E-magining #ThePeople: On Geert Wilders and the Promises of Twitter’s Populist Reason

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E-magining #ThePeople

On Geert Wilders and the Promises

of Twitter’s Populist Reason

#Lykle de Jong #10053077 #rMA Thesis Cultural Analysis #University of Amsterdam 2016 #Boris Noordenbos

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Introduction

Geert Wilders and the Phenomenon of Populism 2.0

If I become Prime Minister, I will give back the Netherlands to the Dutch —Geert Wilders, “Als ik”; my translation.

This tweet by Dutch politician Geert Wilders is one of many tweets he posts every day.1_{Wilders is the}

parliamentary group leader of his Party for Freedom [Partij voor de Vrijheid; hereafter PVV]—of which he is also the only official member.2_{Given his online presence and popularity,}3_{Wilders does not eschew}

social media. Quite the contrary, he tends to avoid traditional media in favour of his own digital chan-nels. Throughout this thesis I will argue that Twitter is a vital part of his political style. Wilders can be described—or so I shall maintain—as an exemplary figure of contemporary European populist tenden-cies. His defiance of so-called Islamisation and the elite, most clearly embodied by the ‘The Hague’ and ‘Brussels,’ is built on a self-proclaimed defence of national and popular sovereignty. Indeed many of his utterances, not unlike the one quoted above, attest to his conviction of being part of a vanguard move-ment; motivated to free the people, in the name of the people. Nonetheless, Wilders claims to be exclud-ed, marginalisexclud-ed, miscomprehended and misrepresented by mainstream politics and media.

In this thesis, I will focus on the particular case of the Twitter usage of Geert Wilders, close reading several of his tweets; not in the least because the growing popularity of populist movements is increas-ingly reflected online (see e.g. Bartlett, Birdwell and Littler; Bartlett, Birdwell and de Lange). Populist parties, such as the PVV, make extensive use of social media to get their message across. Of course, many if not all political parties employ social media, but, as I shall argue later on, there are specific congruen-cies between populism and social media to be discerned. Most plainly, it is the extent to which populists seem to depend on this new medium, rather than traditional media. For many of these populist

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move-ments, the official following pales in comparison to the amount of online sympathisers and followers on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites of new media. This emergent form of online political activity seems to be a vital part of their political communication. Such a conjuncture of populism and social media has been called, among other names, ‘digital populism’ (Bartlett et al., The New Face), ‘network populism’ (Bratich), or ‘Populism 2.0’ (Gerbaudo). Gerbaudo’s term stresses the connections between a populist logic and the affordances of so-called Web 2.0 (8).4_{In what follows, I will employ this last term to}

desig-nate the particular conjunction of populism and Twitter, for, as I shall argue, this underscores the Web’s affordances—most importantly, the ideals of inclusion and participation—fundamental to a populist project.

In investigating the populist message, I will identify the relations between the form of Twitter, mode of address, trope, and affect: How does the medium of Twitter shape and influence the discursive

and rhetorical mode of populism of Geert Wilders? Populism is primarily directed at the establishment;

but could Wilders’ project be identified to be a counter-hegemonic movement, aimed at constituting a new hegemonic bloc against the elite and creating new political frontiers? If so, what new hegemony or bloc initiated by Wilders can be deduced from the particular case of his populism on Twitter, and, how does Twitter facilitate it?

In proceeding this analysis, I will do a discourse analysis by close reading a selection of tweets. Us-ing the social media monitorUs-ing programme Coosto, I narrowed down my focus by collectUs-ing data solely from Geert Wilders’ Twitter-account (under the username @geertwilderspvv). I have closely read the 358 tweets that were posted within the period from the first of May 2015, until the first of September of that same year, and selected 71 that I deemed representative of his overall political style. I opted for this particular timeframe because of the political pandemonium surrounding the so-called refugee crisis during this period. By close reading the tweets posted during this period of time, I got a sense of Wilders’ style, areas of focus and key terms. This allowed me to search within a larger timeframe of several years for specific keywords that came up during the previous selection, which drew my attention (such as ‘volk’ and ‘elite’). Out of these I have selected another 40 tweets, making up for a total data set of 111 tweets.

Research on populism and social media is scarce, but decidedly called for nonetheless.5_In

their quantitative study on what they call ‘digital populism’ in Europe, Bartlett et al. (The New Face 15) have demonstrated the importance of social media to contemporary populist sympathisers and

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party members as their primary site of protest, being one of the main ways of political engagement.6

Especially for the younger generation it has become the main platform for political engagement. This revolution in (populist) political engagement forces us to re-evaluate the contemporary populist movements and their strategies. What is this particular relation between Twitter and contemporary populism—why Twitter? Wilders makes for an representative case, not in the least because he out-spokenly rejects mainstream television or media.

In addition, Twitter offers a topical perspective of what is perceived as, and presumed to be impor-tant information—skewed, of course, by its specific user base. As much as it perhaps reveals strategies of communication, it can also disclose ideological representations, as well as more unconscious fantas-matic perceptions of the world. Social media research can expose the representational claims populists make, and the affective needs they answer to. Twitter is a magnificent source of information and propos-es an interpropos-esting way of doing a discursive analysis. The compact so-called tweets, consisting of a max-imum of 140 characters, forces the so-called tweeter (a Twitter-user) to be concise and to the point. In the case of politically informed tweets, this can often result in tough and metaphorical language, which offers a revealing perspective on the associations made, as well as the relevant context in which the con-tent of the tweet is understood.

The medium of Twitter facilitates a one-liner style of soundbite politics, which often results into hefty language and emotive rhetoric. Some would claim that this prohibits a rational debate, and a con-sensus-based democracy, others ascribe to it a salient political potential, and a means for an effective strategy of mobilisation and antagonistic propaganda. In any case, looking at the online followers and electoral success, this nascent and unorthodox presence of online populist communication has to be evaluated, and accounted for. This development raises the question to what extent such emotive and affect-laden rhetoric contributes to their success, and in what ways these modes of communication are, or can be, employed strategically.

The Rhetorical Foundations of Society and the Affective Struggle for Hegemony By starting with Wilders’ tweets as particular objects, I hope to show one element of the bigger conjunc-ture. By doing so, I set out to expose its position within the wider context of communicative capitalism— put bluntly: imagining online communication to be inclusionary and participatory—and the subjective

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and affective consequences it has. In particular, a focus on signifying practices and identification through a discourse analysis has the potential to disclose the unconscious and affective basis for the constitution of a historic bloc, in relation to its wider social and ideological context. Such a mode of conduct of

Verste-hen, to borrow a concept of Max Weber’s, has the benefit of analysing the specifics of particular tweets,

instead of providing a more generalised account of the populist phenomena and its Twitter traffic. This discourse analysis will be particularly informed by discourse theory as developed by Ernes-to Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and the Essex School. Their approach proposes a particular perspective on discourse, not only as conveying meaning verbally, but also non-verbally, through rituals, practices, by “which a certain sense of reality and understanding of society [is] constituted and maintained” (Norval, 2). Through discourse one recognises one’s place in history; it defines the mode of subjectivation. Con-sequently, discourse not only consists of text or speech, but necessarily also to praxis, unconscious de-sires and affects informed by the discursive logic that constitute them. What is more, Laclau and Mouffe emphasise the fundamental flaws, precariousness and instability of discourse. It follows that politics, meaning and identity require constant fixation and contestation, essentially depending on discourse. Ultimately, when looking for the affective, symbolic and political consistency of Wilders’ tweets, and ana-lysing the ways these tweets influence his mode of populism, discourse theory is a particularly well-suit-ed frame of reference.

