ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the populist construct in relation to US ideological power, through a discourse analysis of speeches and official documents and texts. It outlines the meanings embedded in wider discourse on populism by sketching the two dominant approaches to the concept in the academic literature. The chapter turns to two competing collocations in US discourse: 'radical populism' and 'false populism', teasing out the inconsistencies in their application to NLL leaders. It examines the parameters of the populist construct by looking at silences in the discourse; that is, cases in which it were not applied. The chapter focuses primarily on the diplomatic speech and official texts, documents and reports of that era. In the public discourse, however, US officials were relatively cautious in applying the label to specific figures, particularly when discussing radical populism as security threat. The absences in official US discourse on Latin American populism are as telling as the contemptuous evaluations of the false/radical populists themselves.
