Attractive or repellent? How right-wing populist voters respond to figuratively framed anti-immigration rhetoric

1 Introduction

Right-wing populism is on the rise in Western Europe. Over the years, right-wing populist parties like the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the British UK Independence Party (UKIP) have become important political players (McDonnell and Werner, 2017). In a broad sense, populism can be defined as an ideology that separates society into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups: ‘the people’ and the ‘corrupt elite’, who fail to express the will of ‘the people’ (Mudde, 2017). For right-wing populism, this ‘thin’ populist ideology is combined with nationalism (De Cleen, 2017). Many right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) present outsiders and immigrants as threats to their nation’s identity, culture, and economic interests and blame established political elites for favoring the interests of outsiders over the rights of their presumed ‘own people’ (De Cleen, 2017; Ivarsflaten, 2008).

The rhetoric employed by RWPPs is considered important in fueling their electoral successes (Matthes and Schmuck, 2017). Right-wing populist (RWP) rhetoric has been characterized by the use of strong, vivid anti-immigration metaphors and hyperboles (Boeynaems, Burgers, and Konijn, 2021; Kalkhoven, 2015). RWP rhetoric likely appeals to their voters’ prior convictions, especially anti-immigration grievances, present among specific parts of the electorate (Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese, 2018; Rydgren, 2008). Through their rhetoric, RWPPs can further foster feelings of discontent and impact political opinions of susceptible voters (Bos, van der Brug, and de Vreese, 2013; Krämer, 2014).

According to the ‘fueling discontent argument’ (Rooduijn, van der Brug, and de Lange, 2016), political discontent and exposure to (right-wing) populist messages can mutually reinforce each other over time. In this study, we add an extra component to the ‘fueling discontent argument’ and propose that the persuasive impact of figuratively framed RWP rhetoric depends on the strength with which voters identify with an RWPP. Voters who strongly identify with an RWPP might have developed an anti-immigration stance that does not need to be fueled further by populist metaphors and hyperboles: Their political opinion already strongly resembles RWP ideas (Berning and Schlueter, 2016; Westfall, Van Boven, Chambers, and Judd, 2015). Political opinions of voters who feel weakly attached to an RWPP, however, are likely more susceptible to the persuasive impact of RWP rhetoric (Druckman, Peterson, and Slothuus, 2013; Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese, 2017): There is still room for RWP rhetoric to fuel RWP ideas. Hence, we assume that voters who strongly identify with an RWPP respond differently to RWP rhetoric than those who identify weakly.

While RWPP voters have been subject to scholarly and public debates about the rising success of RWPPs, no experimental research has yet tested how they actually respond to RWP rhetoric. We report on an experiment in which we tested (a) how RWPP voters react to anti-immigration rhetoric, (b) how RWPP-identification strength is related to support for RWP policy, and (c) how RWPP-identification strength influences the persuasiveness of RWP rhetoric.

2 How right-wing populist rhetoric affects political opinion

RWP rhetoric often has a strong, negative focus on immigration (De Landtsheer, 2015; Hameleers et al., 2018). With their rhetoric, RWPPs can foster immigration grievances and other feelings of discontent, thereby steering the political opinion of parts of the electorate (Bos et al., 2013; Krämer, 2014). Generally, scholars consider RWPP rhetoric mostly persuasive for voters who, at least to some extent, share the worldview propagated by RWPPs (Krämer, 2014). By contrast, among voters who disagree with RWP ideas, the extreme rhetoric employed by RWPPs might evoke reactance and might steer their political opinion further away from RWP ideas (Boeynaems et al., 2021; Krämer, 2014).

