A Forensic Examination of the Shameless 21st Century Far-Right

Published in 2015, Emeritus Professor Ruth Wodak’s The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean was an invaluable resource in helping us make sense of the contemporary far-right populist moment. Released a year before the election of Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, Pauline Hanson and the 2016 BREXIT referendum, The Politics of Fear gave us the tools to understand the various discursive and linguistic strategies of the populist far-right in the contemporary mediatised landscape. The book was so influential that it was nominated by Cas Mudde as one of the top five best books on the far-right. The much anticipated second edition The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalisation of FarRight Discourse is a substantial update on the 2015 edition and is the culmination of Wodak’s research over the last 5 years. Wodak’s work focuses on the ‘micro-politics’ of the far-right and ‘how they actually produce and reproduce their ideologies and exclusionary agenda in everyday politics, in the (social) media, in campaigning, in posters, slogans and speeches’ (2021, p. 6). Wodak convincingly argues that all far-right parties construct scapegoats out of racialized people which ‘manifests as a politics of fear’ (2021, p. 6). 

Drawing on the Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (DHA), Wodak shows the value of in-depth qualitative research in revealing the hidden discursive strategies and linguistic devices of the far-right across a range of contexts. The Discourse-Historical Approach also reveals how farright rhetoric is intertextuality and interdiscursively connected. Wodak’s approach integrates very well with the ideational approach to populism and recognises the performative and ideational dimensions of the populist far-right. 

While the chapter titles in the updated version remain largely unchanged, they have been significantly updated to reflect the vast literature that has been published on populism and the farright since 2016. The addition of a new chapter, ‘Illiberal Democracy’ and Neo-Authoritarianism: Shameless Normalisation of Far-right Populism critically analyses the illiberal and authoritarian shift in European countries such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. International readers will find Wodak’s discussion of Anti-Sorosism, which is prevalent in far-right discourses throughout Europe and North America, particularly timely.

By far the most significant contribution of the second edition is Wodak’s work on the mainstreaming, normalisation and shamelessness of the contemporary far-right. It is widely accepted that a defining feature of the contemporary farright is the increasing tolerance, mainstreaming, and normalisation of their ideas within society. As Cas Mudde argues in The Far Right Today, the 21st century far-right ‘is closely connected to the mainstream; and in more and more countries it is becoming the mainstream’ (2019, p.2). Wodak echoes this in the Politics of Fear suggesting that the far-right agenda and rhetoric have already reached the mainstream. Like Mudde and others who have noted the increasing mainstreaming of the far-right, Wodak argues that ‘we are confronted with widespread and growing normalisation of farright policies, of formerly tabooed topics, wording and impolite or shameless behaviour’ (p.6). Here Wodak’s work perfectly aligns with performative scholars of populism like Ben Moffitt who posits that ‘bad manners’ are a defining feature of populist politics. Wodak advances the concept of shameless normalisation to describe this phenomenon where traditional rules of ‘politeness and respect are deliberately broken...without any negative sanctions and consequences’ (2021, p. 91). Wodak explains that far-right populist actors frequently use strategies of continuous provocation whereby ‘provocation is achieved... by the violation of conventional rules of politeness as well as by intentionally breaking taboos’ (p. 16). This can be seen across a variety of different contexts and far-right actors from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro. 

Wodak’s argument has enormous utility in explaining how far-right actors like Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson and Jair Bolsonaro can engage in ‘bad behaviour’, seemingly without consequence. Shamelessness explains how populist President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte can give the “middle finger” to the European Union, direct curse words at the Pope and make sexist vulgar comments to journalists and get away with it. Shamelessness explains why Australian far-right leader Pauline Hanson can go into the Australian senate wearing a burqa without consequence. 

Just as the first edition of Politics of Fear detailed how far-right populists employed a variety of performative, linguistic, rhetorical and discourse strategies to achieve their political goals, the second edition explains how these once fringe actors have become mainstreamed and normalized in contemporary society. In this context, we should expect to see more overt sexism, racism and homophobia in mainstream politics. The second edition of Politics of Fear is highly recommended for scholars and citizens looking to understand the micro-politics of the contemporary far-right and the processes that have brought them to the mainstream.