trump fan told me, ‘this guy has real guts’ (US17). Trump’s campaign style is generally assessed as flamboyant, crude, centralised and authoritarian; labels undoubtedly conceivable as negative. However, analysing Trump and his supporters through the lens of ‘creative destruction’, the ‘productive’ (and even attractive) inflection of this ‘macho’, loud and uncouth style is identifiable. The Texan interviewee claimed that ‘everyone, deep inside, wants to insult everyone at their leisure without any problems. This guy [Trump] does that (US18)’. Trump’s crudity is emancipatory for those who feel their freedoms are restricted and demands are

The rise of Donald Trump 147 neglected. Albeit what it liberates is ‘unbridled hatred’, per Judith Butler (2016), it is a liberation nonetheless. Ostiguy’s (2017) model of populism as ‘the flaunting of the socio-cultural low’ is particularly important in understanding how and why Trump’s style works. The core concepts of people – centrism and anti-elitism are not mere rhetorical devices rather – per Laclau’s (2005) prioritisation of the ontological aspect of discourse – the antagonistic division of the political space between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ is endemic to personal qualities that are embedded in Donald Trump’s own habitus: his mannerisms and demeanour, the traits of his socio-cultural ‘being’ and these resonate viscerally with ‘the people’. All these are characteristics of a transgressive figure with a cultural marker of the ‘low’, the vulgar, and the popular, posed in opposition to ‘proper’, ‘expected’, ‘institutional’ and ‘elitist’ behaviours (cf. Casullo, 2020; Ostiguy et al., 2021). Trump’s hyperbolic hand gestures (see Figure 5.3), his unrefined manner of speech – terse, syntactically incomplete sentences, unadorned, folksy vocabulary and a casual register even in formal circumstances – together with his theatrical facial expressions and awkward diction, are all examples of performing or flaunting the socio-cultural low. While conventional politicians often imply that their political claims are ratified by some institutional or scientific authority (e.g. ‘according to the Intelligence Service’, the ‘Department of Energy’, ‘healthcare professionals’, etc.), Trump tends to mark his discourse with assurances of direct personal authority, e.g. ‘believe me’, ‘I tell you that’, etc. (MSNBC, 2017). Additionally, Trump widely uses colloquialisms – ‘well’, ‘by the way’, ‘bigly’, ‘amazingly’ – which according to Sclafani (2018) makes Trump’s speech sound more like everybody else’s. His overconfident assurances are belied by his relative lack of knowledge, or in fact outright ignorance of institutional matters. Yet if this is a problem for experts, analysts and rival politicians, it is certainly not for many of his voters. Trump’s factual fumbling can be spun to the converted as a positive reinforcement of his outsider nature. In great majority, his supporters believe their leader is an ‘authentic’ (US1) person, and to err is human. Some interviewees were not so fond of his speech and acting style, preferred the ‘proper’ stylings of a traditional leader-in-waiting, but still ‘wouldn’t mind it’ (US14). Trump’s idiosyncrasies were moreover perceived as just one style among many: ‘everyone has his own way’ (US17), and ‘what really matters is the results’ (US15). During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump addressed an audience in Golden, CO, against a backdrop of hay, horse tack, cowboy lassoes and an enormous American flag (see Figure 5.4). This staging is a communication

Figure 5.3 Stills capturing the range of Trump’s hand gestures within a 1-minute time frame, during a rally at Wilkes-Barre, PA on 25 April 2016 (VM.41)

148  The rise of Donald Trump tactic creating a warm environment his expected audience may find relevant. But the performer’s own soul injects artificiality into the environment. ‘So I spent a lo[oo]ng time today making my shoes so beautiful. So shiny. And then I walk though more dusty floors than I ever seen in my life’ (TRUMP.11). With this statement, Trump is at once jocular yet relatable to people, emphasising that he quite literally walks where they walk. ‘People see him and say “Trump was always here with us . . . he is one of us” ’ (US9) said one interviewee, while another mused that ‘he has been on the mud with the guy that pours the concrete and the guy who drive his track’ (US28). Yet despite these optics, it is no secret to his supporters that Trump has never actually moved bricks or hammered nails in his life, and that ‘he may not have experienced the same hardships as blue-collar people’ (US9). But, as Kevin argued, ‘he still finds a way to become one with the people. He understands what they go through on a daily basis’ (US9). Following a similar line of thought, another interviewee said, ‘you get what you get. He is not faking it’ (US3). Donald Trump’s ‘being’  – his frank and direct mode of address, and his ‘off-script’ character as his supporters would say – create a sense of ‘sameness’, of ‘being from here’ and ‘being like us’ (cf. Ostiguy, 2017); in other words, an authentic personality compared with polished politicians who only read from the script. Trump’s coarseness extends beyond the domains of physical presence and audible speech. His aggressive style was even preserved through digitisation: extensive use of social media, especially Twitter, attracted widespread attention as an unconventional platform on which he reliably mirrored his in-person crude verbal style.6 He made frequent and exaggerated use of capitalisation and punctuation – particularly exclamation marks – adopting a meme-savvy confrontational posture in order to bully his opponents (VM.43; VM.44; VM.45; VM.46; VM.47; VM.48). While he is neither the first nor last politician to use Twitter, his manner of its (ab)use was (see Figure 5.5) more reminiscent of a teenage ‘keyboard warrior’ than a candidate for President of the United States.

Figure 5.4 Donald Trump with an ‘authentic’ background, Golden, CO, October 2016 (VM.42)

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Figure 5.5 Trump’s tweets during his 2016 campaign demonstrate a working literacy, albeit cruelly deployed, with prevailing Internet culture

Figure 5.6 Trump publicises his ‘passion’ for fast food on social media

There is another important aspect in Trump’s habitus prominent in populist performances generally: the politicisation of social markers, through ‘private expressions in the public sphere or the publicization of the private man’ (Ostiguy, 2020:42). This was an undeniable factor in Trump’s case. He publically flaunted his preference for younger ‘trophy women’ as well as his passion for fast food (see the tweets and Instagram posts in Figure 5.6, ref. VM.49; VM.50; VM.51). By baring his private life, Trump quickly became a master of media spectacle by disrupting the ‘ordinary’ and ‘expected’, capturing media attention for myriad reasons outside the political realm, thereby diffusing his logos, ethos and pathos widely within popular strata through highly accessible digital technologies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (Kellner, 2016).

150  The rise of Donald Trump Besides his public behaviour, the content of Trump’s speech registered him on the political ‘low’.7 His attitudes and comments about – and, in extremis, actions against – women were widely panned not only as sexist and misogynist but also often as absurd, awkward and thoughtless. In 1997, Trump infamously characterised his own daughter (then 16 years old) as ‘hot’, and more recently mused that if she wasn’t his daughter, he would probably date her (TRUMP.12). When a woman fainted at one of his 2016 rallies, he quipped, ‘I love the women that faint when I speak’ (TRUMP.17).8 Asked his opinion on rival Republican candidate Carly Fiorina by Rolling Stone, Trump replied, ‘Look at that face . . . Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!’ (TRUMP.13). During the final presidential debate, he slammed Clinton as ‘a nasty woman’ (TRUMP.8), ‘guilty of stupidity’ (TRUMP.9), ‘a world class liar’ (TRUMP.14) and ‘the devil’ (TRUMP.15). He variously pilloried journalists, think-tanks, senators and others as ‘clown[s]’ (VM.53) ‘dumm[ies]’ (VM.53) ‘phoney[s]’ (VM.54), ‘lightweight’ (VM.55) and ‘pathetic’ (VM.56). Yet despite litanies of offense he heaped on his rivals, he was able to ‘command the discursive terrain of the [2016] election’ (Montgomery, 2017:621). Trump’s performative impropriety is key to understanding his success. He succeeded not in spite of it, but because of it. In other words, ‘Trump’s entertaining, sensational, inflammatory words and actions make him the kind of phenomenon we just can’t look away from’ (Lawrence & Boydstun, 2017:150). ‘I like his style, he is not afraid to say what he thinks’ (US14), he ‘speaks his mind out’ (US4) and he is ‘being vocal’ (US25). These are just some of the favourable assessments of his style his supporters gave. This performative style framed him as a political outsider and resonated with ‘the people’. As the interviewee Shelby put it, ‘he doesn’t have that politician background; he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut; he just says what he wants to say’ (US7). 5.3.4.  How can a billionaire represent ‘the people’? The idea that someone of Donald Trump’s economic class can be the champion a ‘people’, such as has been described earlier – the forgotten manufacturing workers, immiserated veterans and those left behind by globalisation – is suggestive of several paradoxes. Trump is an urbanite, yet he is warmly supported by those in the suburban and rural areas. Trump starred in Hollywood programs and has his own star on the ‘Walk of Fame’, yet his strongest supporters are hostile towards cultural elites. Trump, exempted from the draft on the grounds of bone spurs, never served in any branch of the US military, yet is enthusiastically supported by veterans. Whether he reciprocates their support is questionable: in July 2015, Trump said of recently deceased Senator John McCain, a highly-decorated Vietnam war veteran, ‘he was a “war hero” because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured’ (Bloomberg, 2015). In the face of all these contradictions, Trump would win his election. In his own words: ‘I

The rise of Donald Trump 151 could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?’ (TRUMP.16). Some approaches to what can be called the paradox of identity and identification, which will be further elaborated in the next chapter, include the notions of the politics of exceptionality and the socio-cultural analysis of political performativity. This subsection deals with one especially startling paradox: how can a billionaire represent the interests of marginalised and working-class voters? As Ostiguy has observed, ‘[i]t cannot be stressed enough that the “low” in politics is not synonymous with poor people or lower social strata’ (Ostiguy, 2020:45). For various reasons within his supporters’ ideational universe, Donald Trump’s economic status did little to dissuade their identification with ‘their leader’. In spite of belonging to an economic elite, Trump is widely perceived as a political outsider by his supporters. ‘In the United States’, an interviewee from Pennsylvania suggested, ‘when you become a politician you become rich. Donald Trump was already rich and gave that style up to become a politician. He doesn’t have to worry about making money’ (US14). While Trump was certainly a political outsider in the strict sense, he was in no sense an outsider from the wealthiest elite. Besides his vast hereditary wealth, his show business career gave him access to an extravagance of lifestyle that cannot and will not be attained by the overwhelming majority of his supporters. Yet at times Trump acknowledged his elite insider knowledge, arguing that ‘nobody knows the system better than me. Which is why I  alone can fix it’ (TRUMP.6). The perception that Trump would take on the US political establishment appeared across all supporters’ narratives in this research, but it was expressed most dynamically by those who defined themselves as ‘anti-elite’ or ‘antiestablishment’ voters. In their reckoning, Trump’s economic status was not a significant factor and did not suffice to include him in their definition of ‘the elite’: an elite construed in a strictly political rather than economic sense. Trump had never before served as a politician, interacted notably with the political power structure, nor had much to do with institutions outside his own professional business interests. According to the interviewees, this was a key distinction between ‘their candidate’ and establishment politicians. For example, one interviewee had it that Trump ‘wasn’t a politician so he could not be so corrupt as Hillary’ (US7). Politicians were perceived as axiomatically corrupt. Political insiders are understood as corrupt by definition, while political outsiders are not. In the case of Clinton, the signifier ‘politician’ was taken synonymously with ‘corruption’ and ‘insider’. In contrast, Trump’s lack of experience in politics sufficed to define him as an ‘outsider’. The outsider narrative was reinforced throughout the campaign by Trump himself: ‘I am not a politician and I never wanted to be one’ (TRUMP.5). This dichotomy is typified by one interviewee’s assessment that ‘[establishment politicians] are all career politicians. Donald Trump has not been’ (US28). In this sense, his wealth or class was irrelevant. The supporters’ definition of ‘the establishment’ extended beyond the political class. The media

152  The rise of Donald Trump were identified as another cornerstone of ‘the establishment’, especially ‘liberal media’ regarded, like their political counterparts, as ‘corrupt’, ‘dishonest’ and, ‘should not be trusted’ (US24). As an interviewee explained, ‘one of the reasons [Trump] got elected in the first place is the dishonesty and the corruption of the media we have seen over the last decades’ (US3). The dim view Trump’s base took of the media licensed him to ‘go after them’ (US13), while his increasingly anti-media stance appeared to his supporters to further demonstrate that his anti-establishment posture was authentic: ‘the embodiment of the middle finger to the establishment’ (US1). For right-wing libertarians, Trump’s wealth could only serve to recommend him to them further. Preoccupied with ‘economic liberty’ narrowly construed, libertarians felt that this and other liberties had been bitterly attacked by the Obama administration. Explaining this further, an interviewee stated that ‘we spent eight years having a president who very much had an open contempt for wealthy people. To me as a libertarian, taxation is pillaging and it touches my moral senses’ (US1). Even less (economically) radical, though still free-market oriented, rightists perceived Trump’s commercial background as a merit. ‘He was a businessman. He is a billionaire. He knows a lot about the economy. He understands how to run a business. He knows how to work with industry and therefore how to run the country’, an interviewee explained (US7). For sufficiently business-oriented American voters, there is no distinction between competence in statecraft and competence in business: ‘the government is like a business and should run through such a model’ (US14). In other words, not only did Trump’s economic status fail to impede his representing the interest of ‘the people’, but, in many cases, it was actually a crucial positive factor in political identification. As an interviewee said, ‘I come from a fairly wealthy family myself. His wealth is not a problem for me’ (US1). Donald Trump’s ‘extravagance’ and narcissism were unrepulsive to many of his (potential) voters. On the contrary, they ‘relished the role of the billionaire with everyday blue-collar tastes’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016:44). ‘Trump’s continual call for recognition of himself has become a source of appeal among those who yearn for others to recognise their deep story’ (Hochschild, 2016:688). Throughout his electoral campaign, Trump promoted his personal brand and his properties; he advertised his companies, buildings and product ranges and made conspicuous his far-reaching international wealth. This projection of a self-made billionaire was central to his success; it became synonymous with the implied promise that some of that greatness and success might be shared by supporters. As Trump bragged during the campaign, ‘people love me. And you know what, I have been very successful. Everybody loves me’ (CNN, 2015). The Freudian concept of the ‘ego ideal’ could be of particular importance here since it introduces a manner of identification between a subject and its ideal model. Trump functioned as a model, not only for those (few) with similar backgrounds to his but also to the collective American unconscious, perturbed in its slumbers by the cultural fantasy of the American Dream.

The rise of Donald Trump 153 In a society distinctively characterised by the dream of becoming rich at any cost – even in a tacky, flamboyant way as illustrated by Trump’s golden apartment – Trump is this cultural fantasy come true . . . The fact that he was formerly a famous star of a reality television show helped his candidacy even more. (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016:2)

5.4. Conclusion This chapter examined Donald Trump’s campaign discourse, focusing on its populist traits, its transgressive style and the role it played in mobilising disaffected voters. The first part of the chapter highlighted that, while profoundly populist, Trump’s discourse was accompanied by key ideological qualities located on the (extreme) right of the spectrum, though these were combined with some marked heterodoxies against establishment US conservatism. His flagship slogan – ‘Make America Great Again’ – channelled cultural nostalgia, precipitating an inward-looking national narrative. Even though nationalism, especially in its most exclusionary ethnic forms, was salient in Trump’s discourse, one could observe a plethora of sectors and identities being included in the equivalential chain that constituted ‘the people’. This finding challenges the normative conception that populism in general, and especially its rightwing variant, is necessarily monist or homogenising (see Müller, 2016). The emergence of Donald Trump in the mainstream of the American political scene offered a ‘remedy’ to a political style perceived as sterile and elitist. Trump’s disruptive habitus signified a break from politics as usual. Besides his attacks on the ‘foreigner other’ (albeit flavoured differently than the interventionist foreign policies of his predecessors), he also attacked liberalism, an ‘ideology’ convergently supported by the political elites of both parties and whom both the candidate and his supporters explicitly referred to as ‘the establishment’. His narrative and charismatic style seemed to give voice to popular and working-class frustration and channelled affects of hatred and resentment – such as ‘white pride’ and misogyny – and invited them to action. Whether ‘action’ took the form of online social media discussions, quasi- or actually violent episodes or simply casting a ballot, a populist political subject was constructed during (and helped to win) the 2016 electoral campaign.

Notes 1. By ‘subject-position’, I refer here to the structuralist and social constructivist position of Stuart Hall, Michel Foucault and others that subjects’ discourse emanates from and simultaneously expresses the very discourse which constructs the subject itself (Foucault, 1983; Hall, 1997). In the US case, these may take the shapes of Christian-Evangelical discourse and subject, libertarian discourse and subject and so on. Per Laclau, the idea of subject position cannot give the full picture. Reality complicates matters, presenting us with intersectional, overlapping and even contradictory identities; they never truly amount to objective formations.

154  The rise of Donald Trump 2. Most of the interviews with veterans were conducted in Pennsylvania, home to the fourth largest veteran population of any US State; expectably, veterans represented a key constituency for Trump in Pennsylvania. 3. Polarisation can extend beyond politics, touching the everyday lives of those polarised, how they speak, how they interact and how they perceive each other. Perhaps this polarisation is a radicalised version of the urban–rural divide. Cramer shows how ‘people, in casual conversation, are treating each other as enemies’. Her narration of a friend’s experience is an epitome: Tom tells me that not too long ago he was filling up his car at a gas station here in town. He drives a Prius, and has two bumper stickers on his car that say, ‘OBAMA 2012’ and ‘RECALL WALKER’. . . . Tom is pumping gas into his clearly liberal/Democratic car. A cool vintage convertible pulls into the station. Tom starts chatting up the driver when he gets out of his car. The man looks at Tom, looks at Tom’s car, and says, ‘I don’t talk to people like you’. 4. This contrasts against a ‘nurturing father’ in Lakoff’s schema: one who promotes a parental moral model based on caring for those less fortunate, putting social support mechanisms in place, and embracing difference. 5. E.g. by ridiculing women (individually or in general), Trump undermines the feminist politics that in his supporters’ understanding is corrosive to American identity. By demonising foreigners, he likewise seems to undermine an ‘artificial’ multiculturalism. 6. Trump’s Twitter self-expression was, by accident or design, central to his campaign, as is the case with many populist political actors. However, the relationship between populism and digital media is not necessarily symbiotic. Not all populists use and rely on digital media to Trump’s extent, and not all digital media users are populist actors. Barack Obama (hardly, if ever, classified as a populist) ran a campaign deeply infused with new forms of social media; by contrast, SYRIZA’s populist campaign in Greece barely relied on digital media at all in any significant way (whereas Movimento Cinque Stelle in Italy did, for example). For a more thorough theoretical and empirical exploration of the relationship between digital media and populism, see Venizelos (2020). 7. Ostiguy’s socio-cultural approach is concurred with by linguist John McWhorter, whose analysis of ‘high’ and ‘low’ speech (‘formal’ and ‘colloquial’ in McWhorter’s terms) also placed Donald Trump on the ‘low’. McWhorter maintained that education had made virtually no impact on his facility with language: ‘Trump speaks like someone who paid no attention to one of the main goals of education which is to refine speech’ (MSNBC, 2017). While this research takes seriously such analyses, it nonetheless detects the note of embedded elitism – by no means exclusive to McWhorter – which by revolting and perplexing expert elites, played into Trump’s hand with his expert-sceptical base. 8. Contrast with a similar incident in 2013, during an Obama speech, is illuminating. Obama stopped speaking as soon as he realised something was wrong, going so far as to ‘catch’ the falling woman and waiting for White House staff to come to her aid. Thereafter, Obama joked that ‘this is what happens when I speak too long’. He took a moment before continuing his speech, receiving rousing applause from the audience.

References Bloomberg. (2015, July 18). Donald Trump on John McCain: ‘I like people that weren’t captured, OK?’ Bloomberg. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-18/trumpon-john-mccain-i-like-people-that-weren-t-captured-okay-

The rise of Donald Trump 155 Bourdieu, P. (2010). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bradlee, B. (2018). The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America (1st ed.). New York: Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group. Butler, J. (2016, October 26). Trump is emancipating unbridled hatred. Zeit Online. www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-10/judith-butler-donald-trump-populism-interview/seite-2. Campbell, J. E. (2016). Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America. New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press. Conway et. al. (2017). Donald Trump as a cultural revolt against perceived communication restriction: Priming political correctness norms causes more Trump support. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5(1), 244–259. Cramer, K. J. (2016). The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Esposito, L., & Finley, L. L. (2019). Political Correctness in the Era of Trump: Threat to Freedom or Ideological Scapegoat?. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Foucault, M. (1983). The subject and power. In H. Dreyfus & P. Rainbow (Eds.), Beyond Stucturalism and Hermeneutics (pp. 208–226). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Frank, T. (2005). What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Henry Holt. Frank, T. (2017). Listen, Liberal, or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, London: Picador. Grattan, L. (2016). Populism’s Power: Radical Grassroots Democracy in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Open University. Hochschild, A. R. (2016). The ecstatic edge of politics: Sociology and Donald Trump. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 45(6), 683–689. Horowitz, D. (2002). How to Beat the Democrats, and Other Subversive Ideas. Dallas: Spence Pub. Co. Judis, J. (2016). The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New York: Columbia Global Reports. Kalyvas, A. (2008). Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kellner, D. (2016). American Nightmare: Donald Trump, Media Spectacle, and Authoritarian Populism. Rotterdam Boston Taipei: Sense Publishers. Lawrence, R. G., & Boydstun, A. E. (2017). What we should really be asking about media attention to Trump. Political Communication, 34(1), 150–153. Lowndes, J. (2021). Trump and the populist preference. In P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, & B. Moffitt (Eds.), Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach (pp. 118–135). New York and London: Routledge. Marsden, L. (2019). Pushing back the Obama legacy: Trump’s first year and the alt-right – Evangelical – Catholic coalition. In M. Oliva & M. Shanahan (Eds.), The Trump Presidency (pp. 85–109). Cham: Springer International Publishing. McCarty, N. M., Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. (2008). Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

156  The rise of Donald Trump Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Montgomery, M. (2017). Post-truth politics?: Authenticity, populism and the electoral discourses of Donald Trump. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4), 619–639. MSNBC. (2017). Language expert: Donald Trump’s way of speaking is ‘oddly adolescent’. The 11th Hour, John McWhorter Interview to Brian Williams. www.youtube. com/watch?v=phsU1vVHOQI Müller, J.-W. (2016). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Neiwert, D. A. (2017). Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. London and New York: Verso. Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A socio-cultural approach. In C. Kaltwasser Rovira, P. Taggart, P. Espejo Ochoa, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ostiguy, P. (2020). The socio-cultural, relational approach to populism. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 13(1), 29–58. Ostiguy, P., & Roberts, K. M. (2016). Putting Trump in comparative perspective: Populism and the politicization of the socio-cultural low. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 23(1), 25–50. Ott, B. L., & Dickinson, G. (2019). Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage. London: Routledge. Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polletta, F., & Callahan, J. (2019). Deep stories, nostalgia narratives, and fake news: Storytelling in the Trump era. In J. L. Mast and J. C. Alexander (Eds.), Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics (pp. 55–73). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Schneiker, A. (2020). Populist leadership: The Superhero Donald Trump as savior in times of crisis. Political Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720916604 [Online only]. Sclafani, J. (2018). Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity. London; New York, NY: Routledge. Stavrakakis, Y. (2017). Discourse theory in populism research: Three challenges and a dilemma. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4), 523–534. Venizelos, G. (2020). Populism and the digital media: A necessarily symbiotic relationship? In R. Breeze & A. M. Fernández Vallejo (Eds.), Politics and Populism Across Modes and Media (pp. 47–78). Bern: Peter Lang. Venizelos, G. (2022). Donald Trump in power: Discourse, performativity, identification. Critical Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221118223 [Online only]. Wagner-Pacifici, R.,  & Tavory, I. (2019). Politics as a vacation. In J. L. Mast & J. C. Alexander (Eds.), Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics (pp. 19–34). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

6 Donald Trump in power ‘Keep America Great!’

6.1. Introduction This chapter proceeds with the continuation of Trump’s populism during his presidential term between 2016 and 2020. Employing the discursive and sociocultural perspectives of the Essex School (Stavrakakis, 2017) and Ostiguy (2017) and Moffitt (2016), respectively, this chapter investigates people-centric and anti-elitist performativity and their interpellating function on collective identities. To probe the nature and the content of Trump’s populism in its articulation between ‘the people’ and its ‘other’, the chapter surveys the diagnostic and prognostic frames embedded in Trump’s own discursive horizon. In exploring the resonance of the candidate’s discourse with ‘the people’, the second part explores collective identity and affect in the age of Trump.

6.2. Trump’s populism in government This section will focus on Trump’s style and discourse in power. The first subsection delves into how he articulated and performed his people-centrism and anti-elitism, highlighting key aspects of his discourse. The second subsection focuses on one of the mainframes co-articulated with his populism: the people as a nation. The third section surveys the profoundly anti-leftist repertoires that emerged towards the end of his administration. 6.2.1. People-centrism and anti-elitism From day 1 of his administration, Trump reprised the populist performative style of his preceding campaign. The socio-political space was structured vertically between ‘the people’ on the bottom and the ‘political class’ (sans President Trump himself, of course) on the top. At 1,433 words, his inauguration speech was one the shortest – and one of the most combative and divisive – in

DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-7

158  Donald Trump in power US history (White, 2019). Trump’s January 2017 inaugural address established an exemplary populist frame: Today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you, the people. (TRUMP.17) In the new President’s vocabulary, ‘Washington’ agglomerated Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives alike into an indistinguishable amorphism, transcending the horizontal distinction between left and right and superseding it with vertical antagonism between ‘the people’ and ‘the establishment’, the latter having until now profited at the former’s expense. In Trump’s own words: Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. (TRUMP.17) ‘The people’ are here framed as the juxtaposed subalterns of the political class, and the collective subject Trump constructs has been implicitly ‘forgotten’. Trump entrenches this juxtaposition further: [t]heir victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. (TRUMP.17) Nostalgia for ‘America’s golden era’ abounds in Trump’s discourse. The ‘common Americans’ are framed as abandoned by a political establishment which prospered by absenting them from economic and political decision-making: ‘the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer’ (TRUMP.17). Despite his commercial background, Trump promised to reverse this economic paradigm (perhaps not traditional capitalism but an exaggerated version of it: neoliberalism). Though the syllables of ‘neoliberalism’ were never uttered directly by Trump, the implication that it removes peoples’ sovereignty was nascent in his economic analysis. ‘The people’ is presented as a sovereign which should therefore govern: ‘[w]hat truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people’ (TRUMP.17). During Trump’s impeachment inquiry, he tweeted the meme displayed in Figure 6.1 (VM.60). The meme pleads that ‘they’, i.e. the political establishment, are not ‘after’ Trump (i.e. his removal from office) but really ‘after’ his supporters. Personal intimacy between the leader and the base is reinforced

Donald Trump in power 159

Figure 6.1 Donald Trump tweets a meme about his first impeachment process

by this perspective. Trump postures as a champion of the people; thus, if the establishment is ‘after’ him, it is by definition ‘after’ the people and their interests. What the establishment ‘actually’ has a problem with, per Trump, is ‘the people’; anti-Trumpism is insinuated as a proxy for anti-popular politics in general. The term ‘in reality’ imports two ontological domains into Trump’s populist narrative: a symbolic and a ‘real’ one. Elite pursuit of Trump is symbolic; ‘in reality’, they are after ‘the people’. Trump portrays himself as a reluctant protector – ‘I’m just in the way’ – a noble underdog who will stand up for ‘the people’ in the ‘real’ domain. His (populist) body functions, as Casullo (2020:31) puts it, as ‘a kind of signifying surface, a symbolic tapestry of flesh and blood’. As established in the preceding chapter, people–centrism in Trump’s discourse can appear through performativity: his manner of speech, action, demeanour and general style all sketch a persona at home in the socio-cultural ‘low’. Though now in power, Trump continued in this period to flaunt his ‘lowness’ (cf. Ostiguy, 2017); continued to publicly communicate in unrefined, informal, polarising styles – often to a fault. Political institutions cannot easily unmake a personality performatively built over six or seven decades of life.