Discourse theory allows for an account of (social) media and populism as discourse, accentuat-ing its production, reproduction and transformation of social reality and its libidinal economy (i.e. the satisfaction of unconscious drives and desires). It reveals political projects to be at best a struggle for identification and for the interpretation of the social. It shows us that every meaning is unstable and susceptible to change and contestation. As such it can greatly aid our understanding of Wilders’ populist project, by situating it within an existential search for representation. Moreover, discourse theory can disclose ways of contesting dominant political practice, through disrupting dominant conceptions of how politics works and what it is. It allows us to grasp modes of challenging understandings of what we are as political subjects, and it can clarify how the legitimacy and interpretation of the discursive pillars of democracy are called into question; pillars such as sovereignty, freedom and, most importantly, the definition of who the people, as a political agent, actually are, want and need.

The approach offered by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe was first laid out coherently in their seminal work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Largely influenced by such thinkers as Gramsci,

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Althuss-er, Lacan and Derrida, Laclau and Mouffe offer a conceptual toolkit to rethink issues addressed by (post-) structuralism and Marxism, such as subjectivity, signification and ideology. In an attempt to leave behind the dogmatic and deterministic thinking of vulgar Marxism, whilst remaining within Marxist discursiv-ity, they defined their approach as post-Marxist; that is to say, if it is “post-Marxist, it is evidently also post-Marxist” (Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony xxiv; emphasis in original). The post-Marxism of Laclau7

has been formalised and institutionalised in the Essex School of Discourse Analysis. Since the publica-tion of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy a lot has been written on the subject of Discourse Theory; devel-oping the school’s theory as well as applying it to empirical research.

Discourse theory resonates with what anthropologist Clifford Geertz has called ‘thick description’: the analysis of meaningful practices, considering the way they are “produced, perceived, and interpret-ed” (“Thick Description” 7). It offers the opportunity to analyse “the way in which political forces and social actors construct meanings within incomplete and undecidable structures. This is achieved by ex-amining the particular structures within which social agents take decisions and articulate hegemonic projects and discursive formations” (Howarth, 129; my emphasis). These ‘incomplete and undecidable structures’ are fundamental to Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, propelled by a desire to critique Marxism:

once it is realized that the structure of society is the product of the political interaction of competing forces― the struggle for hegemony―rather than an expression of underlying economic laws, the deterministic verities of classical Marxism (the base/superstructure metaphor, the ‘false consciousness’ model of ideology, the notion of the inevitable and implacable progressive development of the productive forces [historical necessity], class essentialism) become untenable. (Gilbert, “A Certain Ethics” 192; my emphasis)

This ‘struggle for hegemony’ is, according to Laclau, at the centre of ‘the social’ (New Reflections 91). The social is the continuous play of the contestation of dominant powers8_{on the one hand, and}

domesticat-ing that contestation to secure order on the other: “this order―or structure―no longer takes the form of an underlying essence of the social; rather, it is an attempt―by definition unstable and precarious―to act over that ‘social,’ to hegemonize it” (New Reflections 91; emphasis in original).

As expected, discourse is the main subject of discourse theory. Four related concepts are of central importance; that of articulation, discourse, element and moment.9_{Elaborating on these concepts Laclau}

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we will call articulation any practice establishing a relation among elements such that their identity is modi-fied as a result of the articulatory practice. The structured totality resulting from the articulatory practice, we will call discourse. The differential positions, insofar as they appear articulated within a discourse, we will call moments. By contrast, we will call element any difference that is not discursively articulated. (Hegemony 91; emphasis in original)

This emphasis on articulation alludes to the fundamental importance of the principle of relation and differentiation within discursive formations. An element on its own does not signify any particular meaning, rather it is a floating signifier, waiting for fixation. When it is articulated within a discursive practice, it is incorporated into an associative relation; into a chain of signifiers (or moments).

With their contention that there is nothing outside of discourse, Laclau and Mouffe criticise the base and superstructure division of Marxism (Hegemony, 93). Counterintuitively, they allude to the material character of discourse; everything we relate to is already an object of discourse, there is nothing prior to it—like an essentialist base structure. But, this is certainly not to say that discourse is a sutured totality. As a consequence of the impossibility of any totality, Laclau and Mouffe content that “‘[society]’ is not a valid object of discourse” either (Hegemony, 97).10_{Already in 1983, two years before Hegemony, Laclau}

wrote an article called “The Impossibility of Society”, calling upon the issue of the essentialisiation of so-ciety on the one hand, and of human agency on the other (New Reflections 89). Althusser’s functionalist and anti-humanist perspective for instance, saw ideology as a reproducing mechanism of society. For Althusser, the base structure determined society in the last instance, thereby fixing society as totality. On the other hand more humanist conceptions of ideology, as proposed for example by Lukács, conceive of ideology as false consciousness and alienation. Following this logic, the veil of ideology can be dissolved, and one can find its true place within history, and act accordingly.

Laclau and Mouffe criticise both these essentialist extremes, by pointing to “[the] irresoluble inte-riority/exteriority tension [as] the condition of any social practice” (Hegemony, 97). The subject as well as the social are fundamentally unfinished projects, however indispensable. There has to be something radically excluded in order for an imaginary wholeness to be perceived. This ‘constitutive outside,’ corre-sponds roughly to the Lacanian notion of extimité. This neologism points exactly to the exteriority which is at the centre of the interiority (Evans 58-59).11_{Consequently, the subject is a similar construction of}

an imaginary wholeness. The subject recognises itself, or rather misrecognises itself, in discourse.12_By

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This is what discursive articulations do, they attempt to close the gap, to fill in the void that is at the heart of meaning and representation. This project of closing the gap by such an ambivalent function, is what Laclau calls hegemony.

An understanding of the role of affect in representation and discourse will be key to my research, for it discloses the subject’s radical libidinal dependence on discourse. These affects should not be sim-ply apprehended as emotions or feelings: “If affect represents the quantum of libidinal energy, we could say that emotion results from the way it gets caught up in a network of signifiers (or ‘ideas’ in Freudian terms)” (Glynos and Stavrakakis 267; my emphasis). Such affects, as the “quantum of libidinal energy”, play a central role in political identification, but are nevertheless tied up with the Lacanian orders of the symbolic (ego-ideal), the imaginary (ideal-ego) and the Real13_{(the traumatic and transgressive excess or}

void). It would therefore be insufficient to maintain affect by itself as explanatory; instead it should al-ways be seen as a (incommensurable) relation to the Other, as well as to external objects. The traditional distinction between affect and cognition does not hold in such a perspective.

