Performing the People: Affective and Discursive Strategies of Populist Proximity

Performing the People: Affective and Discursive Strategies of Populist Proximity | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Performing the People: Affective and Discursive Strategies of Populist Proximity Pablo Agustin Artero Abellan This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This article investigates how right-wing populist leaders Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal discursively perform proximity to “the people” through affective and interpersonal strategies. Unlike previous work that emphasizes nationhood or antagonistic othering, this study foregrounds the emotional and stylistic tactics by which populist figures minimize symbolic distance and enact belonging. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, the article combines stance-taking theory, pronominal deixis, affective discourse, and stylistic populism to examine informal and conversational public speeches. These moments—often town-hall events, spontaneous rallies, or off-script interviews—reveal a consistent repertoire of rhetorical tactics: inclusive pronouns, colloquial idioms, strategic vagueness, and embodied performance (tone, rhythm, gesture). Each leader adapts these proximity strategies to their national affective style: Farage performs sarcastic familiarity, Le Pen maternal empathy, and Abascal exalted fraternity. The study argues that populist proximity is not merely a communicative style, but a performative act of political intimacy—constructing “the people” as an affective community with the leader as its emotional proxy. This proximity effect serves as a core legitimizing strategy, displacing policy precision with emotional alignment and enabling populist leaders to convert discontent into connection. right-wing populism populist proximity affective discourse pronouns and deixis stance-taking Critical Discourse Analysis 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years, scholars of populism have intensively mapped the discursive mechanisms by which political leaders polarize the public sphere—constructing enemies, invoking myths of decline and rebirth, and asserting a singular will of “the people” against illegitimate elites. These dynamics, explored in our previous studies on national identity and antagonistic framing, illuminate how populist rhetoric operates through emotionally charged narratives of loss, betrayal, and redemption. Yet populism is not solely about confrontation or myth-making. It is also about connection—about feeling close to the people , not just speaking on their behalf. This article turns analytic attention toward that connective tissue of populist performance: the rhetorical enactment of proximity. We argue that populist leaders do not merely evoke the people as a symbolic or moral entity; they perform themselves as part of it. Through inclusive language, affective tone, and stylistic informality, they construct a sense of interpersonal belonging—simulating solidarity and authenticity in ways that are emotionally resonant, politically strategic, and nationally inflected. Focusing on informal and unscripted public appearances by Nigel Farage (UK), Marine Le Pen (France), and Santiago Abascal (Spain), this study examines how each performs emotional alignment and discursive closeness to “ordinary people.” These performances—typically occurring in small rallies, town halls, or improvised media interactions—stand apart from ceremonial or mythic speeches analyzed in earlier work. Instead of invoking sacred history or naming enemies, they emphasize likeness, listening, and living the same hardships. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995 ; Wodak & Meyer, 2016), and integrating insights from stance-taking (Jaffe, 2009 ), pronominal deixis (De Fina, 1995 ), and affect theory (Wetherell, 2012 ; Ahmed, 2004 ), we explore the linguistic, emotional, and embodied techniques through which populist leaders perform proximity. We show that across all three cases, proximity is achieved through a shared discursive repertoire—strategic use of “we,” colloquial idioms, emotional storytelling, controlled informality, and embodied affect (gesture, tone, rhythm). Yet how these strategies manifest varies with national political style: Farage deploys dry humor and conversational sarcasm; Le Pen performs maternal empathy and moral identification; Abascal invokes a moral fraternity anchored in Catholic-inflected familialism. This article contributes to the growing body of work on affective populism by emphasizing proximity not as a stylistic flourish, but as a core legitimation strategy. In emotionally charged political environments, being perceived as authentic, relatable, and “one of us” becomes more powerful than ideological precision or policy depth. Proximity thus functions as a communicative achievement: it reaffirms populist moral authority through emotional resonance , not rational coherence. Understanding this phenomenon requires us to treat discourse not just as representation, but as relation—as a site where political intimacy is built, felt, and performed. 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK This study is situated within the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which views discourse as both a medium and constructor of social reality, ideology, and power (Fairclough, 1995 ; Wodak & Meyer, 2016). In contrast to approaches that emphasize the content of populist rhetoric (e.g., nationalism, anti-elitism), our focus lies on the interpersonal architecture of populist discourse—how proximity, familiarity, and emotional alignment are discursively and performatively achieved. To that end, the framework integrates four interdependent analytical strands: (1) stance-taking and dialogic positioning, (2) pronominal deixis and referential alignment, (3) affective discourse and emotional governance, and (4) stylistic populism and strategic informality. 2.1. Stance-Taking and Relational Positioning Stance is not simply the expression of an attitude or belief; it is a discursive act that positions the speaker in relation to both content and audience (Du Bois, 2007 ). Within this view, stance-taking encompasses three interlinked functions: evaluation (expressing a position toward a proposition), alignment (situating oneself in relation to others’ stances), and positioning (enacting a social identity within a discursive exchange). This triadic model is critical to understanding populist proximity. Populist leaders regularly position themselves as insiders to “the people’s” worldview and affective condition. They do so not only by adopting evaluative stances (e.g., condemning elites) but also by adopting a shared moral and emotional posture. As Du Bois ( 2007 , p. 163) notes, “stance involves not only personal subjectivity but intersubjective negotiation”—a claim particularly relevant to populism, where the performative “we” is constructed dialogically through alignment rather than demographic fact. In populist discourse, stance functions as a relational device, producing emotional solidarity and shared grievance through rhetorical symmetry. For instance, when leaders say “I know how you feel” or “we’ve all had enough,” they perform affective alignment that extends beyond ideological convergence. This ties closely to Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) concept of identity as emergent in interaction—not fixed, but co-constructed in context through stancetaking, indexicality, and ideological positioning. Populist proximity thus hinges on the repetition of stances that reinforce perceived emotional similarity and moral unity. 2.2. Pronouns, Deixis, and the “We” Effect Pronominal manipulation also enables deictic compression—a process by which distance (spatial, moral, symbolic) is linguistically reduced. Phrases such as “right here with you,” “like many of you,” or “I’ve been there too” bring the speaker into intimate narrative and experiential proximity with the audience. These deixis-based moves help constitute what Blommaert ( 2005 ) calls a shared chronotope, where time, space, and identity converge to anchor political belonging in shared experience. Personal pronouns in political discourse function not as neutral grammatical elements but as powerful tools of inclusion and exclusion. In populist rhetoric, “we,” “you,” and “they” operate as indexical markers of group membership and ideological stance (De Fina, 1995 ; Bamberg, 1997 ; Fetzer, 2011 ). These pronouns delineate in-groups and out-groups, dynamically constructing political alignments and moral geographies. Among these, the inclusive “we” is central to populist proximity. It allows leaders to collapse the distinction between speaker and audience, portraying themselves not merely as representatives of the people but as embodied participants in a collective struggle. As Lähteenmäki and Voutilainen (2020) observe, such deictic strategies “collapse symbolic hierarchies and foreground horizontality” (p. 298), reinforcing a sense of moral and affective unity. Statements like “we, the forgotten” or “we know what they’ve done” perform identification and grievance in tandem. Strategic vagueness heightens this effect. Chilton ( 2004 ) highlights how deixis, particularly when underdetermined, is deeply ideological. Ambiguous referents such as “they” or “them” invite audiences to fill in the blanks—projecting elites, immigrants, or other scapegoated groups onto the out-group. This ambiguity fosters resonance across diverse interpretive communities without committing to specific propositions. Populist speakers also employ what can be termed deictic compression —linguistic tactics that reduce symbolic and experiential distance. Phrases such as “I’ve been there too” or “right here with you” create a sense of intimate co-presence, effectively collapsing space and status. These indexical moves help construct what Blommaert ( 2005 ) calls a “shared chronotope,” wherein time, space, and identity are fused into a collective experience of national belonging. 2.3. Affective Discourse and Emotional Legitimacy Affect is not a rhetorical garnish but the infrastructure of political discourse (Wetherell, 2012 ). In this view, emotions are not private psychological states but socially distributed practices—discursively produced, circulated, and managed (Ahmed, 2004 ; Papacharissi, 2015 ). Populist rhetoric mobilizes affect not only to provoke but to bind—to create communities defined by shared feeling as much as shared interest. This emotional alignment is achieved through affective practices (Wetherell, 2012 ): repeated linguistic and paralinguistic strategies such as emotional refrains, tonal escalation, anecdotal appeals, and performative empathy. These are particularly salient in unscripted or informal settings—rallies, interviews, town halls—where leaders must simultaneously embody authenticity and emotional responsiveness. Such practices generate what Yilmaz and Morieson ( 2022 ) term affective communities : publics formed through affective congruence rather than ideological coherence. Here, legitimacy is grounded not solely in representation, but in perceived emotional resonance. The leader becomes a mirror to the crowd’s affective state, validating their grievances and performing proximity through affective mimicry. Importantly, these emotional registers are culturally coded. Moffitt and Tormey ( 2014 ) note that populist performance is filtered through national styles: British populism often leans on sardonic wit, French populism on civilizational melancholy, and Spanish populism on religious and familial exaltation. These culturally specific grammars shape not only the tone of populist rhetoric but also the acceptable affective registers through which proximity may be credibly enacted (Papacharissi, 2015 ). 2.4. Populist Style and Strategic Informality Populism is not only a political logic (Laclau, 2005 ) or discursive grammar (Wodak, 2015 ), but also a performative style—a way of being and sounding in the public sphere (Moffitt, 2016 ). Populist style involves more than content; it encompasses tone, rhythm, syntax, gesture, and bodily comportment. These elements converge to create a register of communicative informality that projects authenticity, normalcy, and accessibility. Moffitt ( 2016 ) defines populist style through features such as crisis narration, bad manners, and directness. We extend this by foregrounding stylistic informality as a proximity mechanism. Populist leaders often engage in downward stylistic convergence—adopting vernacular speech, slang, anecdotal logic, and discursive unpolish—as a way of rejecting elite modes of communication and aligning with “the people.” As Brubaker ( 2017 ) argues, such moves are not accidental; they are forms of anti-institutional performance that lend credibility through perceived normalcy. This stylistic register is reinforced by strategic vagueness. Chilton ( 2004 ) and Cap ( 2010 ) note that vague referents, hedging, and elliptical syntax are common in populist speech because they invite interpretive flexibility. This enables wider identification, as audiences are encouraged to project their own meanings onto ambiguous slogans (“take back control,” “our people,” “real France”). Vagueness, then, is not a communicative flaw—it is a semiotic affordance that enhances inclusivity through semantic openness. The cumulative effect is what Taggart ( 2000 ) called “the heartland effect”: the evocation of a morally and emotionally unified community, imagined as culturally coherent and under threat. Populist leaders project themselves as embodied access points to that heartland—not abstract representatives, but proximate actors whose language, demeanor, and emotional cadence match those of their audience. This theoretical framework provides the scaffolding for our analysis of Farage, Le Pen, and Abascal in Section 4. It enables us to trace how proximity is not a secondary byproduct of populism but a primary rhetorical achievement, produced through layered strategies of stance-taking, pronoun manipulation, affective enactment, and stylistic calibration. Populist discourse, we argue, derives much of its affective power not from shouting at “them,” but from sounding like us. 3. METHODOLOGY This study employs a qualitative, interpretive research design grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with an explicit focus on affective-discursive strategies and interactional alignment within populist political speech. The goal is not generalization through representativeness, but theoretical insight through comparative, high-density textual analysis. Following the tradition of CDA (Fairclough, 1995 ; Wodak & Meyer, 2016), we view discourse as a constitutive social practice through which identities, relationships, and ideologies are enacted. In particular, we are interested in how populist leaders perform closeness—not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a situated communicative strategy operating across linguistic, pragmatic, and affective dimensions. To that end, we integrate analytical tools from stance theory, pronominal analysis, affect studies, and discourse-pragmatic research, informed by both the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak, 2001 ) and interactionally anchored perspectives on performance and alignment (Du Bois, 2007 ; Jaffe, 2009 ). This section details the corpus composition, sampling rationale, transcription and annotation procedure, and the coding schema used in the analysis. 3.1. Corpus Design and Sampling Criteria ​​The empirical corpus comprises nine speech events—three each from Nigel Farage (United Kingdom), Marine Le Pen (France), and Santiago Abascal (Spain)—delivered between 2016 and 2021. These speech events were selected through purposive sampling (Teddlie & Yu, 2007 ), targeting moments of informal, conversational, or semi-scripted political communication where interpersonal alignment is foregrounded. All events share a common rhetorical function: they aim to perform populist proximity through affective connection rather than ideological confrontation. In contrast to ceremonial addresses or large-scale nationalist rallies (which formed the basis of prior articles), this corpus privileges speech situations characterized by low formality, high interactionality, and spontaneous affective expression. Examples include town hall meetings, small-stage campaign appearances, media interviews, and candidate “walkabouts” with embedded commentary. Selection criteria included: Reduced institutional formality (e.g., absence of lecterns, presence of direct audience interaction); High emotional or affiliative load (e.g., visible empathy, familial invocation, humor); Verbal markers of intimacy (e.g., “you know,” “I feel,” “people like us”) and Available audiovisual documentation , enabling cross-modal annotation of gesture, tone, and embodied affect. All materials were retrieved from official party YouTube channels, media recordings, and publicly accessible campaign archives. Where necessary, transcription was conducted verbatim by the author, with selective annotation of prosodic and paralinguistic features. 3.2. Transcription, Annotations and Ethical Considerations Transcripts follow conventions adapted from Jeffersonian transcription (Jefferson, 2004 ), with modifications appropriate to political discourse. In addition to lexical content, the following patterns were annotated: Intonation contours (rising/falling, pitch peaks); Pauses and elongations (affective hesitation, dramatization); Paralinguistic features (e.g., laughter, applause, vocal strain) and Audience response (verbal or embodied, when audible). While full Conversation Analysis (CA) encoding is not employed, the emphasis on multimodality aligns with current work on multimodal CDA (Kress, 2010 ; Machin, 2013 ), recognizing that affect is communicated not only through words but through intonation, pacing, gesture, and gaze. Because all data derive from public political communication, no ethical risks are posed, but speaker anonymity is not applied given the public role and institutional position of the subjects. 3.3. Transcription, Annotations and Ethical Considerations The analytic procedure follows an abductive logic (Tavory & Timmermans, 2014 ), combining theory-driven sensitizing concepts with inductive attention to emerging interactional patterns. Analysis proceeded in three overlapping stages: holistic reading and familiarization, structured coding using NVivo 14, and cross-case comparative synthesis. 