Character Attacks by Dutch Populist Radical Right Leader Geert Wilders

A search for character assassins in contemporary Western politics quickly leads to actors with a populist character, who make a normative distinction between the ‘good’ people and the ‘immoral’ or unresponsive elites. This chapter focuses on Geert Wilders, leader of the populist radical right (PRR) Freedom Party in the Netherlands. It describes Wilders’s main targets, the way he sought to damage their reputations, and the effectiveness of his attacks. Character attacks are a natural part of populist party discourse; this case study suggests that specific targets can shift depending on political context and opportunities.