The shameless normalization of far-right populist rhetoric and practices is here to stay!
By Ruth Wodak
Far-right populism in all its varieties has become normalized as a mainstream political force in many European countries and beyond. The impact of the far right may be direct – when parties are or have been in government or have formed deals with ruling coalitions, such as in the US, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary and Poland. It may also be indirect – when mainstream parties accommodate their political programs according to the far-right’s agenda, hoping to win back lost votes or to prevent losing ever more votes to the far right, such as in the UK, Austria or Denmark.
Far-right populism is here to stay and counter-measures are slow in forthcoming. Indeed, the status quo could become the ‘new normal’, consisting of the unchallenged acceptance of new far-right values, norms, proposals, practices and routines. These developments go hand in hand with “shameless normalization” which is achieved via scandalization and provocation. For example, politicians such as Berlusconi, Haider, Le Pen, Farage and Trump have actively sought scandalization which has subsequently dominated the news and agenda, while pushing all other topics into the background. They have created parallel worlds where truth and facts don’t count anymore. Importantly, such incidents were and remain positively evaluated by their supporters, are perceived as “authentic” and contribute to a polarization of societal and political attitudes which their style of leadership relied upon.
In this context, two tendencies have to be emphasized: first, a tendency to endorse nativist, identitarian thinking; and second, orientation towards authoritarianism. Normalization of far-right populist ideologies would thus lead to ever more and stronger ethno-nationalist (völkisch) views. Belonging to a collective would be perceived as linked to biological heritage and ancestry. This implies saying, e.g., that ‘Who doesn’t have their roots here shouldn’t stay’.
Far-right nativism assumes and envisions – and, by extension, also seeks to achieve or restore – allegedly homogeneous and uniform nations, people and cultures, which never existed, except as particularly nostalgic yet toxic imaginaries, as retrotopia. Such imaginaries can lead to the discursive construction of imminent threat scenarios, triggering fears: fear of mingling, of ‘replacement’ and of decline (of culture, language, tradition, ‘pure’ people, and so forth).
Secondly, ever more and more explicit authoritarian attitudes can be observed. Such negativity is mostly expressed towards migrants as well as long-time unemployed people, homeless people and people who receive social benefits. Slogans that call for ‘cracking down’ or ‘getting tough’ in order to ‘move’ people to take on jobs resonate widely. Hence whoever stays home and doesn’t work is suspected of being ‘lazy’. It is a widespread assumption based in neoliberal thinking that anyone who really wants to work will find (wage-earning) labor. Having such a job thus becomes a question of decency and civility. Those, however, who do not have a job are seen as inferior human beings. Such beliefs have been normalized and have become part and parcel of the national-conservative mainstream.
A further mechanism of shameless normalization and related discursive shifts is the emergence of coarse civility which denotes the fact that, beneath a thin layer of civilized polite manners, there are authoritarian attitudes that are becoming increasingly visible. The fact that it is traditionally conservative politics and politicians that pander to such ideologies and related discursive practices facilitates the brazen normalization of authoritarian, dehumanizing attitudes. Accordingly, national-conservative parties present themselves as the ‘soft, politically correct alternative’ to far-right populism.
Book Details
The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse
Ruth Wodak
October 2020
ISBN: 9781526499202
About the Author