160  Donald Trump in power The second criterion for the identification of populist phenomena, antielitism, was equally preserved in outsider-candidate-cum-President Donald Trump’s discourse in and out of power. The president waged a high-profile war against an ever-growing battalion of perceived ‘establishment’ enemies within. In Trump’s gigantomachy, these forces of evil fought under many banners: the Washington ‘swamp’, liberals and university professors and the so-called ‘deep state’ of ‘[high-level] law enforcement, courts and the national security apparatus’ (Pierson, 2017:112). During his first year in office, the president endlessly wrestled with the ‘Main Stream Media’. He denounced the coverage of any ‘media that did not match his narrative as “fake news” ’ (Shanahan, 2019:24). His abrasive style, hostile rhetoric and withering assault on press and judiciary alike are unique in the history of the American presidency (White, 2019:33). Trump’s discourse in power starkly departed from incumbent political norms. From the highest office in the country, Trump continued to perpetuate his anti-establishment narrative through the contrivance of a ‘rigged’ system, in relation to which he could continue to frame himself as a political outsider. Incredibly given his self-evidently privileged economic and political position, Trump framed himself as a victim of the privileged. Any and all attacks by his political opponents, whether in media or in politics proper, only served to strengthen this framing (Venizelos, 2022). Amid the coronavirus crisis, for example, Trump openly encouraged people to protest their governors’ restrictions and ‘stay-at-home’ orders, framing them as a question of freedom. He tweeted, ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’(VM.57), ‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA’ (VM.58) and so on, and claimed that citizens’ rights were ‘under siege’ (VM.59). Trump’s ‘liberatory’ response to coronavirus measures polled well with alt-right conspiracy theorists who believed the virus a hoax calculated to infringe personal liberties. Trump sought distraction from his administration’s inadequate management of the health crisis by attacking state governors and congress for limiting American citizens’ freedom of speech and movement, a rhetoric which – however specious – appealed to his base (Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). The complexity of juggling ‘anti-establishment’ rhetoric from within power demands consideration. Perceived proximity to the common people, and not actual office, must be continuously reinforced as the measure of distance from the ‘political establishment’. The Democratic Party retained its central role in Trump’s discourse as a metaphor for ‘the establishment’. In Trump’s narrative, ‘the do-nothing Democrats’ have ‘betrayed the American people’ on issues such as gun rights and immigration and are moreover ‘obsessed with demented hoaxes, crazy witch hunts, and deranged partisan crusades’. ‘Democrats stand for crime, corruption and chaos’, Trump suggested (TRUMP.19). Elsewhere he called them ‘lousy politicians’, ‘phony, dangerous and charade’, and ‘a party of blatant corruption’ (TRUMP.23). Trump’s former opponent ‘crooked Hillary Clinton’ may have been politically out of the running, but she continued as a Trumpian metaphor for the establishment, and she was joined in Trump’s firing line by other key Democrat figures. The president called the Speaker of the House of

Donald Trump in power 161

Figure 6.2 An email sent by the 2020 Donald Trump campaign (VM.61)

Representatives, Nancy Pelosi ‘crazy’ ‘a waste of time’ and ‘a sick woman with a lot of mental problems’ (TRUMP.37). Democratic Senator Elisabeth Warren was repeatedly dubbed ‘Pocahontas’ by Trump (TRUMP.30), an allusion to her purportedly false claim of indigenous ancestry. Pete Buttigieg’s surname was made an object of fun by the President (‘Buddha-dedge’, ‘buddha-jedge’) who deemed it unpronounceable (TRUMP.31). Joe Biden, Trump’s electoral opponent in 2020, was frequently nicknamed ‘sleepy Joe’ due to his allegedly deteriorating health and its effect on his mental abilities (see Figure 6.2). The Instagram story of Figure 6.3 was posted by the president following his 2020 State of the Union address. It depicts Pelosi tearing up Trump’s speech to underscore her disagreements with the president. Pelosi is surrounded by a diverse selection of ‘common Americans’ who were invited by Donald Trump to attend the State of the Union in order to be honoured for service to the country (VM.65). Following Trump’s established formula, by attacking Trump, Pelosi is Figure 6.3 Trump’s Instagram story following his attacking ‘the people’. 2020 State of the Union address

162  Donald Trump in power Trump’s representation of common Americans included veterans, single mothers, soldiers and ex-substance users (TRUMP.28). His discourse conspicuously presents a racially diverse group, projecting a strongly inclusive equivalential construction of the people in common opposition to Pelosi. In tearing Trump’s professedly people-praising address apart, Pelosi is showing herself inimical to the interests of ordinary Americans. The deeply personal character of Trump’s insults against his political opponents departs from standard methods of populist polarisation, which antagonise elites collectively on the basis of merit and privilege. There is arguably an embedded elitism and self-perceived superiority in bullying opponents based on abilities, racial backgrounds and so on. ‘Who then is the elite?’ Trump asked his supporters: You ever notice they always call the other side “the elite”? The elite. Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became President, and they didn’t (TRUMP.33). On another occasion, he suggested to his audience that ‘you’re the elite, they’re not the elite’ (TRUMP.23). Trump did not hesitate to ‘cartoon-ise’ himself through Twitter – his social media of choice – frequently engaging with memes and other components of internet subculture. This larger-than-life approach is very rare in anti-populist political styles. While Trump’s tweets often lacked any caption or explanation, the symbols he put to use offer fruitful material for analysis through the populist framework. in the left-hand tweet of Figure 6.4, Trump stands comfortably inside his golden tower while a photo-manipulated likeness of his predecessor, Barack Obama, scales the exterior of the building to spy on him (VM.66).

 Figure 6.4 Trump’s tweeted memes: surveilled by Obama, and reimagined as Rocky Balboa

Donald Trump in power 163 The antagonistic populist implication is clear: Trump, champion of the people, is jealously surveilled by the old establishment.1 In the right-hand tweet of Figure 6.4, Trump’s face is flatteringly photo-manipulated onto the muscular torso of Sylvester Stallone in his role as the fictional ‘plucky underdog’ fighter Rocky Balboa (VM.67.). Trump’s style in power was also polarising. Though not an exclusively populist feature, it is immanent in populism. His rhetoric towards other nations was ‘brash, belligerent and at times juvenile’ (White, 2019:40). He referred to the North Korean leader as short and fat and threatened to unleash ‘fire and fury’ against him and his nation in a series of tweets. Sizing up his counterpart, President Trump tweeted that North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times’. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works! (VM.63). On the domestic front, Trump regularly held rallies even after the election, demonstrating his antagonistic, polarising, energised and direct style of governance. The Wikipedia page which kept track of Trump’s rallies calculated that the president held 111 rallies nationwide between December 2016 and September 2020. 6.2.2. Framing the people as a nation Along with a typically vertical populist juxtaposition between ‘those at the bottom’ and ‘those at the top’, Trump’s in-office discourse operated in a horizontally nationalist and xenophobic mode, demarcating between ‘those inside’ and ‘those outside’. The collective unity of ‘the people’ was that of the ethnos. Operating horizontally, nativism was fundamentally co-articulated with – and often prevailed over – Trump’s vertical populist discourse. In his inaugural speech, Trump affirmed that ‘we are one nation . . . we share one heart, one home and one glorious destiny’. Virtually any Head of State in political modernity can be expected to make positive references to their nation, but certain choices of word and phrase, such as ‘allegiance’, ‘national pride’, ‘loyalty to the United States of America’, especially in conjunction with signifiers like ‘soul’, ‘pride’, and ‘national anthem’ (TRUMP.33), exceed a generic nation-centric (perhaps non-nationalist) discourse and militate in the direction of exclusionary nationalism. ‘The nation’ is a nodal point for Trump’s rhetoric in power. His nationalism departed from past presidential discourses and signalled ‘an abrupt turning inward, entailing a narrower definition of the national interest’ (Ryan, 2019:206). It was introspective rather than outward-looking: Together, We Will Make America Strong Again. We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

164  Donald Trump in power We Will Make America Proud Again. We Will Make America Safe Again. And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. (TRUMP.17) While Trump’s discourse operates on economic terrain, the economic units under consideration are nations. In contraposition to Trump’s America lies a ‘racially different foreign power that had historically or in contemporary times tense relations with the United States (White, 2019:29). Other nations are construed as having benefitted economically at the expense of the United States. Trump paradoxically framed the American nation as superior to its rivals while also presupposing ‘a lost glory’ that is ‘to return’. America is not presented as the greatest power on the contemporary world stage but as a nation of wounded geopolitical prestige. Though broadly xenophobic, Trump’s nationalism in office was not purely ethnic, it circumscribed economic and cultural elements too. Above all, this idiosyncratic type of nationalism was a ‘rupture in the West world order’ (Ryan, 2019:206). It posed an awkward challenge to the norm of American exceptionalism by presenting the United States as a weak(ened) actor, placing a symbolic nail in the coffin for the North Atlantic liberal hegemonic order established in the aftermath of World War II (see also Chapter 5): we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; We’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own; And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon. One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world. (TRUMP.18) Trump implied he had inherited an America falling apart: [f]or too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential (ibid.).

Donald Trump in power 165 The Trump administration attempted to ‘reduce international commitments in order to focus on the nation’s domestic needs’ (White, 2019:34). Trump’s solution (in the prognostic frame) is evident in his central slogans – ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘America First’ – involved repealing ObamaCare, the removal of which amounted to a totem policy for Trump’s first months in office (Shanahan, 2019). The first days of the administration also entailed a torrent of policy departures from conventional Republican doctrine, including withdrawing from free-trade agreements, compelling other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries to contribute more so as to reduce America’s financial commitment to the Western alliance, building a great wall on America’s Southern border2 to stem the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico, and avoiding the sorts of wars that had characterised recent US foreign policy. (White, 2019:35) Trump’s ‘economic patriotism’ undermined the globalised neoliberalism his party had previously endorsed. ‘America First’ and ‘MAGA’ tap the American conservative-nationalist semantic reservoir and evoke powerful tropes of America’s political history. ‘America First’ was the watchword of the eponymous America First Committee, which called for United States non-intervention, unilateralism, and isolationist nationalism during World War II, and whose membership roster peaked at around 800,000 Americans. While the first ‘America First’ was an ideologically broad church, some prominent members were anti-Semites and admirers of European fascism (Calamur, 2017). Trump’s other slogan, MAGA, had more recent origins in Reagan’s 1980s use of the phrase – ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’ – in the context of promising to restore American ‘prosperity and power after the setbacks of the 1970s’ (Morgan, 2019). Consciously or unconsciously, Trump’s discursive repertoire on ‘the nation’ reproduced historical rallying cries resonant with parts of the population who felt their country was changing for the worse; it constructed a collective cultural identity predicated on civilisational nostalgia. From a psychoanalytic point of view, Trump’s discourse on the nation mourns the loss of the American dream. Freud had it that mourning is not merely a ‘ritual’ for the loss of a person but can be applied abstractly for the loss of, e.g. ‘one’s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on’ (Freud, 1917 [1966]:243). Freud also believed that mourning had a flipside  – a refusal to accept loss  – from which the subject may descend into melancholia. ‘Whereas mourning frees the subject to move on, melancholia is stuck and isolated, looking backward rather than the future, looking inward rather than seeking new alliances and connections’ (Gibson-Graham, 2006:5). Psychosocially, ‘the inability to mourn forecloses transformation and fuels ressentiment’ (Stavrakakis, 2007:276). In the case of the contemporary United States, one might characterise the MAGA discourse as a melancholic response to the loss of the American dream. Trump

166  Donald Trump in power and his followers seem unable to proceed healthily from mourning the ‘lost golden age’, instead of collapsing into nostalgic, resentful and inward-looking fantasies of restoring that former glory. 6.2.3. White nationalism Trump’s discourse extended beyond economic nationalism (see Bannon, 2017). Elements of the president’s discourse were especially appealing to the white nationalism of the organised American far-right, as well as unorganised segments of population sympathetic to these ideas (Neiwert, 2017). A week into the administration, the president signed an executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. ‘This is not about religion’, he claimed, ‘this is about terror and keeping our country safe’ (TRUMP.32). During the global coronavirus pandemic, Trump extended the travel ban to six more countries and made a habit of calling COVID-19 ‘the Chinese virus’. Of migrants to America, Trump took the view that ‘these aren’t people. These are animals’ (TRUMP.35) who ‘pour into and infest our country’ (VM.64). Dehumanising metaphors of animal infestation when applied to human beings invite the subconscious association of ‘extermination’ – though even the gaffe-prone Trump had the sense to avoid making this explicit – yet these racist and potentially even fascistic demarcations are latently felt in his discourse. Following the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which culminated in a woman’s death after a neo-Nazi deliberately slammed his car into a crowd of leftist counter-protestors, Trump equivocally condemned ‘hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides’, to the outrage of many who saw no such moral equivalence between the murderous violence of the white supremacists and those who were seriously injured and killed by it. Trump’s condemnation of racism was often nominal or even prevaricative and tended to involve the relativisation and depoliticisation of social and institutional racism. Attacking NFL football players who ‘took a knee’ during the national anthem in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in protest of racism and police brutality, Trump tweeted that ‘the issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this’ (TRUMP.26). Elsewhere, the president called the kneeling players ‘son[s] of bitch[es]’ and called for them to be thrown out of the field (TRUMP.27). In Trump’s words, ‘we only kneel to the almighty God’ (TRUMP.20). Following the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, who suffocated to death as a law-enforcement officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes, Trump’s attitudes on racism and anti-racism were similarly ambivalent. Floyd’s death sparked outrage and a wave of national protest, which Trump framed as a ‘dangerous movement’ (TRUMP.20). Trump’s discourse on race tended to seek false equivalences between racist and anti-racist struggles, emphasising

Donald Trump in power 167 the right of American citizens to oppose anti-racism as a matter of free speech whilst simultaneously ignoring or downplaying the sometimes deadly violence inflicted by the American far-right. In so doing, he subverted liberal and cosmopolitan hegemonic articulations on equality, race and human rights. The president’s tu quoque attitude towards anti-racist and anti-fascist protest (especially the Black Lives Matter movement) emboldened white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in their retorts that ‘all lives matter’, ‘white lives matter’, even ‘blue [i.e., police] lives matter’ (see Edwards, 2020). When campaigns began to remove public statuary with overtly racist connotations – especially Confederate (ergo pro-slavery) military leaders of the American Civil War but also those connected more generally with colonialism (e.g. Christopher Columbus) – Trump declared that ‘angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities’ (TRUMP.20). Standing in front of Mount Rushmore on 4 July 2020, he vowed to ‘protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life’ (TRUMP.20). Trump’s rhetoric implied a profoundly contrasting vision of the American society, recalling the notion of the ‘two Americas’. Alluding to the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump argued that ‘the radical view of American history is a web of lies – all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted’ (TRUMP.20). Overall, the president denigrated protesters against police violence, organised supporters of racial equality, and so on, during his time in office, presenting them as un-American and unpatriotic. In response to protests which occurred under his presidency, Trump called repeatedly for ‘swift restoration of law and order’ (TRUMP.24; TRUMP.25). ‘I am deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments, arrest the rioters, and prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law’, Trump stated (TRUMP.20) (Figure 6.5). His zealous and emergencyminded choice of words resembles the authoritar- Figure 6.5 ‘Law & Order!’. Trump posts a favourite ian right-wing rhetoric of catchword on Instagram in response to the yesteryear.3 Black Lives Matter protests (VM.62)

168  Donald Trump in power This is as much the case with Trump. Despite his aggressive rhetorical style, the US president cannot be construed as a classical strongman who manipulates his base. Rather more aptly, he has been described ‘as a boy who starts tossing matches near a gasoline spill to see what happens’ (Packer, 2019). In other words, while Trump issues no explicit order for his followers to commit acts of violence, his rhetoric emancipates resentful emotions, shapes public opinion, deepens social polarisation and  – in rarer though profoundly significant cases – mobilises extremist grassroots organisations, such as the various collective vigilante mobilisations which typified the period. Emboldened by Trump’s apologia, anti-black armed militias, far-right and libertarian vigilantes took matters into their own hands in response to the Black Live Matters protests. Xenophobia was endemic to the president’s narrative. Though yet unbuilt, ‘the Wall’ was a staple of Trump’s discourse and constituted ‘a flagship policy’ for many his supporters (US20). Speaking about immigration at a rally in the Florida Panhandle, the president said, ‘we can’t let them [border patrol guards] use weapons . . . I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?’. While his question was ostensibly rhetorical, a woman in the crowd shouted back: ‘Shoot them!’ (TRUMP.21). As Packer (2019) put it, the president didn’t put the words in her mouth, but he made it likelier that someone would speak them. He didn’t urge a massacre of Latino shoppers on the Texas border, but he made it possible for a 21-year-old white supremacist to think he had the president’s support. The nativist tone and furious communication style of Trump’s discourse licensed extremist vigilantism in broader American society through the emancipation and legitimisation of hatred (Butler, 2016). Above all, Trump’s discourse in power demonstrates that populism is not the sole element of his style, but other components such as (crypto-)white nationalism with authoritarian and aggressive tones often prevail (Venizelos, 2022). ‘Illegal immigration’ and ‘aliens’ continued to receive Trump’s disapprobation once in office (TRUMP.19). At a 2020 re-election rally in Manchester, NH, the incumbent US President theatrically recited the lyrics of AfricanAmerican songster Al Wilson’s 1968 hit, The Snake. ‘People were screaming to me for the last four or five rallies, “read The Snake!”. The Snake. Does anybody know what I’m talking about?’ (TRUMP.34), he enquired of his audience rhetorically. Trump’s public recitals of The Snake were a repeat affair. The song narrates the story of a woman who rescues and revives a dying snake which thereafter kills her with its poisonous bite. Though this can hardly have been Wilson’s intention, Trump appropriated the song as a cypher for the illegal immigration. After his theatrical rendition, he clarified with his audience, ‘this is about immigration . . . illegal immigration, right? . . . They should come in through merit, and legally!’ (TRUMP.34). This section has shown overall that elements from right-wing discourse were endemic to Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Interestingly though, his theatrical

Donald Trump in power 169 (mis-)appropriation of The Snake is a good example of how low (populist) and xenophobic (nativist) discourse can be co-articulated. 6.2.4.  ‘Crazy Bernie’ and the ‘radical left democrats’ Per Trump, ‘the left’ was the ultimately responsible agent of America’s fading glory. Anti-leftism was a central theme of Trump’s discourse in government and only intensified as the administration met resistance in its second half. Bernie Sanders’ ascendance as a challenger for the Democrat nomination (arguably in a dynamic-opposite relationship with Trump’s own passage through the Republican Party) reactivated a dormant discursive anti-communism, a relic from America’s part in the Cold War. Yet while discursive polarisation against the left was amply evident, there were no clear signs of self-identification with ‘the right’ in Trump’s discourse. Trump’s domestic out-group was nameable as ‘the left’, but the corresponding in-group identity – the ‘we’ whom Trump sought to represent – there was no explicit articulation of ‘the right’. Due to his ‘socialist’ ideas, Trump’s ‘counterpart’ – left-populist Bernie Sanders – was dubbed ‘crazy Bernie’ by the former (TRUMP.19). Soon, even the mainstream Democratic Party drew rhetorical association with ‘the left’ and its Trumpian bywords: ‘fanatics’, extremists’ and ‘radical leftists filled with rage’ (TRUMP.19). During the waves of protest against police brutality that punctuated his tenure, Trump stereotyped the protesters as ‘professional anarchists, violent mobs, looters, criminals, rioters, AntiFa’ (TRUMP.22). President Trump repeatedly and urgently warned the public about the ‘socialist takeover of healthcare’: ‘Democrats are trying to take away your health care, take away your doctors, take away all of the good care that we fought, and we fought hard, and we’re doing well and now we’re doing better’ (TRUMP.19), he claimed. In his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump vowed that in the event of re-election, he ‘will never let socialism destroy American healthcare’ (TRUMP.28). He denounced as ‘socialist’ any vaguely social-democratic policy proposal ranging from ‘free tuition fees’ to ‘[subsidised] access to [private] healthcare [insurance]’ – policies advocated by even some of the most conservative US Democrats. Trump framed state social provision of virtually anything as a radical departure into socialism. In Trump’s conservative discourse, access to welfare resources could only be realised through private not public means. Trump emphatically warned the public about the tyrannical character of this chimerical ‘socialism’ already ostensibly polluting American public life, saying that it had ‘shut down free markets, suppressed free speech, and set up a relentless propaganda machine, rigged elections, used the government to persecute their political opponents, and destroyed the impartial rule of law’ (TRUMP.29; VM.68). This hyperbolic discursive association between the tepid centrist reforms in the Democrats’ policy agenda and the bogeyman of ‘socialism’ resonated well with the Republican economic right wing. In the 2020 re-election campaign, materials were fielded which dichotomised ‘socialism’ against an idealised capitalism (see Figure 6.6).

170  Donald Trump in power Trump attacked the Democratic establishment by saying that Americans had ‘had enough of their socialism and enough of their vile hoaxes and scams’ (TRUMP.19). Composite elements – from Sanders’ ‘radicalism’ to Clinton’s ‘corruption’ – converge in one articulation, discursively constructing the Democrats as a pack of radical liars. Outside the economic and political spheres in which Trump identified the Democrats as a threat, cultural menace was also apparent: ‘left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution’ (Trump.20). Counterposed to the liberatory values of the American Revolutionary War, renovated and redelivered to ‘the people’ by Trump, is a supposed counterrevolutionary plot (embodied in political correctness and cosmopolitan values that are foreign to the American culture) hatched by the urban left. Borrowing from the playbook of earlier Red Scares, the new American right placed ‘cultural Marxism’ at the centre of their diagnosis for a fading America. Trump saw in cultural Marxism a conspiracy to despoil ‘true’ American morality (Mirrelees, 2018). Identifying ‘our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms’ as the key battlegrounds supposedly infiltrated by cultural Marxism, Trump asserted that there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. (TRUMP.20) The cultural component of Trump’s discourse channelled his supporters’ anxieties about political correctness into an identifiable – indeed hegemonic – enemy, whose norms he promised to subvert. While practitioners of ‘political correctness’ regard themselves as advocates for justice and equality, Trump and his supporters saw the opposite. In his frebrand speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump claimed that the radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice. But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance, and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of repression, domination, and exclusion. (TRUMP.20) Populism was neither the sole nor always the principal feature of Donald Trump’s presidential discourse. As this subsection has shown, an increasingly combative discourse against the political, economic, and cultural influence of a ‘socialist’ left accompanied and sometimes overtook Trump’s articulation of populism in office.

Donald Trump in power 171

 Figure 6.6 2020 Campaign flyers and stickers collected from a petition rally in Scranton, PA (F.US.5)

6.3. Collective identification in the age of Trump Trump’s popularity increased from 30 to 40% in 2017, then to 45% in January  2018 as Americans felt the personal effects of his policies, particularly the Tax Cut and Job Acts.4 Many interviewees felt that ‘the economy is doing great’ (US17), that ‘businesses are profiting’ (US23), that their president ‘is trying to bring jobs back to the United States’ (US7) and that ‘unemployment is on the historic low’ (US1). ‘He works with the coal mines, the blue-collar workers’ (US7) one Pennsylvanian said, while an Evangelical Christian likewise called Trump ‘a blue-collar billionaire’ who supports ‘the underdog’ (F.US1). Populist elements were crucially identifiable in many Trump followers’ own discourses. For instance: [T]he policies that he puts in place benefit everybody. Not the rich not the poor. Everybody. All sectors black or white, Hispanic, Caucasian, rich or poor. Everybody is being served. This is attractive to me. You should not

172  Donald Trump in power favour one or the other. We are all equal no matter of who you are, where you come from and what you do. You don’t get that from your average politician. A politician in America caters to the corporations and the big entities not to the individual. He caters to the individual not the special interests and the different lobbies that are out there. We never had a president like that before. (US23) Trump’s popularity did falter occasionally, especially in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matters movement and during the coronavirus pandemic. Certainly, not all of Trump’s supporters agreed with each of his policies, and his idiosyncratic style was an issue for many. For example, one interviewee hoped that ‘someone will take twitter off his hands’ (US4), while another admitted Trump’s was not his ‘favourite style of statesmanship’ (US20). Most supporters though were not dissuaded by his style: ‘[w]hat I care about is the results’ (US17). Nonetheless, beyond inventories of individual opinions, the book maintains that collective identification cannot be grasped through a rationalistic perspective that seeks continuity and discontinuity between ‘policy outcomes’ and ‘public opinion’. Those who seek to reduce political identity to a statistic risk overlooking the affective political dimension. Donald Trump’s disruptive style – conceived here through Lakoff’s strict paternal morality and Ostiguy’s flaunting of the socio-political ‘low’ – continued to play a pivotal role in maintaining and re-activating political identification throughout the Trump presidency. The deepening polarised schism in ‘Trump’s America’ exemplifies the particular energies of the politics of enjoyment which are vital in collective identity formation (Mazzarella et al., 2020). Enquiring into the psycho-social dynamics of populism, this second part of the chapter gives agency to ‘the people’. The aim is to understand the ways that Trump’s supporters identify with their leader, how they reason about their participation in ‘their movement’, which sentiments are at stake and how they justify the contradictions in Trump’s narrative. 6.3.1.  The establishment against Trump Antagonism between ‘the establishment’ and Donald Trump was widely acknowledged and even lauded by his supporters. Interviews revealed that this antagonism was of central concern to several Trump voters. They persistently regarded him as an opponent of ‘the deep state’ (US17). Trump’s purported probing into the ‘deep state’ was understood as a reason for him ‘being chased by the establishment’ (US1). His supporters viewed him as both a victim of, and a counterforce against, the establishment. A young supporter from rural Pennsylvania noted that ‘for almost of his entire presidency, he is being investigated for many things’ (US8). Another observed that ‘[t]he Democrats are attacking him all the time. See the impeachment for example, it’s keeping the

Donald Trump in power 173 government busy from passing legislation’ (US7). In the eyes of one libertarian supporter, ‘if they [the establishment] can do this to a president imagine what they can do to a citizen’ (US1). Actions considered by Democrats as legitimate legal and institutional countermeasures against an authoritarian and corrupt president, such – as impeachment – were at best ‘a waste of tax-payers’ money’ to Trump supporters (US11). As Ethan argued, ‘for almost his entire presidency he is being investigated for many things, but nothing came from these investigations. He was never found guilty . . . he was not impeached. They produced a 500 pages document saying nothing’ (US8). Trump’s anti-establishment polarisation was often framed by interviewees as defensive:5 ‘If he goes after someone, he really goes after them. And they probably deserve it’ (US13); ‘He is after people who are doing wrong. Look at the Biden case and Ukraine’ (US12). Anti-establishment values are core to populist identification (cf. Hawkins et al., 2018), and positive identification with Trump typically accompanied negative identification with the establishment. As one of Lackawanna County, PA’s Republican congressional candidates put it ‘when they attack him, I feel they attack me’ (US12). This type of identification travelled well across states; a libertarian interviewed in upstate New York said that ‘when you talk about Donald Trump, I know you are talking about me’ (US1). Correspondingly, as a Michigan-born interviewee put it, ‘Middle Americans do not feel like they are being talked down to when he [Trump] is speaking’ (US3). Echoing their leader’s discourse, Trump followers identified the media as a hostile ‘establishment’ actor framing them as the ‘unfree press’ (US14). Trump supporters felt that mainstream media portrayed them as ‘sexist, racist’ misogynist, homophones, xenophobes, whatever label’ (US14). Others felt that ‘there is so much dishonesty and lie that comes out of the media at the moment’ (US3), ‘[t]he media are so corrupt!’ (US26), purveyors of ‘[f]ake news’ and ‘[f]ull of hoaxes’ (US1). Another interviewee opined that ‘nowadays it becomes kind of murky to determine what a truth or a lie is. More liberal outlets are determined to say “That’s a lie!” ’ (US4). Negative opinions of the media sufficed in justifying, almost unconditionally, Trump’s hostility to it. They believed that Trump ‘goes after the press. He calls them what they are. They are fake news. I wouldn’t even call it news. I would call it pure propaganda . . . They really are the enemies of the people’ (US14). Interviewees had few ethical qualms about this polarising style of leadership. ‘He is very polarising indeed’, Melanie, the Ohio field organiser for TRUMP 2020, said, ‘for me it’s good. For them it’s bad’ (US23). 6.3.2.  Racist, nationalist, and authoritarian? Trump’s critics averred that his statements revealed bigotry and xenophobia, while other commentators worried about his authoritarian streak. Very few of the interviewees believed ‘there is a good evidence that he is a bigot’ (US4).

