“Europe is Christian, or it is not Europe”: post-truth politics and religion in Matteo Salvini’s tweets

Post-truth narratives are often connected to the online spreading of far-right ideologies and hate speech (Boler and Davis 2018). Fake news and disinformation have also been studied in relation to religion, as they tend to target religious people and involve narratives about Christianity and Islam (Douglas 2018). In this chapter, I explore the use of post-truth online narratives about religion in the context of the European far-right. In particular, I analyze the case of Italian populist political leader Matteo Salvini, who is renowned for his anti-migration and anti-Islam positions, for his Catholic faith, and his intense use of social media (Molle 2019). Through a discourse analysis of tweets sent by Salvini between September 2019 and January 2020, I found that he employs religion in two predominant ways: first, Salvini uses Christianity to reinforce a sense of nationalist belonging to European and Italian culture; second, Islam is often considered a scapegoat for social and cultural problem and associated with illegal immigration, usually through hateful messages. These tweets fuel the “us versus them” narrative that is typical of populist far-right communication, and gain popularity also because of the growing diffusion of post-truth news on online platforms. Hence, the characteristics of Twitter allow Salvini to circulate fake news, and to establish false connections: he employs images, videos, and links in an instrumental way to forcefully connect Islam with negative feelings, and Christianity with positive discourses. In conclusion, the chapter connects this case study to the diffusion of fake news within the European far-right, and discusses the role of online anti-Islam hate speech and the importance of emotions within post-truth politics.