Us versus Them? Salvini’s targeting of security-based trust as a divide-et-impera strategy

Abstract

Anti-immigrant propaganda, a key element of contemporary far-right populism in Europe, traditionally centres around an ‘Us versus Them’ dichotomy. The discursive construction of the other involves a negative portrayal of unwanted outgroups, which targets different facets of citizens’ trust towards foreigners. Employing a deductive content analysis of Matteo Salvini’s posts on X and using the emergent Intergroup Trust Model as a framework, we show that foreigners are cast as the untrustworthy ‘Them’ in Italy. Our results illustrate that immigrants are depicted as deviant in terms of morality or culture – portrayals that emphasize collective boundaries of belonging and promote the classic ‘Us versus Them’ divide. Yet, foreigners are more frequently portrayed as a pervasive threat to the personal safety of unprotected and isolated individuals. We interpret this as a divide-et-impera approach that may foster a politically profitable ‘culture of fear’ and fragment society along more insidious fissures than the conventional Us/Them divide.