174  Donald Trump in power Others found ‘these accusations funny’ (US3). Kevin, who self-identified as an independent conservative, maintained that Trump ‘definitely has racial tendencies but his nationalism has not gone out of hand. He only goes after the undocumented immigrants’ (US9). Trump’s ‘policy results’ tended to outweigh allegations of racism for interviewees who felt he represented their personal or sectorial interests. However, most interviewees doubted Trump’s framing as a racist, nationalist and authoritarian. ‘A ra . . . racist? Oh . . . No one said he was a racist before he decided to run’, a young student gasped with an expression of wonder when he was asked this question (US14). Shelby had it that ‘he is not a racist – he just stereotypes people’. More boldly, Mary from Kansas believed that the president ‘is not a racist whatsoever. If you observe Donald Trump’s lifestyle’, she said, ‘the people who he has around him and pays to do his jobs . . . he doesn’t care what colour you are, where you are coming from or what language you speak’ (US28). Among the interviewed supporters were migrants, including first–generation migrants who fled warzones such as Syria. Not only did migrant supporters see no contradiction in their support for Trump, but justified it on grounds of legality of immigration. A 60-year-old female supporter from Argentina said that ‘[i]f you come here you have to come legally, as I did. You cannot come through the back door’ (US16). Contrary to liberal interpretations of the border wall policy as racist and divisive, Trump enthusiasts framed it as a ‘flagship policy’ (US18). ‘The wall?’ responded my Argentine interviewee. ‘It’s not extreme. America has been abused, we have been abused. I can give you names of people who came here and abused the system, went to schools and hospitals without paying taxes’ (US16). Trump’s narrative redirected ‘the meaning of the wall’ from racial to law-enforcement considerations. ‘The only people who will cross the border illegally are drug and all sort of traffickers and smugglers. Other people like asylum seekers, a migrant will be forced to go through legal ports of entry’ (US18). ‘This wall is meant to stop trucks [i.e., bringing drugs] not individuals’ (US17) said one Pennsylvanian pensioner whose spouse was an immigrant. Far from perceiving them as xenophobic, Trump’s immigration policies were sometimes regarded as putatively humane: [f]rom a humanitarian perspective this is better. If you have go up in the middle of the desert where there is a lot of coyotes it’s really dangerous . . . there is no water . . . people don’t necessarily have the navigation skills to go where they want to. It’s about the security and the wellbeing of people’, PJ from Texas said (US18). The Pennsylvanian pensioner concurred: ‘some people come here and God knows what happens to them. They are exploited. If you have a wall . . .’ (US17).

Donald Trump in power 175 Despite global commentary on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and exclusionary politics, his supporters feel that there is nothing in the Trump administration that makes him a dictatorial figure. People say he is mean to journalists, but Barack Obama took away the licenses of some journalists and repressed them in ways that Trump didn’t. Trump is just critical towards them. But they earned it as they are rude all the time. (US3) Melanie, a self-identified nationalist, concurred that Trump is likewise ‘very nationalist’: ‘he loves America and wants to put her first. But I don’t think he is authoritarian’ (US23), she concluded. 6.3.3.  Subversive rhetoric The aforementioned analysis has catalogued how Trump supporters questioned or disputed some of the hegemonic liberal values of American society including matters of race, culture and gender. Denial of those values should arguably not be taken as evidence of what many have called ‘post-truth’ politics, a notion reinforcing the reflexive association of irrationality with populism. Such ideas presuppose exclusive access to truth: a kind of truth (often technocratic) coded as superior (Galanopoulos & Stavrakakis, 2019). Rather, the ‘backlash’ of trolling exemplifies (counter-)hegemonic battles over ‘the right to truth’; for instance, over the meaning of ‘America’. As Riggio (2017:67) put it, ‘American nationalist conservatism today has adopted the form and rhetoric of subversion values’. Differentiation between ‘fake news’ and its opposite is arguably less productive than observing the language games and proliferation of meanings in contemporary societies, insofar as they are central to political representation. While liberal commentators framed the Trump movement as ‘post-truth’, the members of the movement itself saw it as a battle to defend their values. For instance, in response to the removal of Confederate and slave traders’ statues by the Black Lives Matter movement following George Floyd’s killing, grassroots Trump supporters on supersized trucks bearing movement flags conjoined themselves with far–right militias such as the ‘Proud Boys’ – a vigilante movement of self-described ‘Western chauvinists’ – in order to stage counter-protests. These counter-demonstrators reproduced Trump’s narrative, protesting ‘prejudice’ and urging for ‘tolerance’, showing the contested nature of socio-political reality (Voice of America, 2020). While anti-racist activists regarded the removal of statues as a symbolic attack on the legacy of slavery, Trump supporters regarded it as an unpatriotic attack against freedom of speech. Trump supporters organised around their leader’s frame wherein ‘the radical left’ (i.e. the Democrats) adopt a ‘cancel culture’ by calling for the

176  Donald Trump in power boycott of certain ideas or products because of the beliefs they represent (see Hooks, 2020). Mainstream public criticism and even felony charges pressed against individuals who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters were perceived by Trump’s side as further attempts to ‘cancel culture’: in this case, the Second Amendment right of individuals to bear arms (Santucci, 2020). This interpretation of ‘the norm’ was reflected in the words of Noble C. Hathaway, President of the Arizona State Rifle & Pistol Association, who explained to me that Donald Trump ‘is vocal about gun rights because he is pro-Constitution’ (US22). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, scepticism of the corresponding science could be regarded as the natural descendant of earlier waves of climate denialism. ‘Reopen’ anti-lockdown protests ‘activated a diverse array of groups: anti-vaccination activists, gun rights advocates, adherents of the Qanon conspiracy theory, members of private armed militias, and Trump supporters among them’ (Lowndes, 2020:55). A particularly notable and omnipresent slogan read ‘MY BODY MY CHOICE’. It included a crossed-out COVID mask and a ‘TRUMP 2020’ subheading. This re-appropriation of the classic feminist slogan by the radical right exemplifies the subversion of liberal articulations perceived as hegemonic by Trump and his supporters. In the public debate, ‘the mask’ functioned as a multimodal signifier. In the ‘liberal camp’, broadly speaking, the mask functioned as a signifier of reason, science and pragmatism in the public debate. In the ‘Trump camp’ however, it functioned as a symbol of ideological and bodily repression. Trump supporters, especially libertarians, thought the government had no right to tell its citizens what to do with their bodies. ‘We’re not anti-mask. We’re not for masks. We’re for choice’, one protester said, underscoring this point (Bianco, 2020). Another instance showcasing a contested understanding of norms has to do with ideas about pluralism. Benjamin was raised in a traditionally liberal family and used to identify as a ‘fairly left’ himself. In 2016, he supported Bernie Sanders but ended up voting for Clinton. He explained that his disillusionment with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in general owed itself to their stance on faith and culture issues – which he found arrogant and ‘condescending’ – which precipitated his change of heart. Though not a ‘full-on’ Trump supporter, he would nonetheless vote for him in 2020, he said (US4). The root cause behind this shift – by no means an isolated case – was a perceived shift in values within the parties themselves (see Frank, 2005). Benjamin explained that the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for pluralism anymore. They want to take a hammer and smash everything if you don’t believe what they believe, if you don’t think how they think. They frame you as a bad person . . . The Democrats want to revoke the tax exemptions to institutions, like the church, that oppose same-sex marriage.

Donald Trump in power 177 Benjamin, who is bisexual, explained that ‘I may marry a man one day, but I won’t force a church to change its beliefs’.6 What is the meaning of pluralism, and who defends it? In many Trump supporters’ discourse, pluralism is perceived as a right to hold multiple and coexisting opinions. The Democrats were contrasted as censorious and intolerant of those holding opinions with which they disagreed. The positions Trump supporters held may reveal a ‘reversed’ understanding of reality. Yet above all, they disclose their opponents’ negligence of the contested nature of this very ‘reality’. The presumption of an exclusive epistemic access to truth not only reinforced the elitist atmosphere which alienated Trump ‘converts’ such as Benjamin, but its perceived limits and arrogance came to the foreground during the ‘popular’ (reactionary) backlash to it from 2016 onwards. ‘Political correctness’ cannot be negated from this picture. The themes described earlier (such as official advice to wear masks and prescriptions on the use of language about gender, sex and race) were perceived as a form of speech code and behavioural policing. Referring to this perception, Ethan clarified that ‘I am not anti-gay; I support gay marriage. But this thing has blown out of proportion’ (US8). Trump supporters felt they were fighting a war to destabilise a repressive socio-cultural order imposed unconsentingly on them by liberal elites. This retaliatory ‘culture war’ can be understood as an act of subversion (cf. Riggio, 2017). Drawing on populism theory, one can think of political correctness as an instantiation of ‘the dominant ideas and values of society’ (Canovan, 1999:3) which Trumpian populism (perceived by its participants as the politics of the repressed) opposes. When it comes to contemporary America, ‘Trumpism’s most powerful claim [is] to the mantle of the true subversives of society, the virtuous rebel overthrowing a corrupt mainstream’ (Riggio, 2017:72). How Trump’s base perceived and justified its leader’s discourse is less a symptom of their distance from reality but rather a sign of the hegemonic battle over the meaning of that reality itself. 6.3.4. The paradox of identity There are indeed a series of ‘paradoxes’ embedded in Trump’s articulation, yet they pose little problem for his base in identifying with him. Trump is a billionaire who is supported by parts of the population that consider themselves economically marginalised and left behind. He is a New Yorker who is supported by the people of the ‘flyover country’, the ‘forgotten’ common men and women of Middle America. He is a former TV personality who is backed by those who resent cultural elites. Trump has led a life of exuberant material excess and had three marriages (and many conspicuously public and controversial trysts besides), yet he is supported by people of faith, conservatives and groups who oppose LGBT+ rights, gay marriage and abortion. For all these contradictions, identification between base and leader during

178  Donald Trump in power Trump’s first term in office was sustained at high levels through a libidinal investment that released bodily energies, political enthusiasm and active participation from those previously disaffected. Melanie from Ohio explained her journey from an ‘apolitical’ bystander to an Ohio State field officer for TRUMP 2020: I don’t like volunteering. I don’t like participating in politics. I am more of a quiet person . . . an introvert. Usually I would just go vote. But I feel it is important to do my part. So this is the first time that I volunteer. He creates job opportunities. I do not like this job but I do it to keep him in office. (US23) The paradox of identity presupposes that political identification is not necessarily a product of reason and rationality, or of continuity and consistency between (public) claims and (policy) outcomes. ‘Paradoxical’ identifications stress the pivotal function of the politics of exceptionality. Drawing once again on Weber (2012), Kalyvas (2008:47) argues that the model of charismatic politics takes us to the origins of these worldviews and imaginary significations that enable a variety of separate individuals to form a shared sense of honour, lifestyle, and dignity; to identify themselves as members of a distinct homogeneous political group, of a common ‘we’; and to recognize or reject the validity of a system of political authority. Trump’s transgressive style provoked hegemonic cultural and political norms in the United States and invited the so-called ‘silent majority’ to speak ‘truth’ to power. As an interviewee explained, ‘a politician is monotone. Donald Trump is real. The other day he cursed on national television’ (US14). The omnipresent division between ‘politicians’ (framed as ‘monotone’) and ‘Trump’ (framed as ‘real’) seems a central fulcrum in Trumpian popular identification. Praise for Trump’s cursing – an improper yet ‘authentic’ act often performed in the private sphere – highlights further how socio-culturally low performances resonated well with ‘the people’. I visited the Evangelical Solid Rock Church, outside Cincinnati, OH, during an ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ event to find out more about the seemingly paradoxical relationship between people of faith and Trump, and more specifically how they justify their support towards the president given his rather unchristian demeanour and proclivities. Members of the congregation explained that they ‘believe that everyone deserves a second chance’ (US25). ‘Or a third chance . . .’, the interviewee added after I mentioned Trump’s three marriages. ‘Nobody is perfect, except from one. People make mistakes. We have lots of people in our congregation that changed their ways’ (US25), he continued. ‘I am not Jesus . . . Trump is not Jesus either. We are all forgotten’, another

Donald Trump in power 179 interviewee interjected (US24). Similarly, the interviewed representative of the Texas Alliance for Life – an anti-abortion organisation – said that the pro-life movement is very diverse, made up of people of all backgrounds, and is full of converts to the cause. We welcome all who want to work to protect innocent human life from conception through natural death, regardless of their image or their past. (US27) The figure of Vice-President Mike Pence was highlighted as a critical compensating factor for Trump’s unpalatable personality. Pence was considered ‘a solid Christian, staunch social conservative, and anti-gay and pro-life supporter’ by Evangelical Christians (US4). Yet policy is also important. The transactional elements in the relationship between Trump and the Christian right should not be neglected. Trump ‘has done nearly everything that the prolife movement has asked of him’ (Ponnuru, 2020). Through executive orders, his administration blocked federal funding for family planning organisations and abortion advocacy groups, while it also imposed funding restrictions on foetal-tissue research. He also appointed pro-life judges (see Israel, 2020). As the Texas Alliance for Life representative explained to me, ‘President Trump takes bold positions. He isn’t afraid to be unpopular in the media. He also understands that his base is solidly pro-life and expects him to stick to his commitments on nominating pro-life judges’ (US27). Certainly, past conservative administrations in US history opposed abortion (which remained a felony in several states for much of the twentieth century). However, while previous Republican presidents post-Roe v. Wade were equivocal on the issue – whether from political expedience or private conscience – Trump was the first to attend the anti-abortion ‘March for Life’. Despite Trump’s unchristian lifestyle, he effectively mobilised conservative constituencies such as pro-lifers and evangelical Christians. The Texas Alliance for Life representative explains that President Trump attending the March for Life was a huge boost for the pro-life movement. He isn’t afraid to be pro-life and doesn’t mind being attacked in the media for his pro-life support. Attending the March for Life was a big encouragement for pro-lifers. (US27) What if President Trump seems behaviourally inimical to the Christian faith? Is this the central question revolving around the Trump/Christian paradox? ‘His parents were good Christians’, said Bishop Jackson to the audience at the Evangelical service in Ohio. ‘When you cut him . . . he is gonna bleed . . . good, family, red, white, and blue patriotism’ (F2), added Paula White, who led the event. Trump’s errant behaviour may fall short of Christian values, but ‘his

180  Donald Trump in power presidency is pro-life!’ (US4). An organiser from the Solid Rock community who described himself as ‘biblically sound’ explained that he is ‘looking for things that line up with the Bible: pro-life is a big part of me and my values . . . things against . . . the same-sex marriage . . . these are the kind of things that I am looking for on a candidate’ (US25). When Trump’s public discourse was raised in interviews, his supporters recognised how it could be problematic. ‘He is very vocal about everything’ (US25); ‘Sometimes he is on the bully side . . . Sometimes he gets a bit too far when he attacks certain groups like minorities’ (US24); or ‘says things against women’ (US25). Evoking the separation of church and state, Melanie said: ‘He is not my pastor. He is my president’ (US23). This sentiment was echoed in Austin’s words: ‘I don’t believe that the main role of the government is to provide cultural and moral leadership. The main aim is to make law and give citizens protection under the law’ (US3). In other words, it is politics and policy that appear to attract the Christian vote in the United States, not the perceived personal mores of the candidate. One Evangelical leader stated that his community often prefers to turn a blind eye on certain things President Trump does or says that are at odds with Christian ethics, crediting him with policies that are in line with their faith. ‘They take the whole package in the end’ (US24). 6.3.5. Ecstatic Evangelicals The most prominent paradox embedded in the identification between ‘the people’ and Trump is perhaps that of the Evangelical Christians. Although Trump is nobody’s model Christian, he has uncannily appropriated the iconography of belief: images of a long-awaited judgment soon to come, when merciless vengeance will be wreaked on evil-doers, wrongs will be righted, and untold blessings delivered to the deserving. (Hochschild, 2016:688) With a long history of infidelity and extravagance, Trump’s private lifestyle makes an unconvincing for the conservative moral values he paid lip service to as president. ‘As a Christian’, an interviewee said, ‘I find his behaviour atrocious. The guy has been married three times, he has done many questionable things over the course of his life. He is a Hollywood guy. A very Left environment’ (US3). ‘In public, before he became a president, Trump, flippedflopped on abortion. He doesn’t have a big record of anti-gay statements either. He used to be a Democrat too!’ (US4). ‘He is not Christian. He claims to be’ (US3). In fact, in the year 1999, Donald Trump stated that he has no issue with gay people and was ‘very pro-choice’ despite ‘hat[ing] the concept of abortion’ (TRUMP.36). Paradoxically though, while these issues are presumably of central concern for conservatives such as Evangelical Christians and Pro-Lifers, they barely seem to affect these groups’ opinion towards Trump as long as he delivers on the policy front.

Donald Trump in power 181 Like other conservative constituencies, Evangelicals feared the ‘leftist’ turn to which they believed America was fast succumbing. A response to this anxiety came in the shape of the Christian civilisationist – ‘Judeo-Christian’ – values propounded by Steven Bannon’s strategy (see also Brubaker, 2017; Haynes, 2021). These can be summarised as the belief that ‘culturally, socially, and politically, US principles and achievements stem from the country’s claimed Judeo-Christian values’ (Haynes, 2020:493; see also Chapter 5). The ambition to reclaim the purportedly culturally and morally decadent institutions of contemporary America (FitzGerald, 2017) conforms well with the psychoanalytic theory of identity formation that takes the promise of a return to the lost state as constituting a key mechanism structuring socio-political imaginaries (Stavrakakis, 1999). The Evangelicals for Trump event at the Solid Rock Church outside Cincinnati, Ohio – an idiosyncratic amalgam of religion and politics – took me deep into the heart of the American Christian right: a fringe (Christian) movement that declared a holy war against ‘secular humanism’ and vowed to mobilise evangelicals to arrest the moral decay of the country (FitzGerald, 2017). Rolling Stone magazine describes Evangelicals as a: ragtag group of prosperity gospellers (like his ‘spiritual adviser’ Paula White, a televangelist who promises her donors their own personal angel), Christian dominionists (who believe that America’s laws should be founded explicitly on biblical ones – including stoning homosexuals), and charismatic or Pentecostal outliers (like Frank Amedia, the Trump campaign’s ‘liaison for Christian policy’ who once claimed to have raised an ant from the dead). Considering their extreme views, these folks had an alarming number of followers, but certainly nothing of voting-bloc magnitude. (Morris, 2019) Organised by Evangelicals for Trump – a group set up to engage the Christian community in order to help re-elect Donald Trump – the event of March 6 2020 was atmospherically reminiscent of Evangelical worship; and, I was told, very typical of Solid Rock Church services in general. Sermons employed a rather vernacular preaching style. Yet the discourse articulated by the clerics was essentially identical to that of the president. They reused key phrases of Trump’s, such as ‘unemployment is on a historic low’. America’s problems, as represented in the preachers’ discourse, were essentially identical to those in Trump’s discourse: ‘Fake News’, ‘Hoaxes’, ‘political correctness’, ‘the academic elite’, the ‘post-modern and post-Christian path that Europe follows’ (FUS1; FUS2; FUS3; FUS4). Through the use of irony, they dragged politics into their religious discourse, blurring the line between the two. ‘If pastors don’t speak up, we end up with men in [the] women’s restroom’ (FUS4), said Laurence Bishop II, a former rodeo competitor and pastor at Solid Rock Church, with reference to transgender rights. In denouncing gay marriage,

182  Donald Trump in power preacher Rod Parsley stated that ‘Jesus could never be illegally married . . .’. According to Parsley, this moral corruption is what drives religious people like him into politics (FUS3). Rob Parsley, a prominent American Christian minister, author, television host – and founder of the ‘Centre for Moral Clarity’, a Christian grassroots advocacy organisation and ‘Breakthrough’, a media ministry (RodParsley.TV) – provides a typical example of what is referred to as a televangelist: a minister who broadcasts his religious message through media such as radio and television. Parsley attacked ‘the establishment’ for calling Trump supporters ‘deplorables and smelly Walmart shoppers, clinging to your gun and toting a Bible’ (FUS3). This was a response Clinton’s characterisation of a subset of Trump supporters in 2016 (whom she called ‘a basket of deplorables’) – a type example of the anti-popular character of elite discourse so provocative to Trump’s base – and in Parsley’s reply, of the anti-elitist discourse it invited in response. The preachers declared a war of ideas, values and ideology between the ‘two Americas’, reflecting on the Bannonian civilisationist diagnosis for the declining empire. The call to ‘fight for our nation’ (FUS3) echoes Trump’s prognostic discourse in its quest to restore the Judeo-Christian values that will ‘Make America Great Again’ from an evangelical point of view. As with Trump’s frames, the Evangelical discursive repertoires were highly politicised and polarising. ‘There is no right or left. There is right and wrong’, Parsley argued, moralising the political narrative of the Christian right and defining the political left as a totem of un-American values. Parsley juxtaposed the Christian Evangelical worldview to that of secular ‘enemy’. He pitted the Biblical values – of which Trump and his movement were now the unlikely champions – against those of Marxism, anarchism and socialism that the Democrats purportedly represented (F3). His discourse – a polemic– was highly politicised. The preachers made extensive use of personal anecdote; telling tales of the places they grew up in Middle America; of their slow and hard path to ‘success’; and of their personal connection to the president. Their narratives revealed a sense of common ground with the average American. Their personalities, the hardships they had experienced and the true American values they shared with the forgotten people of ‘flyover country’ were recurring themes. Even if the faithful Christians attending the Solid Rock Church service had no personal relationship with the president, the preachers – his representatives – acted as intermediaries channelling his message as proxies and created a second-order bond with him. They reminded the congregation repeatedly that ‘God can do big things to little people’ (F1), alluding perhaps to a religious subtype of populism (see also FitzGerald, 2017, Chapter 12). As an African-American, Bishop Harry Johnson used tropes reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. He brought up the ‘freedom versus slavery’ dichotomy – though not to refer to the suppression of the black community by white Americans – but to denounce the ‘slavery’ of decadent liberalism imposed on contemporary America, and call for a revolution against it. In exposing a populist parrhesia7 of a subaltern subject speaking truth to

Donald Trump in power 183 power, the Bishop ‘wondered’ whether the people should ‘sit in the back of the bus?’ (F1). His response – ‘I will sit where I pick’ – recalls the famous civil disobedience of Rosa Parks in a manner that obfuscates the racist character of Trump’s discourse. The theatrical style of preaching was reminiscent of Trump’s own rallies: forging a direct relationship between the people, the preacher and the popular language used. This highly politicised rhetoric articulated by religious groups and leaders indicates how ‘the desire for sovereignty is also expressed in the return of religion’ (Newman, 2019:99). The contemporary Evangelical movement in the United States plays this role, but at the Evangelicals for Trump rally, it seemed as though the (nominal) line between ‘the theological’ and ‘the political’ no longer existed. In Newman’s words, the political containment of religion, which was the great achievement of secular modernity, is no longer operative – which is why religious intensity now spills out beyond the defined boundaries of the state and intersects with politics and movements of all kinds, in a much more unmediated and unstable way. (Newman, 2019:99) Pastor Franz Gerber of Praise Chapel Community church in Crandon, WI, was troubled by this fanaticism. He thinks that, as a pastor, he has a responsibility for the congregation for whom he is the ‘shepherd’. They often ‘idolise Trump more than they worship Jesus’, he explained. ‘Many individuals, followers of Jesus, put so much of their effort and hope on Trump’. ‘He is quite brash. He is quite bold. Many Christians like that’ (US26). The pastor’s words are in harmony with Lakoff’s framework of the strict father morality: a paternal figure who protects, disciplines and controls the family against moral corruption (in this case taking the shape of ‘decadent post-modern urbanites’). At the Evangelicals for Trump event in the suburbs of Cincinnati, I saw with my own eyes what Gerber meant. The religious hymns addressed ‘to Him’ (the Lord, ostensibly) performed by a live band in contemporary musical style created an atmosphere of mystagogical catechesis; ecstatic bodies in movement, dancing, with hands raised in the air; eyes shut, weeping. The emotionally-charged atmosphere at the Solid Rock Church reflects the different forms of community participation that generate a sense of belonging through affect. Even ‘religion provides a point of collective identification, a symbolic figure of authority for people to rally around’ (Newman, 2019:99). At times I could scarcely be sure to which Him the prayers were addressed – the Lord, or Trump? I posed this question to Melanie, who described herself ‘very religious’, and was present at the same service: ‘do you think Evangelicals replaced Jesus with Trump?’ Her response was revealing: ‘Oh my God!’, she responded, ‘this is a problem. He is not a Jesus figure. It is scary’ (US23). It seemed she had never made this association herself, and she was troubled when I brought it to light.

184  Donald Trump in power The ecstatic Evangelical ritual highlights how corporeal energies contributed to the construction of a collective ‘we’ around the figure of ‘the leader’. Ernesto Laclau’s words are instructive: [t]he tendentially empty signifier becomes entirely empty, in which case the links in the equivalential chain do not need to cohere with each other at all: the most contradictory contents can be assembled, as long as the subordination of them all to the empty signifier remains. To go back to Freud, this would be the extreme situation in which love for the father is the only link between the brothers. (Laclau, 2005:217)

6.4. Conclusion This chapter analysed Donald Trump’s populism in power using a discursive and sociocultural perspective. Having defined populism as a people-centric and anti-elitist discourse that constructs a collective identity – ‘the people’ – through affective investment. The chapter unfolded in two main parts. The first part focused on the political discourse articulated by the president articulated in the forms of rhetoric, visual data, as well as Trump’s own habitus. During his presidency, Trump maintained a high degree of populist discourse. His rhetoric juxtaposed ‘the people’ – ordinary Americans – against ‘the establishment’ – a bipartisan elite, abetted by liberal media outlets and ‘the radical left’. His habitus profoundly flaunted the socio-cultural low, resonating far better with ordinary people than that of the proper, polished and established politician. Importantly, beyond the vertical (populist) antagonism between top and bottom, a horizontal relation of inclusion and exclusion was also clear. ‘The nation’ served as a key signifier in the president’s discourse, revealing strong nationalist elements articulated alongside his populism. More often than not, Trump’s ‘nationalism’ extended beyond typical conservative ‘God-fearing’ patriotism. Trump’s white nationalism was ethnically exclusive and characterised by bigotry, hatred, and conspiracy. At the same time, the increasingly polarising anti-leftist repertoires recalling Cold War narratives situated Trump’s discourse to the right of the mainstream Republican Party. The second part of the chapter gave voice to Trump’s followers in an attempt to grasp the affective narratives generated by ‘the people’ themselves. Trump’s movement is not monolithic but rather composed of a diverse array of groups with little common in them besides their support for Trump. Yet despite this heterogeneity, common frames and belief patterns were evident in Trump supporters’ narratives. These narratives of the base closely reflected the discourse of the leader. Trump followers harbour hostility towards ‘the establishment’, whether the urban elites of the two coasts, the politicians in Washington, the media outlets or the left. They blame ‘the establishment’, not Trump, for increasing polarisation in the United States. Moreover, Trump’s policy failures

Donald Trump in power 185 are chalked up to the war being waged on him by ‘Washington politicians’, and Trump’s own polarising communication is framed as a justified response. Allegations that Trump is racist, nationalist or authoritarian are refuted by his supporters through a subversive narrative that purports to challenge the liberal hegemonic discourse on equality, race, gender and human rights. The left is characterised as assaulting democracy and American values, leading the country into moral decay. These paradoxes are central to the relationship between Trump and his supporters, as much as they are central in all relationships of political identification. This reinforces the view that collective identification cannot be grasped through a purely rationalistic perspective seeking continuity or discontinuity between ‘policy outcomes’ and ‘public opinion’. The Evangelicals are a particular case in point: despite Trump’s extravagant, promiscuous and unchristian lifestyle, the Christian right was undeniably one of the most energised groups devoted to Trump’s re-election campaign.

