Like in Figure 16, we observe a near-linear growth in people’s dislike for populist radical right parties, being just shy of 30% in the late 1990s and increasing to about 50% three decades later. This shows that, even with the success and normalisation of this party family, the number of people who reject them still systematically increases to levels that outweigh those of any other party family today. Again, this might indicate there is an increasing number of citizens that constitute a potential voter base for mainstream parties. Figures 16 and 17 reinforce the findings of other studies, which reveal that the populist radical right is becoming more attractive to voters across Western Europe. 55 However, something scholars often overlook is the increasing number of people who also reject the populist radical right. 56 The latter is therefore both highly liked and disliked. One could argue that the more popular the populist radical right becomes, the more citizens seem to be at odds with this party family. This means we observe a genuine polarisation amongst the electorate when it comes to citizens’ emotional affinity toward the populist radical right. To further substantiate this point, Figure 18 illustrates the distribution of our 0-10 likeability scale for each of the party families for the entire period under consideration and across Western Europe. Figure 18 supports that the populist radical right has a very polarising profile: on average, approximately 35% of the electorate shows the highest possible score(0) of absolute dislike towards the populist radical right. By contrast, on average, less than 10% of the electorate gives the maximum score(0) of absolute dislike towards the social democratic party family, representing the lowest value of the five party families under consideration. This is in line with previous research, which shows that such a strong rejection of the populist radical right can be a sign that people are convinced of liberal democratic credentials. Even more, this observation substantiates a clear electoral ceiling for this party family, at least in Western Europe. 57 Figure 18. Dislike-like scale for different party families in Western Europe. Percentage of respondents, disliking (0) to liking (10) party families 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 Social democrats 0 2 4 6 8 10 Liberals 0 2 4 6 8 10 Christian democrats 0 2 4 6 8 10 Conservatives 0 2 4 6 8 10 Populist radical right The transformation of the mainstream right and its impact on(social) democracy 45