3.3.1. Stage I: Holistic Reading and Thematic Mapping In the first stage of analysis, each speech event was subjected to multiple rounds of holistic reading, with the objective of immersing the researcher in the discursive texture, emotional dynamics, and interactional flow of the performance. This phase prioritized a qualitative sensibility over categorical precision, aiming to grasp the overall affective arc and relational choreography of each event. Particular attention was paid to the tonal evolution of the speech—how emotional intensity was escalated, diffused, or modulated across different segments—as well as to shifts in speaker–audience alignment, such as transitions from individual anecdote to collective invocation, or from generalized critique to intimate reassurance. Recurring moments of personal narrative, inclusive framing, or empathic signaling (e.g., “I know what that feels like,” “we’ve all been through it”) were identified as key textual sites where populist proximity was performatively constructed. These instances, herein referred to as proximity moments, were annotated and clustered for subsequent fine-grained analysis in NVivo, serving as the empirical anchors for the discourse-pragmatic coding that followed. 3.3.2. Stage II: Structured Coding In the second stage of analysis, all speech events were systematically coded using NVivo 14, guided by a theory-informed schema that targeted five interrelated dimensions of populist proximity. These dimensions were derived from the theoretical framework and operationalized through inductive-exploratory piloting. Table 1 summarizes the code categories, including their interpretive scope and foundational scholarly sources. Table 1 Coding schema for discursive and affective strategies of populist proximity. Code Category Description Key References Stance Alignment First-person identification with audience concerns, values, or feelings Du Bois ( 2007 ); Jaffe ( 2009 ) Pronominal Framing Strategic deployment of “we,” “you,” “they,” including indexical shifts and deictic compression De Fina ( 1995 ); Fetzer ( 2011 ) Affective Markers Expressions of sympathy, outrage, gratitude; repetition; emotional metaphors Wetherell ( 2012 ); Ahmed ( 2004 ); Yilmaz & Morieson ( 2022 ) Stylistic Informality Colloquialisms, jokes, casual syntax, self-deprecation, disfluencies Moffitt ( 2016 ); Brubaker ( 2017 ) Embodied Proximity Tone shifts, pitch modulation, hand gestures, eye contact, physical movement toward audience Kress ( 2010 ); Chilton & Schäffner ( 2011 ); Machin ( 2013 ) As can be seen, Table 1 outlines the five primary analytic dimensions used to code the corpus, including a brief description of each category’s function and the key theoretical references underpinning them. The schema integrates linguistic, affective, and embodied features in line with the study’s multimodal and discourse-pragmatic orientation. These codes were applied both independently and relationally—allowing us to capture not only discrete markers of affective or stylistic proximity but also their co-occurrence and escalation across time. Particular attention was paid to moments where multiple codes overlapped (e.g., affective markers co-occurred with pronominal shifts and embodied gestures), as these tended to signal high-intensity proximity performances worthy of comparative analysis across cases. 3.3.3. Cross-National Comparative Analysis To avoid overgeneralization, we employed contrastive case analysis (Yin, 2003), situating findings within national affective traditions and discursive norms. Particular attention was paid to how similar strategies (e.g., inclusive “we,” parental metaphor) manifested differently across British, French, and Spanish populist styles. The results were then synthesized into comparative matrices (see Section 5), enabling typological refinement. 3.4. Reflexity and Analytical Limitations As with all discourse-analytic research, interpretation is situated and hermeneutic. The researcher’s positionality—ideologically and linguistically—is not irrelevant. While analytical rigor was maintained through textual anchoring, recursive coding, and triangulation across cases, the analysis inevitably reflects a critical interpretive lens shaped by normative concerns about democratic discourse and representation. Limitations include: Corpus size : While purposive sampling enables depth, it restricts breadth and temporal generalizability. Language heterogeneity : While source languages were preserved during transcription, comparisons across English, French, and Spanish are necessarily approximate due to cultural-pragmatic differences. Gesture and affect : Given the constraints of video transcription, embodied affect is noted impressionistically rather than measured through biometric means. Nonetheless, these limitations are consistent with the epistemological stance of CDA, which prioritizes depth over frequency, meaning over measurement, and cultural embeddedness over decontextualized abstraction. This multi-stage, theory-integrated methodology enables a nuanced account of how populist proximity is discursively and affectively constructed in context. By centering speech events where intimacy and identification are thematically foregrounded, we illuminate the rhetorical infrastructure of populist belonging—an infrastructure built not through confrontation alone, but through the performative enactment of emotional sameness. 4. ANALYSIS: PERFORMING POPULIST PROXIMITY This section presents a comparative discourse analysis of nine speech events—three each from Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal—focusing on the affective, interactional, and stylistic strategies by which each leader discursively performs proximity to “the people.” Building on the coding schema outlined in Section 3, we identify, analyze, and interpret proximity moments: discursive instances where leaders overtly or subtly enact emotional alignment, shared belonging, or conversational intimacy. Rather than approach these cases through exhaustive line-by-line annotation, we adopt a focused micro-analysis strategy (Wetherell, 1998 ; Taylor, 2001 ), selecting representative segments where proximity is particularly salient, layered, or multimodally reinforced. Each case study is organized to highlight how specific rhetorical and affective patterns—such as pronoun manipulation, stance-taking, colloquialization, or gesture—contribute to the leader’s proximity effect: the impression of emotional, experiential, and moral closeness with their audience. 4.1. Nigel Farage: Nigel Farage’s populist persona is widely recognized for its blending of irony, informality, and anti-elitist affect. In contrast to the civilizational melancholy of Le Pen or the spiritual fervor of Abascal, Farage’s proximity strategy is grounded in British discursive conventions of understated affect, dry humor, and a public style that is both politically provocative and conversationally accessible (Theakston & Gill, 2006 ; Brubaker, 2017 ). His deployment of proximity tactics is less theatrical and more embedded in tone, stance, and register, constructing authenticity not through impassioned moral appeals, but through discursive familiarity. 4.1.1. Inclusive Pronouns and the Rhetoric of Shared Discontent One of Farage’s most consistent techniques is the strategic use of inclusive first-person plural pronouns, especially “we” and “us,” to enact a horizontality between speaker and audience. In a 2019 campaign speech at a pub venue in Clacton-on-Sea, for instance, he opens with: We’ve had enough, haven’t we? We’ve been lied to, strung along, ignored—and it’s not on anymore. The repetition of “we” across clausal units, coupled with evaluative stancetaking (“had enough,” “not on anymore”), creates an affectively charged alignment that positions Farage as both victim and spokesperson of popular frustration. The phrase “haven’t we?” is particularly noteworthy: it performs in-group solicitation and assumes consensus, collapsing any symbolic distance. This interactional deixis constructs the audience not as passive listeners, but as co-judges and co-experiencers (Du Bois, 2007 ; Fetzer, 2011 ). Unlike Le Pen or Abascal, Farage rarely uses “the people” as an abstract political category; instead, he linguistically inhabits the group through interactional deixis, inviting affective identification through everyday phrasing. The effect is not solemn or visionary, but conversationally intimate, consistent with the British populist tradition of anti-pompous affect (Wodak, 2021 ). 4.1.2. Irony, Downshifting, and Conversational Performance Farage frequently downshifts political speech into pub-style storytelling, performing a kind of anti-political charisma that resists grandiosity. Consider the following excerpt from a town hall-style Q&A in Peterborough (May 2019): They say we didn’t know what we were voting for. Well, I don’t know about you—but I knew exactly what I was voting for. And I think 17.4 million people did too. This construction performs affective repetition, alignment, and defiance in a single breath. The phrase “I don’t know about you” is indexically vague yet interactionally loaded—it momentarily breaks formality and invites informal identification. By invoking the Brexit vote as a shared, commonsensical act, Farage recasts a contested political decision as a morally self-evident truth, aligning speaker and audience against a patronizing elite (“they say…”). Here, irony functions not as distance but as bonding. The sarcasm is not detached; it is directional, aimed at opponents who “don’t get it,” while the audience is linguistically cued to recognize the irony as affirmation (Attardo, 2000 ). The effect is a shared insider stance: Farage doesn’t merely say what “we” feel—he says it how “we” would say it. 4.1.3. Stylistic Informality and Anti-Elitist Authenticity Farage’s style is marked by syntactic casualness, colloquialisms, and deliberate non-polish. He routinely uses contractions (“we’ve,” “they’re,” “isn’t”), interrupts himself, and adapts his rhythm to the crowd. In a campaign clip from early 2019, he declares: They’ll call us names—racist, fascist, whatever. They’ve run out of insults. We just don’t care anymore. This passage exhibits a form of performative indifference—a rhetorical stance that projects authenticity by refusing to dignify elite criticism. The phrase “we just don’t care anymore” is notable for its resonant informality: it mimics vernacular resignation but is deployed as a rallying cry. This is a classic populist move: transforming disaffection into empowerment through emotional flattening. In performance terms, Farage’s gestures are minimal, but his intonation is rhythmic and intimate—eschewing bombast for controlled emphasis. His pauses are often filled by audience responses (“Exactly!” “Yeah!”), which reinforces the conversational loop and constructs affective co-presence. 4.1.4. Embodied Pragmatics and Spatial Proximity While Farage rarely engages in the physical theatrics of other populists, his bodily comportment reinforces proximity through understated means: leaning slightly forward during key statements, lowering his voice in moments of critique, and briefly making eye contact with individuals in the front rows of small venues. These embodied gestures are not theatrical but indexical—they signal attentiveness, humility, and co-presence. In a 2020 media appearance filmed at a working men’s club, Farage sits on a low stool, holding a pint, and opens with: Bit loud in here, but that’s just how we like it. This utterance is trivial in content but symbolically rich: it locates Farage within a familiar, non-elite soundscape and signals his embeddedness in everyday spaces. The “we” is not programmatic—it is acoustically ambient, constructed through shared noise, not shared ideology. 4.1.5. Synthesis: Proximity Through Conversational Realism Farage’s populist proximity strategy is grounded in what we might term conversational realism: a communicative stance that projects emotional congruence and stylistic similarity through understated affect, informal deixis, and ironic bonding. His pronouns are intimate, his irony affiliative, and his tone calibrated to mirror the listener’s vernacular skepticism. While lacking the emotive saturation of Le Pen or the moral absolutism of Abascal, Farage’s discourse generates proximity through tone, rhythm, and register—turning familiarity into a mode of legitimacy. 4.2. Marine Le Pen: Marine Le Pen’s proximity strategy diverges sharply from Farage’s ironic informality and is instead rooted in what we might call aesthetic affective nationalism: a style that combines emotional solemnity, symbolic femininity, and civilizational longing. Rather than position herself as an everywoman among equals, Le Pen often performs protective intimacy—simultaneously identifying with “the people” and elevating herself as their emotional spokesperson. In contrast to the combative populism of her father, her own rhetoric leans on empathic maternalism, deploying emotional resonance as a legitimizing force (Zúquete, 2018 ; Wodak, 2015 ). Le Pen does not shout to be close; she mourns, remembers, and invokes. Her proximity is constructed through shared vulnerability, aesthetic familiarity, and carefully curated affective framings of nationhood and decline. 4.2.1. Empathic Deixis and Shared Affective Memory In her April 17, 2017, presidential campaign rally in Paris, Le Pen opens with the emotionally charged phrase: Je vous comprends. Je suis comme vous. J’aime la France comme vous l’aimez. Translation: “I understand you. I am like you. I love France the way you love it.” This opening cluster accomplishes multiple proximity tasks simultaneously. First, the second-person plural “vous” (you all) evokes direct interpersonal address—formal yet emotionally inclusive. Second, the reflexive comparison (“I am like you”) blurs symbolic boundaries between elite candidate and everyday citizen. Third, the shared affection for the nation is constructed not ideologically but emotionally—through the verb “aimer” (to love), repeated with rhythmic mirroring. This alignment strategy is not primarily political but affective; it relies on emotional equivalence rather than political sameness. In Wetherell’s ( 2012 ) terms, it is a form of affective attunement—a synchronized emotional resonance that fosters legitimacy by implying shared vulnerability and cultural investment. 4.2.2. Gendered Appeals and Civilizational Caretaking ​​Le Pen’s rhetoric often assumes the voice of a protective maternal figure—defending France not only from foreign threats, but from cultural dilution and moral decay. In her Nice rally (April 27, 2017), she declares: Je suis la voix des mères inquiètes, des pères oubliés, des enfants sans futur. (“I am the voice of worried mothers, forgotten fathers, and children without a future.”) This passage performs multiple inclusions: age-based, gendered, and temporal. Le Pen here positions herself as the affective channel for French familial despair, employing polyvalent subject alignment (Krumer-Nevo & Sidi, 2012 ) to speak for all those feeling structurally abandoned. The term “voix” (voice) reinforces her performative role—not as commander, but as emotional representative. This aligns with what Yilmaz and Morieson ( 2022 ) term affective communitarianism: a style of populism where leaders portray themselves as morally obligated caretakers of a culturally specific emotional community. Le Pen’s repeated invocations of “nos enfants” (our children), “nos traditions,” and “notre mémoire” establish not only a collective “we,” but a collective object of mourning. 4.2.3. Stylistic Elegy: Affective Vocabulary and Lexical Aesthetics Unlike Farage’s vernacular populism, Le Pen frequently aestheticizes national emotion through lyrical phrasing, repetition, and stylistic solemnity. For instance: La France que j’aime est celle du clocher, du vin, de la parole libre. Celle qu’on essaie de faire disparaître. (“The France I love is that of the bell tower, of wine, of free speech. The one they are trying to make disappear.”) This passage constructs proximity through emotional symbolism, not conversational realism. The evocation of “clocher” (church steeple), “vin,” and “parole libre” (free speech) is not merely nostalgic—it is cultural poetics. These images function as what Ahmed ( 2004 ) calls affective signifiers: condensed symbols charged with emotional significance that activate recognition and belonging. Notably, the use of anaphora (parallel clause structure) and mimetic cadence draws the listener into an aesthetic rhythm of loss, reinforcing proximity through sonic resonance. Le Pen does not just describe a disappearing France—she performs its disappearance through emotionally elegiac tone. 4.2.4. Ritualized Inclusion and Nation-as-Family Metaphors Le Pen frequently ritualizes proximity through metaphors of kinship and domesticity. Her speeches are interlaced with references to “chez nous” (our home), “nos anciens” (our elders), and “les nôtres” (our own)—phrases that conflate national identity with familial bonds. In her 2017 Paris rally, she states: Nous sommes chez nous. Et nous le resterons. (“We are at home. And we will remain so.”) Here, “chez nous” is more than spatial deixis—it is ontological positioning. The pronoun “nous” does not merely denote political alliance; it signals emplaced identity, where being French is constructed as being emotionally rooted in space and time (Chilton, 2004 ; Cap, 2010 ). The repetition of the future-tense verb “resterons” (will remain) functions as a discursive anchor, emotionally securing belonging against the perceived threat of cultural displacement. Le Pen’s gestures often mirror this intimacy. During these statements, she slows her delivery, softens her tone, and reduces bodily movement—gestural minimalism functioning as affective gravitas. Her physical stillness becomes a form of emotional solemnity, underscoring the mournful cadence of her national imaginary. 4.2.5. Synthesis: Affective Sovereignty and Maternal Alignment Le Pen’s populist proximity does not operate through casual self-identification or irony, but through civilizational alignment articulated in emotionally saturated, aesthetically curated language. Her register is one of solemn empathy—performing closeness through ritual mourning, gendered caretaking, and symbolic heritage. She positions herself not as the people’s friend (as Farage might), but as their daughter and mother, embedded within a family of national feeling that must be protected, remembered, and restored. This affective style is both emotionally vertical (speaking for others) and symbolically horizontal (speaking as one of them), allowing Le Pen to oscillate between vulnerability and authority. Her speeches do not demand applause; they demand recognition—of grievance shared, loss endured, and cultural love remembered. 