Notes 1. Absent a caption, Fox News provided some possible interpretations. It may either refer to Donald Trump’s 2017 claim that Obama ‘wiretapped’ Trump Tower during the 2016 elections, or to FISA warrants issued against a former advisor of Trump’s (Wulfsohn, 2020). 2. ‘Southern Border’ was not common parlance until the Trump era; ‘the Border with Mexico’ or ‘Mexican border’ were more widely used. 3. Trump can hardly be tarred as the first US president to mobilise troops against domestic protesters. Even his predecessor felt the necessity of ordering the National Guard to Baltimore in 2015, to suppress riots sparked by the police murder of another African-American man, Freddie Gray. 4. D. Trump Presidential Approval Rating, Gallup, December 2017–March 2018, http://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump. aspx [Accessed 9 April 2018]. 5. White House spokespeople frequently referred to the president’s ‘counterpunches’ (see The Young Turks, 2019), connoting retaliation rather than initiation. 6. Benjamin’s statement refers to a public comment made by Democrat nomination contender Beto O’ Rourke in 2020. O’ Rouke was asked by the CNN if he thought ‘religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities, should they lose their taxexempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage’. He replied ‘yes’ adding that ‘there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us’ (see Lybrand & Subramaniam, 2020). 7. An ancient Greek word, parrhesia was used by Michel Foucault to mean the act of standing and speaking up.

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Donald Trump in power 187 Lybrand, H., & Subramaniam, T. (2020). Fact check: O’Rourke said he would support removing tax-exemptions for religious institutions that oppose same sex marriage: Is that legal? CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/11/politics/beto-orourke-lgbtqgay-marriage-church-fact-check/index.html Mazzarella, W., Santner, E. L., & Schuster, A. (Eds.). (2020). Sovereignty, Inc: Three Inquiries in Politics and Enjoyment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mirrelees, T. (2018). The alt-right’s discourse on ‘cultural marxism’: A political instrument of intersectional hate. Atlantis, 39(1), 49–69. Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Morgan, I. (2019). Make America great again: Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. In M. Oliva & M. Shanahan (Eds.), The Trump Presidency (pp. 59–82). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Morris, A. (2019, December). False idol – why the Christian right worships Donald Trump. Rolling Stone Magazine. www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ christian-right-worships-donald-trump-915381/ Neiwert, D. A. (2017). Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. London and New York: Verso. Newman, S. (2019). Political Theology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity. Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A socio-cultural approach. In C. Kaltwasser Rovira, P. Taggart, P. Espejo Ochoa, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Packer, G. (2019, June 8). The left needs a language potent enough to counter: The president’s rhetoric is dangerously populist in nature, and the left doesn’t know how to fight it. The Atlantic. Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/ language-trump-era/595570/ Pierson, P. (2017). American hybrid: Donald Trump and the strange merger of populism and plutocracy†. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), 105–119. Ponnuru, R. (2020). Donald Trump’s pro-life presidency. National Review. www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/02/24/donald-trumps-pro-life-presidency/#slide-1 Riggio, A. (2017). Subverting reality: We are not ‘post-truth’, but in a battle for public trust. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 6(3), 66–73. RodParsley.TV. (n.d.). Rod Parsley Website. www.rodparsley.tv/ Ryan, M. (2019). ‘Stability not chaos’? Donald Trump and the world – an early assessment. In M. Oliva & M. Shanahan (Eds.), The Trump Presidency (pp. 205–226). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Santucci, J. (2020). Trump decries ‘cancel culture’, but does he participate in it? He’s called for boycotts and punishment for critics. USA Today. Retrieved from https://eu. usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/03/trump-decries-cancel-culture-buthe-has-participated/3451223001/ Shanahan, M. (2019). Outsider presidents: Comparing Trump and Eisenhower. In M. Oliva & M. Shanahan (Eds.), The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage (pp. 9–32). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Stavrakakis, Y. (1999). Lacan and the Political. London: Routledge. Stavrakakis, Y. (2007). The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Poltiics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stavrakakis, Y. (2017). Discourse theory in populism research: Three challenges and a dilemma. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4), 523–534.

188  Donald Trump in power The Young Turks (2019). Trump “Counter-Punches” Dead Man. https://www.youtube. com/watch?app=desktop&v=pUI-5p5vGrI Venizelos, G. (2022). Donald Trump in power: Discourse, performativity, identification. Critical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221118223 [Online only]. Voice of America. (2020). US Far-Right Group Rallies in Portland in Support of Trump. www.voanews.com/usa/us-far-right-group-rallies-portland-support-trump Weber, M. (2012). Max Weber: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. T. Parsons (Ed.), A. M. Henderson (Trans.). Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing. White, M. (2019). Style and substance: Trump in the context of camelot. In M. Oliva & M. Shanahan (Eds.), The Trump Presidency (pp. 33–58). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Wulfsohn, J. A. (2020, January 23). Trump shares satirical image of Obama spying on him at Trump tower amid FISA abuse developments. Fox News. www.foxnews.com/ media/trump-obama-spying-trump-tower-fisa

7 Left- and right-wing populists in government A comparative analysis

7.1. Introduction This chapter compares the changes undergone by SYRIZA and the Trump campaign in their respective transitions from opposition to government. A key finding is that populist performativity did not fade once these actors took power but rather continued to constitute the main mode of political communication for both. However, they presented divergent characteristics dependent on ‘host ideology’: SYRIZA articulated a pluralistic and socially-oriented political narrative, while Trump propounded an exclusionary and nativist one. That populism ‘survived’ in government does not entail that it remained unchanged. Populist repertoires were multiply reinvented in response to ongoing political developments and obtained new meanings through context-dependent intensification, articulation with non-populist elements and bridging with other frames and themes. SYRIZA and Trump continued to generate and mobilise an array of subject affects once in government. But even then, they produced contrasting emotions, ranging from solidarity and hope to bitter hatred. Collective passionate identification followed distinct trajectories in government too: in the case of SYRIZA, it declined following the party’s retreat from its antineoliberal commitments; in the case of Trump, it was elevated into an ecstatic fervour, culminating in the infamous Capitol insurrection of January 2021. Considering the differences between Trump’s and SYRIZA’s discursive and emotional repertoires, this chapter assesses the varied impacts different forms of populism may have on democracy. Section 7.2 examines political communication in order to evaluate how and to what extent populist repertoires changed between opposition and power. Section  7.3 evaluates the affective dimension of the populist case studies treated in this book. Section  7.4 explores the implications different types of populism in government have for democracy and its institutions.

7.2. Populist performativity, in opposition and in government As recounted in Chapter 1, dominant perspectives in populism studies tend to perceive populism’s relationship with institutions of government as DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-8

190  Left- and right-wing populists in government paradoxical and uneasy. Scholarly accounts produced several hypotheses on populists’ transition from opposition to power, within which two general types are evident. Some scholarship focuses on ‘outcomes’, maintaining that populists in government either disappear into the mainstream (see Mény & Surel, 2002; Mudde, 2017) or become an authoritarian threat to the representative system (see Müller, 2016; Pappas, 2019), while other scholarship focuses, on ‘policy’, maintaining that populists can either ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’ to implement policy once in power (Canovan, 1999; Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015). Arguably, positions such as these unproductively distract from the analytical core of populism, diverting attention from the form of populism to its non-constitutive and unexclusive contents and outcomes. This research attempted to avoid essentialist pitfalls by evaluating populism’s interpellation function on affectively-invested collective identities in the name of ‘people’ against ‘elite’. The transformations populism undergoes on entering power are best understood in how populist actors articulate ‘the people’ in its antagonistic relationship to the ‘the elite’ and in the affective bonds populist movements maintain with their ‘people’. Bucking the normative expectations of many analysts, neither Donald Trump nor SYRIZA ceased populist performativity once in government. On the contrary, having risen to power through a populist discursive repertoire, both actors maintained, renovated or expanded these repertories in office. Populism is not necessarily a strategy consciously employed or abandoned, but often a performative mode deeply embedded in the ontological identity of the political actor.1 Social markers, accent and use of irony or humour are part of the overall habitus of an ‘authentic’ person and are difficult to cynically emulate convincingly in order to attract voters. However, the high level of populist performativity evident in both Tsipras and Trump in no way indicates that they presented the same characteristics with respect to their populist or non-populist components. 7.2.1.  Distinct populisms/distinct ideologies Both actors presented high degrees of people-centrism and anti-elitism (the signatures of populism) both as contenders for power and then in government. The analysis of 135 discursive units, including speech, text, videos and images, showed that both SYRIZA and the Trump campaign flaunted the socio-political low in a manner typically associated with populist performativity (cf. Ostiguy, 2017). While both actors are evidently populist, their performances of ‘the low’ were not identical. Each actor maintained their own distinct characteristics. As Chapters 3 and 4 have shown, Tsipras and most of his team maintained a ‘casual’ rather than ‘formal’ dress code, scorning the ‘conventional’ attire of politicians. Tsipras’ long-standing refusal to wear a tie is an example of ‘low’ rather than ‘high’ political aesthetic (see Ostiguy, 2017). Tsipras’ language, though often smart and sharp, nonetheless adopted popular phrases, polarising rhetoric, irony and attempts to humiliate enemies by uncovering their scandals

Left- and right-wing populists in government 191 in parliament. These traits – inappropriate by conventional standards – could be understood as ‘bad manners’; while his consistently antagonistic rhetoric could, as opposed to engendering consensus and convergence, be understood as a perpetuation of ‘crisis’ (cf. Moffit, 2016). Tsipras exhibited several social traits belonging to Ostiguy’s (2017) socio-cultural low: including poor English skills (for which he was often criticised by political elites) and his residence in a highly populated working-class Athenian neighbourhood (where he continued to reside as Prime Minister). Trump’s overall habitus is also at home in Ostiguy’s (2017) socio-cultural low. As Chapters 5 and 6 have shown, the American populist performed an unusual bodily choreography (characterised by informal style and hyperbolic hand gestures) and used unrefined speech (short, syntactically incomplete sentences dotted with unadorned folk vocabulary). The politically incorrect style of Trump’s speech and the provocative content of his social media posts exemplify his transgressive and disruptive character (Venizelos, 2022). Trump’s populist style recalls Max Weber’s (2012) notion of charismatic leadership. His ‘exceptional qualities’ had a disruptive function in the US politics of his time: they challenged the hitherto dominant political and cultural norms (Schneiker, 2020). The reader may well place Trump ‘lower’ than Tsipras on a cultural axis. The former’s transgressive style, vulgar language and penchant for individuated insult were not shared by the latter, whose polarising tactics remained centrally political rather than personal.2 Trump’s ‘alpha-male’ personality and perverse appeal to ‘tradition’ performed the punitive (yet corrective) morality of ‘the father’ (see Lakoff, 2017). Table 7.1 comparatively summarises the respective ‘low’ features of each populist habitus. Note that the shared performance of ‘bad manners’ by both actors should not be understood to reduce populism (as a whole) to ‘anti-politics’ at the expense of people-centrism’s centrality. ‘Disruptiveness’ is only useful for analysis of populism when it is ‘creative’; when it constructs subjectivities (see Chapter 1). Notwithstanding their commonly shared (‘low’) populist styles, SYRIZA’s and Trump’s populisms communicated fundamentally different discourses in consequence of their distinct (and in fact opposed) ideological orientations. SYRIZA’s left-wing political tradition trained its diagnosis of socio-political problems on ‘economic inequality’, ‘neoliberal austerity’ and ‘political corruption’. Its remedies were ‘democracy’, ‘equality’ and an overall pluralist, horizontal narrative. Through the discourse-analytical lens, the collective subject SYRIZA articulated was open and fluid, bringing into equivalence a plethora Table 7.1  Characteristics of ‘the low’ Alexis Tsipras

Donald Trump

No tie, casual style Poor English skills Working-class residence

Awkward, emphatic gesticulation Unrefined language Public enthusiasm for fast food

192  Left- and right-wing populists in government of socio-economic sectors, identities and demands. As the analysis in Chapters 3 and 4 shows, ‘the people’ variously comprised not only ‘workers’, ‘the left’, ‘pensioners’, ‘youth’, ‘the precariat’, ‘single mothers’, ‘the LGBT community’ and ‘Greeks’ but also ‘immigrants’. SYRIZA’s collective identity was spatially wide, long and horizontal. While this alliance partook of some ‘usual suspects’ (the radical and centre left; the economically impoverished and politically excluded), it incorporated broader sections of a disillusioned electorate which had abandoned its traditional party identifications. In SYRIZA’s populist discourse, the ‘autonomy of struggles’ of Laclau and Mouffe (1985) is observable and ‘organically’ blended into the party’s hegemonic project. The unifying locus for SYRIZA’s diverse collective subject was opposition to a common political and economic enemy: Greek and international ‘elites’, ‘banks’, ‘the 1%’, ‘the troika’ and ‘the two-party system’ (perceived as responsible for grave socio-economic conditions mutually endured by SYRIZA’s constituents). By contrast, Trump’s diagnosis of problems drew on right-wing political traditions, levelling blame at ‘immigration’, relocation of the domestic industry to China and Japan and a complicit (or at least complacent) political establishment (see Chapter 5). Trump’s peculiar narrative touted economic protectionism as a protective shield for the ‘silent majority’ against further economic and political immiseration. In order to ‘Make America Great Again’, Trump floated ‘a mixture of positions outside of his chosen party’s orthodoxy, including opposition to free trade, a call for increased corporate taxation, and sharp criticism of the Iraq War’ (Lowndes, 2021:118). As the analysis in Chapters 5 and 6 has shown, Trump’s articulation of the signifier ‘the people’ was fixed a priori. The collective subject was already de facto constructed on the basis of an implicitly ethnic nation with clearly defined membership. ‘The people’ mainly functioned as a transcendental signified subject of nationalism rather than as the empty signifier of populism (see also Stavrakakis, 2017; Venizelos, 2022). Trump’s articulation absented or excluded many of the counterpart minority identities embraced by SYRIZA. Trump rarely invoked women’s or minority rights in his discourse, but when he did, they were often menacingly juxtaposed to a ‘foreign other’ (e.g. Trump’s characterisation of Mexicans as rapists, see Chapter 5). Trump represented a ‘triadic’ form of populism juxtaposing ‘the people’, not only against ‘the elites’ but also, often more profoundly, against ‘foreigners’. For this reason, it is argued that spatially, Donald Trump’s collective identity rendered visible a horizontal, inside/out relationship between members of the community and outgroups. Trumpian collective identity was also based on an equivalential chain weaving together seemingly heterogeneous identities. In contrast to SYRIZA’s ‘usual suspects’ however, inter-group solidarity among Trump’s supporters was less coherent. Trump’s collective subject seemed a paradoxical set of alliances between the ‘the rich’ and ‘the workers’, ‘protectionists’ and ‘free-marketeers’ and ‘Evangelical Christians’ and the ‘alt-right’, with these dichotomous constituencies uneasily appended, primarily towards the end of

Left- and right-wing populists in government 193 the Trump administration, by the ‘Latino’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘African-American’ populations. In the case of Trump, the majority of the different identities that comprised ‘the people’ (with the exception of the Christian and the alt-right) were not rigidly organised in the forms of networks and social movements as was the case with SYRIZA. Both populist actors articulated concepts of a ‘nation’. Due to the historically intimate relationship between ‘nation’ and ‘people’, some have understood populism as synonymous to nationalism (see André Taguieff, 2013; Pantazopulos, 2016). However, concatenations of ‘national-populism’ overlook omnipresent references to ‘the nation’ in any political discourse, populist or not. The centrality of the nation-state to political modernity virtually guarantees its high prevalence in political narratives per se. The nation-state is a terrain accumulating cultural sediments and can be used to mobilise legacies of historical memory as a resource to demarcate collective subjects (Venizelos, 2022). Nonetheless, despite the historical intimacy between populist and nationalist discourses, this study affirms that the two can and should be analytically distinguished (see also Anastasiou, 2020; De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2020). Trump’s nationalist discourse was endemic, sometimes even occluding his populist discourse (contra SYRIZA). Deconstruction of Trump’s rhetoric disclosed an exclusionary mode of nationalism conforming closely with the narrative of the alt-right, and palatable even to white-supremacist extremists. SYRIZA’s nationalism was fundamentally inclusive, ‘patriotic’ only to the patrida (‘homeland’), not the ethnos (‘[ethnic] nation’). While ‘the left’ can seem an uneasy bedfellow for ‘nationalism’ and ‘sovereignty’, left-wing patriotism is familiar in the contexts of the southern European and Latin American left (Custodi, 2020). SYRIZA framed the ‘homeland’ as an egalitarian terrain inclusive of immigrants and refugees. SYRIZA addressed ‘Greeks’ though framed them as politically and economically subaltern, not nationally superior or pure. Foreign countries, such as Germany, were targeted as ‘enemy’ actors on strictly economic, as opposed to ethnic terms. These findings challenge Eurocentric perspectives on populism. In Latin American populism, ‘the people’ may be articulated as ‘suffering’, ‘hard-working’, ‘neglected’ and ‘despised’, but never ‘pure’ (morally, ethically, ethnically or otherwise). Rather, they are an ignored, un(der)represented plebian class who ‘see themselves as discriminated, exploited, or excluded from civic life’ (Ostiguy et al., 2021:3). SYRIZA’s and Trump’s populisms overall possess fundamental differences which emanate from the distinct ideologies adjacent to each. In accordance with some existing theories of populism (see Judis, 2016; Ostiguy, 2020; De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2020), SYRIZA’s left populism was dyadic: pitting those at the bottom (defined as the excluded, politically and economically subaltern social majority) against those at the top (defined as economic and political elites). Trump’s populism by contrast was triadic: pitting those at the bottom (defined as commoners of an ethnic nation deprived of its rights and enjoyments) against those at the top (likewise defined as political and economic

194  Left- and right-wing populists in government elites), but simultaneously against a hostile peer (defined as an alien other permitted to partake of this depredation at the pleasure of the elite). Table 7.2 summarises the differences between SYRIZA’s and Trump’s populism based on the parameters investigated, which illustrate the distinct architectures of the two populisms. The ideological dimension (left/right) plays a significant role in delimiting the populist one (people/elite). The structures concord with what Casullo (2020) has called ‘upward-punching’ and ‘downward-punching’ Table 7.2  Ideologically conditioned differences in populist discourse SYRIZA

Donald Trump

Subjugated Greeks, workers, lower strata, middle classes, pensioners, youth, single mothers The left, movements, youth, the social majority, secondgeneration migrants Economically and politically subjugated Greeks, excluded migrants

Industrial workers, ‘hardworking’ Americans, ‘middle America’, middle classes ‘The common American’, ‘police forces’, ‘the silent majority’ The American nation, white Americans, American families, American patriots

The 1%, banks, international lenders The internal and external establishment, the two-party system, New Democracy, PASOK, the IMF, Eurocrats, technocrats, media moguls

Foreign economies, ‘Big pharma’ The internal bipartisan political establishment; ‘Washington’, ‘the Mainstream Media’, experts, the radical left, ‘AntiFa’ Mexicans, Muslims, ethnic minorities

Collective identity Material

Political Symbolic

Collective other Material Political

Symbolic

Powerful EU member-states (e.g. Germany, Netherlands) subjugating Greece economically and politically

Diagnosis Material

Neoliberal austerity

Political

Suppression of democratic rights and political participation

Symbolic

Loss of national sovereignty

Foreign offshoring of American industry Political and cultural degeneration of America by elites The left, postmodernity, cultural elites, ‘cancelculture’, Mexican criminals

Left- and right-wing populists in government 195 SYRIZA

Donald Trump

Material

Welfare provision

Political

Restore democracy

Symbolic

Restore solidarity and dignity

Restore prosperity, halt free trade, increase taxation ‘[T]ransfer power from Washington, D.C., back to the people’ ‘Build the wall’, withdraw overseas troops, ‘Make America Great Again’

Prognosis

populisms: in the former, the elite is principally economic: wealthy capitalists and the other rich and powerful of the country. When punching downward, the elite is described as an alliance between ‘high’, ‘leftist’, ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘intellectual’ groups (such as college professors or journalists) with ‘low’ religious or ethnic ‘foreigners’ that come from outside to threaten the unity and purity of the people. (Casullo, 2020:31) 7.2.2.  Degrees of populism in power Although both SYRIZA and Trump continued to perform as populists even in government, neither populism went entirely unchanged; their populist discourse in government was subject to fluctuations depending on when and where it was performed. Taking seriously the creative, flexible and even contradictory ways discursive articulations occur invites us to consider that populist repertoires are subject to spatiotemporal dynamics (see also Mazzolini, 2020). As the empirical analysis has shown, types of fluctuation in populist performativity in the cases studied may concern: degree of radicalisation or moderation; amplification or diffusion of frames; expansion or contraction of the equivalential chain and finally, frame bridging. Moderation and radicalisation fluctuate when antagonistic performativity pitting ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’ deepens and softens. This finding speaks to the burgeoning literature on ‘degrees of populism’ (Deegan-Krause & Haughton, 2009; Rooduijn & Pauwels, 2011; Caiani & Graziano, 2016; Aslanidis, 2018; Gründl, 2020). Gradational changes in SYRIZA and Trump’s populist repertoires were dependent on the political arena in which they were performed (space) and on the conjuncture of the performance (time). For example, when performing in certain venues (e.g. UN Headquarters, where he addressed the issue of immigration and refugees through a humanitarian lens), Tsipras’ speech and style were not especially populist. The international and formal setting belonging to ‘the high’ – and absence of ‘people from here’ (see

196  Left- and right-wing populists in government Ostiguy, 2017) – made popularist polarisation contextually unsuitable. Likewise, in other foreign affairs (e.g. negotiations with North Macedonia), Tsipras drew not so much from his populist repertoire but rather from the egalitarian semantic reservoir rooted in his centre-left background. Chapter 4 has amply illustrated that the predominantly populist SYRIZA was nonetheless capable of adopting technocratic and managerial styles of governance when it deemed necessary, depending on time and space. Trump appeared less frequently on the socio-political ‘high’ than did SYRIZA. As quantitative studies have shown, levels of populism in Trump’s discourse depended on factors including whether or not he was using a teleprompter (Smith et al., 2019; Team Populism, 2016). This was the case during his presidential debates against Hillary Clinton, which were not regarded as particularly populist, in contrast to other major events, rallies and conferences at which Trump spoke ‘off-script’. The analysis of Chapters 5 and 6 confirmed that at rallies where Trump was able to ‘freestyle’, he exhibited higher degrees of populism. Periods of intense political conflict (e.g. elections, referendums, scandals and other disputes) showcased the amplification of frames. Not only were frames intensified vertically, as explained earlier, but they were also invigorated. Beyond the populist actors themselves, proxy organisations and institutions, newspapers and journalists and aligned movements engaged in this amplification process, endorsing and reproducing the message and involving themselves in the broader political antagonism between government and opposition. In SYRIZA’s case, the referendum and the concluding phases of the government’s term in office specifically engendered a revival of the left/right axis, structured around the signifiers ‘progress’ and ‘democracy’. As Chapter 4 has shown, citizens, political organisations and media outlets outside the party itself adopted and reproduced the government’s discourse. In Trump’s case, amplification was evident in the reproduction of ‘post-truth’ narratives by grassroots participants (see Chapter 6). Populist performativity in government experienced horizontal fluctuations amounting to expansions or contractions of the equivalential chain and the consequent redefinition of the collective ‘we’. As shown in Chapter 3, SYRIZA in opposition constructed a long chain of equivalence including ‘the left’, ‘pensioners’, ‘the unemployed’, ‘youth’, ‘workers’, ‘the middle classes’ and so on, while it also courted disillusioned New Democracy and PASOK voters. As shown in Chapter 4, after SYRIZA’s capitulation to the demands of ‘the troika’ its references to ‘the left’ diminished. Towards the end of SYRIZA’s term in office, the party renewed its energies to attract ‘the left’ and ‘the progressives’, while other collective subjects usually articulated in SYRIZA’s discourse appeared less frequently. Not only the composition of ‘the people’ but also of ‘the elite’ changed following SYRIZA’s capitulation: references to ‘the troika’ became less frequent while vertical antagonism was almost exclusively realigned against the ‘Greek political establishment’.

Left- and right-wing populists in government 197 On the other hand, Donald Trump in power sought to expand his chain of equivalence when in office. As shown in Chapter 6, he uncharacteristically courted African-American and Hispanic populations during his final days in office, claiming his economic achievements had reduced poverty and unemployment in these constituencies. His come-lately prison reform and ‘inclusive’ agenda in the 2020 State of the Union Address were further evidence of the same. Creative articulation and combination of frames highlight another qualitative variation of populist discourse: namely frame bridging. Populist actors link past frames with new ones, aiming to construct a consistent narrative or myth that evokes the cultural memory of their ‘people’. For example, four years into the SYRIZA administration, a vision of democracy for the progressive ‘many’ against the economically privileged ‘few’ was articulated in response to the Macedonia-naming dispute. Tsipras blamed Greece’s ‘elite’ for, in his view, seeking to economically destroy Greece during the main years of the economic crisis, then trying to isolate the country against the interests of ‘the people’. Tsipras combined his earlier populist repertoire (evident even before office) with current affairs, blaming the same ‘elite’ for suppressing ‘popular will’. Similarly, Trump combined his main populist frame, sometimes with a nativist one attacking ‘illegal immigrants’ and sometimes with an ‘anti-leftist’ one attacking the Democrats. The frames that were brought together varied in terms of quality. Populist elements in both cases were moreover articulated with non-populist elements. Unfolding political contingencies were opportunities to construct new frames (or draw from older ones) to combine with the main populist master frame. This highlights that a populist actor is never merely populist. Populists’ discourse, like all discourse, is by definition complex, multifaceted, contingent and subject to change. For example, as shown in Chapter 4, SYRIZA in government communicated a series of emergent frames regarding ‘patriotism’, ‘progressive and left-wing politics’ and ‘the exit from the memoranda’, while occasionally the government even communicated ‘antipopulist’ and ‘technocratic/institutionalist’ narratives. SYRIZA’s repertoire changed in power in accordance with changing political developments in Greece and the various discursive opportunities that emerged from them, allowing it to draw on new political circumstances to construct its narrative. At the same time, SYRIZA in government drew from past – historical or contemporary – memory to reinvigorate socio-political antagonism. Nevertheless, its discourse, and specifically the amalgamation of ‘contradictory’ (e.g. populist and anti-populist) elements, exemplifies how no discourse can be ‘pure’ (i.e. purely populist, or purely socialist). Under the Trump administration, populist discourse merged with growing ideological (non-populist) elements closely allied with ‘conservative’ and ‘altright’ discourse. ‘Nationalism’ remained a key element in Donald Trump’s discourse throughout his tenure, along with more extreme variants including ‘white nationalism’ and ‘nativism’. After the police killing of George Floyd

198  Left- and right-wing populists in government in Minneapolis and resulting national mass protests (most of them peaceful), an ‘anti-leftist’ repertoire emerged into a profoundly central role, especially towards the conclusion of Trump’s term in office. Democrats were framed as part of the (implicitly dangerous) radical left, concatenated with ‘crazy socialist-democrats’, ‘AntiFa’ and so on. Trump’s anti-leftist narrative intensified in response to the Black Lives Matter movement from May 2020 onwards. Per Chapter 6, these (non-populist) ideologically-charged frames often prevailed in Trump’s discourse, signalling a shift towards the primacy of (ethnic) nationalism over populism. Sometimes these rhetorical repertoires were articulated alone, revealing the salience (and sometimes temporary predominance) of adjunct ideology in these actors’ otherwise populist discourses. Most commonly though, non-populist frames were articulated with the populist master frame structuring the overall narrative. The main conclusion of this subsection is that populism in government does not reductively ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’. As shown earlier, it is multiply reinvented and recalibrated. Figure 7.1 illustrates the temporal changes SYRIZA’s and

Figure 7.1 SYRIZA and Trump’s frames in opposition and government. The dominant frame is outermost

Left- and right-wing populists in government 199 Trump’s discourse underwent between opposition and government. The outermost layers indicate the prevailing element in each actor’s discourse, enclosing the rest, which is located on more inward radial bars. Changing relevance between opposition and power is captured by the reordering of the discourses, with the outermost representing the most-articulated and the innermost representing the least-articulated.