Slavoj Žižek has made this explicit with his focus on cynical reason, which, he claims, causes the subject to misrecognise its dependence on the misrecognition of the illusion: “[the] cynical subject is quite aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he none the less still in-sists upon the mask” (Sublime Object 29-30). The ‘true nature’ of one’s unconscious motivations is not concealed by naïve false consciousness. Rather, one is quite aware of this ‘ideological mask,’ but the subject needs it in order to lead a productive and meaningful life; it is this awareness which is informed, structured and made possible by unconscious, affective motivations—by the ideological mask. Counter-intuitively, it is this awareness of the illusion, which makes us all the more dependent on it, distorting the borders between cognition and affect, between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Discourse theory, coupled with Lacanian psychoanalysis, can provide vital insights into the work-ings of political articulations and their modes of address. It can reveal conscious strategies of upholding the sense of self and the social, as well as unconscious workings of (political) fantasies and its affective bindings.

Chapter Breakdown

To be able to analyse the particular relation between Twitter and populism, we first have to consider what populism is, and why Wilders is a populist. In Chapter One I will go into possible definitions of the

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term, mainly concentrating on Laclau’s conception of populism as a formal concept and as discourse: i.e. not determined by its specific content, but by its specific mode of articulation (“Populism” 44). The two central elements of populism are, according to Laclau, “the equivalential bond and the need for an inter-nal frontier” (Populist Reason 93). Through recognition a group of people can relate to each other and will start to see a common ground, emphasising the similarities and thereby constructing a collective front against the elite. Through this collective front, they will be able to confront a hegemonic project as a whole, through the construction of an internal frontier—an internal antagonism.

In close reading Wilders’ tweets, I will look at the extent to which they can be qualified as populist, and what specific configuration his political communication has. What representations does he con-struct? And, in doing so, what existing articulations is Wilders trying to break apart, and rearticulate into a new and different whole? What role does Wilders, as a ‘leader’ and self-proclaimed representative of the people, take on? To give shape to the points made, I will be zooming in on Wilders’ online attitude towards migrants and refugees—one of his primary talking points. Through the concepts of abjection and fantasy, I will maintain that the migrant plays a key role in his construction of a political imaginary.

In Chapter Two I will explain the specific relationship between Twitter and Wilders’ populism. How does the nature of the medium facilitate and shape the populist message? Why is Twitter the me-dium of choice for Wilders? In answering these questions I will take a closer look at Wilders’ attitude towards mainstream media, as well as the specific form of populist discursive practices that Twitter allows. In doing so, I will claim that investigating rhetorical tropes are vital in understanding the com-municative style of Wilders that Twitter facilitates.

In offering a possible critique on the promissory qualities of Populism 2.0 I will turn to the work of Jodi Dean. She provides a framework in which to understand contemporary media politics in an age of, what she calls, communicative capitalism. Dean points out that in post-Fordist capitalism, indus-trial labour is increasingly substituted with a communication-, entertainment- and experience-based economy, propelled by a commercial desire for collecting data. This perspective enables her to question specifically the alleged political (in Laclau’s sense as antagonistic) and democratic value of online media, by arguing that our online activities essentially reinforce a communicative capitalist network. Further-more, I will argue that Wilders’ attitude towards mainstream media is of fundamental importance in understanding his use of Twitter. How does this context shape and influence Wilders’ perspectives on the people and the elite?

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In the closing chapter I will conclude with the Hallian-inspired concern of “Learning from Wilders”: What can be observed from the analysis of Wilders’ Twitter usage, with the aim of learning from it for progressive purposes? Can we discern conscious strategies and unconscious necessities of the populist phenomenon? In the light of Laclau’s optimist attitude towards populism as emancipatory force, I will evaluate any prospects of populism. How are we to understand agency and online action in the age of communicative capitalism?

Notes

1_{According to the Twitter Statistics application Riffle, Wilders posts 4.6 tweets on average every day.}

2_{The PVV does have a significant amount of seats in Parliament, but these members of Parliament are not officially a member}

of the party.

3_{Having, at the time of writing, over 695 thousand followers, Wilders can undoubtedly be regarded as a popular tweeter. To put}

it in perspective: the official Twitter account of the Prime Minister has 639 thousand followers.

4_{Web 2.0 refers to the pervasive style of websites, characterised by ‘user-generated content’ and interactivity (Gerbaudo, 8).}

However, as Kappler and Ruiz de Querol have argued, users of social media may “prefer not to create their own agenda or content, but rather embrace others’ entertainment agendas”, not amounting to interactivity, but rather to ‘interpassivity’ (2).

5_{Despite the infrequent research being done on populism, populist communication and social media, three noteworthy}

excep-tions have to be mentioned: Groshek and Engelbert have done a “multi-methodological approach” on Sarah Palin and Geert Wilders, employed “to compare the discursive manifestation of key populism concepts” with a special focus on online media (1). Further, Nicole Ernst’s ongoing dissertation project is focused on the “usage of populist communication strategies on social media across six Western democracies” (1). Thirdly, Paolo Gerbaudo’s concept of ‘populism 2.0’ (“Populism 2.0”) works on the deployment of social media to address ‘the people.’

6_{Surveys were conducted in over 12 European countries: “In total, 12,320 people responded to our survey, ranging from 143}

returns from the supporters of the Bloc Identitaire to 2,564 from supporters of the Austrian Freedom Party. Following the re-moval of data that were either corrupt, intentionally misleading, or incomplete, a final data set of 10,667 survey responses was produced.” (Bartlett et al., The New Face of Digital Populism 17).

7_{Without neglecting the importance and contribution of Chantal Mouffe, who has played a significant role in developing their}

theory, I will mostly confine myself to the works of Laclau.

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also known as ‘historical blocs,’ stressing the relatively stable but temporary coalition of factions during a certain historical moment.

9_{In the following chapters I will italicise ‘moment’ and ‘element,’ to separate them from conventional usage.}

10_{This statement does by no means allude to a kind of Thatcherite argument, along the lines of “there is no such thing as society.}

There are individual men and women, and there are families”. The fact that society does not exist as a valid object of discourse, does not refer to the absence of its social reality. Rather, it points to the fundamental impossibility of meaning as a whole (and thus also of the “individual men and women”).

11_{One can also point to the topological figure of the moebius strip: “[while] the two terms in such oppositions [of}

inside/out-side] are often presented as radically distinct, Lacan prefers to understand these oppositions in terms of the topology of the moebius strip. The opposed terms are thus seen to be not discrete but continuous with each other.” (Evans 116).

12_{Clearly, this misrecognition does not point to a humanist conception of misrecognition. Instead, it is a fundamental}

misrecog-nition, from which one cannot escape. It is the recognition which characterises the Lacanian mirror phase, in which the infant ‘recognises’ itself, that is to say, it identifies the external image with itself. By recognising that the image is ‘I,’ a fundamental duality is inscribed between the imaginary wholeness of the self (the imago) and the uncoordinated feeling the child had before (the ‘being’ behind the image). Nevertheless, this alienation is the only possible way to come to know yourself; it is a necessary misrecognition.

13_{I will denote the Lacanian order of the Real with a capital, to distinguish between its psychoanalytic understanding vis-à-vis}

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@TheElite: listen to #ThePeople

On Wilders’ Populist Reason

What is inappropriate, is that we have a fake parliament that does not do what the people want. #put-upresistance —Geert Wilders, “Wat ongepast”; my translation.