4.3. Santiago Abascal: Moral Closeness and Familial Militancy Santiago Abascal’s rhetorical proximity to “the people” emerges not through conversational realism (Farage) or aesthetic empathy (Le Pen), but through sacralized moral alignment. His discourse constructs a Spanish nation that is simultaneously ancestral, familial, and under siege, requiring not just recognition, but loyal defense. Populist proximity here is achieved through emotionally saturated metaphors of sacrifice, kinship, and historical continuity—what Smith ( 2003 ) would call a form of ethno-symbolic nationalism, in which “the people” are descendants of a sacred national lineage. Rather than address the audience as political citizens, Abascal often speaks to them as moral kin—sons, daughters, brothers, and mothers of a spiritually unified Spain. The result is a proximity strategy characterized by affective militancy: the speaker does not join the people in ordinary suffering; he leads them in a redemptive, affective crusade. 4.3.1. Ancestral Invocations and Vertical Intimacy Abascal’s speeches frequently begin by invoking ancestors—those who “built Spain,” “died for her,” or “defended our traditions.” This invocation is not abstract; it is affectively personified. At the 2019 Vistalegre II rally, he opens: Gracias a nuestras madres, a nuestras abuelas, a nuestros padres, que nos enseñaron a defender lo bueno, lo verdadero, y lo bello. (“Thanks to our mothers, our grandmothers, our fathers, who taught us to defend the good, the true, and the beautiful.”) This passage does not simply express gratitude—it enacts moral lineage. The triadic phrasing (“lo bueno, lo verdadero, y lo bello”) alludes to Platonic transcendentals, fusing familial memory with philosophical virtue. This signals to the audience that their personal histories are part of a broader civilizational genealogy, and that proximity is not constructed interpersonally, but intergenerationally. Whereas Farage collapses symbolic distance through joking, and Le Pen through shared mourning, Abascal achieves proximity by elevating his audience into a sacred genealogy. His “we” is not just political—it is ontological. 4.3.2. Familial Appeals and the Affective Militarization of Kinship Throughout his speeches, Abascal constructs “the people” as a moral family—not metaphorically, but rhetorically enacted. In his 2021 campaign closure at Plaza de Colón, he exclaims: Somos los que madrugan, los que pagan, los que no se rinden. Somos la España que ama, que cree, y que lucha. (“We are those who rise early, those who pay, those who never surrender. We are the Spain that loves, that believes, and that fights.”) This passage performs affective compression (Chilton, 2004 ), condensing personal sacrifice (madrugar, pagar), moral integrity (amar, creer), and national struggle (luchar) into a single emotive identity script. Each clause functions as a moral badge, inviting listeners to insert themselves into a collective self-narration of dignity, struggle, and resilience. The rhythm is liturgical, the progression moralistic. This style mirrors what Moffitt ( 2016 ) describes as permanent crisis populism, where the leader’s authority is grounded in a shared sense of ongoing siege, and thus requires constant affective re-mobilization. 4.3.3. Sacred Vocabulary and the Theopolitical Register A key feature of Abascal’s proximity rhetoric is his use of sacred or quasi-theological language to frame political belonging. In multiple speeches, he uses words like “verdad,” “valores eternos,” “el bien,” and even “sacrificio,” mapping religious lexicon onto civic participation. At Vistalegre II, he declares: España es una comunidad de destino, una misión moral, y una herencia que no estamos dispuestos a perder. (“Spain is a community of destiny, a moral mission, and a heritage we are not willing to lose.”) Here, proximity is not spatial or emotional—it is transcendental. The phrase “comunidad de destino” recalls Ortega y Gasset’s classic conception of Spain, while “misión moral” places the political subject within a teleological framework, where to be Spanish is to inherit and defend a divine mandate. In this register, disagreement becomes betrayal; emotional alignment becomes moral duty. This marks a critical shift in how proximity is constructed: not by feeling like the people, but by demanding that the people feel like the nation. 4.3.4. Vocal Force and Embodied Urgency Unlike Farage’s dry rhythm or Le Pen’s elegiac cadence, Abascal’s performances are characterized by intensity, crescendo, and embodied pathos. His affective proximity is achieved through vocal overload: escalating pitch, compressed delivery, urgent breathing, and rhythmic variation that mimics wartime oratory. In the final moments of his 2021 speech, he cries: ¡Adelante, españoles! ¡Sin miedo a nada ni a nadie! (“Forward, Spaniards! With fear of nothing and no one!”) This closing refrain is not only a call to arms but a liturgical conclusion, akin to a religious benediction. The repetition of “¡Adelante!” is physically enacted—shoulders lifted, voice breaking, arms extended—transforming the stage into a ritualized site of national re-consecration. Gesture, tone, and phrase unite to produce what Chilton and Schäffner ( 2011 ) describe as discourse-as-performance: a moment where linguistic content is inseparable from affective force. 4.3.5. Synthesis: Affective Militancy and the Moralization of Closeness Abascal’s mode of populist proximity is grounded in affective militancy—the idea that belonging is earned through sacrifice, loyalty, and emotional purity. Unlike Farage’s discursive friendliness or Le Pen’s aesthetic intimacy, Abascal performs closeness through sacralized unity: we are close because we are moral kin, historical heirs, and spiritual warriors in a common civilizational battle. His discourse does not invite affective plurality; it demands emotional unity. His “we” is not inclusive—it is purifying. It distinguishes between those who are willing to “madrugar, pagar, luchar” and those who are not. The affective consequence is a moral binary: to feel aligned is to be virtuous; to feel alienated is to be suspect. This proximity strategy is potent because it fuses love and fear, family and flag, and emotion and identity into a single communicative model—what we might call theopolitical populism. Its force lies not in intimacy per se, but in the emotional moralization of national selfhood. 5. COMPARATIVE SYNTHESIS: TYPOLOGIES OF POPULIST PROXIMITY The preceding analyses of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal reveal not only a shared rhetorical commitment to populist closeness, but also distinct cultural, affective, and performative logics by which that closeness is achieved. In this section, we synthesize these patterns into a typology of populist proximity strategies, focusing on three core dimensions: affective mode, discursive mechanism, and symbolic axis of alignment. While all three leaders claim to speak for and from “the people,” they do so through markedly different emotional grammars and symbolic repertoires. 5.1. Santiago Abascal: Moral Closeness and Familial Militancy Across the three cases, several discursive strategies emerge as shared building blocks in the performance of populist proximity. While each leader adapts these strategies to their cultural and stylistic context, a common affective-discursive repertoire is evident. These recurring features form what we conceptualize as a proximity apparatus: a flexible set of linguistic and paralinguistic resources for enacting closeness with the audience. These include: Pronoun engineering : All three manipulate first-person plural pronouns (“we,” “us”) to construct symbolic horizontality with their audiences, collapsing elite distinctions through linguistic inclusion and discursive co-membership (De Fina, 1995 ; Fetzer, 2011 ). This technique foregrounds identification over representation, framing the leader not as separate from the people but as speaking from within. Affective stance-taking : Each leader performs emotional alignment with their audience, enacting shared frustration, fear, pride, or hope. Whether through Farage’s vernacular detachment, Le Pen’s mournful empathy, or Abascal’s exalted fervor, affective stance functions as a core mechanism of political intimacy (Du Bois, 2007 ; Jaffe, 2009 ). Strategic informality and rhythm : All three deploy stylistic elements typically associated with spoken discourse—colloquialisms, rhetorical questions, anecdotal interjections, and repetitive phrasing—to emulate conversational interaction. These devices cultivate accessibility and familiarity, anchoring the speaker in what Moffitt ( 2016 ) terms the “populist style.” Embodied performance : Physical delivery reinforces the proximity effect. Voice modulation, gesture, facial expression, and tempo variation contribute to what Wetherell ( 2012 ) describes as affective practice—an intercorporeal channel through which emotion is communicated, embodied, and co-experienced by audiences (see also Machin, 2013 ). Together, these strategies constitute a transmodal grammar of populist proximity: a semiotic infrastructure that binds speaker and audience through emotionally resonant and culturally intelligible forms. While their specific manifestations differ, the underlying logic remains consistent: proximity must be enacted—not merely claimed—through the micropolitics of style, affect, and voice. 5.2. Divergent Proximity Logics: Three Affective Templates While the three leaders share a common commitment to affective alignment and discursive inclusion, the rhetorical logic of that alignment diverges sharply across cases. Each enacts populist proximity through a distinct affective template, shaped by national traditions, political positioning, and stylistic repertoire. Nigel Farage constructs proximity through what we might call conversational irony. His discourse is saturated with pub talk rhythms, sardonic quips, and performative skepticism—an informal register that builds solidarity through style more than substance. He does not claim to suffer more, feel more, or love the nation more; rather, he sounds like “us”—a vernacular peer narrating shared disenchantment. His alignment axis is one of horizontal disaffection, grounded in mutual frustration with distant elites and bureaucratic systems. Farage’s legitimacy thus emerges from stylistic co-membership, his authority rooted in the everyday tone of political skepticism. Marine Le Pen, by contrast, enacts populist proximity through aesthetic empathy. Her speeches are solemn, mournful, and symbolically dense, weaving together poetics of loss, elegies to national decline, and carefully curated images of “the France we love.” Her register is more elevated than Farage’s, yet her emotional alignment is no less intimate. She positions herself as someone who grieves alongside the people—who mourns their losses and remembers their cultural inheritance. The affective core of her proximity lies in shared vulnerability and cultural pain. Her proximity logic is not one of ironic detachment, but of empathic attunement: she is close because she feels what the people feel, and because she enacts that feeling through the aesthetic grammar of republican sorrow. Santiago Abascal represents a third and markedly different template: affective militancy. His proximity strategy fuses emotional fervor with a register of sacred mission and historical urgency. Abascal’s speeches are vocally intense, rhythmically escalating, and symbolically anchored in a civilizational battle between good and evil. He constructs the Spanish nation as a metaphysical inheritance—entrusted to “real Spaniards” who must fight, sacrifice, and endure. Here, emotional alignment is achieved not through conversational tone or shared grief, but through moral obligation and ancestral loyalty. The audience is not addressed as disaffected equals or forgotten kin, but as heirs to a sacred tradition who must rise to its defense. Proximity, in this case, is built through a demand: “We must fight together.” Emotional resonance is not optional; it is a form of moral virtue. These divergent strategies—Farage’s ironic camaraderie, Le Pen’s empathic mourning, and Abascal’s exalted fraternity—constitute three distinct logics of populist intimacy, each adapted to specific cultural and ideological contexts. They demonstrate that populist proximity is not a monolithic or universal performance, but a context-sensitive affective achievement, produced through the confluence of discourse, embodiment, and symbolic resonance. 5.3. Populist Proximity as Affective Legitimacy Across all three cases, the performance of proximity functions as a legitimizing strategy—not because it clarifies ideology, but because it generates emotional alignment. The leader becomes credible not through policy precision or institutional experience, but through the capacity to embody and reflect the affective condition of the imagined community. This logic operates on at least three levels: Rhetorical : The leader speaks in a way that mirrors how “we” speak. Emotional : The leader feels what “we” feel—pain, pride, betrayal, hope. Moral : The leader shares and defends “our” values as sacred truths. This framework aligns with Papacharissi’s ( 2015 ) notion of emotional publics: collectivities held together not by rational consensus but by shared emotional trajectories. In this sense, populist proximity is less a communicative surplus and more a foundational resource: the means by which “the people” are discursively brought into being—not as a demographic, but as an affective subject. 5.4. Typology and Theoretical Contribution We propose the following typology to conceptualize populist proximity as a comparative construct: Table 2 Typology of populist proximity strategies across three leaders. Dimension Farage Le Pen Abascal Primary Affective Register Irony / Disenchantment Elegy / Cultural Grief Exaltation / Moral Urgency Proximity Mechanism Stylistic similarity Empathic alignment Ethical-religious solidarity Key Metaphor Mate in the pub Protective mother / mourning child Ancestral soldier / moral crusader Audience Positioning Disaffected equals Forgotten family Moral inheritors Temporal Orientation Present disaffection Nostalgic restoration Transhistorical duty This typological framework synthesizes the affective, discursive, and symbolic dimensions through which Farage, Le Pen, and Abascal construct rhetorical closeness with their audiences. It contrasts their primary affective registers, mechanisms of emotional alignment, dominant metaphors of identification, audience positioning, and temporal orientation. Together, these elements illustrate the culturally embedded and ideologically distinct logics by which populist leaders perform intimacy with “the people.”. Moreover, it also works as a triggering point for comparing not only leaders, but also national populist cultures and their dominant forms of emotional interpellation. It invites further research into how proximity is modulated by context (e.g., crisis vs. stability), medium (live vs. digital), and reception (audience alignment, media framing, counter-publics). 6. DISCUSSION: POPULIST PROXIMITY AND THE AFFECTIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REPRESENTATION This article has examined how three prominent right-wing populist leaders—Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal—construct discursive proximity to “the people” through culturally distinct but structurally resonant affective and rhetorical strategies. Building on a comparative analysis of nine informal and emotionally charged speech events, the study has proposed that populist proximity should be understood not as a stylistic flourish or incidental performance, but as a foundational communicative logic of populist discourse. This logic operates across lexical, prosodic, embodied, and symbolic planes to produce the effect of closeness, authenticity, and affective co-presence. What emerges from the analysis is a conceptual reorientation: proximity is not a byproduct of populism—it is one of its central affective technologies. While existing scholarship has focused primarily on populism’s logic of antagonism (Laclau, 2005 ; Wodak, 2015 ; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017 ), this article joins a growing body of work that seeks to foreground its productive, identity-constituting dimensions (Papacharissi, 2015 ; Wetherell, 2012 ; Yilmaz & Morieson, 2022 ). By shifting the analytical lens from confrontation to communion, from distance to discursive intimacy, we gain access to the emotional mechanics that bind leader and audience in the populist imaginary. 6.1. From Representation to Resonance: Rethinking Populist Closeness A central finding of this study is that populist leaders do not simply claim to represent the people—they perform that representation through resonant speech acts that index shared voice, emotion, and experience. Across all three cases, the leaders engage in what we might call affective isomorphism: the replication or simulation of the emotional structure of their audiences’ worldviews. This performance is not reducible to ideology or policy; rather, it functions as a semiotic approximation of felt commonality, establishing proximity as a form of emotional legitimacy. In this sense, populist proximity bridges the gap between the political and the interpersonal. Farage’s casual deixis and vernacular phrasing are not merely informal—they enact stylistic co-membership. Le Pen’s solemn invocations of memory and vulnerability are not only poetic—they produce aesthetic intimacy. Abascal’s vocally intense moralism is not simply militaristic—it constitutes a ritual of emotional purification. These proximity effects mobilize what Wetherell ( 2012 ) calls affective practices: socially organized repertoires for producing, circulating, and regulating emotion in public life. Importantly, these strategies are not interchangeable or merely ornamental. Each form of proximity activates a different symbolic axis of legitimacy—procedural (Farage), cultural (Le Pen), or moral-theological (Abascal). This suggests that proximity is not a stable genre but a context-dependent discursive formation, one that adapts to national affective styles and ideological traditions while retaining its core function: the construction of political authenticity through emotional alignment. 