7.3. Affect and mobilisation One of the central arguments of this book is that political identities such as ‘the people’ are affectively constituted, as the function of ‘naming’ is not merely rhetorical but performative (Venizelos, 2022). Not only is affect fundamental to subjects’ experience of socio-political reality, but it is central to the construction of those very subjectivities (Stavrakakis, 1999). The conventional view negatively caricatures populists as highly emotional, tapping into anxiety, unleashing anger and spreading fear. However, this research has found that SYRIZA and Trump energised different types of emotions: the former mobilised fewer ‘negative’ affects. Both Tsipras and Trump generated an avalanche of emotions, affectively mobilising disaffected and disillusioned citizens who felt forgotten, marginalised and underrepresented. In both cases, anti-establishment rhetoric rallied sentiments of ‘injustice’, ‘frustration’, ‘indignation’ and ‘anger’, turning these ‘generic’ feelings into directed resentment against ‘political elites’. However, the specific emotions mobilised by each were found to be highly dependent on their respective ideologies, and the associated socio-political imaginaries they presented. As Ostiguy (2017:91) argues, ‘populism carries an emotional charge, which covers the spectrum from the negative ressentiment of the laissés pour compte to the positive extreme of the fusional love with the leader’. Based on a total of 56 interviews conducted in preparation for this book, analysis has shown that the emotions channelled by SYRIZA and Trump ranged from ‘joy’ to ‘resentment’ and from ‘love’ to ‘hatred’, respectively. SYRIZA rejuvenated political passions in Greece after a period of postpolitical hegemony to such an extent that it resembled PASOK’s ‘huge mass rallies  – variously referred to as human seas, floods and earthquakes’ of the 1980s (Clogg, 1987:91). As Chapter 3 has shown, the political enthusiasm reactivated by SYRIZA connoted ‘political resurrection’ and ‘change’. Trump’s political debut also generated enthusiasm. Comparing him favourably to ‘boring’ establishment politicians, Trump’s supporters characterised their leader as ‘amusing’, ‘transparent’ and ‘real’ in their interviews. The affects energised by Trump were also a response to the post-democratic sentiment of underrepresentation and the perception that true American values were under attack by liberal elites. However, Trumpian enthusiasm was of a different kind (Hart, 2020). Underneath their excitement, Trump supporters’ emotions exposed unsavoury deformities of ‘freedom’ and an inward-looking fixation with ‘closure’. During the January 2021 Capitol insurrection, Trump’s

200  Left- and right-wing populists in government personality emancipated the more overtly hateful sentiments of the American radical right (Neiwert, 2017; Venizelos, 2022). In terms of the schematic representation of the distinct collective identities connected with each actor, the internal structure of ‘the people’ also highlighted some profound differences. Besides the top-down identification between subject and party, SYRIZA’s ‘people’ were sustained through a horizontal solidarity between differential movements, struggles, identities and demands. This horizontal connection was forged by shared organisational and political experiences that developed a sense of affective community. As shown empirically in Chapter 3, diffuse Greek social movements cooperated with one another. Most activists were not siloed to single-issue social movements alone but aided the majority of allied movements. They engaged with other struggles’ particular demands (e.g. ‘save the environment’, ‘block mass layoffs’ of public sector workers, etc.), linking them with broader and more general demands (e.g. for ‘democracy, ‘regime change’, etc.) which gradually became more coherent through SYRIZA’s effective frame-building, as argued in the preceding sections. Previously unorganised sectors of society were also mobilised by the depth of the crisis, such as in the campaign recounted in Chapter 3 against the forced closure of the public broadcasting channel ERT. Organised social movements and unorganised citizens demonstrated outside ERT’s HQ in order to ‘defend democracy’. This was one of the many examples of disparate elements entering into a relationship of equivalence, thereby transforming autonomous sectors rooted in different struggles into a cohesive ‘people’. The multi-directional (horizontal and vertical) interactions between movement struggles and the party are reprised in Figure 7.2. This finding demonstrates how ‘the equivalential process’ in constructing ‘the people’, as theorised by Laclau and Mouffe (1985), is key to the formation of political subjectivity. SYRIZA was (even if partially and contingently) a unifying locus for these demands, creating a sense of belonging by constructing an ‘us’ from those diverse struggles and pitting it against a common enemy in the shape of the Samaras government. That SYRIZA served as the catalyst for the assembly of this popular front suggests that a significant degree of verticality was necessary in order to unify these heterogeneous struggles. The collective identity interpellated by Donald Trump mostly maintained a vertical internal structure. In contrast to SYRIZA’s base, Trump’s supporting formations did not present such strong horizontal affinities to one another, instead of depending mostly on a vertical and direct relationship between base and leader to mediate the collective subjectivity of ‘the people’. This became evident in my conversation with the Ohio TRUMP 2020 field organiser, Melanie (see Chapter 6). While Melanie held a relatively important regional position in the Trump movement regionally, she seemed unaware of other social groups or organisations that supported Trump (including libertarians, alt-right activists, xenophobic neo-Nazi grassroots organisations and conspiracy theorist groups). Her understanding of ‘the people’ remained vertically siloed, epitomised by her role in supporting the ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ event. Seeing her support for

Left- and right-wing populists in government 201

Figure 7.2 Collective identity among SYRIZA supporters, showing relations of horizontal solidarity between articulated identities, and a shared self-understanding of these identities as constituent parts of ‘the people’ Source: Figure adapted from Laclau (2005:130–131)

Figure 7.3 Collective identity of ‘the people’ in the Trump campaign, vertically mediated by the relationship between leader and base, but not necessarily in horizontal solidarity Source: Figure adapted from Laclau (2005:130–131)

Trump as a natural outgrowth of her Christian faith (i.e. as a countermeasure against the perceived moral degeneration of American society), her horizontal solidarity with other components of Trump’s ‘people’ was limited. Trump’s transgressive style played a pivotal role in his appeal, structuring a profoundly vertical, top-down, relationship with his supporters. His scandalous character turned ‘rupture into rapture’ (Wagner-Pacifici  & Tavory,

202  Left- and right-wing populists in government 2019), mobilising Americans who felt abandoned and forgotten by political elites (Bradlee, 2018), giving ‘meaning’ to popular frustration by channelling it through ecstatic personal identification with ‘the leader’ into collective energy. Trump’s persona turned ‘liquid’ emotions into resentful affects and emancipated a collective rage culminating in the Capitol insurrection of January 2021. While his critics framed Trump as a dangerous ignoramus, his supporters regarded him as a powerful and authentic leader. Trump assumed the psychoanalytic role of the ‘strict father’ (see Lakoff, 1996), disciplining an America ostensibly corrupted by postmodernism, globalisation and triumphalist liberal values. His flamboyant, promiscuous, rude and politically incorrect manners, which flaunted the socio-political ‘low’ (see Ostiguy, 2017), were pivotal in energising disaffected subjects who felt alienated and disillusioned by the prim propriety of mainstream politicians (Venizelos, 2022). 7.3.1.  Distinct populisms/distinct affects Despite their common ‘ability’ to transform emotions into political action, the Greek and American populisms studied here had stark qualitative differences. As shown in Chapter 3, the vision SYRIZA articulated against this elite was structured around signifiers such as ‘hope’ and ‘change’. In addition to ‘anger’, SYRIZA in government generated emotions such as ‘joy’ and ‘pride’. As shown in Chapter 4, popular morale was especially elevated during SYRIZA’s first months in office. Even if most of the government’s manoeuvres were only symbolic in nature, the dignity of ‘the people’ was felt to be restored. The ‘referendum days’ were characterised by a euphoric, ecstatic atmosphere in which feelings of joy prevailed. Activists and common citizens alike participated in one way or another in resisting ‘the will of the EU’. Some experienced the referendum as a heyday of class struggle and believed that the route of history was about to change. This discloses a ‘forward-looking’ (see Casullo, 2020) political imaginary, in which signifiers such as ‘democracy’, ‘social justice’ and ‘equality’ assume central roles (Tambakaki, 2019). Such open and fluid emotive characteristics can be typically connected with leftist, inclusionary, democratic and progressive populisms. By contrast, as shown in Chapters 5 and 6, Trump’s narrative tapped predominantly into backwards-looking (Casullo, 2020) sentiments such as anxiety and nostalgia, reinforcing feelings of fear and hatred. The ethical and Table 7.3  Typology of emotions

Direction Types of emotions Political implications

SYRIZA

Donald Trump

Forward-looking Hope, love, solidarity Democratic affects (sublimation)

Backward-looking Nostalgia, anxiety Anti-democratic affects (idealisation)

Left- and right-wing populists in government 203 emotive characteristics of Trump’s discourse are part of a generally conservative repertoire and suggest a ‘closed’ affective and societal imaginary. The slogans ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ reproduced a nostalgic narrative of a bygone golden age.3 From a psychoanalytic point of view, the mourning for the end of ‘the empire’ and the loss of ‘the American dream’ is suggestive of a civilisational inwardness. Nostalgia is a signal for closure. Longing for a past (which may never have existed), the myth of wounded narcissism (of an ego that may never have been) creates a sense of a loss object. Jealousy of the foreign ‘other’, who possesses the object desired by the subject generates resentment and a capacity for (nationalist) violence (L’Heuillet, 2020). Following this theoretical line, the emotions released by the Trump campaign were ‘anti-democratic’; they were rooted in closure and idealisation (see also Chapter 1). 7.3.2.  Upward and downward identification More often than not, emotions are analysed from the perspective of the political actor, which perpetuates an artificial hierarchy between leader and base. While political actors do play a vital role in mobilising emotions through their performative repertories, it would be a mistake to entirely eliminate ‘the people’ themselves from the equation; emotions are not always generated from earlier. ‘The people’ also have agency, desire and capacity to engage in collective rituals, and for this reason, this book has studied popular affects through a quasianthropological lens, engaging at ‘people’-level with the emotions embedded in the populisms under consideration. This empirical analysis has suggested that the trajectories of affectual identification in the cases of SYRIZA and Trump were dissimilar. In the Greek case, though SYRIZA continued to employ populist tropes as its main rhetorical canon once in power, identification (i.e. from ‘people’ to populist actor) suffered a marked decline. The SYRIZA government sought to renovate its discourse and reframe the political reality in Greece, consistently unleashing polemics against the ‘rotten establishment’ and retaining ‘the people’ as the core of its discourse. However, the euphoric identification observed in the period 2012–2015 (see Chapter 3) and in the party’s early days in power (see Chapter 4) was radically interrupted by SYRIZA’s capitulation to the strictures of its external institutional ‘enemy’ (see also Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). As shown in the corresponding parts of Chapter 4, SYRIZA’s promising negotiations with ‘the troika’ took an unexpected downturn, culminating in bitter submission to another austerity package, which functioned as a catalyst for the transformation of hope and joy into disappointment, sorrow and anger. The political ecstasy manifested in the ‘days of the referendum’ (July 2015) curdled into alienation. SYRIZA’s capitulation was a traumatic event for its supporters, especially radical left components of ‘the people’ within and outside the party. This serves to demonstrate that continuity/discontinuity of populist identification in government is not subject to populist performativity per se

204  Left- and right-wing populists in government (see Venizelos, 2022). External contingencies can interfere with even the most compelling political myths. SYRIZA was formally defeated by ‘the establishment’ in the 2019 elections, returning New Democracy to power. Nonetheless, SYRIZA’s robust (though insufficient) electoral share of 31.53% was only marginally (4.8%) lower than the result that carried the party to power in 2015. As impressive as the 2019 result may seem considering the party’s capitulating ‘backflip’, the depth of political identification cannot be adequately sounded by electoral statistics alone. SYRIZA’s flight from its anti-neoliberal commitment inflicted great damage to the euphoric identification its ardent supporters had previously felt. This being said, with attention to the conceptual distinction between ‘ideological/ programmatic’ and ‘populist’ components outlined in Chapter 1, it must nonetheless be emphasised that if anything was eroded from SYRIZA’s identity by this turn of events, it was its ‘radical left’ (ergo ideological) content as opposed to its populist character (see also Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022). Unlike those of SYRIZA, Trump’s supporters suffered no decrease in their passionate identification. Though defeated in 2020, Trump obtained roughly 72 million popular votes – a historic record for a sitting president – an increase of some 10 million votes from the 2016 election (Fessenden et al., 2020; Impelli, 2020). Trump’s failure to deliver on key election promises did little to deter the loyalty of his supporters (or at least their votes), though it seemed that several sections of the working class – especially in construction and agriculture  – gradually distanced themselves affectively from Trump. However, diehard supporters, especially grassroots nationalists and alt-right activists, persisted in an ecstatic identification with Trump. The climax of this driving libidinal force exemplifying their ‘unconditional love’ for him arrived in the Capitol insurrection of January 2021: the swan song of a movement unwilling or unable to accept defeat (Venizelos, 2022). A case in point with respect to consistently euphoric identification with Trump was the Evangelical movement empirically examined in Chapters 5 and 6. In Civilisation and its Discontents, Freud (1962 [1930]) maintained that religious faith offers a sense of eternity: ‘a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded – as it were, “oceanic” ’. Faith organisations are tied to a feeling of grief, and people accede to them with special conviction when they promise to redress loss and protect the ego from the external world by offering a form of limitless narcissism, as if the subject is one with the external world as a whole.4 The Evangelical event in Cincinnati, OH, revealed to me a similar experience, wherein bodies came together, penetrated by music, electrified by dance and charged by rapturous oration. In this ritual, ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ were mesmerised by the vernacular populist preaching of their religious leaders, who unleashed polemics against the postmodern degeneracies the politically correct left ostensibly inflicts on an unwilling America. The line between ‘the religious’ and ‘the political’ was thoroughly blurred. But did this matter? As Newman (2019:99) notes, ‘the desire for sovereignty is also expressed in the return of religion’. Judith Butler’s psychoanalytic take on performativity

Left- and right-wing populists in government 205 Table 7.4  Trajectories of identification SYRIZA Downward

Donald Trump Sustained/upward

maintains that ‘[t]o be ecstatic means, literally, to be outside oneself, and thus can have several meanings: to be transported beyond oneself by a passion, but also to be beside oneself with rage or grief’ (Butler, 2006:24 [emphasis hers]). The Evangelical event was not simply an instance of brainwashing or manipulation, but rather a community-building practice. Anthropologist Victor Turner (1995) acknowledged the agency of the rites of everyday life in effecting social change, while Roberto Esposito (2013:7) – who argued that community is anything but a collective bond that exists a priori – maintains that community is experienced in a sense of opening ‘that turns individuals inside out, freeing them to their exteriority’. Collective practices such as the Evangelical service sustained passionate identification towards Trump over and against his repeated failure to deliver promised policy. The ‘paradox of identity’ underscores that affect is often a more potent driver of social and political practices than reason. The Capitol insurrection by parochial Trump elements who sought to overturn Biden’s ‘election fraud’ is a case in point (Venizelos, 2022). Overall, identification followed divergent trajectories in the two populist cases: SYRIZA’s ‘people’ became alienated while Trump’s ‘people’ became ecstatic. This shows that populist ‘communication’ in the very narrow sense does not suffice to establish affective hegemonies (Table 7.4).

7.4. Populism and democracy Taking into consideration the findings of this research – which point to the markedly divergent discourses, collective identities and emotions embedded in the left and right populisms of SYRIZA and Trump, respectively – is indispensable to examining populism’s specific implications for democratic culture. Normative debates about the relationship between populism and democracy abound.5 Given the axiomatically negative connotation of populism – particularly in Europe – the question of populism’s effects on democracy has tended to focus on negatives. It is little surprise then that expectations regarding the impact of populism on democracy once in government are likewise negative. In line with Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2012), this book has shown that populism may be either a threat or a corrective for democracy. However, democratic implications are not an artefact of a political actor’s populism, but of adjunct ideological features (De Cleen et al., 2021; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). The relationship between populism and democracy appears more complicated. In the following, some core normative concerns about populism’s relationship to democracy and its institutions are extrapolated from the empirical findings of the earlier chapters.

206  Left- and right-wing populists in government 7.4.1.  A threat to representation? Populism is often construed as a threat to representative democracy as it constitutes an ‘illiberal’ form of (democratic) politics (Pappas, 2019). Taggart (2002:66) argued that ‘populism is hostile to representative politics’; Müller (2016:20) argues that populist leaders insist that ‘they, and only they’ can authentically represent ‘the people’; Weyland (2001) maintains that populists pursue uninstitutionalised support by establishing a direct relationship with voters. In general, populism is thought to circumvent ‘intermediary associations like parties and traditional media’ (Urbinati, 2019:6.10). Moreover, it is feared that populism seeks to render obsolete the existing representative institutions, separation of powers and so on (Chryssogelos, 2018:91). In Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s (2012:17) words, populism is based on the primacy of the political, which means that any other institutional centre of power, including the judiciary, is believed to be secondary. After all, “the general will of the people” cannot be limited by anything, not even constitutional protections, that is, vox populi, vox dei. Likewise, Worsley (1969) claimed that populists distort social mechanisms and depart from rule of law. The case of SYRIZA seems to contradict these normative views. Indeed, when in government, the party continued to unleash attacks on the ‘political and media establishment’ for their involvement in local and global scandals (e.g. the Novartis pharmaceutical scandal, the TV licenses scandal and even the economic crisis itself). The populist government moved from rhetoric to action and established a ‘truth commission on public debt’ in order to assess which political parties were involved. However, this took place within constitutional strictures. As shown in Chapter 4, the left-populist government insisted that these questions should be debated transparently in parliament. It established intra-party committees to investigate corruption, acting fully within the framework of Greek law. The TV licensing dispute was eventually judged unconstitutional, and therefore thrown out, but the SYRIZA government did not protest or reject this decision. This case challenges many normative accounts which suggest that populists by definition bypass juridical decisions. Disillusioned supporters even claimed that SYRIZA’s failure was rooted precisely in its cooperative posture towards established institutional values, co-opting the ‘radical left party’ into a liberal mainstream unable to challenge the status quo. Trump, by contrast, was far less reverent to institutions. As one commentator put it, ‘Trump is a systemic stress test’ (Krauthammer, 2017). Towards the end of his administration, Trump baselessly alleged voter fraud, spreading mistrust of elections and further undermining democratic legitimacy in the United States. His attacks on the judiciary and many federal agencies overwhelmed and undermined democratic checks and balances. Many of his political manoeuvres were essentially illiberal. Nonetheless, many of

Left- and right-wing populists in government 207 his electoral promises, such as the border wall, were obstructed by the Senate, while federal courts likewise intervened against the travel ban. In the words of Lowndes (2021:118), ‘the US presidency is an office that is both enormously powerful and enormously constrained’. Even populists with authoritarian tendencies like Trump, then, may not find themselves straightforwardly able to undermine liberal institutions which may successfully resist such attempts. Over time, however, the Trump administration was able to suborn institutions to the extent of empowering him (Johnson, 2020). Trump manipulated institutions in order to increase his hegemony. He politicised federal bureaucracy by filling key positions with loyalists (including established conservatives) who dissented from the historic or intended missions of various agencies (Morgan, 2019). The ‘US Chamber of Commerce has undergone a massive expansion, moved far to the right, and become an increasingly integrated part of the Republican Party network’ (Pierson, 2017:110). In his four years in office, Trump appointed more than 200 federal judges (more than his predecessor appointed over eight years). He also appointed 54 appellate-level judges (one fewer than Obama appointed over eight years) (Gramlich, 2021), turning the balance of institutional power in his favour. Such moves would later contribute to the gradual, albeit long-term-oriented, shift of political and cultural hegemony to the right of the spectrum. For instance, even after Trump’s defeat in 2020, ‘Trump’s judges’ were able to nationally undermine reproductive rights. Similarly, the widespread socio-political polarisation in the United States can be – partially at least – understood as a consequence of Trump’s disarticulation and re-articulation of hegemonic values. Trump by no means managed to completely dismantle democratic institutions. Ironically though, he acted within his existing broad prerogative to staff the executive and judiciary (provided he had Senate support). In this sense, Trump was actually empowered by the institutions (Johnson, 2020). Overall, empirical analysis of SYRIZA and Donald Trump has shown that the relationship between populism and democratic institutions is complex, not straightforward. SYRIZA did not pose an illiberal threat to these institutions (even if liberal partisans argued it did).6 On the contrary, it ‘played by the book’ and when the government ran into constitutional obstacles, it abided them. For his part, Trump did inflict damage to the US liberal representative system, yet when he did, he tended to exploit the existing institutional framework by taking advantage of powers it already afforded him. In this sense, US institutions allowed Trump the executive power to implement illiberal policies. Populism is not an axiomatic enemy of representation. On the contrary, Laclau (2005) argues that populism is a form of representation par excellence. Drawing on the constructivist conceptual armature, representation is not the mere reflection of already-existing interests and identities, but rather ‘a performative act that brings into being what it purports to represent’ (Thomassen, 2019a:232). In this vein, Tormey (2021) argues that populism fully embraces the logic of representation in a way other political discourses cannot. For

208  Left- and right-wing populists in government instance, while liberal democratic thought advocates for representation, its real-world technocratic implementations often exclude citizens from political participation, disfiguring it into an elitist parody of the egalitarian ideal of democracy it ostensibly serves. By contrast, populism lays claim to representing the unrepresented, giving voice to ‘the people’ and restoring a popular sovereignty purportedly suppressed by self-indulgent elites. There is evident tension between populism and the technocratic representative system over what ‘authentic’ democracy looks like; perhaps, as Biglieri and Perelló (2019:331) put it, ‘democracy without populism would become a pure institutional procedure, such an elitist form of government would eventually meet its own destruction through populism’. Nevertheless, Moffitt (2016:96) argues that populism is never a purely ‘direct’ or ‘unmediated’ phenomenon between populist leadership and ‘the people’. On the contrary, ‘populist representations rely on a complex process of mediated claim-making’ involving ‘leaders, audiences, constituencies and media’. Strictly speaking, contemporary populists use multiple and decentralised mediating vehicles to diffuse their message (Moffitt, 2015; Venizelos, 2020); thus, framing populism as an ‘unmediated’ process, however, defined, occasions terminological vagueness (see Moffitt, 2016:100–104). The ambivalent yet productive relationship between populism and representation deserves further attention. Populism, however, remains a model of representation and not, (as it sometimes professes) one of direct participation. Most commonly, although not exclusively, populist politicians confronted by institutional restrictions must limit themselves to ‘representing the people’, rather than consigning power directly into their hands. This was the case in both Greece and the United States. 7.4.2.  On the alleged homogeneity of ‘the people’ Another major liberal critique of populism that the empirical analysis of the Greek and American cases speaks to is the allegedly anti-pluralist nature of populism. In their seminal edited volume, Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2012:17) argued that ‘as an essentially monist ideology that believes in the existence of a “general will of the people”, populism is hostile towards pluralism and the protection of minorities’. This definitional opposition of populism to pluralism (and therefore to democracy) is often the starting point for any discussion about populism (Stavrakakis & Jäger, 2018). Müller (2016:81), for example, supposed that populism ‘fundamentally rejects the notions of pluralism’, while Worsley (1969) maintained that populism ‘dislikes factionalism’. Liberal democratic theory maintains that populism contradicts (liberal) democracy’s fundamental commitment to the expression of multiple voices and – through its dualistic antagonism between ‘people’ and ‘elites’ – rejects the basic segmentation of society (Chryssogelos, 2018:91). As Pappas (2015) puts it, populism

Left- and right-wing populists in government 209 fail[s] to abide by the three most fundamental principles of political liberalism, namely, the acknowledgement of multiple divisions in society; the need to try reconciling such divisions via negotiated agreements and political moderation; and the commitment to the rule of law and the protection of all minority rights. These concerns echo the core assumptions of a highly influential and widespread ‘ideational camp’ which maintains that populists view ‘the people’ as a homogenous entity (see Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). For instance, Müller (2016:3) argued that ‘populists do not claim “we are the 99%”. What they imply instead is “we are the 100%” ’. The findings of this study should give pause to those who make such arguments, which I have argued are substantiated neither theoretically nor empirically. Laclau and Mouffe – whose claim that collective identity rests on ‘the unity of the people’ has been heavily criticised – stress that it is precisely because of the fragmentation of society that a relative stability is needed in order for a collective subject to emerge (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 1990; see also Thomassen, 2019b). The idea of a single, homogenous, authentic people is a fantasy, Müller, (2016:3) argues. But it is precisely because the subjectas-a-whole is a fantasy that multiple discrete, perhaps temporal, identifications can emerge to fill it. The void of power does not simply permanent inactivity, but a dynamics of temporal fixation that gives rise to the body politic (see also Chapter 1).7 In the specific cases of SYRIZA and Trump, the picture unveiled by the findings of this book seems to contradict the aforementioned normative accounts. SYRIZA’s long chain of equivalence demonstrates the possibility of genuinely egalitarian politics in co-articulation with populism. Most strikingly, Chapter 3 has shown that the inclusion of ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’ in the party’s definition of ‘the people’ was a consistent component throughout its oppositional and governmental discourse.8 Thus, ‘[a]lthough populism is [often] presented as incompatible with pluralism, the truth is that left-wing populism, in general, advocates for plurality and diversity in society, as the left has usually done’ (Agustín, 2020:11). The empirical analysis of Chapters 5 and 6 indicated that even in Donald Trump’s nativist, exclusionary discourse (see Mudde, 2018), ‘the people’ were not a reductive monolithic bloc. His ‘paradoxical alliance’ brought together ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, the Evangelical pro-life Christian right and secular antiestablishment libertarians and – to a limited and untimely extent – segments of the Hispanic, African-American and Muslim populations. Even the Trumpian collective subject was heterogeneous (nominally at least), despite its predominantly white, male and nativist foundation. American society is foundationally heterogeneous, built as it is on theoretically diverse unity (e pluribus unum). Thus, while mainstream nationalist discourses seek demarcation between ‘Americans’ and ‘others’, the former are already a supposedly pluralistic

210  Left- and right-wing populists in government composition (i.e. descendants of European immigrants, of emancipated African slaves and of latter-day immigrants who ‘entered the country legally’). In light of this, the existence of groups such as ‘Latinos for Trump’ and ‘Black Voices for Trump’ is not as strange as it may appear.9 Interviews with first- and second-generation migrants who were enthusiastic Trump supporters (see Chapters 5 and 6) accentuate this point and attest to the complex nature of political identification. Despite having arrived from regions openly despised by Trump (e.g. Muslim-majority and Latin American countries),10 these interviewees saw no paradox or contradiction in their support for Trump. Nor did LGBTQ+ interviewees evaluate their support for Trump as a contradiction; in fact, some perceived Democrats’ ‘atheist’ tendency as corrosive of American values. Needless to say, such paradoxes may not by themselves suffice to classify Trump as a misogynist, radical-right actor. Political identification cannot be reduced to the alignment of interests, and the reason is secondary in collective identification processes. The performative function of conflicting sides in a hegemonic struggle over ‘common sense’ is often neglected in the socio-political analysis. As Chapter 6 found, Trump supporters who participated in this research disagreed that Trump was racist, authoritarian or anti-pluralist. Müller (2016:3) argues that ‘democracy requires pluralism and the recognition that we need to find fair terms of living together as free, equal but also irreducibly diverse citizens’. But as Chapters 5 and 6 revealed, this was also the perception of Trump voters, after a fashion. In their (subversive) understanding, ‘freedom’ (e.g. to offend), ‘equality’ (or dominance?), and ‘democracy’ were being stripped by totalitarian liberal elites and their leader was committed to restoring them. More analytic energy could therefore be spent on the flexibility of language games and their function in constructing opposing radically contrasting realities, than on merely factchecking claims. 7.4.3. Polarisation and anti-populism A third liberal critique of populism as corrosive to democracy is that the antagonistic posture of populism rests on a moralistic understanding of social and political affairs. Most mainstream perspectives reproduce Mudde’s view that populism is essentially Manichean since it frames the moral social conflict as a struggle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (‘the pure people’ and the ‘corrupt elite’); a world in which there are only ‘friends and foes’ (2004:544).11 The empirical analysis unsurprisingly confirmed that both SYRIZA and Trump performed enduring antagonism against ‘political elites’. Chapters 3 and 5 showed that, as contenders for power, SYRIZA and Trump both re-politicised their politically inert societies by means of populist polarisation. Yet, even in government, polarisation remained the norm rather than the exception in their respective political repertoires (see Chapters 4 and 6). Both populist actors employed tropes dichotomising the socio-political space, posing political dilemmas for the futures of their countries. SYRIZA presented itself as the alternative to

Left- and right-wing populists in government 211 a ‘return to medieval times’ and an agent of ‘progress’ rather than ‘stagnation’; Trump presented himself as the alternative to ongoing ‘crazy radical left Democrat’ desecrations of American values. Trump proved an especially paradigmatic case of a campaigner in government: holding 134 rallies nationwide while already in office, he governed as if he was in permanent opposition.12 Conventionally, ‘polarisation’  – often defined as the opposite of convergence (Sani & Sartori, 1983) – is associated with democratic backsliding (Valenzuela, 1978; Hawkins et al., 2019).13 Contemporary democratic theory, however, argues that political conflict may instead lie at the core of democratic politics (Rancière, 1999; Mouffe, 2000, 2005; Schmitt, 2007).14 ‘Bottom-up’ political contentions – i.e. challenges mounted against elites – enhance participation (Della Porta, 2013, 2015). On this basis, it may be argued that those who desire a truly ‘harmonious’ democratic utopia (i.e. without substantive disagreement) in fact unwittingly entertain the possibilities of an undemocratic society without difference. Populist ruptures cannot be studied abstractly but rather in relation to the absence of political contestation presented by the centrist political convergence that precedes them (see Crouch, 2004; Ali, 2018). In this sense, populism may be understood as ‘the return of the political’ (Mouffe, 2005) to supposedly post-political eras; populist affects may be understood as correctives to the background of ‘affective soberness’ embedded in managerial politics (Gebhardt, 2019). This was why Trump’s supporters appeared fascinated by their leader’s transgressive style: as Chapters 5 and 6 found, they experienced Trump as ‘entertaining’ and ‘fresh’, an iconoclast to the ‘boring’ politics as usual. Similarly, by antagonising ‘technocrats’ and ‘established politicians’, SYRIZA was perceived as a revitalising force in Greek politics, offering its own vision of democratic accountability (see Chapters 3 and 4). This relationality is crucial. Populist polarisation should be examined in terms of its dynamic – interactive – relationship to anti-populist polarisation. As Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2019:3) put it, ‘it is never only one political force that is engaged in the aforementioned process. In fact, for every populist actor asserting its presence, there are other anti-populist actors antagonising it’. As my empirical analysis has shown, both SYRIZA and Trump were the targets of anti-populist attempts to frame them as ignorant, irresponsible, dangerous and so on. Greek and European political elites campaigned to obstruct SYRIZA’s road to power in 2015 and sought to influence the popular vote in favour of ‘YES’ during the referendum. The anti-populist camp warned the public against the potential consequences of supporting SYRIZA: establishment politicians and journalists claimed that ‘Greece will turn into Venezuela’ or will be ‘kicked out of the EU’ (Boukala & Dimitrakopoulou, 2017; Galanopoulos, 2018). As Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrated, both SYRIZA and its ‘people’ perceived these actions as attacks on the ‘popular will’. A similar discursive struggle was also visible in the United States. As Chapters 5 and 6 showed, while the Trump movement abundantly showcased its hatred of political elites, they nonetheless felt that these elites (particularly Clinton), gave

212  Left- and right-wing populists in government as good as they got, dismissing Trump supporters as ignorant ‘deplorables’. Pundits warned Americans about the ‘evil’ and harm Trump could cause, not only domestically but the whole global order. Clearly, moralistic polarisation is not a unique capacity of populism but is readily available to anti-populists as well (Stavrakakis & Jäger, 2018). Even Richard Hofstadter, a predominantly anti-populist historian, rightly cautioned that [i]f populist rhetoric, cited in isolation, sounds melodramatic, it is important to remember that an equally inflammatory rhetoric prevailed on the other side, in which the populists were portrayed as being at best deluded bumpkins and at worst primitives, demagogues, anarchists, and socialists. (Hofstadter, 1969:19) Neglecting this dynamic relationship between populism and anti-populism has profound scientific and political implications. By overemphasising the negative impact of populism on (liberal) democracy, the shared culpability of technocratic and elitist politics itself is downplayed (Bertsou & Caramani, 2020; De Cleen et al., 2021). The relationship between populism in government and democracy is ambivalent and complex (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). The empirical findings of this book cast doubt on the prevailing liberal democratic analysis of populism per se as an existential threat to modern democracy. The dissimilar varieties of populism exemplified in the cases of SYRIZA and Trump – capable of articulating dissimilar socio-political imaginaries ranging from the egalitarian to the authoritarian – have equally dissimilar ramifications for democracy. Populism is (by definition) neither democratic nor anti-democratic. Populism is manifestly compatible with democracy, though this is seldom recognised (Worsley, 1969). Moreover, ‘populism’ alone does not suffice to signal the impact a given actor will have on democracy; the specific ideology of the actor plays a crucial role (De Cleen et al., 2021; Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022).

