Enjoying ‘Expertise’: A Critical Fantasy Study of Pro-‘Expert’ Anti-populism in UK and US Political Commentary

Anti-populist discourse often presents ‘populism’ as a threat to ‘expertise’, taking the side of ‘experts’ against their ‘populist’ opponents. However, the role of enjoyment in inciting identification with this pro-‘expert’ anti-populist position remains under-explored. This paper analyses the construction of ‘experts’ and ‘expertise’ in a corpus of anti-populist political commentary from the UK and USA to identify the enjoyment that pro-‘expert’ anti-populism promises to its adherents. Guided by the research agenda of Critical Fantasy Studies (CFS), I argue that anti-populism’s pro-‘expert’ stance can be understood as a fantasy in which ‘experts’ act as hero-guarantors of enjoyment and are portrayed as playing a central role in maximising public welfare. Unlike (‘populist’) politicians, ‘experts’ are presented as nobly standing above the cut and thrust of politics. This enjoyment is threatened by two thieves: ‘the populists’ and the people, whose irrationality is seen as disrupting an otherwise beatific, rational order. I conclude by discussing two political effects of anti-populism’s pro-‘expert’ fantasy. First, the discursive depoliticisation of policy areas which anti-populist discourse presents as the domain of ‘experts’, thus insulating them from democratic contestation. Second, the epistemic snobbery of pro-‘expert’ anti-populism, which marginalises popular knowledges in favour of credentialed ‘expertise.’