Your Comprehensive Guide to the Far Right: Part II
How a movement that poses the single biggest threat to open, liberal societies took control of the discourse and politics in America and abroad
Dear Readers:
Last October, we debuted a genre that we had never published before: an FAQ—or Frequently Asked Questions—on the far right. We published the first installment then, and here is the second one.
Why an FAQ? After all, FAQs tend to be dry and bloodless documents. This FAQ is different. It is to-the-point, factual, in-depth yet free of officialese and jargon. It is especially suited to create a comprehensive and easily digestible guide for complex and difficult topics.
Why the far right? Because this global movement represents the biggest threat to liberalism in our time, especially here in the United States. It is now the ruling ideology of the current administration, and to counter and resist the danger it poses, we need to understand its motivations and methods in their totality, not in bits and pieces across many platforms. A standard essay, even a longread, serves its own purpose—but this FAQ captures the fullness of this ideological menace in a way that nothing else to date has.
There are few people on the planet more qualified to put together this resource than Janet Bufton, co-founder of the Institute for Liberal Studies, an author on economic policy and liberal thought, and member of the World Anti-Extremism Network's advisory council, and Tom G. Palmer, author of books and studies on social and economic development and moral and political thought, and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. They’ve been studying every aspect of this movement—its history, intellectual influences, and tactics—for a long time. Together, they have created a deeply erudite and informative resource that not only stands up to scholarly scrutiny but also serves as a one-stop shop for anyone who wishes to understand this great enemy of free and open societies—and do something about it. No prior knowledge is required. Only a desire to get to the bottom of this phenomenon—and do something about it.
This is a resource you’ll want to bookmark, and return to again and again.
Berny Belvedere
Senior Editor
All around the world, the far right is ascendant. But what is the far right, what does it want, and how does it seek to achieve its goals? We have prepared a comprehensive resource guide to answer such questions. Taking the form of a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), this guide will cover the far right’s origins, ideology, objectives, and practices.
As the questions themselves suggest, the far right is not a dormant but an active threat. All over the world, far-right movements are calling for closed and hierarchical societies, and the far-right parties that have managed to reach power are doing everything they can to impose such visions.
Our hope is to help defenders of free and open societies better understand, and thus more effectively oppose, this movement. This guide comes in two installments. For the first one, which was published last fall and answers the question, What is the far right?, go here:
The second entry, which we present to you below, answers the following questions: What does the far right want, and how will it try to achieve it?
Part II: What Does the Far Right Want and How Will It Try to Achieve It?
What goals motivate the far right?
The far right is animated by the revolutionary project of reconfiguring society along the exclusionary or hierarchical lines patterned after a “divine” or “natural” order. Far-right figures envision societies organized through hierarchies—whether racial, ethnic, religious, or ideological. They aspire to deploy state power to defend the “true people” (sometimes called the Volk), who often already occupy the top rungs of society, from a constellation of perceived enemies or from relative or outright disempowerment. The far-right ideal is a homogeneous society, and that ideal is diametrically opposed to a liberal, pluralistic order. The far right believes that liberal pluralism represents a dangerous and unprecedented upheaval of the natural order. The far right blames most or all social problems on that upheaval—that is, on liberalism. Instead of seeing social order as emerging from the interactions of many diverse persons and groups cooperating in a polycentric system, the far right believes a homogeneous order must be imposed—and imposed in a holistic fashion, incorporating all forms of social interaction, from the structure of the nation-state to the most intimate relationships in the home.
The far right’s commitment to freedom extends only to the “true people,” whose values align with far-right goals. This is an exclusionary conception of freedom, entirely contraposed to a neutral rule of law. Generally for the far right, discussion and deliberation are denigrated in favor of authoritarianism and “decisive action,” although the far right will also frequently invoke values like “freedom of speech” to exert pressure on discourse communities to welcome its ideas and rhetoric (see Why do far-right groups often talk about “freedom”?).
In the far-right imagination, the “natural” order is justified on the basis of “blood” or rootedness in “soil,” or “Blut und Boden,” a widely used motto in the National Socialist (Nazi) regime. The far-right chants of “blood and soil” express its claim that living in a specific place over generations and being of common descent shapes a people and the place for each other in a way that is not accessible to newcomers. The far right also believes that “race science”—sometimes more palatably labeled “human biodiversity studies”—explains and justifies hierarchies. It is in the background of “blood and soil” arguments, arguing that an imagined racial evolution determined which people control—and therefore should control—a territory and shape the nation. Moreover, the far right believes that gender and social roles are straightforward, set, and determined by either religion or the biological needs of a race, and that when rightly ordered and enforced, they perfect the overall imagined “natural” order.
The far right’s conception of order is thoroughgoing and reinforced by these beliefs: the strongest people—determined by “nature”—control the land over a period of time that allows them to develop a national identity particular to those people (blood) and that land (soil). Societal roles that complement or reinforce that order are justified by reference to the overall order enforced by state power. The myth that those roles are also natural and/or traditional lends them an air of authority.