7.5. Conclusion This chapter has brought the empirical results of the preceding chapters into a comparative perspective. Section 7.2 focused on populist performativity, specifically how SYRIZA and Trump performed their message both rhetorically and stylistically. Against a backdrop of scholarly accounts maintaining that populism ‘fades out’ once in power, populism in fact persisted as the main register of communication for both SYRIZA and Donald Trump once in office. Their populism did not remain unchanged, however: as demonstrated, populist narratives underwent multiple types of renovation. First, the populist discourses under examination were subject to degrees of lassitude or intensification depending on time and space, i.e. the surrounding political ecosystem

Left- and right-wing populists in government 213 and specific arena in which populist actors performed. Second, in both cases, populist tropes were co-articulated with non-populist frames (e.g. leftist, nativist and sometimes even anti-populist) which sometimes temporarily prevailed over populism itself. Both SYRIZA and Trump lengthened and shortened their equivalential chains, sustaining their populist discourse as circumstances required. The fact that both actors’ performative repertoires had populist cores does not mean they were mirror images of one another. On the contrary, they demonstrated fundamental philosophical dissimilarities. The deconstruction of political discourse in these two ideologically antithetical cases highlights the foundational difference in the socio-political imaginary to which they each subscribe, the issues they each identify and the solutions each propose. Section 7.3 demonstrated that the emotions each populist generated likewise varied, ranging from joy to love and from anger to hatred. Populist performativity, however, is no guarantee of successful and sustained identification between ‘the people’ and their populist leaders. Identification followed opposite trajectories in the two cases. SYRIZA’s capitulation to the demands of the troika functioned critically injured the affective attachment of ‘the people’ towards it. Joy, pride and enthusiasm transmuted into disappointment, disillusionment and sorrow after SYRIZA’s retreat from its anti-neoliberal commitments. This was not the case with Trump: though he delivered poorly on many of his electoral promises, sectors of his grassroots support remained deeply loyal and even amplified their euphoric affective attachment to him further. Although both populists in government subsequently lost elections to their competitors, they retained significant electoral support, though as I have argued, this statistical measure does not suffice to indicate the depth of emotional identification. Comparative analysis of discourse and affect in left and right populists in government challenges normatively-loaded theorisations which seek to collapse a profusion of typologically distinct phenomena under the rubric of ‘populism’, framing the latter axiomatically (and with obscure criteria) as a threat to democracy. More often than not, populism is ruled irrational and emotional tout court, characterised as a monist, homogenising ideology and interpreted as a threat to pluralism, representation and democracy. Yet as Section 7.4 showed, the relationship between populism and democracy is far more complex. Put simply, Donald Trump’s nativist, regressive traits menaced democracy far more substantially than SYRIZA’s egalitarian agenda. In order to know the effects on democracy that a specific instance of populism will have once in power, it is indispensable to attend the ideology that accompanies it.

Notes 1. This is not to say that populism cannot be adopted as a conscious strategy, Podemos being perhaps a good example of this: it pursued intense populist methods which were later abandoned. Yet behind this radical shift in trajectory was a deep schism

214  Left- and right-wing populists in government















within the party: populist and leftist factions collided, each pushing for its own strategy. Rescinded populism in this instance owed itself to personnel changes, e.g. the outgoing Íñigo Errejón. 2. Albeit that as the brief survey of other leading SYRIZA figures such as Varoufakis and Polakis has shown, Tsipras was perhaps not the ‘lowest’ of his cohort. A  populist party is not monolithic; different individuals may perform populism with different levels of proximity to ‘low’ or ‘high’. Tsipras’ ‘low’ characteristics were, for example, eclipsed by those of Polakis. The socio-cultural ‘low’ of Polakis was moreover qualitatively distinct from the politico-cultural ‘low’ of Tsipras. Still other figures (e.g. Health Minister Xanthos and MP Costas Douzinas) comported themselves in a comparatively ‘high’ register. 3. To be sure, socialist fantasy may also envision the return to an original state/a state that is supposed to be. For example, in his text on alienation, Marx speaks of ‘a true nature’, in which workers should be in control of the means of production – but they are not because capitalism is dominant. Many contemporary Marxist groups inspired by this fight to convince the workers of what is their true nature. 4. Some further thoughts from Freud and Butler on religion and politics: ‘the part played by the oceanic feeling, which might seek something like the restoration of limitless narcissism is ousted from a place in the foreground. The origin of the religious attitude can be traced back in clear outlines as far as the feeling of infantile helplessness. There may be something further behind that but for the present it is wrapped in obscurity’ (Freud, 1962:19). Butler (2006) emphasises how loss which causes mourning can be political (such as in AIDS, war or poverty) and is not therefore necessarily a private matter. Since bodies are socially and politically constituted (e.g. ‘gay’, ‘woman’, ‘refugee’, ‘Christian’) and loss can be related to the dispossession of a place or community, mourning can expectably be collective, social and political. 5. Democracy here is used in a broad sense, albeit most discussions refer to liberal democracy (alias ‘representative democracy’, ‘constitutional democracy’, ‘pluralistic democracy’ and so on). I  avoid this narrow specificity here because (1) relevant definitions impart normative judgments and (2) models of democracy are ideal types, rarely implemented exactly as they are imagined. A narrow treatment of ‘liberal democracy’ might invite intractable and unproductive disagreement over the precise proximity of each case study to this ideal. 6. SYRIZA was superficially framed as illiberal, a threat to representative institutions, and so on by mainstream newspapers such as The Financial Times, and by populism-sceptic scholars such as Pappas, Mudde and Chryssogelos. Yet a comparative examination of New Democracy – a nominally liberal party – is revealing in this regard. New Democracy used police to arrest ‘illegal migrants’ in the streets of Athens in its first weeks back in office in 2019, arrested minors for watching ‘The Joker’ in cinemas around the country, sent troops to reinforce Greece’s northern border who then fired on unarmed citizens, and (in defiance of European accords on freedom of movement) closed its borders with Turkey, suspended the asylum application process to boot. Whither the populist ‘illiberalism’ of SYRIZA in the face of such ‘liberal’ policy by its non-populist successor? (Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022). 7. This process of unity is not exclusive to populism. ‘Working class’ identity, ‘the [Greek or American] people’ or even ‘democratic citizens’ (united against a populist threat, for example) are – as are all collective identities – products of temporal unification which cloaks the heterogeneity of the social (see Chapter 1). 8. SYRIZA is not the only example of pluralistic populism: see, for example, Podemos in Spain, the Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK, Evo Morales as head of the plurinational State of Bolivia, and the US Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders (see Katsambekis & Kioupkiolis, 2019).

Left- and right-wing populists in government 215 9. Of course, these constituencies were not majority partners in Trump’s collective subject, paling in comparison to the support offered to Trump by Christian Evangelicals, the nativist right, free marketeers, and so on. 10. Such cases may figure as examples of the psychoanalytic notion of ‘identification with the aggressor’. Socially-excluded subjects attacked by hegemonic powers may internalise this aggression; attempts may be made to ‘erase’ the excluded identity and seek acceptance in the mainstream ‘host’ identity (cf. Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973). 11. This definition’s rendition of ‘the people’ as a pure homogeneous entity has drawn heavy criticism for its nationalist associations (Ostiguy, 2017). 12. The ‘permanent campaign trail’ is not an exclusive preserve of populists. From Bill Clinton onwards, scholars observed that presidents increasingly sought to keep their public opinion ratings high, and correspondingly increasing campaign-like activity. Frequent travel, public speeches, press conferences on small issues, political advertisements and constant polling are becoming more prevalent generally (Lowndes, 2021). 13. See (tellingly) the prefatory dedication of The Ideational Approach to Populism ‘to those who strive for democracy and resist polarization’ (Hawkins et al., 2019). 14. In Chantal Mouffe’s (2000, 2005) account, the ‘other’ is not an enemy to be to be destroyed or eliminated but rather an adversary whose ideas are to be robustly challenged without presuming that the right to defend such ideas will itself be put into question.

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Conclusion

If in years past the notion of populism was framed as a ‘scandal’ (Stavrakakis, 2017), ‘a moment’ (Mouffe, 2018) or ‘a spectre haunting world-politics’ (Ionescu & Gellner, 1969), today it is centrally situated in public, political and social-scientific discussions. Populist actors no longer cameo as parochial and rare instances confined to perpetual opposition but are increasingly becoming key players in political systems around the globe. Moreover, left-wing and rightwing populists, such as SYRIZA in Greece and Donald Trump in the United States, have demonstrated the capacity of populists to take the reins of government, an eventuality that raised questions about what happens once populists move from opposition to power. This book sought answers to these questions by drawing on the literature of populism studies, post-foundational discourse theory, emotions and social movements and was motivated by a desire to bring theoretical and conceptual insights into dialogue with direct empirical research.

I.  Overview As argued in Chapter 1, dominant perspectives in populism studies have perceived populism’s relationship to institutions of government as paradoxical or at least uneasy. Several scholarly hypotheses have been advanced regarding populists’ transition from opposition to power. Two overarching approaches to this are evident in the literature. One approach, focusing on ‘outcomes’, maintains that populists cannot remain populist when entering government: they either become mainstream and disappear (see Canovan, 1999; Mény & Surel, 2002; McGann & Kitschelt, 2005; Akkerman & de Lange, 2012; Mudde, 2017) or inevitably take an authoritarian turn that threatens the representative system (see Urbinati, 1998; Müller, 2016; Pappas, 2019). Another approach, focusing on ‘policy’, maintains that while populists can in fact remain populist in government, the remaining concern of political scientists is to determine whether they have ‘succeeded’ or ‘failed’ in implementing their (populist) policies (see Canovan, 1999; Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015; Bartha et al., 2020). This book has argued that populism should be defined neither by the type and quality of policy sought by specific populist actors nor by their capacity to implement policy. Nor should it be defined by the impact it has on democratic DOI: 10.4324/9781003351634-9

Conclusion 221 institutions. When framed as intrinsic to populism, such associations become a normalised distraction from the analytical core of the concept ‘populism’, directing attention away to its content and outcome at the expense of its form, which may help to explain the axiomatically pejorative tone than inflect most everyday (and many scholarly) discussions of populism. This book began by rejecting the assumption that populism is either an ideology (i.e. with intrinsic contents prescribing specific policies) or a regime type (i.e. with specific outcomes). It should be understood not ‘as the goal of politics but as the way in which political meanings are made, constituted and grounded’ (Palonen, 2020:56). Its trajectory in power cannot therefore be determined a priori. Building on the insights of the Essex School, this research focused on populism’s performative function in ‘construct[ing] what it purports to represent’, viz. ‘the people’ (Thomassen, 2019:3; see also Ostiguy et al., 2021). The transformations populism undergoes on taking power should be looked for in how populist actors articulate ‘the people’ in an antagonistic relationship to ‘the elite’, using affective libidinal energies to form and maintain a bond between ‘the people’ and populist leadership. In order to explore how populists change once in power, this study compared two paradigmatic cases of contemporary populism: SYRIZA in Greece and the Trump campaign in the United States. Its findings therefore contribute to the scant but growing cross-regional and cross-ideological comparative literature on populism (see Mouzelis, 1986; Huber & Schimpf, 2017; Ivaldi et al., 2017; Padoan, 2021). As Chapter 2 outlined, despite their profound ideological and organisational differences, and dissimilar national-institutional frameworks, both SYRIZA and the Trump campaign achieved power despite contrary expert predictions. As the latest historical instance of episodically reactivated populisms in each country (see Lyrintzis, 1987; Kazin, 1995; etc.), their administrations survived full terms in office, challenging the normative expectation that populism cannot exist in power. Against backdrops of protopopulist discontent and social unrest, Tsipras’ and Trump’s respective leaderships capitalised on leaderless and politically uncommitted movements to provide representation to the unrepresented (Gerbaudo, 2017; Grattan, 2016; Katsambekis, 2016; Mouffe, 2018). Moreover, both Tsipras’ and Trump’s populist leaderships took place under the auspices of previously non- or even anti-populist political parties. Neither SYRIZA’s leftist factions nor establishment US Republics had entertained the possibility of employing populism as a political strategy at the given conjunctures. This was more sharply evident in Trump’s case since he ‘entered by the back door’, as it were, to take over the GOP as a party outsider. In other words, the ‘populists’ within each party were only one ‘faction’ among many. This asymmetry of internal organisational repertoires may have prevented political scientists from applying comparisons with the past. The variety of organisational structures only reinforces the argument that populism cannot be defined by a party’s internal architecture (e.g. unmediated/direct, decentralised/leader-centric) but rather by the ‘supply’ of people-centric and anti-elitist performativity.

222  Conclusion The Greek and American populists both targeted their parties’ traditional voters while simultaneously courting disengaged or otherwise unlikely new supporters. Saward’s (2010) distinction between ‘constituencies’ and ‘audiences’ can be useful to explain the power of populism to expand beyond existing support bases. As clarified by Moffitt (2016:106), ‘constituencies are those whom the representative claim to speak for, while audiences are those whom the representative addresses the claim to’, i.e. an audience is bigger than a constituency. Successful populist mobilisations expand the range of their appeal by framing their visions as universal common sense. The challenge they face is to combine both successfully without leaving behind key characteristics. This book used mixed methods – including discourse analysis, visual content analysis, semi-structured interviews and ethnography – to examine this phenomenon in action. The third and fourth chapters applied these methods to the case study of SYRIZA. Chapter 3 focused on SYRIZA’s discourse in opposition between 2012 and 2015 and examined the emotions embedded in popular identification with the party during the period. The findings of this chapter contradicted conventional theorisations that stereotypically associate populism with antidemocratic and xenophobic politics. ‘The people’ were not framed as ‘homogenous’ or ‘monist’ (see Mudde, 2004; Müller, 2016) but rather heterogeneous and pluralistic (see also Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). What is more, ‘the people’ were not framed as ‘pure’ but rather as ‘excluded’, ‘marginalised’ and ‘exhausted’ (though at the same time, ‘resisting’). ‘The people’ in this discourse therefore took the status of a politically rather than ethnically subjugated subject. SYRIZA identified ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘corruption’ as the root causes of Greece’s social malaise, proposing a progressive vision of democracy as a remedy. Similarly, the affective repertoires embedded in the collective passions of ‘the people’ were not founded on hatred or rage, as sceptics of ‘political emotions’ might suggest, but rather on a sense of hope for democratic change undergirded by solidarity, not only with other Greeks but also with the ‘foreign other’ as an intrinsic part of the collective ‘we’. Chapter 4 complemented this with an examination of SYRIZA in government. Against conventional wisdom and normative expectations, it found that SYRIZA remained populist even after it took power: populism continued to be the main discursive repertoire for the SYRIZA government. Nonetheless, this chapter also showed that its populism did not remain unchanged but was coarticulated with other non-populist frames, including ‘patriotic articulations’ and a resurgent ‘leftist narrative’ that essentially revived the discursive antagonism between left and right. This found expression in the context of Greece’s proposed dismissal of EU monitoring programs and a respective frame calling for Greece’s ‘exit from the memoranda’. A secondary ‘technocratic frame’ – seemingly contradictory to SYRIZA’s baseline populism – was also present in SYRIZA’s discourse in government. The legacy of the SYRIZA-led government was its rupture with (but eventual capitulation to) ‘the European establishment’. This bitter defeat wounded

Conclusion 223 the party since it amounted to a retreat from its key promise to cancel austerity. Thereafter, SYRIZA fought to deliver social policy within a politically and economically restrictive institutional framework. Against these odds, it offered free healthcare to two million uninsured people, free meals to school children, a minimum ‘solidarity income’ for the poor, restrictions on the repossession of family homes and a restructuring of non-serviced loans (Douzinas, 2017; Katsambekis, 2019; Tambakaki, 2019). While the SYRIZA government maintained its populist character, its capitulation was a critical juncture for the dynamic potential of passionate popular identification. The politics of passion evident in 2012 and in the 2015 referendum eroded after the party’s ‘backflip’. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump maintained his own idiosyncratic style, which was the chief object of study in Chapters 5 and 6. His transgressive habitus flaunted the socio-political ‘low’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016). The ‘transgression’ in question is conceptually distinguished from the content of his racist, misogynist and authoritarian remarks (which in the eyes of some anti-populists, would suffice to define him as a populist) but rather refers to the transgressive social markers embedded in Donald Trump’s publicly-displayed personal identity (e.g. his unrefined vocabulary, ignorance of political niceties, conspicuous enthusiasm for fast food, etc.). These characteristics were examined using extensive multimedia material collected by the author (including speeches, videos and social media content) in order to show Trump’s unusually high personal relatability to ordinary Americans when compared to typical establishment politicians. As the corresponding analysis of affectual narratives from ‘the people’ themselves showed, Trump’s popular appeal both before and after his ascent to power owed much to this disruptive and ‘uncommon’ political style. In cases such as these, populist characteristics seem rooted in the very ‘flesh and bones’ of populist actors – whether they consciously amplify these aspects of their personality, or just uncritically proceed without self-conscious awareness of them – which casts doubt on the possibility that ‘populist identity’ can be easily abandoned after the successful transition from opposition to government. As with SYRIZA, Trump’s discourse was likewise co-articulated with a plethora of non-populist ideological elements, including (as Chapter 5 found) protectionist, nativist and traditionally conservative tropes. In Chapter 6, the persistence of these coarticulations after taking power was illustrated, but after the Black Lives Matter protests (towards the end of his administration), a growing anti-leftist co-articulation echoing Nixon’s Cold War anticommunism also emerged. Compared to SYRIZA’s, Trump’s discourse underwent fewer qualitative changes in its incorporation of frames. However, his transgressive performativity remained consistently ‘low’, unlike Tsipras’ fluctuating performativity. Unlike SYRIZA, Trump was – despite a litany of profound contradictions – able to maintain strong affective bonds with his base, especially the grassroots and the radical right components of his ‘people’. As Chapter 6 discovered, constituencies such as Evangelical Christians maintained a strong identification

224  Conclusion with Trump even in spite of his conspicuously extravagant, promiscuous and unchristian lifestyle. Trump’s status as a super-rich (and basically secular) urbanite did little to deter the support working-class religious Americans from the rustbelt and ‘heartland’. Despite his failure to deliver on key policies, the euphoric identification of Trump’s most loyal supporters rallied to a frenzy, culminating in the deadly Capitol insurrection of January 2021 (ostensibly an attempt to undo the ‘electoral fraud’ they believed was behind Trump’s reelection defeat). This outcome illuminates the relativising function that ‘culture wars’ had in subverting hegemonic norms (see Scatamburlo-D’Annibale, 2019), which Trump’s most diehard supporters felt were imposed on them by cosmopolitan liberal elites. In this respect, Trump’s populist discourse in government had a more ‘successful’ counter-hegemonic effect than Tsipras’ corresponding governmental populist discourse. The comparative analysis developed in Chapter 7 emphasised that although SYRIZA and Trump are both commonly labelled populist, they embody their own distinct characteristics, not only in terms of the ideologies adjunct to their populism but also in terms of the very ‘style’ of populism each performed. SYRIZA established an open-ended chain of equivalence which maintained relationships of solidarity between the groups constituting ‘the people’, an observation which best conforms to Laclau and Mouffe’s (2014, [1985]:139, 181) earlier theories on radical democracy. In Trump’s case, identification rested on a deep vertical relationship between leader and base fostered by his transgressive qualities (conforming more closely with Laclau’s [2005:18] later theorisation of populism, which emphasises the vertical/performative dimension of representation). SYRIZA and Trump identified different problems facing ‘the people’ and articulated dissimilar visions in their name; they produced different meanings of ‘democracy’ and thus had different effects on existing institutions. Tsipras not only posed no ‘threat to representative democracy’ but even used its proper institutional channels to combat ‘the corrupt political establishment’. Yet in his failure to collide sufficiently with the ‘system’, Tsipras was criticised for becoming a moderate, liberal or reformist actor once in government. By contrast, Trump sought to overcome systemic checks and balances. His assault on democratic institutions was hampered by various branches and levels of government, including the judiciary, state governments and from within the federal bureaucracy. This shows that even in cases of authoritarian populism, institutions of countries in which the integrity of liberal democracy has not yet been corroded can prove resilient in resisting such attempts (Norris, 2019; Johnson, 2020). Despite retaining a populist rhetorical canon, the ability of the two case studies to affectively mobilise their ‘people’ followed divergent trajectories. SYRIZA’s abandonment of its anti-neoliberal commitments augured a marked downturn in the strength and salience of its popular identification. While the relatively healthy electoral results it secured in 2019 suggest that for many Greeks, this stopped short of wholesale disidentification, the passion with

Conclusion 225 which ‘the people’ – especially its radical left components – related to SYRIZA was significantly dulled. Not all events and developments during a populist government are not controlled by the populists themselves. SYRIZA’s forced ‘capitulation’ to the demands of the troika and the (re)emergence of right-wing nationalist sentiment in response to the Macedonian question are good examples (see Chapter 4). Such external factors may impede the effectiveness of the populist strategy since ongoing populist performativity alone does not suffice to enact affective investment (Venizelos, 2022). SYRIZA’s attempts to incorporate ‘the underdog’ into the social, political and economic sphere through inclusive policy went unrewarded; these measures were seen as ‘too little too late’ (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2020). Some of this may owe to the ‘rationalistic’, technocratic and managerial style in which Tsipras’ governing party communicated its perceived success jarring against its previously dominant affective populist style in opposition (see Chapter 4). Trump’s case presents a contrasting reality. Trump’s achievements in power likewise fell short of electoral promises (e.g. to ‘build the wall’); his policy proposals were characterised as ideologically inconsistent (Norris & Inglehart, 2019) and his discourse as incoherent (Schneiker, 2020); his catastrophic (mis)management of the coronavirus crisis cost the lives of nearly half a million American citizens over the course of his tenure. Yet in spite of this, he maintained relatively high public approval and even rallied the support of many establishment Republicans who had initially opposed his candidacy. His record of disastrous governance evidently did little to mute the euphoric affective identification of the grassroots supporters who, in a fever of hatred emancipated by Trump’s discourse, eventually stormed the Capitol in January 2021.

