University of Amsterdam ‘English: Language and Society’ Master Thesis ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Italians First’: a comparative Critical Discourse Analysis of two right-wing populist discourses on Twitter Student: Alessia Sanghez Student Number: 11631325 Supervisor: Manon van der Laaken Academic Year 2017/2018 Index 1. Introduction 5 2. Theoretical framework 9 2.2 The socio-political background of U.S. and Italy 13 2.2.1 America First 13 2.2.2 Italy First 16 2.3 The power of political slogans in the hashtag era 18 2.4 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Social Media 21 3. Methodology 23 3.1 Critical Discourse Analysis approaches 25 4. Analysis 31 4.1. Analysis, part 1: Analysis of ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Italians First’ tweets 31 4.1.1. Categorization 31 4.1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Make America Great Again ‘ and ‘Italians First’ tweets 33 4.2.1. Analysis, Part 2: Analysis of Trump and Salvini’s anti-immigration rhetoric 53 4.2.2. Analysis of Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric 53 4.2.3 Analysis of Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration rhetoric 58 5. Discussion and Conclusions 63 References 69 4 1. Introduction In recent years, the upsurge of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe and beyond has drawn the attention of many scholars and politicians (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017) to the number of ‘discursive shifts’ that has affected media and public discourses (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017; see also Feldman and Jackson 2013; Muller 2017; Wodak et al. 2013; Wodak 2003, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017). As Wodak (2017) notes, the Eurobarometer Poll in Autumn 2015 indicated a general feeling of disillusionment all over EU towards the European institutions (Standard Eurobarometer, 2015, 84). The origin of people’s distrust can be dated back to 2008, when a global and European crisis affected the international situation on many fronts: economic crisis, Euro-zone crisis, refugee crisis, terroristic attacks. These last two issues, in particular, have fostered “an ethno-nationalist sentiment in many European countries” and beyond (e.g. in the United States, among others) (Richardson & Colombo, 2014; Bartlett et. al., 2012 on Hungary; Bartlett et. al., 2012 on Lega Nord). Many people believe that the phenomenon of immigration is the primary channel through which Islamic terrorism finds its gateway; at the same time, they have lost trust in the EU and their own national administrations which are considered not to be concerned enough about these problems (Richardson & Colombo, 2014). This climate of political unsteadiness has encouraged the gradual appearance of right wing populists and extreme right parties: “new and self-defined saviors of ‘the people’[…] present themselves as authentic and trustworthy […] in contrast to the untrustworthy political classes, perceived (and presented)1 by them as having failed” (Wodak, 2017; see also Hochschild 2016; Krzyżanowski and Wodak, 2009; Pelinka, 2013; Wodak, 2015). After the re-election of Victor Orban in Hungary in 2010, the success of the Polish right- wing populist ‘Law and Justice Party’, and the popularity of Recep Tayyp Erdogan in Turkey, both the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump and the so-called ‘Brexit’ generated a feeling of anxiety among mainstream political institutions (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017), whose attention was then addressed towards those countries where the emergence of RWPPs coincided with the period of national elections. This is the case in Austria whose right-wing populist 1 Emphasis mine. 5 Austrian Freedom Party was expected to win the elections in December 2016, and the Netherlands where RWP politician Geert Wilders was considered one of the key candidates of March 2017. Even though these populist characters eventually lost against pro-Europe and more liberal figures, “the RWP election saga is far from over” (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017). On March 4, Italy held a general election which was represented in the media - e.g. Financial Times - as another political test for the EU (see Sanghez, 2018). One of the key candidates of the election was Matteo Salvini, secretary of the ‘Lega’ (League), whose anti- immigration, anti-Europe and anti-establishment rhetoric was accompanied and represented by his slogan ‘Prima gli Italiani’ (Italians first), which became viral both on Twitter and Facebook (Sanghez, 2018). Not only have the elections shown that the League is the most popular party within the right-wing coalition (the League obtained 13% more of votes compared to the elections of 2013), they have demonstrated that the left-wing coalition has definitively lost the approval of the Italian people. The most voted party has resulted to be ‘Movimento 5 Stelle’ (M5S) - the Five Star Movement, a populist party which has no political flag, guided by Luigi di Maio. These two parties together have formed the so-called ‘Governo del cambiamento’ (‘government of change’) whose Prime Minister is Giuseppe Conte (M5S), and vice-presidents are Matteo Salvini and Luigi di Maio, respectively also Home Secretary and Minister of