The amount of divergent work done on populism attests to a vast array of interpretations and contexts, largely due to a difference in theoretical as well as disciplinary approaches. Any literature to be found on the subject of populism will stress its vague and contested nature, to such an extent that it risks losing any if not all import. However, it is not my intent to provide any general or all-encompassing overview of populism, nor is it to give a historical account of the emergence of Wilders’ populism. Rather, I will be looking at key signifiers in several tweets that represent Wilders’ political discourse adequately, in order to see how we can understand these particular articulations on Twitter within the literature on populism. Such a reading can be defined as what Yannis Stavrakakis has called a ‘symptomal reading,’ concentrating on signifiers (e.g. ‘the people’) and emphasising the absence of any deep essence of pop-ulism (“Religion” 230). It has to be added that such a reading does not treat poppop-ulism pejoratively, but strictly analytically—as a formal logic.

In what follows I intend to show that Wilders can—and should—be understood as a populist. More-over, I will argue that examining populism as a discourse will both prove to be revealing and useful in analysing the conjuncture of Wilders’ populism and Twitter. These perspectives allow us to go beyond the oft-quoted and commonly used definition of populism, put forward by Cas Mudde, as a “thin-centred ideology” dependent on other ‘full’ ideologies, like socialism or liberalism (544). According to Mudde, populism is

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pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people. (543; emphasis in original)

As Moffitt and Tormey note, Mudde maintains a shallow description, thereby making it too inclusive and indistinct for analytical purposes (383). Furthermore, conceiving of populism as an ideology turns a blind eye on its discursive logic as mode of identification, that is independent of its ideological content.

On Wilders’ Populist Reason

It is axiomatic that one of the central denominators of populism consists of an appeal to, and a claim of representing ‘the people.’ This claim gives the populist authority to speak on behalf of the people, in-stead of representing merely a part of the population. Let us turn to a selection of tweets of Wilders, in which he makes such an appeal to the people, as well as claims to represent them.1

They don’t get it at all in Brussels. The people want direct democracy - referendums - close the borders and less EU! (Wilders, “Ze begrijpen”; my translation)

Every party against the PVV [referring to a debate in parliament about welcoming refugees]. Let them. At least we represent the people. #putupresistance #enoughisenough (Wilders, “Iedere partij”; my translation)

Do not believe them [referring to the court’s claim to be independent and fair, during a process against his alleged racist statements]. Their verdict has already been reached. But so has the verdict of the Dutch people: PVV first! (Wilders, “Geloof ze”; my translation)

Thus far, it has become clear that, through an appeal to ‘the people’ the argument or claim is legitimised. But the signifier ‘the people’ articulated in these tweets is all but a fixed entity beyond dispute. The im-mediate question that arises is who is being referred to here. As in other tweets containing references to ‘the people,’ it remains unclear who exactly the people are. As in the last tweet, Wilders does often speak of ‘the Dutch,’ or ‘the Dutch people’ (‘de Nederlanders’ or ‘het Nederlandse volk’), making Dutch-ness an evident association with ‘the people’ to be discerned. Nevertheless, this does not define ‘the people’ any more clearly, since who or what exactly is Dutch remains rather indeterminate as well, as becomes clear in the following:

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The PVV wants to give back NL to the Dutch. Close the borders for asylum and islam,2_{out of the EU and spend} our billions here. And without Rutte [prime minister of the Netherlands]! (Wilders, “De PVV wil”; my translation)

Historical poll. 39 virtual seats. 26% of the Dutch would vote PVV now. The Netherlands want the Netherlands back! #pvvfirstplace (Wilders, “Historische peiling”; my translation)

If the Dutch must be given back the Netherlands, it appears they were deprived of it, or it was stolen from them. ‘Dutch’ is defined here not on a delineated geographical basis. It is specified negatively: ‘they’ are a people without their country.

What stands out is that every time ‘the people’ or ‘the Dutch’ are mentioned, it is in stark contrast with agencies opposing the will of the people—respectively Brussels, other political parties, the court of law, the EU or Rutte. Although this seems to confirm Mudde’s definition of populism as antagonism, I claim that his thin approach to populism does not help us understand fully how the signifier of ‘the people’ is constituted here. According to Mudde, this antagonism between a ‘pure people’ and a ‘corrupt elite’ stands at the basis of a populist appeal to the people. This, however, means that Mudde takes the concept of the people as a starting point (as he points out, even “‘the elite’ takes its identity from it” [544]), making discursive mechanisms, rhetorics and leadership (individual or conceptual) derivative. While ‘the people’ indubitably takes up a central position, his focus amounts to potential oblivion to the empty nature of ‘the people’—the lack of any settled definition—and the structural logics with which they are fixed. Mudde does not shed light on the workings and rhetorical construction of the signifier ‘the people.’ Despite the fact that Mudde does highlight the imaginary character of ‘the people,’ his goal to establish a comparative framework risks taking ‘the people’ qua signifier for granted and ignoring the dialectics of signification.

How then to explain the prevalence of such a vague concept? When turning to Ernesto Laclau, we can see that the prevalence of the use of ‘the people’ is exactly because of this vagueness. More to the point, the emptiness of the signifier is, according to Laclau, the very prerequisite of populism as a whole: “the imprecision and emptiness of populist political symbols cannot be dismissed so easily: everything depends on the performative act that such an emptiness brings about” (Populist Reason 12). To under-stand the significance of this passage we first have to go beyond the definition of populism as ideologi-cal expression and an appeal to the people. If we would stick with this definition it would be much too inclusive and noncommittal, since every politician does so to a certain extent. After all, what more is a representative democracy than politicians claiming to represent the demos? Despite of the centrality of

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the signifier ‘the people’ within populist discourse, we need other qualifiers to grasp populism. Mudde’s focus on populism as ideological expression misses the very real consequences it entails: it constructs a social reality and constitutes the unity of groups through modes of identification (Laclau, Populist

Rea-son 73).3_{In order for us to appreciate the value of Laclau’s insight into populism we first have to return}

to the antagonistic logic put forth in the above.

Laclau on Populism

In his book On Populist Reason, Laclau continued his project on populism, which has kept his interest already since 1977. By that time he stated that a “synthetic-antagonistic complex with respect to the

dom-inant ideology” is of fundamental importance to populism (Laclau, “Towards Theory” 172-3; emphasis

in original). Still after almost thirty years Laclau prolongs this centrality of antagonistic complexes

(Pop-ulist Reason 83-93). They are crucial to the constitution of pop(Pop-ulist interpellation, for they provide an

imaginary signified to the signifier of ‘the people’ and its ‘other’ through the process of association. In this light, how are we to explain the role of the vagueness and emptiness of these signifiers, identified in the abovementioned tweets? We have to turn for a moment to the semiotic bedrock of Laclau’s theory.