II. Contributions, limitations and avenues for future research The principal contribution of the book is to the growing – yet still unduly thin – literature on populism in government. Until recently, prevailing scholarship regarded individual populists in parliament, in local government or as minor partners in nationally governing coalitions as examples of ‘populists in power’. This book examined populists governing at the apex of political power: either controlling national government outright or leading as a partner in the coalition government. By understanding populism through a discursive-affective lens, this research was able to transcend the restrictive frameworks that understand populism’s fate in government as a question of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in policy delivery or of taking a ‘mainstream’ or an ‘authoritarian’ turn. It understood populism as a matter of degree (Aslanidis, 2015; Caiani & Graziano, 2019), and by adopting a ‘flexible yet rigorous conceptual and theoretical apparatus’ (Stavrakakis, 2013:28), it has shown that populist repertoires gained or lost intensity depending on space of articulation (i.e. the specific political arena in question and the formality of its social register) and on time of articulation (i.e. the contingent

226  Conclusion political developments and events that in their unfolding creating opportunities for – or even require – certain transformations of repertoire). However, is discursive ‘framing’ enough to secure populist hegemony? Theorised through the lens of affect (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2008; Cossarini & Vallespín, 2019; Eklundh, 2019), capturing state power is not the teleological end point of this particular strategy, but the starting point for new salient identifications between ‘the people’ and the populist, grounded on counterhegemonic social and political narratives and carried out in the name of popular sovereignty. Populist hegemony requires the constant reactivation of political passions and antagonism over time. Political mobilisation and energisation of affect are indispensable for the maintenance or, in extremis, reinvention of a collective ‘we’ in antagonistic juxtaposition to an illegitimate ‘they’. By incorporating the politics of passion into the analysis of populism in power, this book bolsters the link between mainstream populism studies and the overlooked theme of emotion. The empirical findings of this book demonstrate that not all populisms are the same. Despite their common label as ‘populists’, Tsipras’ and Trump’s widely dissimilar ideologies were decisive in determining the impact they had on democratic institutions and society. These findings, extensively discussed in Chapters 3–6 of this book showed that populists’ discourses, their definitions of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, their diagnosis of the social, political and economic issues at stake as well and the solutions they propose are profoundly influenced by their adjunct ideology. In other words, the policies, articulated visions and mobilised affective identifications of these populists were not determined by populism itself. Populist parties and politicians are never merely ‘populist’; ‘their ideological component should always be taken into account’ (Galanopoulos & Venizelos, 2022:269). As such, the populist dimension of any given actor does not suffice to explain the type of politics they seek to implement. Received wisdom uses the rubric of ‘populism’ to bury a tranche of heterogeneous phenomena, ranging from progressive democratic to grotesquely xenophobic political projects (Stavrakakis, 2017; Stavrakakis & Jäger, 2018). This book has sought to underscore the profound differences between left-wing and right-wing populists, and its author hopes that future research will continue to distinguish between dissimilar varieties and types of populism rather than dismissing an undifferentiated ‘populism’ tout court. Decades of anti-populist theorisation have caricatured populists as an intrinsic threat to democracy while at the same time questioning their capacity to govern. By refocusing on populists’ discourse – which is after all that affectively mobilises ‘the people’ (and identifies ‘the populist’) in the first place – the real content of their rhetoric and socio-political visions can be seen far more clearly. This book’s findings challenge received wisdom about populists in government. They highlight the necessity to rethink not only ‘populism’ itself but also its manner of reproduction in academic, journalistic and expert discussions. Despite political scientists’ persistent efforts to fix the meaning of ‘populism’ through the so-called ‘consensus over its operational definition’,

Conclusion 227 a normative remainder will always influence how populism is talked about. As Bourdieu (1990:150) argued, the meanings of ‘the people’, ‘popular’ and ‘populism’ are first and foremost articulated in struggles between intellectuals. Thus, ‘the debate over the meaning of populism turns out to be a debate about the interpretation of democracy’ (Urbinati, 1998:116). Anti-populism is a default posture for most general commentary and discourse about populism. As Peter C. Baker (2019) put it, the way ‘populism’ is connoted resembles something from a horror film: an alien bacterium that has somehow slipped through democracy’s defences – aided, perhaps, by Steve Bannon or some other wily agent of mass manipulation – and is now poisoning political life, creating new ranks of populist voters among us. Discourse theorists have forcefully argued that ‘we must also turn our attention towards how the term is used, by whom and why, and with what performative effects’ (De Cleen et al., 2018:3). As Stavrakakis (2017:4) observes, ‘language is never innocent . . . it naturalises significations and reifies into supposedly neutral objectivity crystallizations of historically-dependent power relations’. Uncritical uses and abuses of the term ‘populism’, especially its pejorative framing, are likely to only generate negative expectations about populism in power. At the same time, they undermine the role anti-populist forces play in political polarisation and may cause researchers to overlook the impact which elitist politics itself has on democracy (Bertsou & Caramani, 2020; see also Chapter 7). Finally, such uses can be adopted as euphemistic disguises for outright racist, chauvinist, xenophobic and even neofascist phenomena (Stavrakakis, 2013). Understanding populism in terms of discourse, affect and performativity – as a particular political logic that constructs collective identities in the name of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’, empty of any essential content and susceptible to variable socio-cultural characteristics and manifestations – offers a flexible method to study populism’s ambiguous and multifaceted relationship with democracy and the impact distinct populist types may have on the institutions of representation when populists assume power. Considering these intricacies, future research should adopt a reflexive perspective when pronouncing on the political implications of populism, one which is insulated from the normatively charged definitions that are so often uncritically reproduced in public debate. While this book has proposed a renewed perspective for the analysis of populism in power through the lens of discourse and affect, it does not profess to resolve its intrinsic contradictions. Per Stavrakakis (2020:5), ‘populist projects are not panaceas’. Although this book has argued against the universal applicability of so-called ‘policy’- and ‘outcome’-driven approaches, the different possibilities they describe cannot be ruled out in specific cases. Like most non- and anti-populist political actors, populists may equally well meet or fall short of their own electoral promises, regardless of whether these are

228  Conclusion progressive or conservative. Specific populists in government, like members of many other ‘political families’, may engage in corruption, intimidation of political adversaries and the media, and they may adopt authoritarian methods, but none of these are inevitable outgrowths of populism. ‘Populism in government’ is the name of (a perfectly sustainable and productive) contradiction as it occupies simultaneously two (conceptually) opposing poles (Ostiguy, 2015) – the populist and the institutionalist (Laclau, 1977). Transitions to power may prove traumatic for populists, who brand themselves as anti-establishment forces. At the level of identification, hegemony will always necessarily fail; hypostatising ‘the people’ is ultimately impossible. The terrain of impossibility and openness that enables the disarticulation of existing hegemony and re-articulation of new imaginaries remains the ultimate political horizon for not only oppositional but also governmental projects (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 1990). Affective bonds may weaken, and loss of popular enthusiasm may undermine a populist project. At the same time, populist hegemonies will always be challenged by counter-hegemonic articulations contesting for the spaces of power. These intricacies of populism point to its internal limitations. Now that populist politics enjoys the limelight of the mainstream, and more populist governments are likely to seek (and win) election around the globe, new questions emerge in the post-pandemic landscape. The case of Donald Trump’s support by new conservatism and the alt-right raises the disquieting spectre of an international reappearance of fascism in the twenty-first century (see Badiou, 2019; Traverso, 2019; Hermansson et al., 2020). If the Trump campaign was indeed a sinister adumbration of this horror, experts should be particularly wary of ceding ‘populism’ to it as a flag of convenience. Casual users of this euphemism may think it a suitable pejorative for neofascist manifestations, but its usage in this manner downplays and legitimates the dangerous political substance that lies beneath. At the same time, politicians should identify the driving forces behind popular support of such movements and properly tackle questions of inequality and exclusion in order to head them off at the pass. The case of SYRIZA invites us to consider whether or not ‘left populism’ can bring about societal change. What is the future of left politics and populism in the aftermath of the SYRIZA experience (Venizelos & Stavrakakis, 2022)? How can left-wing populists effectively enter institutions without losing contact with their base? Can they build mechanisms and structures enabling them to construct societal hegemonies that need not rely so heavily on elections? Emerging studies have already started to address several of these questions (see Mazzolini & Borriello, 2021; Prentoulis, 2021). Future expansions to the research agenda of populism in government should extend their vision beyond the classical loci of ‘populism studies and political parties’ literature, moving away from the constraining conceptualisation of populism as a mere strategy to capture power. Social movements literature in particular may shed light on populists’ techniques for deepening societal linkages; while republican and constitutionalist thought emerging from the privileged ‘observatory’ of Latin

Conclusion 229 America may further enhance understandings of the relationship between populism and institutions of governance (Carlés Aboy, 2010; Rinesi, 2015; Vergara, 2020; Biglieri & Cadahia, 2021).

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Research Methods Appendices

Although scholarship disagrees on the genus of populism (Strategy? Ideology? Discourse?) (Pappas, 2016), it can be generally accepted that empirical data for the study of populism are principally generated by political actors’ communication (de Vreese et al., 2018): their rhetoric, the campaign materials and the messages they send out via social and traditional media. This axiom is generally in line with the Essex School’s discursive approach, whose understanding of ‘discourse’ extends beyond the narrow sense of ‘words’ and ‘rhetoric’. This research likewise extends its understanding of discourse beyond ‘textual data’ and includes visual data, interviews and ethnography. In so doing, it intergrates various methods, performing empirical analysis on 66 rhetorical data units, 69 visual data units, 11 ethnographic data units and a total of 56 interviews. A list of data corresponding to each method is outlined below.

Appendix A The 66 ‘rhetorical units’ under empirical consideration are divided almost equally between the two case studies. These rhetorical units are passages of speech or text gathered from either announcements (text sources) or videos displaying political actors talking and performing (video sources). These data were collected throughout the periods in which the examined actors performed in opposition, or while campaigning, as well as in government. In SYRIZA’s case, the specific periods are 2012–2015 for the first phase and 2015–2019 for the second phase. For Trump, they are 2015–2016 for the first phase and 2017–2020 for the second. Speeches Chapter 3 SYR.1. SYRIZA’s central electoral rally, OMONOIAsquare (14/6/12), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytB7z1zExYY&t=2s, accessed online 12/7/17

Research Methods Appendices 233 SYR.2. SYRIZA’s central electoral rally, OMONOIA square (3/5/12), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=orU4t2yPgzg, accessed online 12/6/19 SYR.3. SYRIZA’s electoral rally in Thessaloniki (20/1/15) Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaRx0vHcR3k, accessed online 12/6/19 SYR.4. Alexis Tsipras on SKY TV (21/5/14), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-HEbY4Enoc, accessed online 19/8/19 SYR.5. Thessaloniki Programme (13/9/14), Source Type: Text, Origin www. syriza.gr/article/SYRIZA – -THE-THESSALONIKI-PROGRAMME. html, accessed online 12/5/17 SYR.6. ‘Go back Mrs. Merkel’. Electoral rally, European Elections, Mytilini, May 2014, Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/ watch?v=368PIWBpr_s, accessed online 21/8/19 SYR.7. SYRIZA’s electoral manifesto 2015 – ‘Hope is coming: Greece moves forward Europe changes’, Source Type: Text, Origin Manifesto project: https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu//down/originals/20161/34212_201501.pdf, accessed online 3/6/18 SYR.8. SYRIZA’s central electoral rally in OMONOIA square (22/1/15), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytB7z1zExYY& t=1756s, accessed online 12/6/19 Chapter 4 SYR.9. SYRIZA’s second congress (13/8/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVWJYkTLl_g accessed online 18/11/20 SYR.10. SYRIZA’s Programmatic Statements (8/2/15), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wdQ_CFn_KI, accessed online 18/11/20 SYR.11. Alexis Tsipras gives a speech about the referendum in the Greek parliament (27/6/15), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ccRPPekZj0c, accessed online 9/9/20 SYR.12. Alexis Tsipras delivers a speech at Syntagma square advocating for ‘OXI’ at the upcoming referendum (3/7/15), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEiqAH92BgU, accessed online 20/11/20 SYR.13. Alexis Tsipras resigns (20/8/15), Source: YouTube, www.youtube. com/watch?v=PRsfIR04NQs, accessed online 9/9/20 SYR.14. Alexis Tsipras’ interview at Greek EXPO (9/9/18), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqUCGmj8hH0, (9/9/20) SYR.15. Alexis Tsipras’ speech at the Greek parliament, confidence vote (19/5/19), Source: PM’s official Facebook page (video), www.facebook. com/tsiprasalexis/videos/1248383325311323, accessed online 18/11/20 SYR.16. Alexis Tsipras’ speech at the Greek parliament, media corruption (11/2/16), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC30F_yJfgw, accessed online 18/11/20

234  Research Methods Appendices SYR.17. Nikos Pappas on media and corruption (20/4/16), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFhZQfanZck, accessed online 18/11/20 SYR.18. The opposition is an ally of the media moguls (28/9/16), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZptZC-UBnk, accessed online 18/11/20 SYR.19. Alexis Tsipras: We are in office but not in power (29/6/19), Source: Text (Interview), https://popaganda.gr/people/alexis-tsipras-59-lepta/, accessed online 12/11/20 SYR.20. SYRIZA’s ‘parallel programme’ (06/9/15), Source: Text (manifesto), www.avgi.gr/politiki/154641_parallilo-programma-toy-syriza, accessed online 17/11/20 SYR.21. Establishment of Committee for the Investigation of Memoranda and Austerity (7/4/15), Source: Text, www.hellenicparliament.gr/Enimerosi/Grafeio-Typou/Deltia-Typou/?press=d1d04b08-6ebd-4932-9118a4730036170f, accessed online 9/5/18 SYR.22. Fiscal waterboarding (7/15), Source: Text, www.yanisvaroufakis. eu/2015/07/15/the-euro-summit-agreement-on-greece-annotated-by-yanisvaroufakis/, accessed online 9/11/20 SYR.23. Varoufakis says ‘should stick the middle finger to Germany’ (3/15), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMmqLewZKpI, accessed online 9/11/20 SYR.24. Varoufakis calls troika a rotten committee in joint press conference with Dijsselbloem (30/1/15), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WTR9KY4UJyQ, accessed online 9/11/20 SYR.25. Alexis Tsipras’ speech about Macedonia in Thessaloniki (15/12/18), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GSyGWNvwv0, accessed online 20/12/18 SYR.26. Alexis Tsipras calls protesters irrational and populists (30/1/19), Source: Text, www.cnn.gr/politiki/story/163835/tsipras-se-makron-akro dexioi-, accessed online 1/2/19 SYR.27. Yanis Varoufakis: creative ambiguity (21/3/15), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmRzUoDH7o, accessed online 12/12/20 SYR.28. Tsipras at The Economist’s conference: honorouble compromise (15/5/15), Source type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxruIwzE RtA&feature=emb_imp_woyt, accessed online 18/12/20 SYR.29. Yannis Dragasakis: forceful maturation (10/12/12), Source type: Text, origin: https://dragasakis.gr/sinentefxi-stin-efimerida-vima-den-theloumekommata-mesa-sto-komma/, accessed online 4/1/21 Chapter 5 TRUMP.1. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign announcement (16/6/15), Source type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=apjNfkysjbM, accessed online 30/6/20 TRUMP.2. Donald Trump’s Speech on Jobs and the Economy (15/9/16), Source Type: Text, Origin http://time.com/4495507/donald-trump-economy-speechtranscript, accessed online 30/6/20

Research Methods Appendices 235 TRUMP.3. Donald Trump’s rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan (8/11/16), Source Type: Video, Origin, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdwG1xf5dg, accessed online 1/7/20 TRUMP.4. Donald Trump rally, Charleston, West Virginia (5/5/16), Source Type: Video, Origin, www.c-span.org/video/?409094-1/donald-trump-addressessupporters-charleston-west-virginia, accessed online 1/7/20 TRUMP.5. Donald Trump rally, Tampa, Florida (24/10/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuy1M05DM38, accessed online 30/6/20 TRUMP.6. Trump’s nomination acceptance, 2016 Republican National Convention (18–21/7/16), Source Type: Text, Origin www.politico.com/story/ 2016/07/full-transcript-donaldtrump-nomination-acceptance-speech-atrnc-225974, accessed online 30/6/20 TRUMP.7. Donald Trump rally, Fredericksburg, Virginia (20/8/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XhBwmV2Rbk, accessed online 1/7/20 TRUMP.8. The Third Presidential Debate: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (19/10/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=smky orC5qwc, accessed online 1/7/20 TRUMP.9. Trump says Clinton is ‘guilty of stupidity’ (3/6/16), Source Type: Video, www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-guilty-ofstupidity-on-email-server/, accessed online 1/9/20 TRUMP.10. First Republican Debate (6/8/15), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rU4W3yfd58, accessed online 2/7/20 TRUMP.11. Donald Trump Rally, Golden, Colorado (29/10/16). Source Type: Video, Origin www.c-span.org/video/?417686-1/donald-trump-campaignsgolden-colorado, accessed online 3/7/20 TRUMP.12 Donald Trump’s unsettling record of comments about his daughter Ivanka (10/10/16) Source Type: Video/Text, Origin www.independent. co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-ivanka-trumpcreepiest-most-unsettling-comments-a-roundup-a7353876.html, accessed online 4/7/20 TRUMP.13. Trump Seriously: On the Trail with the GOP’s Tough Guy, Rolling Stone Magazine (9/9/15), Source Type: Text (interview), Origin www. rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-seriously-on-the-trail-withthe-gops-tough-guy-41447/, accessed online 6/2/20 TRUMP.14. ‘Hillary Clinton is a world class liar’, NBC (22/6/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUBULU51gcA, accessed inline 5/7/20 TRUMP.15 Donald Trump rally, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (26/4/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeRwEg7SkI, accessed online 5/7/20 TRUMP.16 ‘I could shoot somebody and not lose voters (23/1/16), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTACH1eVIaA, accessed online 5/7/20

236  Research Methods Appendices TRUMP.17. ‘I love women that faint when I speak’, Trump rally in South Carolina (20/10/15), Source Type: Video, Origin, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Erw Dx5xz5Q, accessed online 5/6/20 Chapter 6 TRUMP.18. Donald Trump’s Inauguration Speech (20/1/17), Source Type: Video, Origin, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRBsJNdK1t0, accessed 20/1/17 TRUMP.19. Donald Trump rally in New Jersey (28/1/20), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4sd-uFLBeE, accessed online 28/1/20 TRUMP.20.4th of July 2020 Address in Mount Rushmore (4/7/20), Source Type: Video, Origin, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61WalX3m_k, accessed online (4/7/20) TRUMP.21. ‘How do you stop these people?’ (29/5/19), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMCkzCJHfcU, accessed online 11/8/20 TRUMP.22. Donald Trump’s statement amid George Floyd protests (1/6/20), Source Type: Text, Origin www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-by-the-president-39/, accessed online 10/8/20 TRUMP.23. Trump Rally During Impeachment Vote (18/12/20), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZfSLiT-Zw, accessed online 21/8/20 TRUMP.24. Trump addresses Charlottesville clashes (14/8/17), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQWJDVg8PA, accessed online 10/8/20 TRUMP.25 Trump defends initial remarks on Charlottesville and blames both sides (15/8/17), Source Type: Text, Origin www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/ us/politics/trump-press-conference-charlottesville.html, accessed online 10/8/20 TRUMP.26. Donald Trump on the act of ‘kneeling’ (25/9/17), Source Type: Text, Origin https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/912280282224525312, accessed online 10/8/20 TRUMP.27. Trump calls NFL players kneeling ‘son of a bitch’ (27/9/17), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY3hpZVZ7pk, accessed online 10/8/20 TRUMP.28.2020 State of the Union speech (5/2/20), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNECVmfJtxc, 5/2/20 TRUMP.29. Trump’s remarks to the Venezuelan-American Community (18/2/19), Source Type: Text, Origin www.whitehouse.gov/briefingsstatements/remarks-president-trump-venezuelan-american-community/, accessed online 20/8/20 TRUMP.30. Trump calls Warren ‘Pocahontas’ in front of Navajo veterans (28/12/19). Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDsv W0kxsco, accessed online 20/8/20 TRUMP.31. Trump calls Pete Buttigieg’s name ‘unpronounceable’ (18/12/19), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bo87W3Bq5g, accessed online 20/8/20

Research Methods Appendices 237 TRUMP.32. President Donald J. Trump Statement Regarding Recent Executive Order Concerning Extreme Vetting (29/1/17), Source Type: Text, Origin www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumpstatement-regarding-recent-executive-order-concerning-extreme-vetting/, accessed online 22/8/20 TRUMP.33. Donald Trump rally, Minnesota (4/10/18), Source Type: Video, Origin www.c-span.org/video/?452500-1/president-trump-campaigns-republi cans-rochester-minnesota, accessed online 22/8/20 TRUMP.34 Donald Trump rally, Manchester, New Hampshire (‘the snake’ excerpt) (10/2/20), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch? v=JDRmR2SSXfk, accessed online 10/2/20 TRUMP.35. ‘These people are animals’. Trump’s remarks on migrants (16/5/18), Source Type: Text, Origin www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-­ statements/remarks-president-trump-california-sanctuary-state-roundtable/, accessed online 9/9/20 TRUMP.36. Trump states that he is pro-gay and pro-choice (1999), Source Type: Video, Origin www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/trump-in1999-i-am-very-pro-choice-480297539914, accessed online 10/9/20 TRUMP.37. ‘Trump vs. Nancy Pelosi: the most epic clashes of all time’ (29/5/20), Source Type: Video, Origin www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqhvcrOPOXE,

Appendix B Visual data Since politics is intrinsically tied to visual sense, images, symbols and so on, this research also employs visual analysis (Messaris & Abraham, 2001; Joffe, 2008) in order to examine articulations of collective identity and their demarcation from the other through aesthetic representations, text, symbols, sound, bodily gestures and demeanour. As far as the empirical analysis is concerned, 69 visual data are considered, 41 of which apply to SYRIZA and 28 of which apply to Trump. Visual data include campaign posters, leaflets, manifestos, stickers and campaign broadcasts. The data were collected (1) online through the social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) of the actors, or from their official websites, and (2) physically during fieldwork at the headquarters of the parties, the offices of the relevant organisations, or at rallies, demonstrations and other relevant events. The author also photographed sites of interest from different cities visited during the data collection process. Chapter 3 VM.1. Either Us or Them – Syriza poster [Ή Εμείς ή Αυτοί – Αφίσα Σύριζα], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/id/45305/h-emeis-h-aytoi – – – – – mazimporoyme-na-toys-anatrepsoyme.html accessed online 16/7/18

238  Research Methods Appendices VM.2. They decided without us we move forward without them [Αποφάσισαν χωρίς εμάς  – προχωράμε χωρίς αυτούς], https://syrizazante.wordpress. com/2012/04/21/video/, Poster, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.3. Strong SYRIZA – Sovereign People [Ισχυρός ΣΥΡΙΖΑ – Αυτοδύναμος Λαός], Poster, shorturl.at/Slpuy, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.4 No More – Thank you [Merkel/Samaras], Poster, www.syriza.gr/page/ pageNum/4/afises.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.5. Memoranda – Never Again Poster, Poster, www.syriza.gr/page/pageNum/4/afises.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.6 European election poster [workers], Poster, www.syriza.gr/page/pageNum/2/afises.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.7 European election poster [youngsters], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/56343/PSHFIZOYME-GIA-TA-ONEIRA-KAI-TA-DIKAIWMATAMAS.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.8 European election poster [equality], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/56340/PSHFIZOYME-GIA-DIKAIOSYNH-KAI-ISOTHTA.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.9 European election poster [disabled], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/56339/PSHFIZOYME-GIA-PERIThALPSH-KAI-ASFALISH.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.10 European election poster [pensioners], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/56342/PSHFIZOYME-GIA-SYNTAKSEIS-KAI-AKSIOPREPEIA. html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.11 European election poster [children], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/56344/PSHFIZOYME-TO-MELLON-TWN-PAIDIWN-MAS.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.12 European election poster [patience], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/id/55663/25-Maioy-2014:-PSHFIZOYME-KAI-FEYGOYN!.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.13 European election poster [Fridge], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55877/TO-PSYGEIO-MAS-ADEIASE.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.14 European election poster [Wallet], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/id/55873/ TA-CHRHMATA-MAS-CHAThHKAN.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.15 European election poster [Electricity], Poster www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55878/TO-REYMAS-MAS-KOPHKE.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.16 European election poster [Produce], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55876/H-PARAGWGH-MAS-SAPISE.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.17 European election poster [Medicine], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55872/TA-FARMAKAS-MAS-EKSANTLHThHKAN.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.18 European election poster [Pension], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55879/H-SYNTAKSH-MAS-KOPHKE.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.19. European election poster [Businesses], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/id/ 55871/OI-EPICHEIRHSEIS-MAS-EKLEISAN.html, accessed online 16/7/18

Research Methods Appendices 239 VM.20. European election poster [Migration], Poster, www.syriza.gr/article/ id/55875/TA-PAIDIA-MAS-METANASTEYSAN.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.21. European election poster [Democracy], Source: Poster, www.syriza. gr/article/id/55874/H-FWNH-MAS-SIGHSE.html, accessed online 16/7/18 VM.22. SYRIZA’s campaigning spot [Pensioners], Source: YouTube, www. youtube.com/watch?v=jK11bQA9cC4, accessed online 16/7/19 VM.57. SYRIZA’s campaigning spot [House Auctions], Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlSawPY_hhg, accessed online 16/7/19 Chapter 4 VM.23. Alexis Tsipras with NBA jersey (15/11/18), Source: Facebook, www. facebook.com/tsiprasalexis/photos/a.10150189504248054/101568989121 83054/?type=3, accessed online 8/1/19 VM.24. Alexis Tsipras drinks beer at a London pub (10/7/18), Source: Instagram, www.instagram.com/p/BlECd-zhCPX/?utm_source=ig_embed, accessed online 8/1/19 VM.25. Varoufakis goes ‘to work’ on his motorbike (25/6/15), Source: Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wS1B2h01I, accessed online 5/11/20 VM. 26. Deputy Minister of Health Pavlos Polakis’ aesthetic style and mannerism I (07/2/18), Source: Internet, https://m.naftemporiki.gr/story/1318826/ alt-minister-says-3-protected-witnesses-in-novartis-case-execs-whostarted-to-sing, accessed online 20/5/20 VM. 27. Deputy Minister of Health Pavlos Polakis’ aesthetic style and mannerism II (21.3.19), Source: Internet, www.ekathimerini.com/news/238818/ polakis-spars-in-public-with-hospital-workers-chief/, accessed online 20/5/20 VM.28. Varoufakis with T-Shirt and motorbike at Maximou Palace (5–7 - 15), Source: Internet, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/06/yanisvaroufakis-motorbike-greece-finance-minister, accessed online, 20/5/20 VM.29. Finance Ministers riding a motorbike (21/5/15), Source: Internet, www.businessinsider.com/greek-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-motorcycle-work-photos-2015-6, accessed online 20/5/20 VM.30. Deputy Health Minister on his motorbike (24/4/19), Source: Internet, www.ethnos.gr/politiki/34987_nea-anartisi-polaki-gia-kympoyropoylome-fotografia-sto-facebook, accessed online 20/5/20 VM.31. Varoufakis walking to Downing Street casual (2/2/15), www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2015/feb/02/greek-finance-minister-yanisvaroufakis-on-how-not-to-dress-for-a-meeting, accessed online 5/11/20 VM.32. Varoufakis sitting on the parliament’s floor (16/6/15), Source: Internet, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/books/review/yanis-varoufakis-adults-inthe-room.html, accessed online 15/5/20 VM.33. Minister of Education’s casual style at the parliament (Unknown date), Source Internet, https://alchetron.com/Nikos-Filis, accessed online 25/5/20

240  Research Methods Appendices VM.34. Alexis Tsipras visits the Kessariani shooting range (26/1/15)m Source: Internet, https://primeminister.gr/2015/01/28/13272, accessed online 26/1/15 VM.35. ‘For a New Left, Progressive Pillar’ (25/3/19), Source: Twitter, https:// twitter.com/atsipras/status/1106627496580186114, accessed online 15/3/19 VM. 36 Alexis Tsipras announces Greece’s exit from the memoranda (18/12/18), Source: Tweeter, https://twitter.com/atsipras/status/1235597277105811465, accessed online 18/12/18 VM.37. Alexis Tsipras appears for the first time wearing a time (29/6/18), Source: Internet, https://neoskosmos.com/en/117860/so-alexis-tsipras-worea-tie-last-week-and-this-means-a-lot/, accessed online 30/6/18 VM.38. Alexis Tsipras at the Southern European Countries’ Summit (18/1/18), Source: Instagram, www.instagram.com/p/Bdz98qDALZY/, accessed online 8/1/19 VM.39. SYRIZA’s electoral spot about the media (11/9/15), Source: YouTube, accessed online www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXLDKoUcBE, 24/11/20 VM.40. OXI campaign pre-referendum gathering at Syntagma square (3/7/15), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEiqAH92BgU, accessed online 24/11/20 Chapter 5 VM.41. Stills from Trump’s hand gestures within the time frame of 1 minute. Wilkes – Barre, Pennsylvania rally, (25/4/16), Source: YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeRwEg7SkI, accessed online 5/7/20 VM.42. Donald Trump’s rally in Golden, Colorado reveals an ‘authentic’ background (29/10/16), Source: Youtube, www.c-span.org/video/?417686-1/ donald-trump-campaigns-golden-colorado, accessed online 3/7/20 VM.43. Ted Cruz (22/7/16), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/­ realdonaldtrump/status/755972015249645568, accessed online 17/9/20 VM.44. ‘#WheresHilary? Sleeping!!!!’ (20/8/16) Source: Twitter, https://twit ter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/766791143291916288, accessed online 15/9/20 VM.45. Clinton Russia (27/7/16) Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/758335147183788032, accessed online 15/9/20 VM.46. Media establishment (8/10/16), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/ realdonaldtrump/status/784840992734064641, accessed online 15/8/20 VM.47. ‘A picture worth a thousand words’ (23/3/16), Source: Twitter, https:// twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/712850174838771712, accessed online 15/8/20 VM.48. ‘why is this reporter touching me? (29/3/16), Source: Twitter, https:// twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/714898756420939780, accessed online 15/8/20 VM. 49. Donald Trump eating KFC (2/8/16), Source: Twitter, https://twitter. com/realdonaldtrump/status/760299757206208512, accessed online 8/8/20 VM.50. Donald Trump eating McDonalds (27/5/16), Source: Instagram, www. instagram.com/p/BF4raEHmhag/?hl=en, accessed online 8/8/20