The social structures envisioned by the far right enforce not only political, cultural, and economic hierarchies but also domestic ones, specifically through a sort of complementarianism whereby men and women perform distinct but complementary roles. In the far-right conception of the household, men are to fulfill public roles (outside work, politics) and assume ultimate responsibility for the household as a unit. Women alone can bear children to perpetuate the “true people,” and thereby the nation—their most urgent and important calling within the far-right framework. Women are therefore thought also to be responsible for raising and educating future generations and managing the environment for those tasks. This private work is considered both complementary to men’s work and essential, though because it is subsumed into the household unit, women occupy lower places in the hierarchy (see What role do women play in far-right activism? from Part I).
The radicalism of the far-right vision requires that such hierarchies be rigid, which explains far-right hostility to departures from these roles, such as accommodation to LGBTQ+ individuals. Occasionally, far-right movements have incorporated roles for homosexuality, sometimes in the form of a militantly aggressive warrior culture, sometimes as a concession to modernity, which itself may be a means to differentiate them from other illiberal movements, such as political Islamism.
A frequent theme on the far right is accelerationism, a posture toward society that sees it as so pervasively afflicted with disease, degradation, and corruption that only revolutionary reassembly, not incremental adjustment, can salvage it. Accelerationism seeks to bring about a violent collapse or war through which the far right can seize power. It is the strategy described in the white nationalist classic novel The Turner Diaries and is central to the strategy that inspired Timothy McVeigh’s murderous bombing in Oklahoma City. As Bryan Hughes and Cynthia Miller-Idriss put it, accelerationists see themselves as “the vanguard of a sleeping majority that will either rise up to assist them in a future civil war or will at least welcome the new order once it has been established.”
What are some hallmarks of far-right strategy?
The far right is keenly aware of the crucial role that messaging plays in its ability to pursue its goals.
From past forms of propaganda to current strategies on social platforms, the far right invests significant resources into pushing materials developed in its subcommunities into wider circulation. It’s also common for those not enmeshed in far-right politics to innocently repeat memes or tropes coming from the far right, especially when those memes or tropes are spread professionally by workers in internet troll factories. That is one way that the far right gains unwitting supporters. But it’s also a way for far-right ideas to gain wider purchase in society. The pipeline from some of the darkest corners on the right-wing internet to viral mainstream content is especially important to the far right, as its ultimate goal isn’t niche purity but social domination.
The typical features of far-right strategy make it difficult for liberals to recognize and counter it. These are: (1) Dog whistles and plausible deniability, (2) Decentralized cell-like organization, (3) Political opportunism and incrementalism, and (4) Misdirection and pedantry. All political movements use messaging and framing to advance their arguments. What makes the use of these strategies by the far right different is that it uses messaging and political strategy to mask its extreme affiliations, goals, and beliefs.
Dog Whistles and Plausible Deniability
A dog whistle is an ultrasonic whistle that dogs can hear but humans cannot. In politics, the term refers to messages that are received by intended targets, but unheard, overlooked, or excused by others. The far right has mastered the technique, which frustrates attempts to expose its goals, especially when the plausible deniability of the dog whistles can be used to encourage the idea that the far right’s political opponents see threats everywhere and are too hysterical to be taken seriously.
Better known examples of dog-whistle terms include “New York financiers” to refer to “Jews” or “bad hombres” for “undesirable” Hispanic immigrants. Since dog whistles go in and out of favor frequently, to help maintain their effectiveness they may be deployed with irony. A recent example is the response to the outcry over Elon Musk’s stiff-armed salute with puns on his social media platform. After turning the gesture into a joke, he followed up by endorsing Germany’s far-right party and issuing a racially charged call to give white South Africans preference for migration to the United States.
The far right also uses coded symbols and memes that can give away its motivations. For example, the number 14 can be used to refer to the “Fourteen Words” (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”), especially when the number 14 appears with the number 88, which refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet twice, “HH” for “Heil Hitler.” (It may also be a reference to the 88 precepts of white nationalism—the principles behind the Fourteen Words.)
Even if a “code” is broken or a dog whistle is exposed, the far right will try to maintain deniability. When asked about reciting the Fourteen Words on a podcast, the far-right media personality Faith Goldy said in 2017, “I don’t see that that’s controversial. … This is a simple statement of survival.” The implication behind the Fourteen Words is also a coded argument: that white people are under threat of being outnumbered or otherwise supplanted. A popular conspiracy in this vein is the “Great Replacement” theory, which has recently been promoted by prominent influencers on social media.
Insisting that only explicitly and undeniably racist statements count as examples of bigotry is a standard tactic of far-right communication strategy. By engaging in it, the far right often succeeds at repeating its points without having to deal with their extremism.