6.2. Populism as a Politics of Emotional Structure The findings also underscore the need to treat populism not only as a discursive logic or a rhetorical style, but as a politics of emotional structure. Populist leaders do not merely give voice to grievance—they structure that grievance into emotionally intelligible and culturally actionable forms. They do so by embedding themselves affectively within their audiences’ subject positions, transforming diffuse feelings of abandonment, dislocation, or indignation into coherent proximity performances. This has at least three implications for the study of political communication. First, it shifts analytical attention from what populists say to how they say it, and how they sound, feel, and perform in relation to their publics. Second, it calls for methodological approaches that can capture this relational complexity—approaches that blend CDA with affect theory, multimodal analysis, and stance-based pragmatics. Third, it opens a space for theorizing populism not only as antagonism but as discursive intimacy: the construction of “us” not through contrast alone, but through affective coherence. In this light, populist proximity becomes a vector for understanding why populism resonates so deeply despite ideological incoherence. It is not because populists always say the right things, but because they are felt to be emotionally congruent—“like us,” “with us,” or “of us.” That emotional congruence, we argue, is discursively built, semiotically layered, and culturally constrained. 6.3. Populism as a Politics of Emotional Structure The analysis presented here contributes to an emerging theoretical agenda around affective governance and emotional publics (Papacharissi, 2015 ; Ahmed, 2004 ). By foregrounding proximity as a performative act of emotional alignment, this article sketches the contours of what we might term affective proximity: the discursive and multimodal construction of felt co-presence between political speaker and collective audience. This concept opens several avenues for future research: How is affective proximity modulated across digital vs. live performance contexts (e.g., TikTok, livestreams, or edited clips)? What are the limits or breakdowns of proximity—i.e., how and when do audiences reject, parody, or resist proximity claims? How do counter publics (e.g., feminist, antiracist, or activist groups) respond to and reconfigure the rhetorical apparatus of populist closeness Moreover, this study suggests that proximity should be conceptualized not only as a style or feeling, but as a discursive resource with political consequences. It shapes audience identification, encodes moral legitimacy, and structures the very terms of political recognition. In populist discourse, to feel close is to feel seen, valued, and affirmed—and thus to feel politically real. 7. CONCLUSION This article has argued that populist proximity is not merely a rhetorical pose or stylistic flourish, but a core communicative achievement of right-wing populist discourse—one that is affectively charged, culturally encoded, and strategically modulated. Through a comparative analysis of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal, we have identified how populist leaders discursively perform emotional and symbolic closeness with their audiences using distinct national affective repertoires. While each draws from a shared toolkit of discursive inclusion—pronoun alignment, affective stance-taking, and embodied performance—each also encodes that proximity differently: as ironic camaraderie, aesthetic empathy, or militant familialism . In doing so, this article contributes to a broader theoretical understanding of populism as a form of emotional governance and symbolic identification, where political legitimacy is grounded not solely in ideological coherence but in the felt resonance between leader and public. It advances the concept of affective proximity as a critical analytical lens for exploring how discourse produces emotional belonging and enacts political intimacy. Future work on populist rhetoric would benefit from greater attention to proximity’s performative structure, its failures and inversions, and its circulation across digital platforms and transnational publics. If populism thrives on emotional alignment, then studying how that alignment is built, broken, and resisted is essential to understanding its persuasiveness—and its limits. Declarations Author Contribution P.A.A. A. conceptualized the study, constructed the corpus, conducted the analysis, and wrote the manuscript. All aspects of the research and writing were completed solely by the author. Acknowledgement I would like to mention that this manuscript has been developed within the framework of the research group “930160 - DISCURSO Y COMUNICACIÓN EN LENGUA INGLESA: ESTUDIOS DE LINGÜÍSTICA COGNITIVA Y FUNCIONAL” at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I am also grateful for the support and feedback of my academic supervisor, Dr. Elena Domínguez Romero. Data Availability The dataset supporting the findings of this study—the Trump 2016 Primary Corpus (TPC2016)—is openly available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15399539. The corpus includes 222 annotated rally transcripts with metadata and documentation, and is licensed for academic reuse. FUNDING DECLARATION This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. ETHICS DECLARATION Ethics declaration: Not applicable. References Ahmed, S. (2004). 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Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 63–94). SAGE. Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean . SAGE. Wodak, R. (2021). Performing populism and the political: Rhetorical styles and discourse strategies. European Review, 29 (4), 518–532.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798721000033 Yilmaz, I., & Morieson, N. (2022). The affective construction of the people in populist discourse: Emotional governance and national affective styles. Nations and Nationalism, 28 (4), 1059–1076.https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12884 Zúquete, J. P. (2018). The identitarians: The movement against globalism and Islam in Europe . University of Notre Dame Press. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6829941","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":469890702,"identity":"451861ca-bcaa-4d85-ad48-7dde879299b9","order_by":0,"name":"Pablo Agustin Artero Abellan","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Complutense University of Madrid","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Pablo","middleName":"Agustin Artero","lastName":"Abellan","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-06-05 14:08:24","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":98622026,"identity":"d474ec2b-a0d5-48fe-b169-a1c3577d9b28","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-19 16:42:11","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1387823,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6829941/v1/61e2c610-615e-4319-8203-6df1329fe54b.pdf"},{"id":84539659,"identity":"6dde7c9c-91c9-4555-80e1-4301d87c283a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-13 08:02:17","extension":"zip","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":4257561,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"TPC2016Corpus.zip","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6829941/v1/54ec5c8c75a6a072122ba8bb.zip"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Performing the People: Affective and Discursive Strategies of Populist Proximity","fulltext":[{"header":"1. INTRODUCTION","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn recent years, scholars of populism have intensively mapped the discursive mechanisms by which political leaders polarize the public sphere\u0026mdash;constructing enemies, invoking myths of decline and rebirth, and asserting a singular will of \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; against illegitimate elites. These dynamics, explored in our previous studies on national identity and antagonistic framing, illuminate how populist rhetoric operates through emotionally charged narratives of loss, betrayal, and redemption. Yet populism is not solely about confrontation or myth-making. It is also about connection\u0026mdash;about \u003cem\u003efeeling close to the people\u003c/em\u003e, not just speaking on their behalf.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis article turns analytic attention toward that connective tissue of populist performance: the rhetorical enactment of proximity. We argue that populist leaders do not merely evoke the people as a symbolic or moral entity; they perform themselves as part of it. Through inclusive language, affective tone, and stylistic informality, they construct a sense of interpersonal belonging\u0026mdash;simulating solidarity and authenticity in ways that are emotionally resonant, politically strategic, and nationally inflected.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFocusing on informal and unscripted public appearances by Nigel Farage (UK), Marine Le Pen (France), and Santiago Abascal (Spain), this study examines how each performs emotional alignment and discursive closeness to \u0026ldquo;ordinary people.\u0026rdquo; These performances\u0026mdash;typically occurring in small rallies, town halls, or improvised media interactions\u0026mdash;stand apart from ceremonial or mythic speeches analyzed in earlier work. Instead of invoking sacred history or naming enemies, they emphasize likeness, listening, and living the same hardships.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDrawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Wodak \u0026amp; Meyer, 2016), and integrating insights from stance-taking (Jaffe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e), pronominal deixis (De Fina, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e), and affect theory (Wetherell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Ahmed, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e), we explore the linguistic, emotional, and embodied techniques through which populist leaders perform proximity. We show that across all three cases, proximity is achieved through a shared discursive repertoire\u0026mdash;strategic use of \u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; colloquial idioms, emotional storytelling, controlled informality, and embodied affect (gesture, tone, rhythm). Yet how these strategies manifest varies with national political style: Farage deploys dry humor and conversational sarcasm; Le Pen performs maternal empathy and moral identification; Abascal invokes a moral fraternity anchored in Catholic-inflected familialism.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis article contributes to the growing body of work on affective populism by emphasizing proximity not as a stylistic flourish, but as a core legitimation strategy. In emotionally charged political environments, being perceived as authentic, relatable, and \u0026ldquo;one of us\u0026rdquo; becomes more powerful than ideological precision or policy depth. Proximity thus functions as a communicative achievement: it reaffirms populist moral authority through \u003cem\u003eemotional resonance\u003c/em\u003e, not rational coherence. Understanding this phenomenon requires us to treat discourse not just as representation, but as relation\u0026mdash;as a site where political intimacy is built, felt, and performed.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study is situated within the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which views discourse as both a medium and constructor of social reality, ideology, and power (Fairclough, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Wodak \u0026amp; Meyer, 2016). In contrast to approaches that emphasize the content of populist rhetoric (e.g., nationalism, anti-elitism), our focus lies on the interpersonal architecture of populist discourse\u0026mdash;how proximity, familiarity, and emotional alignment are discursively and performatively achieved. To that end, the framework integrates four interdependent analytical strands: (1) stance-taking and dialogic positioning, (2) pronominal deixis and referential alignment, (3) affective discourse and emotional governance, and (4) stylistic populism and strategic informality.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.1. Stance-Taking and Relational Positioning\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eStance is not simply the expression of an attitude or belief; it is a discursive act that positions the speaker in relation to both content and audience (Du Bois, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e). Within this view, stance-taking encompasses three interlinked functions: evaluation (expressing a position toward a proposition), alignment (situating oneself in relation to others\u0026rsquo; stances), and positioning (enacting a social identity within a discursive exchange).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis triadic model is critical to understanding populist proximity. Populist leaders regularly position themselves as insiders to \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo; worldview and affective condition. They do so not only by adopting evaluative stances (e.g., condemning elites) but also by adopting a shared moral and emotional posture. As Du Bois (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e, p. 163) notes, \u0026ldquo;stance involves not only personal subjectivity but intersubjective negotiation\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a claim particularly relevant to populism, where the performative \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; is constructed dialogically through alignment rather than demographic fact.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn populist discourse, stance functions as a relational device, producing emotional solidarity and shared grievance through rhetorical symmetry. For instance, when leaders say \u0026ldquo;I know how you feel\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;ve all had enough,\u0026rdquo; they perform \u003cem\u003eaffective\u003c/em\u003e alignment that extends beyond ideological convergence. This ties closely to Bucholtz and Hall\u0026rsquo;s (2005) concept of identity as emergent in interaction\u0026mdash;not fixed, but co-constructed in context through stancetaking, indexicality, and ideological positioning. Populist proximity thus hinges on the repetition of stances that reinforce perceived emotional similarity and moral unity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.2. Pronouns, Deixis, and the \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rdquo; Effect\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePronominal manipulation also enables deictic compression\u0026mdash;a process by which distance (spatial, moral, symbolic) is linguistically reduced. Phrases such as \u0026ldquo;right here with you,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;like many of you,\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve been there too\u0026rdquo; bring the speaker into intimate narrative and experiential proximity with the audience. These deixis-based moves help constitute what Blommaert (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e) calls a shared chronotope, where time, space, and identity converge to anchor political belonging in shared experience. Personal pronouns in political discourse function not as neutral grammatical elements but as powerful tools of inclusion and exclusion. In populist rhetoric, \u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;you,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rdquo; operate as indexical markers of group membership and ideological stance (De Fina, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Bamberg, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e; Fetzer, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). These pronouns delineate in-groups and out-groups, dynamically constructing political alignments and moral geographies.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAmong these, the inclusive \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; is central to populist proximity. It allows leaders to collapse the distinction between speaker and audience, portraying themselves not merely as representatives of the people but as embodied participants in a collective struggle. As L\u0026auml;hteenm\u0026auml;ki and Voutilainen (2020) observe, such deictic strategies \u0026ldquo;collapse symbolic hierarchies and foreground horizontality\u0026rdquo; (p. 298), reinforcing a sense of moral and affective unity. Statements like \u0026ldquo;we, the forgotten\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;we know what they\u0026rsquo;ve done\u0026rdquo; perform identification and grievance in tandem.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStrategic vagueness heightens this effect. Chilton (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) highlights how deixis, particularly when underdetermined, is deeply ideological. Ambiguous referents such as \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;them\u0026rdquo; invite audiences to fill in the blanks\u0026mdash;projecting elites, immigrants, or other scapegoated groups onto the out-group. This ambiguity fosters resonance across diverse interpretive communities without committing to specific propositions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePopulist speakers also employ what can be termed \u003cem\u003edeictic compression\u003c/em\u003e\u0026mdash;linguistic tactics that reduce symbolic and experiential distance. Phrases such as \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve been there too\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;right here with you\u0026rdquo; create a sense of intimate co-presence, effectively collapsing space and status. These indexical moves help construct what Blommaert (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e) calls a \u0026ldquo;shared chronotope,\u0026rdquo; wherein time, space, and identity are fused into a collective experience of national belonging.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.3. Affective Discourse and Emotional Legitimacy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAffect is not a rhetorical garnish but the infrastructure of political discourse (Wetherell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). In this view, emotions are not private psychological states but socially distributed practices\u0026mdash;discursively produced, circulated, and managed (Ahmed, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Papacharissi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Populist rhetoric mobilizes affect not only to provoke but to bind\u0026mdash;to create communities defined by shared feeling as much as shared interest.