The discursive construction of “the people” through the othering of sexual and gender minorities during the 2020 Polish presidential election

Abstract The aim of the article is to analyse the mechanisms through which the right-wing Polish newspaper Gazeta Polska consolidated the identity of “the people” during the 2020 presidential election campaign by othering sexual and gender minorities and their allies, securitising the latter with the aim of legitimising their marginalisation. Based on the assumption that “the people” is an empty signifier whose meaning is moulded to serve political interests, the article builds on research on the discursive construction of “the people” that analyses the articulation of the in-group by shifting the focus to the articulation of the out-group as a means to consolidate the boundaries between the Self and Other.