Anti-immigration rhetoric employed by RWP politicians has been characterized by the frequent use of at least two figurative language types: metaphor (De Landtsheer, 2015) and hyperbole (Kalkhoven, 2015). Metaphors are “cross-domain mappings” which transfer elements of source domains onto target domains (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). For example, a recent study demonstrated that, compared to literal messages, anti-immigration metaphors framing immigration as a disease increased support for anti-immigration attitudes and policies (Brown, Keefer, Sacco, and Bermond, 2019, Studies 1–2). Hyperbole is “an expression that is more extreme than justified given its ontological referent” (Burgers, Brugman, Renardel de Lavalette, and Steen, 2016, p. 166). Hyperboles can serve as an ideological strategy (Abbas, 2019) that exaggerates threats (Doig and Phythian, 2005) and thereby helps to mobilize support for RWP policy proposals (Kalkhoven and De Landtsheer, 2016).

Metaphors and hyperboles are tools to rhetorically create, or broaden, a gap between an in-group of national citizens and an out-group, which can be an established political elite, a group of perceived outsiders (e. g., immigrants or foreign cultures), or both (Musolff, 2017). Both types of figuration can be used to simplify and exaggerate societal issues and promote straightforward solutions to societal problems (Doig and Phythian, 2005; Musolff, 2017). Moreover, within RWP rhetoric, metaphor and hyperbole are oftentimes combined within a singular frame (Kalkhoven, 2015). For example, Geert Wilders hyperbolically extended the conventional metaphor a wave of asylum seekers into a tsunami of asylum seekers, when he referred to the number of refugees coming to the Netherlands (Roest, 2015). Because combinatory figurative frames contain multiple rhetorical operations, they can become relatively hard to challenge, which may increase their persuasive power compared to frames containing one type of figurative language (Burgers, Konijn, and Steen, 2016).

In general, metaphor and hyperbole can trigger emotional responses like anger and fear (Charteris-Black, 2006; Claridge, 2010). Similarly, various authors have observed that RWP rhetoric plays on negative emotions (e. g., Wirz, 2018) by suggesting that immigration threatens the nation and plays on anger by insinuating that political elites failed to defend the interest of the nation’s presumed ‘own people’ (Hameleers et al., 2017). Recent studies have confirmed that populist rhetoric plays more on negative emotions than communication by mainstream political parties (Nai, 2021; Rico, Guinjoan, and Anduiza, 2020; Widmann, 2021). For instance, Nai (2021) shows that populist (vs. mainstream) election campaigns focused more on fear messages, especially when the political topic was presented in a conflict frame. By contrast, Rico et al. (2020) demonstrate that anger is an important driver of populist attitudes. Widmann (2021) reports on a content analysis of press releases and tweets by political actors which reveals that populist actors use more negative emotional appeals (e. g., anger, fear, sadness) and fewer positive emotional appeals (e. g., enthusiasm, hope) than mainstream political actors. In all, these studies demonstrate that populist rhetoric plays on negative (rather than positive) emotions, but the specific negative emotion that may be evoked can differ between specific contexts and settings.

Message intensity is another potential variable that could be of interest in explaining potential effects of figurative frames in RWP rhetoric. Message intensity refers to the degree to which a statement differs from an objective, non-evaluative, statement (Hamilton and Stewart, 1993). Thus, hyperbole and – at least some – metaphors can be seen as a form of intensification. Previous research has demonstrated that linguistic intensifiers can increase perceptions of message intensity (e. g., Burgers and de Graaf, 2013; Liebrecht, Hustinx, and van Mulken, 2019). Research has also demonstrated that messages that are perceived as more intense can be more persuasive than a neutral statement (e. g., Experiment 2 in Burgers and de Graaf, 2013; Bankhead, Bench, Peterson, Place, and Seiter, 2003; Hamilton and Stewart, 1993) but not always (e. g., Experiment 1 in Burgers and de Graaf, 2013). Nevertheless, we predict that figurative frames could increase message intensity, which – in turn – can boost the persuasiveness of RWP appeals.