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis emotional alignment is achieved through \u003cem\u003eaffective practices\u003c/em\u003e (Wetherell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e): repeated linguistic and paralinguistic strategies such as emotional refrains, tonal escalation, anecdotal appeals, and performative empathy. These are particularly salient in unscripted or informal settings\u0026mdash;rallies, interviews, town halls\u0026mdash;where leaders must simultaneously embody authenticity and emotional responsiveness.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSuch practices generate what Yilmaz and Morieson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e) term \u003cem\u003eaffective communities\u003c/em\u003e: publics formed through affective congruence rather than ideological coherence. Here, legitimacy is grounded not solely in representation, but in perceived emotional resonance. The leader becomes a mirror to the crowd\u0026rsquo;s affective state, validating their grievances and performing proximity through affective mimicry.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImportantly, these emotional registers are culturally coded. Moffitt and Tormey (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e) note that populist performance is filtered through national styles: British populism often leans on sardonic wit, French populism on civilizational melancholy, and Spanish populism on religious and familial exaltation. These culturally specific grammars shape not only the tone of populist rhetoric but also the acceptable affective registers through which proximity may be credibly enacted (Papacharissi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.4. Populist Style and Strategic Informality\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePopulism is not only a political logic (Laclau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e) or discursive grammar (Wodak, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), but also a performative style\u0026mdash;a way of being and sounding in the public sphere (Moffitt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Populist style involves more than content; it encompasses tone, rhythm, syntax, gesture, and bodily comportment. These elements converge to create a register of communicative informality that projects authenticity, normalcy, and accessibility.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoffitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) defines populist style through features such as crisis narration, bad manners, and directness. We extend this by foregrounding stylistic informality as a proximity mechanism. Populist leaders often engage in downward stylistic convergence\u0026mdash;adopting vernacular speech, slang, anecdotal logic, and discursive unpolish\u0026mdash;as a way of rejecting elite modes of communication and aligning with \u0026ldquo;the people.\u0026rdquo; As Brubaker (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) argues, such moves are not accidental; they are forms of anti-institutional performance that lend credibility through perceived normalcy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis stylistic register is reinforced by strategic vagueness. Chilton (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) and Cap (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e) note that vague referents, hedging, and elliptical syntax are common in populist speech because they invite interpretive flexibility. This enables wider identification, as audiences are encouraged to project their own meanings onto ambiguous slogans (\u0026ldquo;take back control,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;our people,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;real France\u0026rdquo;). Vagueness, then, is not a communicative flaw\u0026mdash;it is a semiotic affordance that enhances inclusivity through semantic openness.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe cumulative effect is what Taggart (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2000\u003c/span\u003e) called \u0026ldquo;the heartland effect\u0026rdquo;: the evocation of a morally and emotionally unified community, imagined as culturally coherent and under threat. Populist leaders project themselves as embodied access points to that heartland\u0026mdash;not abstract representatives, but proximate actors whose language, demeanor, and emotional cadence match those of their audience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis theoretical framework provides the scaffolding for our analysis of Farage, Le Pen, and Abascal in Section 4. It enables us to trace how proximity is not a secondary byproduct of populism but a primary rhetorical achievement, produced through layered strategies of stance-taking, pronoun manipulation, affective enactment, and stylistic calibration. Populist discourse, we argue, derives much of its affective power not from shouting at \u0026ldquo;them,\u0026rdquo; but from sounding like us.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3. METHODOLOGY","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study employs a qualitative, interpretive research design grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with an explicit focus on affective-discursive strategies and interactional alignment within populist political speech. The goal is not generalization through representativeness, but theoretical insight through comparative, high-density textual analysis. Following the tradition of CDA (Fairclough, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Wodak \u0026amp; Meyer, 2016), we view discourse as a constitutive social practice through which identities, relationships, and ideologies are enacted.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn particular, we are interested in how populist leaders perform closeness\u0026mdash;not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a situated communicative strategy operating across linguistic, pragmatic, and affective dimensions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo that end, we integrate analytical tools from stance theory, pronominal analysis, affect studies, and discourse-pragmatic research, informed by both the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e) and interactionally anchored perspectives on performance and alignment (Du Bois, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Jaffe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). This section details the corpus composition, sampling rationale, transcription and annotation procedure, and the coding schema used in the analysis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1. Corpus Design and Sampling Criteria\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003e​​The empirical corpus comprises nine speech events\u0026mdash;three each from Nigel Farage (United Kingdom), Marine Le Pen (France), and Santiago Abascal (Spain)\u0026mdash;delivered between 2016 and 2021. These speech events were selected through purposive sampling (Teddlie \u0026amp; Yu, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e), targeting moments of informal, conversational, or semi-scripted political communication where interpersonal alignment is foregrounded. All events share a common rhetorical function: they aim to perform populist proximity through affective connection rather than ideological confrontation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn contrast to ceremonial addresses or large-scale nationalist rallies (which formed the basis of prior articles), this corpus privileges speech situations characterized by low formality, high interactionality, and spontaneous affective expression. Examples include town hall meetings, small-stage campaign appearances, media interviews, and candidate \u0026ldquo;walkabouts\u0026rdquo; with embedded commentary.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSelection criteria included: \u003cem\u003eReduced institutional formality\u003c/em\u003e (e.g., absence of lecterns, presence of direct audience interaction); \u003cem\u003eHigh emotional or affiliative load\u003c/em\u003e (e.g., visible empathy, familial invocation, humor); \u003cem\u003eVerbal markers of intimacy\u003c/em\u003e (e.g., \u0026ldquo;you know,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;I feel,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;people like us\u0026rdquo;) and \u003cem\u003eAvailable audiovisual documentation\u003c/em\u003e, enabling cross-modal annotation of gesture, tone, and embodied affect.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAll materials were retrieved from official party YouTube channels, media recordings, and publicly accessible campaign archives. Where necessary, transcription was conducted verbatim by the author, with selective annotation of prosodic and paralinguistic features.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.2. Transcription, Annotations and Ethical Considerations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTranscripts follow conventions adapted from Jeffersonian transcription (Jefferson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e), with modifications appropriate to political discourse. In addition to lexical content, the following patterns were annotated: \u003cem\u003eIntonation contours\u003c/em\u003e (rising/falling, pitch peaks); \u003cem\u003ePauses and elongations\u003c/em\u003e (affective hesitation, dramatization); \u003cem\u003eParalinguistic features\u003c/em\u003e (e.g., laughter, applause, vocal strain) and \u003cem\u003eAudience response\u003c/em\u003e (verbal or embodied, when audible).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile full Conversation Analysis (CA) encoding is not employed, the emphasis on multimodality aligns with current work on multimodal CDA (Kress, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Machin, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e), recognizing that affect is communicated not only through words but through intonation, pacing, gesture, and gaze. Because all data derive from public political communication, no ethical risks are posed, but speaker anonymity is not applied given the public role and institutional position of the subjects.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3. Transcription, Annotations and Ethical Considerations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe analytic procedure follows an abductive logic (Tavory \u0026amp; Timmermans, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), combining theory-driven sensitizing concepts with inductive attention to emerging interactional patterns. Analysis proceeded in three overlapping stages: holistic reading and familiarization, structured coding using NVivo 14, and cross-case comparative synthesis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3.1. Stage I: Holistic Reading and Thematic Mapping\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the first stage of analysis, each speech event was subjected to multiple rounds of holistic reading, with the objective of immersing the researcher in the discursive texture, emotional dynamics, and interactional flow of the performance. This phase prioritized a qualitative sensibility over categorical precision, aiming to grasp the overall affective arc and relational choreography of each event. Particular attention was paid to the tonal evolution of the speech\u0026mdash;how emotional intensity was escalated, diffused, or modulated across different segments\u0026mdash;as well as to shifts in speaker\u0026ndash;audience alignment, such as transitions from individual anecdote to collective invocation, or from generalized critique to intimate reassurance. Recurring moments of personal narrative, inclusive framing, or empathic signaling (e.g., \u0026ldquo;I know what that feels like,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;ve all been through it\u0026rdquo;) were identified as key textual sites where populist proximity was performatively constructed. These instances, herein referred to as proximity moments, were annotated and clustered for subsequent fine-grained analysis in NVivo, serving as the empirical anchors for the discourse-pragmatic coding that followed.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3.2. Stage II: Structured Coding\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the second stage of analysis, all speech events were systematically coded using NVivo 14, guided by a theory-informed schema that targeted five interrelated dimensions of populist proximity. These dimensions were derived from the theoretical framework and operationalized through inductive-exploratory piloting. Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e summarizes the code categories, including their interpretive scope and foundational scholarly sources.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCoding schema for discursive and affective strategies of populist proximity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"3\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCode Category\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDescription\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eKey References\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eStance Alignment\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFirst-person identification with audience concerns, values, or feelings\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDu Bois (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e); Jaffe (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePronominal Framing\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eStrategic deployment of \u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;you,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;they,\u0026rdquo; including indexical shifts and deictic compression\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDe Fina (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e); Fetzer (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAffective Markers\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExpressions of sympathy, outrage, gratitude; repetition; emotional metaphors\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eWetherell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e); Ahmed (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e); Yilmaz \u0026amp; Morieson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eStylistic Informality\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eColloquialisms, jokes, casual syntax, self-deprecation, disfluencies\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoffitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e); Brubaker (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEmbodied Proximity\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTone shifts, pitch modulation, hand gestures, eye contact, physical movement toward audience\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eKress (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e); Chilton \u0026amp; Sch\u0026auml;ffner (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e); Machin (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAs can be seen, Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e outlines the five primary analytic dimensions used to code the corpus, including a brief description of each category\u0026rsquo;s function and the key theoretical references underpinning them. The schema integrates linguistic, affective, and embodied features in line with the study\u0026rsquo;s multimodal and discourse-pragmatic orientation. These codes were applied both independently and relationally\u0026mdash;allowing us to capture not only discrete markers of affective or stylistic proximity but also their co-occurrence and escalation across time. Particular attention was paid to moments where multiple codes overlapped (e.g., affective markers co-occurred with pronominal shifts and embodied gestures), as these tended to signal high-intensity proximity performances worthy of comparative analysis across cases.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3.3. Cross-National Comparative Analysis\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo avoid overgeneralization, we employed contrastive case analysis (Yin, 2003), situating findings within national affective traditions and discursive norms. Particular attention was paid to how similar strategies (e.g., inclusive \u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; parental metaphor) manifested differently across British, French, and Spanish populist styles. The results were then synthesized into comparative matrices (see Section 5), enabling typological refinement.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.4. Reflexity and Analytical Limitations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAs with all discourse-analytic research, interpretation is situated and hermeneutic. The researcher\u0026rsquo;s positionality\u0026mdash;ideologically and linguistically\u0026mdash;is not irrelevant. While analytical rigor was maintained through textual anchoring, recursive coding, and triangulation across cases, the analysis inevitably reflects a critical interpretive lens shaped by normative concerns about democratic discourse and representation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLimitations include:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eCorpus size\u003c/em\u003e: While purposive sampling enables depth, it restricts breadth and temporal generalizability.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eLanguage heterogeneity\u003c/em\u003e: While source languages were preserved during transcription, comparisons across English, French, and Spanish are necessarily approximate due to cultural-pragmatic differences.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eGesture and affect\u003c/em\u003e: Given the constraints of video transcription, embodied affect is noted impressionistically rather than measured through biometric means.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNonetheless, these limitations are consistent with the epistemological stance of CDA, which prioritizes depth over frequency, meaning over measurement, and cultural embeddedness over decontextualized abstraction.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis multi-stage, theory-integrated methodology enables a nuanced account of how populist proximity is discursively and \u003cem\u003eaffectively\u003c/em\u003e constructed in context. By centering speech events where intimacy and identification are thematically foregrounded, we illuminate the rhetorical infrastructure of populist belonging\u0026mdash;an infrastructure built not through confrontation alone, but through the performative enactment of emotional sameness.