Victims of Nasty Rhetoric in Swedish Climate Politics

Hate speech and hate crime with racist, religious and misogynist motives is well-known, but hate speech and related crimes have increased in climate politics in the last years. Right-wing populist politicians denying climate change, use hate speech and hate crime systematically and strategically as a tactic to polarise climate politics, mobilise ingroup followers, and delegitimise and silence outgroup advocates of strong climate policy. In political science, such tactics are labelled nasty rhetoric. Crime victim discourse, considering the perspectives of victims, is gaining prominence in debates in criminology because it can affect rationales for punishment, equality before the law, and other safeguards such as building victim resilience. Focusing on Swedish politics, this paper adds to such debates by exploring and theorising how politically motivated and systematic acts of hate speech and hate crime – nasty rhetoric – affect victims among climate scientists, climate activists and climate journalists. Based on secondary data from written and audio-visual media, combined with stories of more than 50 victims, this paper finds that targets are victimised in different ways, with different emotional and behavioural responses. Scientists and journalists are victimised from nasty rhetoric as persons for what they do professionally. They report angst, insecurity, fear of crime, and fear of being followed, making them withdraw from public debate, change their research subject or change job. In comparison, climate activists are victimised for their political opinions and actions undertaken outside work. Contrary to previous research findings, climate activists desensitise the content of hate speech and do not fear hate speech targeting them directly. They are more afraid of climate change. They are also scared from the message effect of nasty rhetoric, legitimising collective hate speech, and contributing to a growing culture of silence that makes people in general afraid to raise their voice. The culture of silence has made employers afraid, and they discriminate employees engaged in climate change. Climate activists are also victimised from hard state repression in the form of economic and legal sanctions for raising their voices and criticising the government. Hard repression makes some activists choose to revert from civil disobedience, to less confrontative actions. But radical activists react with anger and are considered to become ‘radicalised’ by leading politicians, who want them prosecuted for terrorism. The crime victim discourse is immature and largely influenced by leading politicians in power who deny, attack, and reverse the victim and offender roles, claiming that victims of nasty rhetoric are the real criminals, and that the ‘good people’ are the real victims. In all, the results broaden the analysis of consequences of nasty rhetoric beyond politicians as targets, and show the importance of analysing crime victim discourses to avoid lumping victims together in public and policy debates on how to curb hate speech and hate crime. Knowledge about impacts on different groups of victims is also important for reciprocation of victims. The results also provide new insights to criminology and victimology by showing the links between green crime and hate crime, and thus between victims of green crime and nasty rhetoric.