Research Methods Appendices 241 VM.51. Donald Trump with burgers (13/1/19), Source: Internet, www.new yorker.com/culture/annals-of-appearances/the-pure-american-banality-ofdonald-trumps-white-house-fast-food-banquet, accessed online 8/8/20 VM.52. ‘Clown’ (8/15), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/ status/629753109481422848?lang=en, accessed online 17/5/20 VM.53. ‘Dummy’ (7/15), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/ status/626508731073867776?lang=en, accessed online 17/5/20 VM.54. ‘Phoney’ (16/9/2015), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/643843401037819904?lang=en, accessed online 17/5/20 VM.55. ‘Lightweight (Account suspended, details removed), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/642788749030608896?ref_src= twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E642788749 030608896&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdidtrumptweetit.com%2F6427887 49030608896-2%2F, accessed online 17/5/20 VM.56. ‘Pathetic’ (Account Suspended, details removed), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/638895586628997120?lang=en, accessed online 17/5/20 Chapter 6 VM.57. ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’, (17/3/20), Source: Twitter, https://twit ter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1251169217531056130, accessed online 21/8/20 VM.58. ‘Liberate Minnesota’ (17/3/20), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/ realDonaldTrump/status/1251168994066944003, accessed online 21/8/20 VM.59. ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege! (17/3/20), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/­ realDonaldTrump/status/1251169987110330372, 21/8/20 VM.60. ‘In reality they are not after me, they are after you’(18/12/19), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/120750828020 7011841/photo/1, accessed online 18/12/19. VM.61. ‘Sleepy Joe’ (27/4/20), Source: Email sent by the Trump 2020 campaigning team to its mailing list, accessed online 27/4/20 VM.62 ‘Law & Order!’ (9/6/20), Source: Instagram, www.instagram.com/p/ CBMvoQvhD0h/, accessed online 9/6/20 VM.63. ‘‘My button is bigger than yours’’ (3/1/18), Source: Twitter, https:// twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/948355557022420992?lang=en, accessed online 10/8/20 VM.64 ‘Infestation’ (19/6/18), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1009071403918864385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwca mp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1009071403918864385%7Ctwgr%5 Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fpolitics% 2Farchive%2F2018%2F06%2Ftrump-immigrants-infest%2F563159%2F, accessed online 1/9/20 VM.65. Nancy Pelosi (5/2/20), Source: Instagram, www.instagram.com/p/ B8McOoMBVho/, 5/2/20

242  Research Methods Appendices VM.66. Obama as a spy (23/1/2020), Source: Twitter, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220536711031078913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ct wcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1220536711031078913%7Ctwg r%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-3045922853665768584.ampproject. net%2F2006112352003%2Fframe.html, accessed online23/1/20 VM.67. Trump as Rocky Balboa (27/11/19), Source: Twitter, https://­twitter. com/realDonaldTrump/status/1199718185865535490?ref_src=twsrc %5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E11997181858 65535490%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inquirer. com%2Fpolitics%2Fdonald-trump-rocky-tweet-20191127.html, accessed online 10/12/10 VM.68. Victims of Socialism (22/10/19) Source: Video/Facebook, www.­ facebook.com/GOP/videos/1308725712639882, accessed online 20/8/20

Appendix C This study conducted a total of 56 semi-structured interviews: 27 with SYRIZA supporters and 29 with Trump supporters. The author interviewed a small number of experts (i.e. academics and journalists) to navigate opaque aspects of Greek and American populism. Mainly though, interviews were conducted with grassroots activists in key social movements and networks which, according to secondary literature and the results of the ‘snowball’ method, were constitutive of ‘the people’ in each case. The principal objective of the interviews was to examine how ‘the people’ identified with the populist leadership and/or justified their support or disidentification before and during the governmental phase. In Greece, movements included the workers’ movement (e.g. the VIOME factory), the Thessaloniki water anti-privatisation movement, the movement in support of the Public Broadcasting Station (ERT), the environmentalist anti-fracking movements in Halkidiki (‘Save Skouries/SOS Halkidiki’), the anti-racist movement, the social medical centre movement, various solidarity networks that organised social distribution of food and clothing, migrant solidarity networks and members of the LGBTQ+ community. In the United States, interviewees were sought from and conducted with members of the following demographics and groups: ‘Evangelicals for Trump’, ‘Workers for Trump’, ‘Veterans’, ‘Black Voices’ and ‘Latinos for Trump’, Libertarians, Conservatives, the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association and the Texas Alliance for Life. This research has also taken interviews with elites into consideration. In Greece, these included: Nasos Iliopoulos (Deputy Minister of Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity from February 2018 to February 2019), Lefteris Kretsos (Vice Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Information from August 2018 to July 2019), Katerina Notopoulou (Deputy Minister of the Interior for Macedonia-Thrace from August to February 2019), the former Head of the Prime Minister Press Office, Head of the Strategic Planning Office and speechwriter of the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, various government

Research Methods Appendices 243 advisors and consultants who wished to remain anonymous and an independent MP who participated in the SYRIZA-ANEL government. In the United States, local politicians in Scranton, PA and Ithaca, NY were also interviewed. Interviews Greece GR1, G.A, leading organiser in the struggle against the privatisation of water and SYRIZA canditate, Thessaloniki, October 2018 GR2, E.A, journalist at the Greek Public Broadcaster ERT, Thessaloniki, October 2018 GR3, G.T, ‘Save Skouries/SOS Halkidiki’ activist, Halkidiki, October 2018 GR4, N.S, anti-racist movement activist, Thessaloniki, October 2018 GR5, N.S. ‘Save Skouries/SOS Halkidiki’, Halkidiki, November 2018 GR6, A.B, healthcare/solidarity networks’ activist, candidate and former member of SYRIZA’s central committee, Thessaloniki, November 2018 GR7, M.A, VIOME worker, Thessaloniki, November 2018 GR8, C.A, social movement activist, Thessaloniki, November 2018 GR9, A.L, social movement activist, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR10, C., solidarity network – food struggle, Athens, December 2018 GR11, O.L, leading organiser and activist in the pro-migrants/anti-racist movement, Athens, January 2019 GR12. K.S, ‘Solidarity 4 All’ network, Athens, February 2019 GR13, G, LGBTQI community activist, Athens, March 2019 GR14, C.L, former member of SYRIZA’s central committee, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR15, D.P, former member of SYRIZA’s central committee, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR16, K, former SYRIZA militant, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR17, I.B, former SYRIZA militant and candidate in regional elections, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR18, T.B, secretary of SYRIZA’s youth branch in Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR19, D.T, SYRIZA organiser and local politician, Thessaloniki, December 2018 GR20, Anonymous, Median government member, March 2019 GR.21. Nasos Ilioupoulos, Deputy Minister of Labour (2019), Athens, March 2019 GR.22. Katerina Notopoulou, Deputy Minister of the Macedonia – Thrace region, Thessaloniki, October 2018 GR.23. Lefteris Kretsos Deputy Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Information, Athens, March 2019 GR24, A.T, editor of Avgi and former Head of the Prime Minister’s Press Office and former Head of the Strategic Planning Office, March 2019

244  Research Methods Appendices GR25, Kostas Zouraris, Independent MP, initially worked closely with ANEL and at a later stage with SYRIZA, Athens, March 2019 GR26, H.K, Social Scientist, Athens, October 2018 GR27, A.E, Social Scientist, Athens, October 2018 United States US1, R.L, ‘Ithaca for Trump 2020’ organiser, Ithaca, New York, January 2020 US2, M.S, Republican Legislator, Tompkins County, Ithaca, New York, January 2020 US3, Austin C., Cornell University ‘College Republicans’, Ithaca, New York, January 2020 US4, Benjamin S., Cornell University ‘College Republicans’, Ithaca, New York, January 2020 US5, Mark Ricetti Jr., Director of Operations, Luzerne County Historical Society, Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US6, Isaah K., local radio host, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US7, Shelby A., King’s College student, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US8, Ethan N., King’s College student, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US9, Kevin, King’s College student, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US10, Anonymous, King’s College student, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, January 2020 US11, Anonymous, candidate for the House of Representatives, 12 District, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton Pennsylvania, January 2020 US12, ‘Veteran’, candidate for the House of Representatives, 12 District, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, January 2020 US13, Anonymous, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, February 2020 US14, Anonymous, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, February 2020 US15, Anonymous, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, February 2020 US16, ‘Argentine woman’, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, February 2020 US17, ‘Hardworking American’, Lackawanna County, Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Scranton, February 2020 US18, Anonymous, ‘Republicans United’ activist, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2020 US19, Anonymous, ‘Republicans United’ activist, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2020 US20, ‘PJ’, Veteran, Student, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2020

Research Methods Appendices 245 US.21. Osama, ‘Turning Point’, ‘Students for Trump’ activist, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2020 US22, Noble C. Hathaway, President of the Arizona State Rifle & Pistol Association, Arizona, February 2020 US23, Melanie S. ‘Trump 2020’ Field Officer, Cincinnati Ohio, March 2020 US24, Anonymous, ‘Evangelicals for Trump’, Cincinnati Ohio, March 2020 US25, Anonymous, ‘Evangelicals for Trump’, Cincinnati Ohio, March 2020 US26, Pastor Franz Gerber, Evangelical Pastor, Praise Chapel Community, Crandon Wisconsin, January 2020 US27, D.C., Texas Alliance for Life, Austin Texas, January 2020 US28, Mary L, Tea Party, local organizer, Kansas, January 2020 US29, D, university teacher, New York City, January 2020

Appendix D Participant Obeservation and Ethnographic Research In order to obtain direct knowledge of populism in Greece and the United States, this study employed ethnographic and participant observation methods (see Marcus, 1995). The author participated in various forms of community practice in both countries that were deemed salient to key aspects of collective identification. In Greece, the author participated in government-sponsored events in Athens and Thessaloniki, including a Prime Minister’s rally to promote the ‘name deal’ between North Macedonia and Greece (December 2018); public events organised by the Ministry of Macedonia aiming to disarticulate hegemonic understandings of Greece’s national identity, history and past and rearticulate them in progressive and inclusive terms (January 2019). Other events included a public discussion and an open-air theatre performance on Thessaloniki’s working-class history and its connection with the Jewish community and working-class milieu. In Athens, the author participated in two events organised by the SYRIZA-sponsored Poulantzas Institute which focused on left-wing governmentality (including themes of municipalism and neoliberal economy). To aid in understanding social movements’ views on the SYRIZA government, the author attended pro-SYRIZA protests and the annual congress of ‘Solidarity 4 All’ a forum for movements to annually evaluate their strategy and recalibrate it for the year to come. In the United States, the author participated in a major ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ event and sermon outside Cincinnati, OH (March 2020); a Young Republicans’ meeting at Cornell University; a talk by Michael Cernovich (an antifeminist, ‘men’s rights activist’ and conspiracy theorist) organised by the Republicans United group at Arizona State University campus and a Republican Party election event in Scranton, PA. The author travelled across the country in Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Texas, Arizona and Ohio in order to observe the famous ‘urban/rural divide’ at first hand and observed

246  Research Methods Appendices and photographed war veteran billboards on roadsides and proudly waving ‘TRUMP-PENCE 2020’ flags (and American flags) outside homes. Finally, the author entered ‘dive bars’ in the suburbs of Wilkes-Barre, PA and gun shops in Arizona and discussed with members of the public there why they supported Trump. Greece F.GR1. Alexis Tsipras rally around the naming-dispute deal with neighbouring formerly FYROM. Attended in Thessaloniki, December 2018 F.GR2. Public event on history society and politics: ‘Historical junctures: Thessaloniki from 1912 until 1944’’. A discussion that offered an alternative reading of the fundamentals of the history of Thessaloniki and Greece [www.amna. gr/macedonia/article/305673/Ekdilosi-apo-to-YMATh-Tomes-stin-istoria – I-Thessaloniki-apo-to-1912-sto-1944?fbclid=IwAR1TWOKsPqVcdO F8ErhbBlcwKz0BYNhJYALlZ_Tk5o18gc3959R-K2cfybE], Thessaloniki, December 2018 F.GR3. Public event with music and theatre performance: ‘A night at the ministry’. A cultural event that offered a counter-hegemonic interpretation of the history of Thessaloniki through music and theatrical performance [www. ert.gr/ert3/mia-vradia-sto-dioikitirio-tha-systisei-stoys-thessalonikeis-toktirio-toy-ymath/], Thessaloniki, January 2019 F.GR4. Pamphlet ‘The Golden Dawn trial’ included with the SYRIZA-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton 4/7/20. Collected during fieldwork in Greece, F.GR5. Pamphlet ‘The December of rage’ (6/12/18) included with the SYRIZAleaning Efimerida ton Syntakton. Collected during fieldwork in Greece F.GR6 Pamphlet’ The leaders of the Communist Party’ (24/11/20) included with the SYRIZA-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton. Collected during fieldwork in Greece United States F.US1. Bishop Harry Jackson, Preacher, keynote speaker at Evangelicals for Trump event, Solid Rock Chuck, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2020 F.US2. Paula White, Televangelist, Trump’s spiritual adviser, keynoted Evangelicals for Trump event, Solid Rock Chuck, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2020 F.US3. Rod Parsley, Televangelist, keynote preacher Evangelicals for Trump event, Solid Rock Chuck, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2020 F.US4. Laurence Bishop II, Evangelicals for Trump event, preacher at Solid Rock Chuck, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2020 F.US5. Republican campaigning flyers and stickers, Collected from the Lackawanna Republican Headquarters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, February 2020

Index

abortion 64, 177, 179, 180 aesthetics 6, 29, 48, 51, 65, 69, 109 – 110, 190, 237; dress code 106, 108, 190; symbols 5, 29, 33, 68 – 69, 96, 162, 237 agency 31, 40, 99, 125, 172, 203, 205 ANEL (Independent Greeks) 2, 49, 67, 70, 97, 107, 112, 114 antagonism 1, 5, 18, 26; anti-populism/ Greece 66, 81; performativity 30; populism (people/elite, bottom/up) 28, 34, 38, 49; societal antagonism (difference) 36; transgression 29 anti-essentialism 5, 28 Antifa 169, 194, 198 anti-populism 24 – 28, 57, 64, 210 – 213, 227 affect (emotions, sentiments) 31 – 35 American exceptionalism 136 – 137, 164 approach to populism: affective 31 – 35; Essex school 24 – 28; ideational 24 – 25; stylistic and socio-cultural 29 – 31 articulation 5, 7, 25 – 28, 37, 82, 87, 92, 167, 169, 176, 192, 195, 197 austerity 33, 48, 52, 67, 71, 81, 83, 86 – 100, 105 – 106, 110 – 111, 115 – 117, 120 – 121, 125, 191, 194, 203, 223 authenticity 51, 109, 125, 141, 147, 148, 152, 178, 190, 202, 208 – 209 authoritarianism 2, 4, 9, 21, 35, 37, 55, 66, 146, 167 – 168, 173 – 175, 190, 207, 210, 212, 220 – 225, 228 autonomy 7, 111, 115, 192; autonomous struggle 97, 105, 200 Bannon, Steve 72, 136 – 137, 166, 181 – 182, 227

banks/bankers 27, 57, 60, 84 – 85, 104, 124, 127, 192, 194 bi-partisanship (US) 49, 143 Black Lives Matter 166 – 167, 172, 175 – 176, 198, 223 Brussels 106, 121 Capitol insurrection 2021 9, 189, 199, 202, 205, 224 – 225 chain-of-equivalence 96, 196 – 197, 205, 209, 224 charisma 60 – 61; Andreas Papandreou 64 – 65; in SYRIZA 107, 119; in Trump 132, 145, 153, 178, 181,  191 China 132, 134, 136 – 137, 140, 192 Christian right 135, 140, 179, 181 – 182, 185, 209 clientalism 19, 23, 64, 67, 104 collective identity 5, 8, 28, 37 Clinton, Hillary 135, 138 – 144, 151, 160, 176, 196 colony 86; colonialism 167; colonisation 99; neo-colonial 112 Conservative, conservatism 62, 114, 86, 132, 136, 139, 143, 146, 158, 165, 169, 174, 178 – 181 contentious politics: and populism 36; decline of (Greece) 125; in Greece 48, 67; in the US 60 contingency 10, 64, 71, 117, 197; contingent (events, factors) 21, 49, 63, 226 Corbyn, Jeremy 38, 114 Correa, Rafael 2 corruption: in SYRIZA’s discourse 89 – 90, 110, 191, 206, 222; in Trump’s discourse 134, 137, 138, 144, 151 – 152, 160, 170, 182 – 183

248  Index cosmopolitan values 3, 27, 50, 142, 145, 167, 170, 195, 224 COVID-19 166, 176 crisis in theoretical debates 28, 94, 191; anthropological crisis (in Greece) 94; economic crisis (in Greece) 32, 47, 53, 62, 67 – 68, 87, 96, 98, 100, 104 – 105, 122, 197; economic crisis (in the US) 137; healthcare crisis (in the US) 160, 225; humanitarian crisis (in Greece) 92, 105, 111, 114, 174, 122; political crisis (in Greece) 80, 93 – 95, 99, 125, 200 culture: backwards culture 141; cancel culture 175 – 176; cultural purity 137; culture wars 177, 224; political culture (in Greece) 67, 99; political culture (in the US) 61, 72, 142, 145, 149, 170, 174, 205 demagogy 4, 10, 21, 23, 38, 127; in SYRIZA’s discourse 67 demand (in theoretical discussions) 5, 18, 25, 28, 34, 37, 39; in Donald Trump 146; in SYRIZA 89, 91, 94 – 97, 123, 200 democracy: direct participation 40, 48, 54, 60, 83, 207 – 208, 211; illiberalism 2, 10, 24, 91, 99, 214, 128, 206 – 207, 214; institutions 111, 142, 159, 205 – 208; liberalism 67, 209, 133, 182, 206; pluralism 24, 67, 111, 176 – 177, 208 – 210, 213; radical democracy 35, 224; representation 4, 31, 33 – 34, 98, 105, 175, 206 – 208, 213, 227 Democratic Party (USA) 160, 169, 176 discourse analysis 68, 247 discourse theory 25 – 26, 117, 220 Donnelly, Ignatius 58 Duterte, Rodrigo 2 elites: cultural elites 134, 146, 150, 177, 195; economic elites 63, 111, 151; political elites 32, 83, 89, 98, 133, 138, 144, 199, 210 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 3 Eurocommunism 48 European Union (EU) 121, 124, 194, 202, 211; Brussels 106, 121 Evangelicals 171, 178 – 184, 192, 204, 205 fake news 21, 160, 173, 175, 181 fascism 4, 19 – 20, 112, 114, 165, 170, 228

Father Charles Coughlin 60 – 61 Fidesz party (Hungary) 2 form; of populism 2, 23 – 25, 89, 190, 207 Freud, Sigmund: collective practices 33, 214; Evangelicals 204; identification 32 – 34, 152; mourning and melancholia 165; narcissism 204, 214; Trump 152, 184 gender: politics (Greece) 87, 123; politics (USA) 142, 145, 175, 177, 182; theory 40 Germany 86, 104, 106, 110 – 111, 193 – 194 Golden Dawn (Greece) 10, 97, 114,  128 Gramsci, Antonio 85 Great Recession 6, 47 – 48, 63, 67 Greek Social Movements: Aganaktismenoi 67, 95, 100; anti-fracking 87, 95 – 96, 242; BIOME 242; Cleaner 104; ERT 95 – 96; healthcare activism 95; School Guards 104; Solidarity4all 70, 98, 245 habitus: Alexis Tsipras 107, 109; Donald Trump 139, 145, 147, 149, 153, 190; in theory 6, 36, 191, 223 hegemony 27 – 28, 65, 94, 113, 117, 199, 207, 226, 228 heterogeneity 28, 37, 39, 52, 67, 89, 95 – 96, 100, 104 143, 214 Hofstadter, Richard 59, 60, 67, 212 Hollywood 3, 137, 150, 180 homogenisation thesis (Cas Mudde) 24, 26, 28, 50, 209, 222; and Donald Trump 208, 2017; and SYRIZA 99, 208, 120 ideational approach to populism 24, 39, 209, 215 ideology: in Donald Trump 163 – 171, 182; in SYRIZA 83 – 84, 89 – 92, 94, 113 – 115 identity politics 142 IMF 27, 84, 122, 194 immigration 27, 33, 62 – 64; in SYRIZA 87, 98 – 99, 110, 123; in Trump 143, 160, 165, 168, 174; migration in SYRIZA 97, 99, 111, 123 209; migration in Trump 134, 166, 174, 192, 197; refugees in SYRIZA 112, 193, 195; refugees in Trump 134, 198 interpellation 5, 7, 26, 32, 114, 190 Ivy league 61, 84, 140

Index  249 Japan 132, 136, 137 jobs 63, 87, 134, 139, 158, 171, 174 Kansas Farmers Alliance 57, 58, 143, 174 KKE (Communist Party of Greece) 97 – 98, 115 Knights of Labour 57 Lacan, Jacques 8, 11, 32 – 35 Laclau, Ernesto: discourse theory 4 – 5, 24 – 28, 33, 40, 90; Donald Trump 147, 184; hegemony 192, 228; identification 29, 32 – 33, 224, 209; institutions 18, 117, 228; leader 10; ontology 25, 147; populism 4, 18, 21, 24, 26 – 27; representation 207; social movements 192; subjectivity 25, 26, 8, 34, 153, 184, 200, 201; SYRIZA 90, 96, 117 ladder of abstraction (Sartori) 56 Latin America 2 – 3, 18, 23, 27, 39, 127, 193, 210 Law and Justice party (Prawo I Sprawiedliwość, Poland) 2 Le Pen, Marine 52, 61, 94 leader, in populism 5, 11, 83, 119, 133, 146, 158, 191, 199, 203 legislation 9, 22, 55, 173 LGBTQI+ 3, 69, 90, 123, 177, 192, 210, 243 libertarians 38, 69, 152, 176, 200, 211, 242 Long, Huey 60 Lula 2 manipulation 21, 23, 31, 40, 67, 205, 227 Marxism 38, 170, 182 mass parties 54 media: mainstream media 110, 128, 174, 194; social media 62, 69, 103, 107, 148 – 149, 154, 162 Memorandum of Understanding (Greece) 81, 84, 89 – 92, 104, 114, 120 – 122 Merkel, Angela 84, 86, 89, 106, 122 Mexico 2, 132, 134, 137, 165, modernisation theory 67 moral politics 32; strict father morality 172, 180 – 183, 202, 191, 193, 201 Morales, Evo 2, 114, 214 Mouffe, Chantal: administrative politics (SYRIZA) 117; antagonism 34, 211, 215; chain of equivalence (SYRIZA) 224; Essex School 5; identity 8, 25, 28, 34, 40

Mudde and Kaltwasser: democracy 205 – 206; monist ideology 208 Müller, Jan-Werner 4, 19, 21, 24, 86, 110, 208 – 210, 220 Muslims 64, 134, 166, 193 – 194, 209 – 210 NAFTA 137, 140 nation (as signifier) 25, 33, 86, 99, 137, 140, 163; and nation-state 26, 193; inclusionary nationalism 26 – 27, 115, 193; nationalism 111, 115, 13, 163 – 166; nativism 105, 163; patriotism 85 – 86, 111 – 113; white nationalism 166 – 169 neoliberalism 2 – 3, 39, 62, 97, 122, 158, 165 Netherlands 104, 194; Dijsselbloem, Jeroen 52, 106, 110 New Democracy (Greece) 54, 64 – 66, 81 – 85, 89, 104, 114, 117, 196 Nietzsche, Friedrich 32 North Macedonia 111 – 113 Nostalgia 8, 31 – 35, 133, 158, 165, 202 – 203 Obama, Barack 137, 144, 152, 154, 162, 175 Orbán, Victor 10, 52 Ostiguy, Pierre 5, 19 – 23, 25 – 30, 191 PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Party, Greece) 64 – 67, 83 – 84, 89, 104, 122 party organisation 20, 48, 53 Pegida 10 Pelosi, Nancy 161 – 162 performativity 8, 9, 29, 38, 49, 51, 54, 55, 71, 80, 98, 99, 103, 118, 126, 132, 138, 145, 151, 157, 159, 189, 190, 195, 196, 203, 204, 212, 213, 221, 223, 225, 227 Perón, Juan 2 Peoples Party/Populist Party (US) 57 – 61 polarisation 64 – 66, 81 – 87, 114, 124, 135, 210 – 212 policy: and populism studies 3 – 4, 212 – 224; in SYRIZA 92, 110, 112, 117 – 123; in Trump 174, 179 – 184 political alienation: 32; political disillusionment 37, 103, 126, 176,  213 political correctness 142 – 146, 170, 177 political style (incl. language, demeanour) in SYRIZA 106 – 111; in Trump 69, 146 – 147, 159, 191

250  Index political party systems (in Greece and the US) 53 – 57, 63 – 68 politics of exceptionality 144 – 153 populism: definitions xiii, xiv, 1, 4, 10, 18, 24, 36, 37, 212; left-wing populism 1, 10, 27, 47, 63, 65, 70, 86, 87, 114, 170, 189 – 219, 220, 226, 228, 245; right-wing populism 1, 2, 7, 8, 10 24, 27, 35, 49, 50, 62, 63, 65, 66, 138, 152, 167, 168, 189 – 219, 225, 226 post-truth 21, 175, 196 poverty: in Greece 92, 122 – 123; in Trump’s discourse 165 pro-life 64, 179 – 180, 209 protectionism 132 – 133, 192; economic nationalism 49, 166; isolationist 49, 137, 165 proud boys 175 psychoanalysis: and jouissance 33 – 35; and political identification 32; and politics 40; and Trumpian politics 165, 181, 202, 205 radical left: and SYRIZA’s politics 47 – 49, 203, 206; in Trump’s discourse 169 – 171, 175 radical right 10, 20, 49, 64 176, 200, 210; or alt-right 142, 160, 192 – 193, 200, 204; or far right 67, 114, 166, 167, 168, 175 referendum: and populist politics 20, 127; as OXI referendum (in Greece) 90, 105 – 106, 119, 121 – 125, 202 – 203, 211 Republican Party (USA) 9, 49, 55, 62, 70, 169, 207 resistance: against austerity (in Greece) 67, 125; and anti-Nazism (in Greece) 86, 112; and communism (in Greece) 99, 111; and populism 105 – 106, 124; to cosmopolitan values (in the US) 140, 142 – 144; to populism 51, 55 Ressentiment 31 – 34, 165, 199

Sanders, Bernie 63, 138, 176, 169, 214 Sartori, Giovanni 20, 56, 211 silent majority 133, 143, 145, 178, 192, 194 socialism 22 – 23, 64, 66, 92, 126, 169, 170, 182 solidarity 67, 69, 81, 86, 93 – 98, 112, 114, 122, 189, 192, 200 – 201 sovereignty: in Greece 49, 85, 93, 204; in theory 34, 36 Stavrakakis, Yannis 4 – 5, 24 – 26, 28, 31, 32 – 35, 227 strategy (political) 113, 118, 125, 181, 190, 213, 221 Tea Party (USA) 49, 62 – 64 technocracy 208, 212; in SYRIZA 34, 104, 117 – 119, 196, 222; in Trump 175 technocratic populism 10, 197, 117 – 120 transgression: antagonism 26, 28, 30, 34, 36, 38, 49, 66, 81, 106, 136, 145, 158, 172, 184, 196, 197, 208, 222, 226; bad manners 29, 31, 191; flamboyant 146, 153, 202; rupture 37, 105, 107, 222; rude 202 Troika 49, 84 – 90, 104, 106, 108 – 111, 121 – 123, 192, 197, 204 Twitter 69, 148, 162, 172, 237 unemployment: in SYRIZA’s discourse 87, 106, 122, 196; in Trump’s discourse 49, 139, 171, 181, 197 Vargas, Getúlio 2 Varoufakis, Yanis 107 – 110, 121, 126 veterans 140, 150 – 151, 154, 162, 242 Wallace, George 61 Washington 51, 58, 63, 135, 143 – 144, 158, 160, 184, 195 Weber, Max 32, 178 white nationalism 166, 168, 184, 198 workers: in SYRIZA 59, 87, 95, 192, 194; in Trump 61, 133, 139, 143, 150, 164, 172, 193