ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on invocations of religion and religious heritage in populist discourse on social media. Based on an analysis of the Dutch Freedom Party’s Twitter discourse, which was collected using the Twitter Capture and Analysis Toolset (TCAT), this chapter maps dominant associations of Judaism and Christianity in PVV politicians’ Twitter accounts in order to further understand how references to Judeo-Christianity function in populist discourse. Analysis shows that references to Judaism predominantly focus on Judaism as a victim of Islamic anti-Semitism, whereas references to Christianity display a more detailed discussion involving heritage and identity. Generally, Christianity is invoked as the root of contemporary Dutch secular national identity. References to Christian heritage on social media are used to construct an ‘affective public’ along religious-cultural lines and exclude those who fall outside its embrace.