Following Ferdinand de Saussure, Laclau sees differentiation as fundamental to signification

(Eman-cipation(s) 37). Signifiers acquire meaning not because there is an external counterpart in ‘reality,’ but

they do so through the relations within a discursive formation. That is to say, a signifier does not have any positive ground. Rather, it acquires its meaning through signifying what it is not. In order to acquire an imaginary signified, every act of signification necessarily has to address the totality of signifiers, at least indirectly. But only through delineation and limitation can a totality be constructed, and as with every limit or delineation, something has to be outside of it. However, when this ‘outside’ would be just another difference it would be internal to the system of signification. So by definition, this externality cannot be simply a difference. The ‘outside’ has to be something radically excluded from signification, something only positive by its negation. As a consequence, all the differential elements within the sys-tem of signification become equivalent to each other due to what is radically excluded. According to La-clau, this equivalential logic is at odds with the differential logic of the signifier (Emancipation(s) 39-40). This paradox stands at the centre of signification. The excluded element is necessary for the totality of the system of signification to fix the endless sliding of signifiers,4_{but at the same time this system}

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can-not incorporate it. The entirety is thus fundamentally lacking; it is a failed totality. This Lacanian truism, that the social totality (or the big Other in Lacanian lingo) is both deficient as well as necessary, implies that the closing or saturation of this fundamental lack with so-called nodal points (or points de capiton for Lacan) is a compulsory exercise, yet doomed to fail. Representation of this impossible excluded ele-ment remains necessary even so. Representing this eleele-ment would mean to incorporate it into the logics of difference. It has to obtain this dual function: a particular difference, as well as signifying the totality; retroactively providing meaning to a chain of signifiers. This then becomes an empty signifier, a “signifi-er of a lack, of an absent totality” (Laclau, Emancipation(s) 42).

An important aspect of the ‘emptying out’ of any particular signifier is its performative dimension (Laclau, Populist Reason 97). There has to be a sense of phenomenological positivity to the empty sig-nifier, in order to constitute an equivalential logic. Just like the tropological figure of cathexis―desig-nating something that has no name of its own (like the leg of a table, or the wing of a building), thereby constructing it as a separate entity (Populist Reason 71)―the empty signifier performatively sets up the associative chain. Rather than being simply used to achieve coherence, the empty signifier is the sine qua

non of identification and the equivalential bond. The empty signifier is therefore the central element of

any stable (yet transient) and formalised hegemonic bloc. The social totality, fixed by an empty signifier, functions as a Lacanian fantasy. As Žižek explains, fantasy teaches us how to desire, and thus how to shape meaning and frame the social world (Looking Awry 6). It is through these fantasies―of which the populist fantasy of antagonism is one example―that we come to recognise our own subject-positions, our place in history.5_{It makes us experience the imaginary fullness and coherency of the social totality.}

This fantasmatic character shows the radical affective investment in the empty signifier; it functions as a Lacanian ‘objet petit a.’

Desire is installed by wanting to fill the void of signification and return to the state of Real being, an imaginary place of coherence and totality. This void feels like a lost piece, a piece which Lacan calls

objet petit a, and is therefore desperately longed for (Evans 125). This piece would bring ultimate

enjoy-ment and happiness (jouissance) by making everything whole ‘again.’ But because the break from this original Real being is the very precondition for being a desiring subject in the first place, this object a is paradoxically the cause as well as the object of desire (Evans 125). The subject will forever be on a quest to find this unfathomable lost piece, but it will continue to have sliding guises and meanings. Every step closer to the definite object of desire results into a feeling of ce n’est pas ça. The empty signifier functions

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as such an object- cause of desire. Meaning has to be emptied out, it has to remain open for divergent interpretations and identifications in order for it to establish a chain of equivalences, but at the same time it needs a sense of a particular meaning for it to be a credible and reachable ideal. It is the desire for this element that reveals the radical affective investment into these signifiers, and, at the same time, also shows its fundamental instability and temporality. The more elements (a particular difference not yet articulated) are linked together by the empty signifier, the more the empty signifier becomes emptied, weakened and fragile. This weakness, however, does strengthen the relation between elements, because via the empty signifier more and more elements come to signify the same fantasy; to such an extent that every moment (incorporated elements) can stand in for the whole (Reyes, 112).

Associating the People

So why is this theoretical exegesis of our concern? We have already discerned the central role of ‘the people’ and its antagonistic makeup. We can now see the importance for this antagonism, for it consti-tutes a ‘radically outside.’ By identifying an ‘other’ (or rather: a series of others, unified under an empty signifier), solidarity between the ones allegedly oppressed by this ‘other’ is initiated. Such an ‘other’ can coalesce very divergent demands or particular oppressions merely by its opposition to ‘the people.’ When these demands are not met, or when these particular oppressions are not being addressed, the possibility of solidarity arises, by recognising each other’s common ground: their shared enemy. A popu-lar identity offers a new fantasy, a symbolic frame in which to understand the lacks one may experience, but could not put a name to before. The constitutive naming of the antagonistic relation between ‘the people’ and its ‘other’ does not simply unite divergent demands, it retroactively shapes them, and appro-priates and redefines hegemonic signifiers (Reyes, 106).

But, as I have argued, neither ‘the people’ nor the ‘other’ can be purely empty. There have to be par-ticular equivalences and associations articulated for both these empty signifiers for it to acquire a sense of positive ground―an imaginary signified―and secure the antagonistic relation. As I pointed out in the introduction, Laclau and Mouffe have defined ‘articulations’ as the establishment of a relation between

elements, “such that their identity is modified as a result of the articulatory practice” (91). In what

fol-lows we have to look at the articulation of demands and particular signifieds of the ‘other’ (which are, as we have seen, just relations with other signifiers), of metonymical associations, to see how ‘the people’ is defined antagonistically.

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Let us take a look at the following tweets:

Greece/EU/asylum-seekers/islam/pensions/healthcare: NL wants something else. It is time for a - political - rev-olution!! (Wilders, “Griekenland/EU”; my translation)

Key points of the PVV election manifesto: - Master in our own country again - deislamise - closed borders, scum out - billions to the ordinary Dutch man/woman. (Wilders, “Kern PVV-verkiezingsprogr”; my translation)

Ok here’s the deal: NL out of the EU. islam out of the Netherlands. Rutte out of het Torentje [the official office of the Dutch Prime Minister]. Clear the decks. NL free, safe and sovereign again. (Wilders, “Ok hier”; my translation)

We can clearly indicate the plurality of demands put forth here. Especially in the first tweet, we can see a clear association of divergent demands. The apparent claim made is that what ties these demands together is that they are all popular demands, not being dealt with by those in power―most plainly em-bodied by Prime Minister Rutte. On that account, the elite denies a “free, safe and sovereign” Dutch socie-ty. The people recognising themselves in this lack of freedom, safety and sovereignty, will become aware of the contingency and deficiencies of the hegemonic order and its discursive structures, by accusing the elite of denying them their full identity.

This corresponds to the category of ‘dislocation.’ In elaborating Laclau’s theorisation of this catego-ry, David Howarth writes that dislocations are those “events that cannot be symbolized or represented within a discourse, and thus disrupt and destabilize orders of meaning” (132). Hegemonic notions of freedom, safety and sovereignty provided by the dominant ideology legitimise those in power (largely articulated within a technocratic and neoliberal discourse), but are appropriated and rearticulated, sig-nifying exactly what is lacking. The demands made (e.g. leaving the EU, or dispelling Islam) are directly associated with these notions of freedom, safety and sovereignty. At once, these notions become the ultimate reason for the demands, and vice versa. As Howarth adds, this “‘decentring’ of the structure [...] shatters already existing identities and interests, and literally induces an identity crisis for the subject” (109). This then becomes the basis for a new, popular identity, compelling the subject to act―i.e. to vote for Wilders.