In all, figuratively framed RWP rhetoric likely appeals to supportive voters, and hence can steer RWPP voters’ opinion even more into line with RWP ideas (Krämer, 2014). Nevertheless, current experimental studies mainly focus on either student samples among which support for RWPPs is relatively low (Arendt, Marquart, and Matthes, 2015), or on samples that are representative for all voters (Bos et al., 2013; Hameleers et al., 2017; Matthes and Schmuck, 2015). Because of the multi-party systems common in Western-European countries, such samples likely include low percentages of RWPP voters (Oesch, 2008), which makes it hard to make claims about how supportive voters respond to typical RWP rhetoric. Therefore, we tested how RWPP voters respond to typical RWP rhetoric in a controlled experiment for which we recruited a relatively large sample of RWPP voters from the Dutch population.

We expected that the metaphorical and hyperbolic frames used by RWP politicians steer the political opinion of RWPP voters more into line with populist ideas. Moreover, we expected these metaphorical and hyperbolic statements to be persuasive through perceptions of intensity (Kalkhoven and De Landtsheer, 2016) and emotiveness (Lecheler, Bos, and Vliegenthart, 2015; Wirz, 2018). Therefore, we hypothesized that:

H1: (a) Voters with an RWPP preference are more persuaded by anti-immigration frames comprising both metaphor and hyperbole than by frames that are either metaphorical or hyperbolic, which, in turn, (b) are more persuasive than non-figurative frames.

H2: Persuasive effects of figuratively framed right-wing populist statements are mediated by (a) evoked negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness) and (b) perceived message intensity.

3 How RWPP-identification strength shapes political persuasion

According to the ‘fueling discontent argument’, policy dissatisfaction and exposure to populist messages can mutually reinforce each other over time (Rooduijn et al., 2016). In general, voters who feel threatened by an out-group of immigrants are likely to support a political party that acknowledges their fears and concerns and promotes a strong anti-immigration policy (Berning and Schlueter, 2016; Rydgren, 2008). Feelings of discontent, for example, about current immigration policies, can therefore explain why voters support an RWPP (Ivarsflaten, 2008). At the same time, the strong anti-immigration rhetoric employed by RWPPs can further fuel this political discontent, and hence strengthen anti-immigration attitudes and reinforce RWPP support (Rooduijn et al., 2016). In addition, the strength with which supporters feel connected to their RWPP affects their political opinion in at least two ways: (1) directly and (2) indirectly by moderating their responses to RWP rhetoric.

First, RWPP-identification strength can directly influence political attitudes and voting behavior (Druckman et al., 2013; Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015). Party identification can shape voters’ social identity, which is the part of an individual’s self-concept that is derived from an emotionally valued group membership (Tajfel, 1981). Voters who strongly identify with a political party consider themselves members of an in-group (Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015; Tajfel, 1981), which might influence their thoughts and behavior and may lead to in-group favoritism and out-group derogation (Krämer, 2014; Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015). When RWPP-identification strength increases, group threats are interpreted as threats to the self, judgments become further biased, and while the out-group is blamed for everything that goes wrong, the in-group is absolved of all blame (Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015; Westfall et al., 2015). Thus, voters who strongly identify with an RWPP are most likely to feel (personally) threatened by an out-group of immigrants, which might result in even more support for an RWPP and its anti-immigration policy. Following this line of reasoning, political attitudes that initially defined voters’ choice for an RWPP can be further strengthened when voters start to feel strongly connected to this RWPP (Druckman et al., 2013; Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015).

To test whether support for an RWPP policy is indeed related to the strength with which voters feel connected to their favorite RWPP, we propose:

H3: RWPP-identification strength is positively related to political persuasion.

Second, by moderating how RWPP voters respond to figuratively framed RWP rhetoric, RWPP-identification strength might indirectly affect political opinion. Voters who strongly identify with an RWPP might have developed an anti-immigration stance that does not need to be fueled by RWP rhetoric: Their political opinion already strongly resembles RWP ideas (Berning and Schlueter, 2016; Westfall et al., 2015). The political opinion of voters who feel weakly attached to an RWPP, however, is likely more susceptible to the persuasive impact of RWP rhetoric (Druckman et al., 2013; Hameleers et al., 2017): There is still room for RWP rhetoric to fuel political opinion (Hameleers et al., 2017). Therefore, we hypothesize that:

H4: RWPP-identification strength moderates the persuasive effects of figuratively framed right-wing populist statements, so that voters who weakly identify with an RWPP are more responsive to figuratively framed populist statements than voters who strongly identify with an RWPP.

