Acknowledging definitional problems associated with the concept of ‘populism’, this article shifts the analytic gaze away from actors or politics that are conventionally characterised as populist, on to an analysis of the doing of populism by those who typically evade the populist label. Tracing the discursive construction of the ‘squeezed middle’ in Irish mainstream media and parliamentary debates between January 2014 and March 2019, the authors analyse how this signifier was mobilised to fuel and foment ressentiment among middle-earning taxpayers. This article analyses how the discourses of the ‘squeezed middle’ functioned ideologically, as a form of anti-welfare populism, redirecting blame for middle-class ontological and material insecurities on to unemployed welfare recipients who were depicted as immoral, lazy and insulated from hardship. This article highlights how populism operates from the so-called moderate centres of liberal democracy and not exclusively from the political margins. Irish political and media narratives of the ‘squeezed middle’ are seen as part of a larger project whereby damaging myths about the unemployed are propagated in service of ideological class warfare; legitimising neoliberal austerity and normalising unequal economic relations.

中文翻译：

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（新）自由民粹主义和爱尔兰的“被挤压的中间地带”

承认与“民粹主义”概念相关的定义问题，本文将分析目光从传统上被描述为民粹主义的演员或政治转移到分析那些通常逃避民粹主义标签的人的民粹主义行为上。追溯 2014 年 1 月至 2019 年 3 月期间爱尔兰主流媒体和议会辩论中“被挤压的中间”的话语建构，作者分析了这一能指是如何被动员起来以助长和煽动中等收入纳税人的怨恨。本文分析了“被挤压的中产阶级”的话语如何在意识形态上发挥作用，作为一种反福利民粹主义的形式，将中产阶级本体论和物质不安全的责任转移到失业的福利领取者身上，他们被描述为不道德、懒惰和远离苦难. 本文重点介绍了民粹主义如何从所谓的自由民主的温和中心而不是完全从政治边缘运作。爱尔兰政治和媒体对“被挤压的中间人”的叙述被视为一个更大项目的一部分，在这个项目中，为了意识形态的阶级战争而传播关于失业的破坏性神话；使新自由主义的紧缩合法化并使不平等的经济关系正常化。