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. ANALYSIS: PERFORMING POPULIST PROXIMITY","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis section presents a comparative discourse analysis of nine speech events\u0026mdash;three each from Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal\u0026mdash;focusing on the affective, interactional, and stylistic strategies by which each leader discursively performs proximity to \u0026ldquo;the people.\u0026rdquo; Building on the coding schema outlined in Section 3, we identify, analyze, and interpret proximity moments: discursive instances where leaders overtly or subtly enact emotional alignment, shared belonging, or conversational intimacy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRather than approach these cases through exhaustive line-by-line annotation, we adopt a focused micro-analysis strategy (Wetherell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1998\u003c/span\u003e; Taylor, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e), selecting representative segments where proximity is particularly salient, layered, or multimodally reinforced. Each case study is organized to highlight how specific rhetorical and affective patterns\u0026mdash;such as pronoun manipulation, stance-taking, colloquialization, or gesture\u0026mdash;contribute to the leader\u0026rsquo;s proximity effect: the impression of emotional, experiential, and moral closeness with their audience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1. Nigel Farage:\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eNigel Farage\u0026rsquo;s populist persona is widely recognized for its blending of irony, informality, and anti-elitist affect. In contrast to the civilizational melancholy of Le Pen or the spiritual fervor of Abascal, Farage\u0026rsquo;s proximity strategy is grounded in British discursive conventions of understated affect, dry humor, and a public style that is both politically provocative and conversationally accessible (Theakston \u0026amp; Gill, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Brubaker, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). His deployment of proximity tactics is less theatrical and more embedded in tone, stance, and register, constructing authenticity not through impassioned moral appeals, but through discursive familiarity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1.1. Inclusive Pronouns and the Rhetoric of Shared Discontent\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne of Farage\u0026rsquo;s most consistent techniques is the strategic use of inclusive first-person plural pronouns, especially \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;us,\u0026rdquo; to enact a horizontality between speaker and audience. In a 2019 campaign speech at a pub venue in Clacton-on-Sea, for instance, he opens with:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;ve had enough, haven\u0026rsquo;t we? We\u0026rsquo;ve been lied to, strung along, ignored\u0026mdash;and it\u0026rsquo;s not on anymore.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe repetition of \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; across clausal units, coupled with evaluative stancetaking (\u0026ldquo;had enough,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;not on anymore\u0026rdquo;), creates an affectively charged alignment that positions Farage as both victim and spokesperson of popular frustration. The phrase \u0026ldquo;haven\u0026rsquo;t we?\u0026rdquo; is particularly noteworthy: it performs in-group solicitation and assumes consensus, collapsing any symbolic distance. This interactional deixis constructs the audience not as passive listeners, but as co-judges and co-experiencers (Du Bois, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Fetzer, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnlike Le Pen or Abascal, Farage rarely uses \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; as an abstract political category; instead, he linguistically inhabits the group through interactional deixis, inviting affective identification through everyday phrasing. The effect is not solemn or visionary, but conversationally intimate, consistent with the British populist tradition of anti-pompous affect (Wodak, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec18\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1.2. Irony, Downshifting, and Conversational Performance\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFarage frequently downshifts political speech into pub-style storytelling, performing a kind of anti-political charisma that resists grandiosity. Consider the following excerpt from a town hall-style Q\u0026amp;A in Peterborough (May 2019):\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey say we didn\u0026rsquo;t know what we were voting for. Well, I don\u0026rsquo;t know about you\u0026mdash;but I knew exactly what I was voting for. And I think 17.4\u0026nbsp;million people did too.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis construction performs affective repetition, alignment, and defiance in a single breath. The phrase \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know about you\u0026rdquo; is indexically vague yet interactionally loaded\u0026mdash;it momentarily breaks formality and invites informal identification. By invoking the Brexit vote as a shared, commonsensical act, Farage recasts a contested political decision as a morally self-evident truth, aligning speaker and audience against a patronizing elite (\u0026ldquo;they say\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHere, irony functions not as distance but as bonding. The sarcasm is not detached; it is directional, aimed at opponents who \u0026ldquo;don\u0026rsquo;t get it,\u0026rdquo; while the audience is linguistically cued to recognize the irony as affirmation (Attardo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2000\u003c/span\u003e). The effect is a shared insider stance: Farage doesn\u0026rsquo;t merely say what \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; feel\u0026mdash;he says it how \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; would say it.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec19\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1.3. Stylistic Informality and Anti-Elitist Authenticity\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFarage\u0026rsquo;s style is marked by syntactic casualness, colloquialisms, and deliberate non-polish. He routinely uses contractions (\u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;ve,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rsquo;re,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;isn\u0026rsquo;t\u0026rdquo;), interrupts himself, and adapts his rhythm to the crowd. In a campaign clip from early 2019, he declares:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey\u0026rsquo;ll call us names\u0026mdash;racist, fascist, whatever. They\u0026rsquo;ve run out of insults. We just don\u0026rsquo;t care anymore.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis passage exhibits a form of performative indifference\u0026mdash;a rhetorical stance that projects authenticity by refusing to dignify elite criticism. The phrase \u0026ldquo;we just don\u0026rsquo;t care anymore\u0026rdquo; is notable for its resonant informality: it mimics vernacular resignation but is deployed as a rallying cry. This is a classic populist move: transforming disaffection into empowerment through emotional flattening.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn performance terms, Farage\u0026rsquo;s gestures are minimal, but his intonation is rhythmic and intimate\u0026mdash;eschewing bombast for controlled emphasis. His pauses are often filled by audience responses (\u0026ldquo;Exactly!\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Yeah!\u0026rdquo;), which reinforces the conversational loop and constructs affective co-presence.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec20\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1.4. Embodied Pragmatics and Spatial Proximity\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile Farage rarely engages in the physical theatrics of other populists, his bodily comportment reinforces proximity through understated means: leaning slightly forward during key statements, lowering his voice in moments of critique, and briefly making eye contact with individuals in the front rows of small venues. These embodied gestures are not theatrical but indexical\u0026mdash;they signal attentiveness, humility, and co-presence.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn a 2020 media appearance filmed at a working men\u0026rsquo;s club, Farage sits on a low stool, holding a pint, and opens with:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBit loud in here, but that\u0026rsquo;s just how we like it.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis utterance is trivial in content but symbolically rich: it locates Farage within a familiar, non-elite soundscape and signals his embeddedness in everyday spaces. The \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; is not programmatic\u0026mdash;it is acoustically ambient, constructed through shared noise, not shared ideology.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec21\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1.5. Synthesis: Proximity Through Conversational Realism\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFarage\u0026rsquo;s populist proximity strategy is grounded in what we might term conversational realism: a communicative stance that projects emotional congruence and stylistic similarity through understated affect, informal deixis, and ironic bonding. His pronouns are intimate, his irony affiliative, and his tone calibrated to mirror the listener\u0026rsquo;s vernacular skepticism. While lacking the emotive saturation of Le Pen or the moral absolutism of Abascal, Farage\u0026rsquo;s discourse generates proximity through tone, rhythm, and register\u0026mdash;turning familiarity into a mode of legitimacy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec22\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2. Marine Le Pen:\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eMarine Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s proximity strategy diverges sharply from Farage\u0026rsquo;s ironic informality and is instead rooted in what we might call aesthetic affective nationalism: a style that combines emotional solemnity, symbolic femininity, and civilizational longing. Rather than position herself as an everywoman among equals, Le Pen often performs protective intimacy\u0026mdash;simultaneously identifying with \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; and elevating herself as their emotional spokesperson. In contrast to the combative populism of her father, her own rhetoric leans on empathic maternalism, deploying emotional resonance as a legitimizing force (Z\u0026uacute;quete, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Wodak, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLe Pen does not shout to be close; she mourns, remembers, and invokes. Her proximity is constructed through shared vulnerability, aesthetic familiarity, and carefully curated affective framings of nationhood and decline.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec23\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2.1. Empathic Deixis and Shared Affective Memory\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn her April 17, 2017, presidential campaign rally in Paris, Le Pen opens with the emotionally charged phrase:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eJe vous comprends. Je suis comme vous. J\u0026rsquo;aime la France comme vous l\u0026rsquo;aimez.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eTranslation: \u0026ldquo;I understand you. I am like you. I love France the way you love it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis opening cluster accomplishes multiple proximity tasks simultaneously. First, the second-person plural \u0026ldquo;vous\u0026rdquo; (you all) evokes direct interpersonal address\u0026mdash;formal yet emotionally inclusive. Second, the reflexive comparison (\u0026ldquo;I am like you\u0026rdquo;) blurs symbolic boundaries between elite candidate and everyday citizen. Third, the shared affection for the nation is constructed not ideologically but emotionally\u0026mdash;through the verb \u0026ldquo;aimer\u0026rdquo; (to love), repeated with rhythmic mirroring.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis alignment strategy is not primarily political but affective; it relies on emotional equivalence rather than political sameness. In Wetherell\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) terms, it is a form of affective attunement\u0026mdash;a synchronized emotional resonance that fosters legitimacy by implying shared vulnerability and cultural investment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec24\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2.2. Gendered Appeals and Civilizational Caretaking\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003e​​Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s rhetoric often assumes the voice of a protective maternal figure\u0026mdash;defending France not only from foreign threats, but from cultural dilution and moral decay. In her Nice rally (April 27, 2017), she declares:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eJe suis la voix des m\u0026egrave;res inqui\u0026egrave;tes, des p\u0026egrave;res oubli\u0026eacute;s, des enfants sans futur.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;I am the voice of worried mothers, forgotten fathers, and children without a future.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis passage performs multiple inclusions: age-based, gendered, and temporal. Le Pen here positions herself as the affective channel for French familial despair, employing polyvalent subject alignment (Krumer-Nevo \u0026amp; Sidi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) to speak for all those feeling structurally abandoned. The term \u0026ldquo;voix\u0026rdquo; (voice) reinforces her performative role\u0026mdash;not as commander, but as emotional representative.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis aligns with what Yilmaz and Morieson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e) term affective communitarianism: a style of populism where leaders portray themselves as morally obligated caretakers of a culturally specific emotional community. Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s repeated invocations of \u0026ldquo;nos enfants\u0026rdquo; (our children), \u0026ldquo;nos traditions,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;notre m\u0026eacute;moire\u0026rdquo; establish not only a collective \u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; but a collective object of mourning.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec25\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2.3. Stylistic Elegy: Affective Vocabulary and Lexical Aesthetics\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnlike Farage\u0026rsquo;s vernacular populism, Le Pen frequently aestheticizes national emotion through lyrical phrasing, repetition, and stylistic solemnity. For instance:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eLa France que j\u0026rsquo;aime est celle du clocher, du vin, de la parole libre. Celle qu\u0026rsquo;on essaie de faire dispara\u0026icirc;tre.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;The France I love is that of the bell tower, of wine, of free speech. The one they are trying to make disappear.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis passage constructs proximity through emotional symbolism, not conversational realism. The evocation of \u0026ldquo;clocher\u0026rdquo; (church steeple), \u0026ldquo;vin,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;parole libre\u0026rdquo; (free speech) is not merely nostalgic\u0026mdash;it is cultural poetics. These images function as what Ahmed (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) calls affective signifiers: condensed symbols charged with emotional significance that activate recognition and belonging.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotably, the use of anaphora (parallel clause structure) and mimetic cadence draws the listener into an aesthetic rhythm of loss, reinforcing proximity through sonic resonance. Le Pen does not just describe a disappearing France\u0026mdash;she performs its disappearance through emotionally elegiac tone.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec26\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2.4. Ritualized Inclusion and Nation-as-Family Metaphors\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eLe Pen frequently ritualizes proximity through metaphors of kinship and domesticity. Her speeches are interlaced with references to \u0026ldquo;chez nous\u0026rdquo; (our home), \u0026ldquo;nos anciens\u0026rdquo; (our elders), and \u0026ldquo;les n\u0026ocirc;tres\u0026rdquo; (our own)\u0026mdash;phrases that conflate national identity with familial bonds.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn her 2017 Paris rally, she states:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNous sommes chez nous. Et nous le resterons.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;We are at home. And we will remain so.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHere, \u0026ldquo;chez nous\u0026rdquo; is more than spatial deixis\u0026mdash;it is ontological positioning. The pronoun \u0026ldquo;nous\u0026rdquo; does not merely denote political alliance; it signals emplaced identity, where being French is constructed as being emotionally rooted in space and time (Chilton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Cap, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). The repetition of the future-tense verb \u0026ldquo;resterons\u0026rdquo; (will remain) functions as a discursive anchor, emotionally securing belonging against the perceived threat of cultural displacement.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLe Pen\u0026rsquo;s gestures often mirror this intimacy. During these statements, she slows her delivery, softens her tone, and reduces bodily movement\u0026mdash;gestural minimalism functioning as affective gravitas. Her physical stillness becomes a form of emotional solemnity, underscoring the mournful cadence of her national imaginary.