The signifiers ‘freedom,’ ‘safety’ and ‘sovereignty’ come to function as nodal points, connecting the divergent demands made and constructing an ‘other’ that is not responding to these demands. Their popular identity is denied to prosper fully. This ‘other’ figures prominently in many tweets:

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If approximately two thirds of the voters say no [referring to a referendum on a European trade agreement with Ukraine] then that also is a vote of no-confidence of the people against the elite from Brussels and The Hague. (Wilders, “Als zo’n tweederde”; my translation)

Voted! AGAINST! [again, referring to the referendum] Today the Netherlands can win back a part of their sover-eignty from the Brussels and The Hague elite. #voteagainst (Wilders, “Gestemd!”; my translation)

Rutte: our own people last. [referring to extra housing for refugees] (Wilders, “Rutte: eigen”; my translation)

Wilders’ usage of the signifier ‘elite’ in these tweets is grounded in firm anti-establishment rhetoric. In-dividuals like Prime Minister Rutte are named and shamed every so often, but mostly the assault against the elite remains comprised of general metonymic entities like ‘Brussels’ and ‘The Hague,’ signifying the centres of power and hence the coalition of ruling forces. In a previous mentioned tweet, we can also dis-cern a certain untrustworthiness of the court of law (“Their verdict has already been reached”, referring to, what some commentators have called, a political trial concerning Wilders’ alleged racist utterances). This suggests that these different entities are all in collusion; a conspiracy against the general will of the people. In light of the trias politica principle, accusing the judiciary power to be part of one and the same elite seriously calls into question the ‘sovereignty’ and ‘freedom’ of the people under the felonious and illegitimate ruling of the elite. This is only further emphasised by accusing the elite of betrayal and of being a “fake parliament”:

1000 extra houses for refugees. And Dutch people can wait for years. We are being betrayed by the elite #put-upresistence (Wilders, “1000 extra”; my translation)

What is inappropriate, is that we have a fake parliament that does not do what the people want. #putupre-sistance (Wilders, “Wat ongepast”; my translation)

The PVV-haters are getting nervous. Fact: the parliament ignores the people, which is why the Netherlands now has a #fakeparliament (Wilders, “De PVV-haters”; my translation)

These claims contribute to a growing gap between the Dutch plain folk and the unlawful, self-sustaining elite who does not represent the people and stand in the way of ‘freedom’ and ‘sovereignty.’

In addition, the many pleas for resistance and revolution to be found in Wilders’ tweets amount to a discourse of revolt and struggle against some Manichean evil that must be fought; an antagonistic

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discourse par excellence. This is also apparent in these tweets:

Press conference of our new group Europe of Nations and Freedom (EFN) in the European Parliament. #Dday #fightback (Wilders)

PVV consistently at number 1. 37 seats! 15 March 2017 [day of national elections]: D-day We will give the Neth-erlands back to the Dutch (Wilders; my translation; my emphasis)

Especially the hashtags #putupresistance [#kominverzet] and #Dday will resonate in Dutch national memory, for they have the strong connotation of the resistance against the Nazis during WWII. Such as-sociations emphasise the oppressive nature and immoral intentions of the elite, and even provoke a war-like atmosphere. It is the marginalised plain folk against the powerful and malicious establishment―a call for direct action to “#fightback”.

Wilders sets himself apart from the elite’s ‘fake parliament,’ by his appropriation of the voice of the plain folk. In doing so, he puts himself on the side of the marginalised and ignored plain folks, not being a conventional―i.e. corrupt―politician. As Francisco Panizza notes, such a political figure “appears as an ordinary person with extraordinary attributes” (21). This is in line with what Theodor Adorno has called the “great little man.” The image of the leader (in his case the Führer) as “great little man”, Adorno explains, suggests omnipotence, as well as being “just one of the folks” (“Freudian Theory” 142). This ‘great little man’ is at once someone close to ‘us, plain folks’ and as a result someone ‘we all’ can identify with. But at the same time, the leader takes up the position of the ego-ideal, the subject’s ultimate (but unconscious) goal of perfection. Following Freud’s analysis of group psychology, Adorno points to the unconscious processes of identification with other members of the group, but above all with the leader. The appealing character of the leader can then be recognised to be an idealisation answering the libidi-nal needs (or rather, the experienced lacks) of the masses (Adorno, “Freudian Theory” 140).

The leader is thus imagined to be a ‘great man’ too, a man with extraordinary knowledge, a van-guard, believed to have solutions and answers to the experienced lack of freedom, sovereignty and safe-ty―someone who can make society whole again, and, in Wilders’ case, can make the Netherlands great again. This projected possession of ultimate knowledge corresponds to what Lacan has called the ‘sub-ject supposed to know.’ Just like the analyst in psychoanalytic treatment, the leader is presumed to know the proper treatment: the answers to the lack of freedom, sovereignty and safety; answers his followers believed existed, but did not see yet themselves. More sharply put, the leader gives imaginary content to

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what is lacking―remaining inescapably ambiguous nevertheless. Because of that, the leader (or rather, the figure of the leader) comes to function himself as a nodal point. By loving the (image of the) leader, one loves not only oneself, but also one’s fellow brothers/sisters, and above all one’s nation. By project-ing this ego-ideal onto this external image, the follower is able to dispose of one’s personal grievances and lack of a sense of self (Adorno, “Freudian Theory” 140).

By suggesting Wilders can remove the barriers to freedom and sovereignity and give the Nether-lands back to the Dutch, this ‘great little man’ secures the fantasy that it is not the other that constitutes our popular identification, but a reified identity waiting to be fully developed. Wilders speaks for the peo-ple, suggesting his direct relation with them, but at the same time he retroactively shapes their demands by claiming the authority to voice them.

In all the above quoted tweets, Wilders claims the authority to speak for the people, and tells the world what the people want. Especially in the tweets quoted about the demands he makes, he claims the authority to say exactly what it is that the people demand. This claim to authority becomes apparent in the following as well:

Nobody will silence me. The truth must be told. (Wilders, “Niemand zal”; my translation)

If I become Prime Minister, I will give back the Netherlands to the Dutch (Wilders, “Als ik Minister-President”; my translation)

I will continue with lots of energy, because terror may never win! (Wilders, “Ik zal doorgaan”; my translation)

In the first tweet, we can see the exceptional position Wilders attributes to himself. He is the person to tell the truth. The second tweet reveals that Wilders deems himself to be the person to give the Neth-erlands back to the Dutch. The last tweet attests to a similar attitude; he claims to have the solution to terror, a solution the elite does not prescribe. This combination of at once claiming to have the solution, as well as voicing the people’s demands, is what makes Wilders an exemplary ‘great little man’-figure.

The Horrific Other

We can safely assume that Wilders’ articulations on Twitter qualify as a populist discourse. We can even argue that Wilders is a populist figure par excellence. I have approached Wilders’ Twitter articulations

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primarily in the light of populism’s ontological―as opposed to its ontic―dimensions. Laclau uses these Heideggerian terms “to differentiate between two aspects: the ontological role of discursively construct-ing social division and the ontic content which, in certain circumstances, plays that role” (Populist

Rea-son 87; my emphasis). In other words, ontology is about structural function, about the formal logics of

discourse, the impossibility of society, and antagonism as the foundation for populist identifications―in short, the political as a whole; whereas the ontic refers to the particular, temporary and contingent ar-ticulations.