4 Method

5 Results

6 Conclusion and discussion

In this study, we investigated how RWP voters respond to RWP rhetoric. Our results indicate that the (extremely) negative anti-immigration metaphors used by RWP politicians can put off RWPP voters. Instead of increasing a statement’s persuasiveness, metaphors and hyperboles indirectly pushed RWPP voters’ political opinion further away from RWP ideas. We would expect such boomerang effects to occur for voters whose worldview does not align with RWP ideas but not for RWPP voters themselves (Boeynaems et al., 2021; Krämer, 2014). Even among supportive voters, RWP politicians can exceed the limits of acceptable language use, resulting in lower support. However, these negative indirect effects of metaphors and hyperboles on political persuasion were statistically small, and, regardless of the way the statement is framed, RWPP voters were highly supportive of the politician and the proposed anti-immigration policy. Thus, also when RWPP voters disapproved the metaphors and hyperboles used to frame political statements, they still supported the general thrust of the statement.

An important reason why voters support a non-governing populist party (either left-wing or right-wing) is dissatisfaction with traditional politics, as a form of protest against established political parties and their policies (Birch and Dennison, 2019). For RWPP voters, this political dissatisfaction is largely based on anti-immigration sentiments (Ivarsflaten, 2008; Oesch, 2008). When anti-immigration attitudes are an important factor in defining voters’ electoral choices, the promise of strong anti-immigration measures will likely be positively received, even when the use of extremely negative figurative language slightly tempers this enthusiasm. Our results support this idea by showing high overall rates on political persuasion. When looking at political landscapes across Western Europe, RWPPs take up the strongest stance on immigration by far, as compared to other political parties (van Spanje, 2010). Thus, even when RWPP rhetoric slightly decreases voters’ support, the ideological distance between RWPPs and other political parties might be too large for voters to swap party preference (van Spanje and van der Brug, 2009).

We hypothesized that the extent to which figuratively framed RWP statements affect voters’ political opinion depends on the strength with which these voters identify with an RWPP. We expected mildly supportive voters to be most susceptible to the persuasion by typical RWP anti-immigration rhetoric. We showed that RWPP-identification strength indeed influenced the effects of figuratively framed RWP statements on political persuasion, but effects were not in the expected direction. We found instead that the indirect negative effects of metaphors and hyperboles on political persuasion mainly held for voters who weakly or mildly supported an RWPP but not for those who strongly supported an RWPP.

In general, voters tend to expose themselves to information that matches their worldviews (Hameleers et al., 2018). Thus, when voters more strongly support anti-immigration stances, they are more likely to expose themselves to RWP anti-immigration rhetoric (Hameleers et al., 2018; Miller and Johnston Conover, 2015). When individuals are repeatedly confronted with an intense and emotive stimulus, such as the highly negative metaphors used by RWP politicians, they can become habituated or desensitized: The stimulus loses its emotive ‘force’ (Tryon, 2005). Given our results, it seems plausible that processes of desensitization and habituation occurred for the RWPP voters who strongly identified with an RWPP and less likely for voters who weakly identified with an RWPP.

Our findings support the hypothesis that RWPP-identification strength is positively related to political persuasion. If voters more strongly identify with an RWPP, they show stronger support for a politician who advocates stricter anti-immigration policy. While we can assume that voters who support an RWPP are, a priori, in favor of stronger anti-immigration policy (Berning and Schlueter, 2016), we showed that voters who feel strongly connected to an RWPP were more supportive of a politician who promotes stricter anti-immigration measures than voters who feel weakly connected to an RWPP. Since RWPP-identification strength did not serve as an independent variable in our experiment, we cannot make causal claims about the effects of RWPP-identification strength on political opinion and behavior. Future research could explore how the extent with which voters feel connected to an RWPP shapes political opinion over time.

