Populist things. A study on the materiality of political ideas

Abstract

Is there such thing as a populist thing? This article tries to answer this question by comparing two iconic populist objects: the Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap and the yellow vest. Despite their centrality to populist politics, there is remarkably little systematic examination of these objects' populist affordances, let alone a comparative study.We propose to address this lacuna by performing a pragmatic analysis of each object's role in the populist politics of the United States and France, respectively. Our comparison uncovers two findings, which, in turn, help us answer our research question. First, our study of the MAGA cap reveals how nationalism and populism can be combined into a powerful political message. Second, the yellow vest exemplifies how populism functions on its own that is, as a way of doing politics that is centred on feelings of resentment.Either in conjunction with other political phenomena (e.g., nationalism) or by itself, populism emerges from our analysis as a logic of action that involves both linguistic claims and physical objects. Things, in this reading, are surprisingly central to how populism operates.

Politics with objects? On the affective materiality of contentious politics

“…Whether on flags, banners, or posters, red has a different affective significance in former Soviet countries than in those without a communist legacy. In the USA, red is associated with the Republican party, which is most adamantly opposed to leftist and communist ideas, 2 and with Trump's characteristic baseball caps (da Silva and Rogenhofer, 2023b). In encounters with red objects, the colour red does not only represent or communicate social knowledge; rather, it produces an array of relational effects (Young, 2006).…”