This case study compares the language of the popular Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his anti-immigrant party Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijdheid, PVV) to other politicians which can be described as more ‘mainstream’. Wilders has become a popular ‘radical’ politician in a short period of time, partially due to his simple and appealing rhetoric. On the other hand he is being accused and on trial for spreading hate speech against the Muslim community. This study assesses the political style and the political themes that is characteristic to Wilders, in a context of extreme politics. In a theoretical part a consideration is made about the differences between the extreme-right and populist politicians and how we can place Wilders in one of these categories. There will be questioned to what extent a extreme-right or populist communication ‘style’ exists. In an empirical part we examine the language of Wilders, compared to other major Dutch politicians, by capturing the metaphor use of these politicians. The “Metaphor Power Index” is a quantitative examination of the metaphorical power of a certain displayed text. The use of (intense) metaphors indicates a simplistic and emotive (appealing to emotions) rhetoric. The results show an above average use of ‘fascist-like’ themes, such as nationalism, security, (anti)-immigration and anti-politics, in the language of Wilders. Moreover, his emotive and ‘radical’ communication style contains significantly excessive use of ‘strong’ metaphors, which are especially appealing to anxiety, unrest in society and the need of political change. Both on content and style the results indicate that the language of Geert Wilders shows multiple similarities to an extreme-right discourse.