Overall, it seems that the use of extreme and negative figurative language involves a risk for RWPPs. Its extreme character can deter even supportive voters and hence decrease RWPP support. However, indirectly, the extreme rhetoric employed by RWPPs might contribute to their success. Because of their extreme stances, RWPPs are oftentimes excluded from politics by established parties, who publicly distance themselves from RWPP ideas (van Spanje and van der Brug, 2009). At first sight, it seems to be an effective strategy to ban extreme political parties from the political arena. However, parliamentary opposition parties that experienced electoral success generally do not suffer from being ostracized by other parties. Rather, being excluded from the political arena can further fuel their success (van Spanje and van der Brug, 2009). When supportive voters, especially strongly identified voters, feel that their RWPP is threatened, this might further strengthen their support for this RWPP (Westfall et al., 2015). Thus, rather than directly steering political opinion more in line with populist ideas, the extreme language employed by RWPPs might serve as a tool to indirectly gain electoral support. With their extreme rhetoric, RWPPs reinforce the distinctiveness between political parties and broaden the gap between supportive and opposing voters (Boeynaems et al., 2021; van Spanje and van der Brug, 2009). Thereby, the typical rhetoric employed by RWPPs can put in motion further polarization of societies, which might eventually completely shut down the political and societal dialogue about immigration and other political issues, creating strongly divided nations.

A number of caveats have to be mentioned. First, our study focused specifically on anti-immigration rhetoric, which is one of the main priorities of Western-European RWPPs (Bos and Brants, 2014). Thus, for the voters within our sample, anti-immigration attitudes were likely an important reason why they voted for an RWPP in the first place (Ivarsflaten, 2008). This can explain the high average scores on all three constructs of political persuasion across experimental conditions, indicating potential ceiling effects. It might be that these, a priori, anti-immigration attitudes were so strong that there was little room left for metaphors and hyperboles to boost RWPP support (Hameleers et al., 2018). Since the political ideas of RWPPs reach further than just immigration policy (Ivarsflaten, 2008), future research could test for the persuasive impact of metaphors and hyperboles to frame societal issues that are not as highly debated and as politically charged as immigration. In addition, future research could not only focus on other issues but also seek to replicate our results using different figurative frames in the context of RWP rhetoric.

While it is commonly theorized that RWP rhetoric derives its persuasiveness from its ability to spark negative emotions like anger and fear (Hameleers et al., 2017; Rico et al., 2020), our findings do not support this hypothesis. We found no effects of anti-immigration rhetoric on emotions for RWPP voters. Furthermore, both anger and fear were negatively correlated to political persuasion in our sample of RWPP voters, which goes against current theories (Hameleers, 2017; Matthes and Schmuck, 2017). This suggests that the relation between political rhetoric, emotions, and persuasion might be more complex than is oftentimes theorized (Lecheler et al., 2015; Matthes and Schmuck, 2015; Wirz, 2018). Voter perceptions and individual differences (e. g., RWPP identification) influence the extent to which political rhetoric is perceived as intense and emotive, and thereby affects its persuasiveness. Future research could focus on the mediating role of emotional responsiveness and voters’ perceptions as well as the boundary conditions under which such indirect persuasive effects of RWP rhetoric on political persuasion take place.

To conclude, we showed that RWPP voters respond differently to anti-immigration rhetoric than often assumed (Hameleers et al., 2018; Krämer, 2014). The idea that voters who share a right-wing ideology respond positively to RWP rhetoric is not supported by our data. Rather, even supportive voters can be pushed away by the extreme language used by RWP politicians, in similar ways as the general population (Boeynaems et al., 2021). These findings underscore the importance of testing assumptions about the persuasiveness of RWP rhetoric among different sub-groups of voters. We showed that, rather than being persuaded by RWP rhetoric, RWPP voters seem to be triggered by the promise of stronger anti-immigration policy, regardless of how that promise is phrased. It seems that being heard and acknowledged in their grievances, rather than being told what to grieve about, is a main driver of RWPP support.