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec27\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2.5. Synthesis: Affective Sovereignty and Maternal Alignment\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eLe Pen\u0026rsquo;s populist proximity does not operate through casual self-identification or irony, but through civilizational alignment articulated in emotionally saturated, aesthetically curated language. Her register is one of solemn empathy\u0026mdash;performing closeness through ritual mourning, gendered caretaking, and symbolic heritage. She positions herself not as the people\u0026rsquo;s friend (as Farage might), but as their daughter and mother, embedded within a family of national feeling that must be protected, remembered, and restored.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis affective style is both emotionally vertical (speaking for others) and symbolically horizontal (speaking as one of them), allowing Le Pen to oscillate between vulnerability and authority. Her speeches do not demand applause; they demand recognition\u0026mdash;of grievance shared, loss endured, and cultural love remembered.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec28\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3. Santiago Abascal: Moral Closeness and Familial Militancy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eSantiago Abascal\u0026rsquo;s rhetorical proximity to \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; emerges not through conversational realism (Farage) or aesthetic empathy (Le Pen), but through sacralized moral alignment. His discourse constructs a Spanish nation that is simultaneously ancestral, familial, and under siege, requiring not just recognition, but loyal defense. Populist proximity here is achieved through emotionally saturated metaphors of sacrifice, kinship, and historical continuity\u0026mdash;what Smith (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) would call a form of ethno-symbolic nationalism, in which \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; are descendants of a sacred national lineage.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRather than address the audience as political citizens, Abascal often speaks to them as moral kin\u0026mdash;sons, daughters, brothers, and mothers of a spiritually unified Spain. The result is a proximity strategy characterized by affective militancy: the speaker does not join the people in ordinary suffering; he leads them in a redemptive, affective crusade.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec29\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.1. Ancestral Invocations and Vertical Intimacy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAbascal\u0026rsquo;s speeches frequently begin by invoking ancestors\u0026mdash;those who \u0026ldquo;built Spain,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;died for her,\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;defended our traditions.\u0026rdquo; This invocation is not abstract; it is affectively personified. At the 2019 Vistalegre II rally, he opens:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGracias a nuestras madres, a nuestras abuelas, a nuestros padres, que nos ense\u0026ntilde;aron a defender lo bueno, lo verdadero, y lo bello.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;Thanks to our mothers, our grandmothers, our fathers, who taught us to defend the good, the true, and the beautiful.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis passage does not simply express gratitude\u0026mdash;it enacts moral lineage. The triadic phrasing (\u0026ldquo;lo bueno, lo verdadero, y lo bello\u0026rdquo;) alludes to Platonic transcendentals, fusing familial memory with philosophical virtue. This signals to the audience that their personal histories are part of a broader civilizational genealogy, and that proximity is not constructed interpersonally, but intergenerationally.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhereas Farage collapses symbolic distance through joking, and Le Pen through shared mourning, Abascal achieves proximity by elevating his audience into a sacred genealogy. His \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; is not just political\u0026mdash;it is ontological.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec30\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.2. Familial Appeals and the Affective Militarization of Kinship\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThroughout his speeches, Abascal constructs \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; as a moral family\u0026mdash;not metaphorically, but rhetorically enacted. In his 2021 campaign closure at Plaza de Col\u0026oacute;n, he exclaims:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSomos los que madrugan, los que pagan, los que no se rinden. Somos la Espa\u0026ntilde;a que ama, que cree, y que lucha.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;We are those who rise early, those who pay, those who never surrender. We are the Spain that loves, that believes, and that fights.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis passage performs affective compression (Chilton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e), condensing personal sacrifice (madrugar, pagar), moral integrity (amar, creer), and national struggle (luchar) into a single emotive identity script. Each clause functions as a moral badge, inviting listeners to insert themselves into a collective self-narration of dignity, struggle, and resilience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe rhythm is liturgical, the progression moralistic. This style mirrors what Moffitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) describes as permanent crisis populism, where the leader\u0026rsquo;s authority is grounded in a shared sense of ongoing siege, and thus requires constant affective re-mobilization.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec31\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.3. Sacred Vocabulary and the Theopolitical Register\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eA key feature of Abascal\u0026rsquo;s proximity rhetoric is his use of sacred or quasi-theological language to frame political belonging. In multiple speeches, he uses words like \u0026ldquo;verdad,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;valores eternos,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;el bien,\u0026rdquo; and even \u0026ldquo;sacrificio,\u0026rdquo; mapping religious lexicon onto civic participation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt Vistalegre II, he declares:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEspa\u0026ntilde;a es una comunidad de destino, una misi\u0026oacute;n moral, y una herencia que no estamos dispuestos a perder.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;Spain is a community of destiny, a moral mission, and a heritage we are not willing to lose.\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHere, proximity is not spatial or emotional\u0026mdash;it is transcendental. The phrase \u0026ldquo;comunidad de destino\u0026rdquo; recalls Ortega y Gasset\u0026rsquo;s classic conception of Spain, while \u0026ldquo;misi\u0026oacute;n moral\u0026rdquo; places the political subject within a teleological framework, where to be Spanish is to inherit and defend a divine mandate. In this register, disagreement becomes betrayal; emotional alignment becomes moral duty.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis marks a critical shift in how proximity is constructed: not by feeling like the people, but by demanding that the people feel like the nation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec32\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.4. Vocal Force and Embodied Urgency\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnlike Farage\u0026rsquo;s dry rhythm or Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s elegiac cadence, Abascal\u0026rsquo;s performances are characterized by intensity, crescendo, and embodied pathos. His affective proximity is achieved through vocal overload: escalating pitch, compressed delivery, urgent breathing, and rhythmic variation that mimics wartime oratory.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the final moments of his 2021 speech, he cries:\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026iexcl;Adelante, espa\u0026ntilde;oles! \u0026iexcl;Sin miedo a nada ni a nadie!\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003e(\u0026ldquo;Forward, Spaniards! With fear of nothing and no one!\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis closing refrain is not only a call to arms but a liturgical conclusion, akin to a religious benediction. The repetition of \u0026ldquo;\u0026iexcl;Adelante!\u0026rdquo; is physically enacted\u0026mdash;shoulders lifted, voice breaking, arms extended\u0026mdash;transforming the stage into a ritualized site of national re-consecration. Gesture, tone, and phrase unite to produce what Chilton and Sch\u0026auml;ffner (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e) describe as discourse-as-performance: a moment where linguistic content is inseparable from affective force.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec33\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.5. Synthesis: Affective Militancy and the Moralization of Closeness\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAbascal\u0026rsquo;s mode of populist proximity is grounded in affective militancy\u0026mdash;the idea that belonging is earned through sacrifice, loyalty, and emotional purity. Unlike Farage\u0026rsquo;s discursive friendliness or Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s aesthetic intimacy, Abascal performs closeness through sacralized unity: we are close because we are moral kin, historical heirs, and spiritual warriors in a common civilizational battle.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHis discourse does not invite affective plurality; it demands emotional unity. His \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; is not inclusive\u0026mdash;it is purifying. It distinguishes between those who are willing to \u0026ldquo;madrugar, pagar, luchar\u0026rdquo; and those who are not. The affective consequence is a moral binary: to feel aligned is to be virtuous; to feel alienated is to be suspect.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis proximity strategy is potent because it fuses love and fear, family and flag, and emotion and identity into a single communicative model\u0026mdash;what we might call theopolitical populism. Its force lies not in intimacy per se, but in the emotional moralization of national selfhood.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. COMPARATIVE SYNTHESIS: TYPOLOGIES OF POPULIST PROXIMITY","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe preceding analyses of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal reveal not only a shared rhetorical commitment to populist closeness, but also distinct cultural, affective, and performative logics by which that closeness is achieved. In this section, we synthesize these patterns into a typology of populist proximity strategies, focusing on three core dimensions: affective mode, discursive mechanism, and symbolic axis of alignment. While all three leaders claim to speak for and from \u0026ldquo;the people,\u0026rdquo; they do so through markedly different emotional grammars and symbolic repertoires.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec35\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.1. Santiago Abascal: Moral Closeness and Familial Militancy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAcross the three cases, several discursive strategies emerge as shared building blocks in the performance of populist proximity. While each leader adapts these strategies to their cultural and stylistic context, a common affective-discursive repertoire is evident. These recurring features form what we conceptualize as a proximity apparatus: a flexible set of linguistic and paralinguistic resources for enacting closeness with the audience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese include:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003ePronoun engineering\u003c/em\u003e: All three manipulate first-person plural pronouns (\u0026ldquo;we,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;us\u0026rdquo;) to construct symbolic horizontality with their audiences, collapsing elite distinctions through linguistic inclusion and discursive co-membership (De Fina, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Fetzer, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). This technique foregrounds identification over representation, framing the leader not as separate from the people but as speaking from within.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eAffective stance-taking\u003c/em\u003e: Each leader performs emotional alignment with their audience, enacting shared frustration, fear, pride, or hope. Whether through Farage\u0026rsquo;s vernacular detachment, Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s mournful empathy, or Abascal\u0026rsquo;s exalted fervor, affective stance functions as a core mechanism of political intimacy (Du Bois, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Jaffe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eStrategic informality and rhythm\u003c/em\u003e: All three deploy stylistic elements typically associated with spoken discourse\u0026mdash;colloquialisms, rhetorical questions, anecdotal interjections, and repetitive phrasing\u0026mdash;to emulate conversational interaction. These devices cultivate accessibility and familiarity, anchoring the speaker in what Moffitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) terms the \u0026ldquo;populist style.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eEmbodied performance\u003c/em\u003e: Physical delivery reinforces the proximity effect. Voice modulation, gesture, facial expression, and tempo variation contribute to what Wetherell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) describes as affective practice\u0026mdash;an intercorporeal channel through which emotion is communicated, embodied, and co-experienced by audiences (see also Machin, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTogether, these strategies constitute a transmodal grammar of populist proximity: a semiotic infrastructure that binds speaker and audience through emotionally resonant and culturally intelligible forms. While their specific manifestations differ, the underlying logic remains consistent: proximity must be enacted\u0026mdash;not merely claimed\u0026mdash;through the micropolitics of style, affect, and voice.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec36\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.2. Divergent Proximity Logics: Three Affective Templates\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile the three leaders share a common commitment to affective alignment and discursive inclusion, the rhetorical logic of that alignment diverges sharply across cases. Each enacts populist proximity through a distinct affective template, shaped by national traditions, political positioning, and stylistic repertoire.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNigel Farage constructs proximity through what we might call conversational irony. His discourse is saturated with pub talk rhythms, sardonic quips, and performative skepticism\u0026mdash;an informal register that builds solidarity through style more than substance. He does not claim to suffer more, feel more, or love the nation more; rather, he sounds like \u0026ldquo;us\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a vernacular peer narrating shared disenchantment. His alignment axis is one of horizontal disaffection, grounded in mutual frustration with distant elites and bureaucratic systems. Farage\u0026rsquo;s legitimacy thus emerges from stylistic co-membership, his authority rooted in the everyday tone of political skepticism.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMarine Le Pen, by contrast, enacts populist proximity through aesthetic empathy. Her speeches are solemn, mournful, and symbolically dense, weaving together poetics of loss, elegies to national decline, and carefully curated images of \u0026ldquo;the France we love.\u0026rdquo; Her register is more elevated than Farage\u0026rsquo;s, yet her emotional alignment is no less intimate. She positions herself as someone who grieves alongside the people\u0026mdash;who mourns their losses and remembers their cultural inheritance. The affective core of her proximity lies in shared vulnerability and cultural pain. Her proximity logic is not one of ironic detachment, but of empathic attunement: she is close because she feels what the people feel, and because she enacts that feeling through the aesthetic grammar of republican sorrow.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSantiago Abascal represents a third and markedly different template: affective militancy. His proximity strategy fuses emotional fervor with a register of sacred mission and historical urgency. Abascal\u0026rsquo;s speeches are vocally intense, rhythmically escalating, and symbolically anchored in a civilizational battle between good and evil. He constructs the Spanish nation as a metaphysical inheritance\u0026mdash;entrusted to \u0026ldquo;real Spaniards\u0026rdquo; who must fight, sacrifice, and endure. Here, emotional alignment is achieved not through conversational tone or shared grief, but through moral obligation and ancestral loyalty. The audience is not addressed as disaffected equals or forgotten kin, but as heirs to a sacred tradition who must rise to its defense. Proximity, in this case, is built through a demand: \u0026ldquo;We must fight together.\u0026rdquo; Emotional resonance is not optional; it is a form of moral virtue.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese divergent strategies\u0026mdash;Farage\u0026rsquo;s ironic camaraderie, Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s empathic mourning, and Abascal\u0026rsquo;s exalted fraternity\u0026mdash;constitute three distinct logics of populist intimacy, each adapted to specific cultural and ideological contexts. They demonstrate that populist proximity is not a monolithic or universal performance, but a context-sensitive affective achievement, produced through the confluence of discourse, embodiment, and symbolic resonance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec37\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.3. Populist Proximity as Affective Legitimacy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAcross all three cases, the performance of proximity functions as a legitimizing strategy\u0026mdash;not because it clarifies ideology, but because it generates emotional alignment. The leader becomes credible not through policy precision or institutional experience, but through the capacity to embody and reflect the affective condition of the imagined community.