RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Jansen, Henrike A1 van Leeuwen, MaartenYR 2020 T1 ‘Ik spreek namens miljoenen Nederlanders’ JF Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, VO 42 IS 2 SP 205 OP 224 DO https://doi.org/10.5117/TVT2020.2.007.JANS PB Amsterdam University Press, SN 2352-1236, AB Abstract ‘I speak on behalf of millions of Dutch people’: Wilders’ presentation of the populist argument in political debate This study explores the ways in which the Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders formulates populist arguments, i.e. the argument by which it is claimed that if many people hold a certain standpoint, this standpoint should be accepted. A corpus study of 27 texts taken from the website of Wilders’ political party (www.pvv.nl) reveals four characteristics of this presentation, which show a significant deviation of the way this type of argument is described in the handbooks: 1) absence of indicators, 2) implicit standpoint, 3) a wide range of verbs to indicate what ‘the people’ think or belief, 4) use of a construction in which the speaker functions as a mouthpiece (‘in the name of the people I say’). We claim that these characteristics makes a populist argument hard to identify and hypothesize that they may function as a disguised way for presenting a fallacious populist argument., UL https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/TVT2020.2.007.JANS