Labor. Even though scholars have affirmed that any expression of right-wing populism is “necessarily different” and must be approached in a context-dependent way, Wodak and Krzyżanowski (2017) note that ‘standardized models’ have emerged, such as ‘Orbanism’ or ‘Trumpism’. While the first one refers to nationalist and collectivistic versions of populism, the US-American ‘Trumpism’ came to indicate a form of populism characterized by the presence of a charismatic leader who presents himself – especially through the use of Social Media - as the savior of the country, fostering a politics of nationalism, protectionism, “our country first” and border security. Many of these Trumpist characteristics can be observed in the political campaign of the Italian politician Matteo Salvini who has personally declared his affiliation with the political project of the 45th President of the United States. In this sense, the so-called Trumpist model can function as a starting point for a comparative investigation, where Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populism is the second element of the analysis. Wodak and Krzyżanowski (2017) analyze the Trumpist model as a well-established type of populism, so searching for differences and similarities between the American and the 6 Italian variants of RWP may provide significant insights into the populist phenomenon at a global level; in particular into how Western countries (Italy, in this case, where right-wing- populist Matteo Salvini has become Home Secretary) are integrating foreign populist discourses (the American one, in this case), while developing their own national rhetoric. As both politicians have shown high skills in exploiting ‘the alternative public sphere of the web’ - in particular through the use of Social Media (Kreis, 2017; Sanghez, 2018) - the current thesis uses Twitter as the area of investigation of Salvini and Trump’s discourses. According to Wodak (2015) social platforms represent the ideal space for right-wing populists to express their rhetoric relying on the right-wing populist perpetuum mobile: namely a discursive style that includes an intentional and regular provocation of scandals, the dynamics of victimization and the launching of conspiracy theories, exploited by politicians to represent themselves as saviors. These particular discursive features characterizing the RWP way of elaborating imageries and ideologies is also indicated by Wodak (2017) as the representation of a ‘post-truth’ world in which extremely vague and provocative arguments are presented in a way that make them immune to any approval or denial. For example, Twitter has been widely used both by Trump and Salvini as a means to mobilize their voters during their political campaign, and their main slogans ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Italians First’ have been posted numerous times on their Twitter pages. Their political discourses on Twitter also included their anti-immigration rhetoric, an important part both of their political campaign as well as of their political discourse in general. Thus, considering that (a) both Trump and Salvini’s election campaigns have been characterized by the viral use of political slogans throughout public speeches and the media with a particular concentration on social platforms, and as (b) both politicians include anti- immigration rhetoric in their political discourses, the aim of the current thesis is to apply several approaches to CDA in order to: (a) investigate and compare Donald J. Trump and Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populist variants through the study of their ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Italians First’ tweets and (b) investigating and comparing their anti-immigration discourses on Twitter. As the main goals of Critical Discourse Analysis include studying how ideologies and identities are reproduced in discourse (Van Dijk, 2015; Fairclough, 2001), and considering that right-wing populist discourses always appeal to a sharp ideological division between ‘us’ and 7 ‘them’ (Mudde, 2004; Wodak, 2017), the current research aims at exploring from different perspectives the societal differentiation promoted by the American and the Italian right-wing- populist variants in order to give a contribution to the existing literature on the 21st century right- wing populist phenomenon. 8 2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Right Wing Populism (RWP) Even though RWP has grown in popularity over the last few years, it has a long history, dating back to the 1970s when Marine Le Pen created the Front National, or to the 1980s and 1990s when, while in Austria Jorg Haider was the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, in Italy the era of Silvio Berlusconi was just at its beginning (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017). Today, the political scenario of Western societies shows several examples of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs). The political landscapes of Poland, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, USA and Germany have seen the emergence of right-wing populist factions. Even though scholars argue that each variant of RWP is different and context-dependent (Wodak and Krzyżanowski, 2017) some general features can be attributed to all the expressions of RWP.