In what remains I will zoom in on a particular moment in Wilders’ articulations. I will focus on a specific ontic dimension of his populist discourse―a specific element of its ideological content: the figures of the Islamic migrant, refugee, fortune hunter and that of the asylum seeker. Although I have not yet talked about this specific moment, this subject is ubiquitous nonetheless. Because I encountered this

moment far more than any other, it urges further analysis on the distinct rhetoric surrounding it and its

role within Wilders’ discourse as a whole. Let us first take a look at these telling cases in point:

Fortune hunters refuse aid packages because not halal. Unbelievable. Send them all back! @stoptheislamicinva-sion (Wilders, “Gelukszoekers”; my translation)

We don’t want inflatable boats, no refugees and no quran. Send everything + everyone back fast! @stopasy-lumtsunami (Wilders, “We willen”; my translation)

An invasion of islamic fortune seekers is taking place and the cabinet sets up a work and chat group. #resign (Wilders, “Er vindt”; my translation)

The first thing that is conspicuous is the association made between Islam, refugees and fortune seekers. Together with the signifier Islam (or related signifiers such as Muslim), the signifier migrant (or related signifiers such as fortune seeker) occurs more often than any other topic in Wilders’ tweets: out of the 1,878 tweets Wilders posted in two years, 270 contain the words ‘Islam,’ ‘Muslim’ or ‘Quran,’ and 399 contain the words ‘migrant,’ ‘refugee,’ ‘fortune seeker,’ ‘asylum seeker’ or ‘borders.’6_{We can thus assume}

without hesitation that the subjects of Islam as well as immigration are of primary concern to Wilders. Most often when Wilders tweets about immigration, as with the above-quoted tweets, it is in association with Islam:

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true nature of islam. #attack [#aanslag] (Wilders, “Het zal”; my translation)

Millions [of refugees] are yet to come. It will get much much worse. The borders have to be closed NOW! #is-lamicinvasion (Wilders, “Er komen”; my translation)

200,000 [refugees] extra each month. #stoptheislamicinvasion (Wilders, “200.000”; my translation)

Stop the islamic invasion. Give the billions spent on asylum to health care, pensions, security of our own people! (Wilders, “Stop the”)

We must destroy the islamic state but also stop islamic immigration in order not to become islamic states our-selves. (Wilders, “We must”)

Here we can identify Islam to be a nodal point: the ultimate reason to be against immigration. It links up the different elements of the migrant, refugee, asylum seeker and fortune seeker, by associating it with Islam. The signifier ‘Islam’ retroactively gives a particular significance to these elements; it describes in what light these figures should be understood, and, more importantly, why to fear them.7_This

articula-tion is then coupled with the metaphors of a “tsunami” and of “invasion”. Such tropes suggest a threat― even a mortal danger―to be feared, that is not to be taken lightly:

With their open borders politics Merkel and Rutte are threatening the survival of our culture and our country. Weak and gutless leaders. Close the borders! (Wilders; my translation)

Here Wilders states that the threat is caused by the elite who do not act adequately to the invasion of mi-grants. What is more, he insinuates that their “open borders politics” is imposed on the people, against their will:

Even more refugees. Against the will of the people. The elite plays with fire. #closetheborders (Wilders; my translation)

This threat to “the survival of our culture and our country” signifies a threat posed by immigrants to the popular identity of the people, described in the above. But at the same time, it is the elite who is the actual facilitator of this threat:

Muslim terrorists to Europe by boat. Soon even more, thanks to Frans Timmermans [then Minister of Foreign Affairs], ISIS-facilitator (Wilders; my translation)

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This poses the question of what exactly this role of the immigrant is, since the antagonistic pole is still articulated around the elite. The (Islamic) immigrant may be articulated as the ultimate threat to the marginalisation of the people and their culture, but it is the elite who has supposedly precipitated this threat to be there in the first place.

How are we then to understand the difference between these two threatening elements? Is the trope of a tsunami of immigration simply a demand amongst the others? Or should we understand it as the very basis of the antagonistic articulation; as an ‘other’ on the same level as the elite, only then from the outside, instead of the inside? I claim that the figure of the immigrant and the trope of a tsunami are not so easily understood within the above outlined framework. To illustrate the complexity of the posi-tion of the Islamic migrant, I will turn to a psychoanalytic theory of abjecposi-tion and the abject as proposed by Julia Kristeva. She provides a way to see how the migrant is included by their exclusion. I will argue that these notions enrich our comprehension of the different parts the immigrant as ‘other’ plays,

vis-à-vis the elite, and its affective consequences. To see these consequences, we have to take a short

theoret-ical detour.

The Stranger within Ourselves

In Powers of Horror, Kristeva develops the Lacanian genesis of the subject. She looks at the way in which the body is separated from the mother in order to become a subject. Before the child has learned to sub-limate its primal/maternal desire though external objects, the child must expel and repress this primal desire of being one with the (m)Other,8_{and differentiate it with an ‘I’ (Felluga). In supplementing Lacan’s}

theory, Kristeva adds a key phase in the formation of the subject, typified by the mechanism of abjection. To install a ‘clean and proper’ body, the child has to expel all that is necessary to install a demarcated ‘I’ (in order to ‘ex-ist,’ outside of the [m]Other); whether this is the mother (or rather, the maternal function), one’s faeces or bodily fluids, or “whatever threatens the nascent distinctness of the infant’s body and ego (or broader systems of difference and distinction, generally)” (Hook, 691). It has to abject the Real of his own body and displace it with projections onto an ‘other,’ provoking disgust, in order to achieve autonomy (Coats, 140). This abjection functions as an attempt to set up clear-cut borders of the body, of identity and of the symbolic as a whole. It is essentially about creating a division between the inside and outside.

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Unlike the conscious desire of objects, however, the abject is repressed into the unconscious. The abject provokes disgust and uneasiness, but cannot be registered by the subject’s psychic reality directly, for it reminds us of the lack, the inaugural loss which has set our subjectification and desire in motion. Kristeva states that the abject is neither seen as a subject, nor as an object, rather it “has only one quality of the object―that of being opposed to I” (1). The abject, she continues, is a “jetissoned object, […] radi-cally excluded [which] draws me towards the place where meaning collapses” (2). The abject continually threatens to collapse the borders between inside and outside. The abject is a remainder of that which is cast out to form the subject, so that there is a permanent lack in signifying this remainder. In fact, as Karen Coats notes, the abject must stay at a safe distance by giving it a place outside of the functioning of the symbolic; i.e. outside of meaning (141): “[the] more or less beautiful image in which I behold or recognize myself rests upon an abjection that sunders it as soon as repression, the constant watchman, is relaxed” (Kristeva, 13). The abject has to remain repressed in order to keep up the ‘purification’ of the body and the differentiation from the Other. The abject is thus an inherently unstable and fragile border between the inside and the outside. It is what makes us recognise the Lacanian lacks, gaps and nothing-ness of the subject and of meaning. It is “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite” (Kristeva, 4).

