{"id":1293,"date":"2016-08-31T17:18:24","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T22:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chgs-blog.org\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2016-08-31T17:18:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T22:18:24","slug":"the-acid-test-for-right-wing-populism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/the-acid-test-for-right-wing-populism\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cAcid Test\u201d for Right Wing Populism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Populismo\"The semester is about to start and I find myself touching up syllabi and putting some order in my course material. While reviewing files, I came across a very helpful handout from a conference<\/a> I attended at the University of Bayreuth in 2010. The topic from then is even more timely today: \u201cAnalyzing Right-Wing Populist Discourse across Europe.\u201d In it, discourse analyst Ruth Wodak<\/a> laid out the most salient features of Right Wing Populist rhetoric, which she identified in statements from political leaders across the old continent. Given the indisputable \u201ctoxicity\u201d of this discourse, here we will label the following ten elements from Wodak\u2019s handout as the \u201cAcid Test\u201d for Right Wing Populism:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Manichean division into \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Shifting blame by scapegoating<\/li>\n
  3. Claiming to be honest by simply \u201cSaying what comes to one\u2019s mind\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. Offending\/insulting political opponents (ad hominem<\/em> argumentation)<\/li>\n
  5. Adopting a \u201cworms eye view\u201d \u2013 looking up from below<\/li>\n
  6. Talking for \u201cthe people,\u201d i.e. \u201cWe are one of <\/em>you and for <\/em>you\u201d (ad populum<\/em> argumentation)<\/li>\n
  7. Pathetic dramatization and emotionalization of issues<\/li>\n
  8. Insistent repetition of statements\/claims<\/li>\n
  9. Exaggeration and trivialization (straw-man<\/em> fallacy)<\/li>\n
  10. Promises of salvation and liberation<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"ScreenThe beauty of Discourse Analysis is that it helps explain what is underlying particular instances of speech, text or visual communication. It allows us to \u201cdistill\u201d its essence and identify the patterns, rules, and structures of such expressions. Moreover, Discourse Analysis allows us to illuminate the relationship between specific language and its broader social and historical context. Forms of discourse have objectives, and follow strategies and devices to pursue these objectives. For instance, negative and positive atributions are stressed through the continued use of topoi and fallacies. In-groups and out-groups are constructed by membership categorization using literary devices like metaphors or synechdoches (in which a part represents the whole).<\/p>\n

    \u201cThey\u2019re bringing drugs. They\u2019re bringing crime. They\u2019re rapists,\u201d is one of many recent manifestations of this Right Wing Populist discourse that most likely fell under Ruth Wodak\u2019s sharply focused analytical radar.<\/p>\n

    The semester starts next week, and before it ends we will know who is the next US President. To my students, I will soon assign an exercise phrased as follows:<\/p>\n

    Listen to the following speech<\/a>, and apply the ten point analysis grid. Does it pass the Right Wing Populism \u201cAcid Test\u201d?<\/p>\n

    Alejandro Baer is the Stephen Feinstein Chair and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He joined the University of Minnesota in 2012 and is an Associate Professor of Sociology.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The semester is about to start and I find myself touching up syllabi and putting some order in my course material. While reviewing files, I came across a very helpful handout from a conference I attended at the University of Bayreuth in 2010. The topic from then is even more timely today: \u201cAnalyzing Right-Wing Populist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2081,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48824],"tags":[50991,80985],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-director","tag-alejandro-baer","tag-ruth-wodak"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}