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis logic operates on at least three levels:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eRhetorical\u003c/em\u003e: The leader speaks in a way that mirrors how \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; speak.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eEmotional\u003c/em\u003e: The leader feels what \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rdquo; feel\u0026mdash;pain, pride, betrayal, hope.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eMoral\u003c/em\u003e: The leader shares and defends \u0026ldquo;our\u0026rdquo; values as sacred truths.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis framework aligns with Papacharissi\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e) notion of emotional publics: collectivities held together not by rational consensus but by shared emotional trajectories. In this sense, populist proximity is less a communicative surplus and more a foundational resource: the means by which \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; are discursively brought into being\u0026mdash;not as a demographic, but as an affective subject.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec38\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.4. Typology and Theoretical Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe propose the following typology to conceptualize populist proximity as a comparative construct:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 2\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTypology of populist proximity strategies across three leaders.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"4\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDimension\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFarage\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLe Pen\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAbascal\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrimary Affective Register\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIrony / Disenchantment\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eElegy / Cultural Grief\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExaltation / Moral Urgency\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eProximity Mechanism\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eStylistic similarity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEmpathic alignment\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEthical-religious solidarity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eKey Metaphor\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMate in the pub\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eProtective mother / mourning child\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAncestral soldier / moral crusader\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAudience Positioning\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDisaffected equals\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eForgotten family\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoral inheritors\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTemporal Orientation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePresent disaffection\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNostalgic restoration\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTranshistorical duty\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis typological framework synthesizes the affective, discursive, and symbolic dimensions through which Farage, Le Pen, and Abascal construct rhetorical closeness with their audiences. It contrasts their primary affective registers, mechanisms of emotional alignment, dominant metaphors of identification, audience positioning, and temporal orientation. Together, these elements illustrate the culturally embedded and ideologically distinct logics by which populist leaders perform intimacy with \u0026ldquo;the people.\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoreover, it also works as a triggering point for comparing not only leaders, but also national populist cultures and their dominant forms of emotional interpellation. It invites further research into how proximity is modulated by context (e.g., crisis vs. stability), medium (live vs. digital), and reception (audience alignment, media framing, counter-publics).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"6. DISCUSSION: POPULIST PROXIMITY AND THE AFFECTIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REPRESENTATION","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis article has examined how three prominent right-wing populist leaders\u0026mdash;Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal\u0026mdash;construct discursive proximity to \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; through culturally distinct but structurally resonant affective and rhetorical strategies. Building on a comparative analysis of nine informal and emotionally charged speech events, the study has proposed that populist proximity should be understood not as a stylistic flourish or incidental performance, but as a foundational communicative logic of populist discourse. This logic operates across lexical, prosodic, embodied, and symbolic planes to produce the effect of closeness, authenticity, and affective co-presence.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat emerges from the analysis is a conceptual reorientation: proximity is not a byproduct of populism\u0026mdash;it is one of its central affective technologies. While existing scholarship has focused primarily on populism\u0026rsquo;s logic of antagonism (Laclau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e; Wodak, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Mudde \u0026amp; Rovira Kaltwasser, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), this article joins a growing body of work that seeks to foreground its productive, identity-constituting dimensions (Papacharissi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Wetherell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Yilmaz \u0026amp; Morieson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). By shifting the analytical lens from confrontation to communion, from distance to discursive intimacy, we gain access to the emotional mechanics that bind leader and audience in the populist imaginary.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec40\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.1. From Representation to Resonance: Rethinking Populist Closeness\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eA central finding of this study is that populist leaders do not simply claim to represent the people\u0026mdash;they perform that representation through resonant speech acts that index shared voice, emotion, and experience. Across all three cases, the leaders engage in what we might call affective isomorphism: the replication or simulation of the emotional structure of their audiences\u0026rsquo; worldviews. This performance is not reducible to ideology or policy; rather, it functions as a semiotic approximation of felt commonality, establishing proximity as a form of emotional legitimacy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this sense, populist proximity bridges the gap between the political and the interpersonal. Farage\u0026rsquo;s casual deixis and vernacular phrasing are not merely informal\u0026mdash;they enact stylistic co-membership. Le Pen\u0026rsquo;s solemn invocations of memory and vulnerability are not only poetic\u0026mdash;they produce aesthetic intimacy. Abascal\u0026rsquo;s vocally intense moralism is not simply militaristic\u0026mdash;it constitutes a ritual of emotional purification. These proximity effects mobilize what Wetherell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) calls affective practices: socially organized repertoires for producing, circulating, and regulating emotion in public life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImportantly, these strategies are not interchangeable or merely ornamental. Each form of proximity activates a different symbolic axis of legitimacy\u0026mdash;procedural (Farage), cultural (Le Pen), or moral-theological (Abascal). This suggests that proximity is not a stable genre but a context-dependent discursive formation, one that adapts to national affective styles and ideological traditions while retaining its core function: the construction of political authenticity through emotional alignment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec41\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.2. Populism as a Politics of Emotional Structure\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings also underscore the need to treat populism not only as a discursive logic or a rhetorical style, but as a politics of emotional structure. Populist leaders do not merely give voice to grievance\u0026mdash;they structure that grievance into emotionally intelligible and culturally actionable forms. They do so by embedding themselves affectively within their audiences\u0026rsquo; subject positions, transforming diffuse feelings of abandonment, dislocation, or indignation into coherent proximity performances.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis has at least three implications for the study of political communication. First, it shifts analytical attention from what populists say to how they say it, and how they sound, feel, and perform in relation to their publics. Second, it calls for methodological approaches that can capture this relational complexity\u0026mdash;approaches that blend CDA with affect theory, multimodal analysis, and stance-based pragmatics. Third, it opens a space for theorizing populism not only as antagonism but as discursive intimacy: the construction of \u0026ldquo;us\u0026rdquo; not through contrast alone, but through affective coherence.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this light, populist proximity becomes a vector for understanding why populism resonates so deeply despite ideological incoherence. It is not because populists always say the right things, but because they are felt to be emotionally congruent\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;like us,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;with us,\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;of us.\u0026rdquo; That emotional congruence, we argue, is discursively built, semiotically layered, and culturally constrained.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec42\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.3. Populism as a Politics of Emotional Structure\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe analysis presented here contributes to an emerging theoretical agenda around affective governance and emotional publics (Papacharissi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Ahmed, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e). By foregrounding proximity as a performative act of emotional alignment, this article sketches the contours of what we might term affective proximity: the discursive and multimodal construction of felt co-presence between political speaker and collective audience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis concept opens several avenues for future research:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eHow is affective proximity modulated across digital vs. live performance contexts (e.g., TikTok, livestreams, or edited clips)?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat are the limits or breakdowns of proximity\u0026mdash;i.e., how and when do audiences reject, parody, or resist proximity claims?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eHow do counter publics (e.g., feminist, antiracist, or activist groups) respond to and reconfigure the rhetorical apparatus of populist closeness\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoreover, this study suggests that proximity should be conceptualized not only as a style or feeling, but as a discursive resource with political consequences. It shapes audience identification, encodes moral legitimacy, and structures the very terms of political recognition. In populist discourse, to feel close is to feel seen, valued, and affirmed\u0026mdash;and thus to feel politically real.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"7. CONCLUSION","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis article has argued that populist proximity is not merely a rhetorical pose or stylistic flourish, but a core communicative achievement of right-wing populist discourse—one that is affectively charged, culturally encoded, and strategically modulated. Through a comparative analysis of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal, we have identified how populist leaders discursively perform emotional and symbolic closeness with their audiences using distinct national affective repertoires. While each draws from a shared toolkit of discursive inclusion—pronoun alignment, affective stance-taking, and embodied performance—each also encodes that proximity differently: as ironic camaraderie, aesthetic empathy, or militant \u003cem\u003efamilialism\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn doing so, this article contributes to a broader theoretical understanding of populism as a form of emotional governance and symbolic identification, where political legitimacy is grounded not solely in ideological coherence but in the felt resonance between leader and public. It advances the concept of affective proximity as a critical analytical lens for exploring how discourse produces emotional belonging and enacts political intimacy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFuture work on populist rhetoric would benefit from greater attention to proximity’s performative structure, its failures and inversions, and its circulation across digital platforms and transnational publics. If populism thrives on emotional alignment, then studying how that alignment is built, broken, and resisted is essential to understanding its persuasiveness—and its limits.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eP.A.A. A. conceptualized the study, constructed the corpus, conducted the analysis, and wrote the manuscript. All aspects of the research and writing were completed solely by the author.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eI would like to mention that this manuscript has been developed within the framework of the research group \u0026ldquo;930160 - DISCURSO Y COMUNICACI\u0026Oacute;N EN LENGUA INGLESA: ESTUDIOS DE LING\u0026Uuml;\u0026Iacute;STICA COGNITIVA Y FUNCIONAL\u0026rdquo; at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I am also grateful for the support and feedback of my academic supervisor, Dr. Elena Dom\u0026iacute;nguez Romero.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eData Availability\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dataset supporting the findings of this study\u0026mdash;the Trump 2016 Primary Corpus (TPC2016)\u0026mdash;is openly available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15399539. The corpus includes 222 annotated rally transcripts with metadata and documentation, and is licensed for academic reuse.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFUNDING DECLARATION\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eETHICS DECLARATION\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEthics declaration: Not applicable.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAhmed, S. 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University of Notre Dame Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"right-wing populism, populist proximity, affective discourse, pronouns and deixis, stance-taking, Critical Discourse Analysis","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis article investigates how right-wing populist leaders Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal discursively perform proximity to \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; through affective and interpersonal strategies. Unlike previous work that emphasizes nationhood or antagonistic othering, this study foregrounds the emotional and stylistic tactics by which populist figures minimize symbolic distance and enact belonging. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, the article combines stance-taking theory, pronominal deixis, affective discourse, and stylistic populism to examine informal and conversational public speeches. These moments\u0026mdash;often town-hall events, spontaneous rallies, or off-script interviews\u0026mdash;reveal a consistent repertoire of rhetorical tactics: inclusive pronouns, colloquial idioms, strategic vagueness, and embodied performance (tone, rhythm, gesture). Each leader adapts these proximity strategies to their national affective style: Farage performs sarcastic familiarity, Le Pen maternal empathy, and Abascal exalted fraternity. The study argues that populist proximity is not merely a communicative style, but a performative act of political intimacy\u0026mdash;constructing \u0026ldquo;the people\u0026rdquo; as an affective community with the leader as its emotional proxy. This proximity effect serves as a core legitimizing strategy, displacing policy precision with emotional alignment and enabling populist leaders to convert discontent into connection.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Performing the People: Affective and Discursive Strategies of Populist Proximity","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-06-13 08:02:12","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6829941/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"7ed69489-bf49-429c-bc8c-205d9ce9396c","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 13th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-01-06T08:09:26+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-06-13 08:02:12","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6829941","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6829941","identity":"rs-6829941","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}