In line with Laclau’s constitutive outside, Coats argues that the constitution of a ‘clean and proper’ imaginary community and nation also needs a clear cut differentiation of an inside and outside (141). In the same way as the imaginary ego is constructed through the abject, the imaginary popular community is similarly constructed by the abject. However, Kristeva’s account of the abject emphasises its funda-mental affective nature of anxiety, disgust and feeling of threat. With Laclau we can state that abjection is an ontological function of the subject and of a collective fantasy as a whole. This means that its ontic dimension, its ideological image, is historically contingent. Furthermore, the fact that it can neither be an object, nor a subject, entails, in the words of Derek Hook, that the abject “is something like the vacancy behind the object, the object’s shadow” (688). Much like Laclau’s radically excluded, the abject can only be present in its absence. The abject is projected onto an ‘other’: it is the subject’s disavowal of its fun-damental dependence on what is radically excluded. It is the externalisation of the otherness within one-self, thereby changing the objectless and misdirected anxiety into an articulated and guided fear. This ‘other’ therefore is perceived as a radical alterity provoking fear. Parallel to the empty signifier, the abject can only be represented by fantasmatic conceptions, which can only remain abstract and indefinite. Like

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the empty signifier, the abject is fundamental to any fantasy and its subject-positions. With both, the only way to give shape to them, is through any number of contingent fantasmatic embodiments―to name the unnamable and unknowable excluded element. What is important to stress is that the ontology of abjection is pre-symbolic; it only comes to be represented as the abject in symbolic terms. The abject can take positive forms, but these forms are mere symptoms of the pre-symbolic, unconscious mechanism of abjection. These symptoms remind the subject of the uncanny emptiness of abjection. The representa-tions of the abject are expelled unconsciously by feelings of disgust and fear. Nonetheless, these concrete representations are needed in order to keep up a coherent notion of the self and identity, by keeping the symptoms of the abject at a distance.

But the abject differs significantly from the empty signifier. Indeed, we can argue that in many ways it is its counterpart, or even its precondition: the instigation of the lacking subject through abjection makes possible the constitution of an equivalential logic through an empty signifier, for it enables the subject to identify itself with the big Other. What is more, the abject strengthens the antagonistic rela-tion with the elite, by being articulated as the ultimate unsatisfied demand of the people. So whereas the empty signifier keeps up the fantasy by strong identification, the abject keeps up the fantasy exactly by disidentification and by pushing it away. Every empty signifier, I claim, necessarily has to have a collec-tive abject projection as its counterpart, for it to create a popular identity.

The Flooding of the People

Kristeva’s insights assist us in re-evaluating the figure of the Islamic migrant vis-à-vis that of the elite (qua empty signifier) in Wilders’ discourse. We have seen that the assault on the elite is for the most part directed at their neglect of migrant-related issues. Whereas the elite is the people’s antagonist proper, the figure of the immigrant is the Real threat to the popular identity. On the one hand this xenophobic attitude justifies and strengthens the people’s opposition to the elite, but on the other it functions as a political frontier all on its own. It is not the elite itself that forms the antithesis to a Dutch people’s iden-tity, but rather its neglect of the general will of the people, epitomised by the (Islamic) immigration that the elite facilitates. Although, conceivably, the figure of the elite could readily coincide with the abject figure, I want to argue that, seeing the continual emphasis in Wilders’ discourse on the threat that the invasion and tsunami of Islamic migrants poses, this abject position is inhabited by the Islamic migrant.

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This can be illustrated by a telling cartoon tweeted by Wilders himself [figure 1.1].The flood of Islam portrayed here, suggests first of all a massive threat of collapsing the borders of “Western Civilization”. It is precisely the destruction of the frontiers between inside and outside that is depicted here, causing cracks and holes out of which a fluid substance (much like the jettisoned bodily fluids) starts to overflow and disrupt ‘our identity’ until one giant sea of sheer abjectness remains, closing the gap between the in-side and the outin-side. Consequently, one would become one with the Other and would slide into an abyss of meaning. The portrayal of Islam as a massive fluid entity, ready to suffocate ‘us westerners,’ highlights the elusive character of the figure of the Islamic migrant, a primal characteristic of abjection.

What is more, the wall shown in the cartoon, there to keep out Islam, is what symbolises “Western civilization”. This chimes well with the fact that it is the mechanism of abjection that enables a ation between inside and outside, permitting symbolic identifications to emerge. The wall, as differenti-ation, is, paradoxically, the prerequisite of the defended identity in the first place. This symbolisation of “Western civilization” illustrates perfectly the instable construct of identity as ‘in-betweenness’; some-thing on the border between that what is inside and what is outside, dependent on the frontier with the radically excluded abject.

The tropes of a flood, tsunami or invasion indicate possible ways to conceive of the abject figure, suggesting actuality whilst remaining an indeterminate and abstract projection. The difference between the cartoon’s portrayal of Islam and Muslims becomes salient. On the one hand the Islam is unmistakably symbolised by the intangible flood behind the wall, but on the other hand there is a group of supposed

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Muslims depicted as well. They are assaulting Wilders from the inside, at the same time as they are all endangered by the flood. The illustration of Muslims as a violent mob is thus not exactly the same as the Islam threatening the borders with collapse. They only seem to be a threat by attacking Wilders who is trying to keep out the intimidating force that is there. This attests to the ambivalence in portraying the abject. Here Islam is seen apart from those practicing it, while evidently being associated with each other. The violent mob seems to be a concrete way to relate to the threat that is behind the borders, al-though they are not completely it. The Islam is the Real abject, only perceivably by relating to it indirectly and abstractly. At once the abject comes to stand in for the unsymbolisable radically excluded, and as a concrete symbolised moment articulated within the populist fantasy as well.

Wilders’ tweets reveal another striking way such an ambivalent position is expressed, by putting migrants in numerals:

26,000 euros per asylum seeker. So: close the borders. Send the boats back. Every one of them. (Wilders, “26.000 euro”; my translation)

The costs of asylum seekers in 2014: € 867 million each year. THAT IS € 36,000 FOR EACH ASYLUM SEEKER EACH YEAR! Madness! #closetheborders (Wilders, “Kosten asielzoekers”; my translation)

Bam [hoppa] and now the VVD spends € 10 millions on illegal immigrants again! #throwthemoutofthecountry-andgivethatmoneytoourelders (Wilders, “Hoppa”; my translation)

These three tweets (I could have selected numerous others) represent the immigrant on the basis of what they cost. Such calculations enable the symbolisation of the unnameable and are a way to relate to and to account for the abject. In this way the migrant as abject can be defined in a concrete form, while remaining at bay. What is more, the metaphor of numerals, and specifically amounts of money, reduces the migrant to the ahistorical abstractness and emptiness of numerals. It dehumanises the migrant; a fundamental prerequisite of the abject. This makes it all the more easier to keep up the abjection of the migrant and as a result the totality of the populist fantasy. In addition, the migrant becomes a choice of consumption. It becomes a rational decision to keep them at a safe distance. This contributes to the sym-bolisation of the unconscious force that is abjection; the disavowal of the need of the abject to maintain identity.

E-magining #ThePeople: On Geert Wilders and the Promises of Twitter’s Populist Reason