Conspiracy theories are frequently spread by far-right activists through dog-whistle messaging in a process that illustrates the political utility of dog whistles. Political scientists Courtney Blackington and Frances Cayton documented how dog whistles were used to “mainstream” conspiracy theories in Poland:
Dog whistles use coded language to project two messages: a veiled message for fellow activists and a seemingly moderate message for the general public. This rhetoric may allow populists to mobilize strong partisans without losing moderates. … We theorize that as populist politicians use dog whistles more often, the message will “mainstream.” When mainstreaming occurs, we predict the incentives for populist politicians to explicitly endorse CTs [conspiracy theories] increase, while the incentives to dog whistle decrease.
Decentralized Cell-Like Organization
Far-right extremist groups have long employed “cell-style organization,” or “leaderless resistance,” the term coined by Louis Beam, a prominent member of The Order and Aryan Nations. Leaderless resistance eliminates the need for hierarchical organizations to coordinate extremist activity as that risks tying movement leaders and other adjacent organizations to the actions of people or groups engaging in such activity. In such an organization, when, say, one member is caught engaging in acts of violence, the whole operation faces elimination. Another advantage of cell-style organization is that it heightens the sense of chaos and fear by creating the impression of unpredictable and unstoppable “lone wolf” attacks, even when they are part of larger movements.
Decentralized organization relies on shared education, culture, and beliefs to motivate and direct its members and followers. They use online communities such as the explicitly white nationalist Liberty Net and Stormfront, or anonymous image boards such as 4chan and 8kun to share cultural stories such as those in The Birth of a Nation, The Camp of the Saints, and especially The Turner Diaries—the playbook for Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. (The Camp of the Saints received a glowing review in First Things in 2023 that denied that the book was even racist, and the book has been referenced by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, two key figures in the MAGA political movement.) These materials aid the far right in proceeding in a decentralized way. Without a reservoir of content to draw on, the overarching movement would need to be involved in training and inculcation more directly.
The lack of formal organization also makes it difficult to identify ties between activists or groups. Sometimes all there is to go on is participation in events, shared language (for example, copying between manifestos), repeated meetings, or materials such as books and paraphernalia in an activist’s possession, all First Amendment protected activities in the United States that also leave plenty of room for plausible deniability.
Political Opportunism and Incrementalism
The extremism of the far right can create a misconception that more moderate political action cannot be part of its strategy. Accelerationists may look for opportunities to move society towards a “tipping point” of revolutionary overthrow, but in other cases the far right simply works within the liberal-democratic system to overturn that system.
However, an explicit part of the appeal of leaderless resistance is that it shields the complementary activism of more mainstream-passing political operatives from the actions of the violent extremists whose goals they share. Calls for racial or national “purity” help to pave the way for “more centrist” calls for “remigration” and “mass deportation.” So while only some far-right activists engage with mainstream politics, those who do also often display pragmatism and message discipline. They espouse gradual social change focusing on achievable smaller policy objectives rather than attempting to implement its entire vision in one fell swoop. For instance, it actively counsels its adherents not to openly espouse a white ethno-state and instead focus on immigration policies that restrict immigration from non-white countries. (ContraPoints’ Natalie Wynn documented this strategy in the wake of the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally).
As with dog whistles, incrementalism and pragmatic opportunism provide far-right activism with plausible deniability and more mainstream credibility. The far right will boost and try to attach itself to mainstream goals that it believes will move policy in its direction and pave the way for its full-scale attack on pluralistic and liberal social orders.
Far-right groups and individuals also target organizations and movements for infiltration in a non-violent strategy called “entryism” that allows them to co-opt and benefit from the work and resources already established by other organizations.
There are disagreements within the far right about how to best achieve its political goals. Incrementalism and opportunism contrast with revolutionary strategies such as accelerationism—one or the other may fall out of favor based on perceived success or failure of far-right efforts. Whether they are seen as complementary or competitive, both incremental and revolutionary strands are part of the far-right approach. The main point is that the lack of an explicitly extreme agenda does not automatically indicate moderation.
Misdirection and Pedantry
Leaks from far-right training sessions released by groups such as Unicorn Riot reveal sophisticated messaging, including strategies that target mainstream conservative—and even liberal—groups for influence and recruitment. Far-right activists are taught to reorient questions about their extreme politics to discussions about societal stability and homogeneity and about legal rights. These activists deliberately echo the language of not only liberal but also leftist or progressive movements such as Black Lives Matter. Thus, “Black lives matter” is mirrored in “blue lives matter,” “gay pride” in “straight pride,” which may lead to “white pride,” and so on. Similarly, “celebrating diversity” is deployed as a justification for promoting ethnic homogeneity in each nation. If an interlocutor challenges them, pedantic hair-splitting can downplay their extremism and portray their opponents as hysterical, close-minded and unreasonable, a tactic satirized by the German comedy group Browser Ballet.
Motte-and-bailey arguments often accompany pedantry and represent another means whereby incremental policy goals can be useful, as far-right activists can hide behind a mainstream policy position while pushing for a much more extreme end goal.
The far right is hardly the only political movement to use such communications strategies, and misdirection and pedantry in political communications does not indicate far-right influence in and of itself. But what’s different here is that it deliberately uses unsophisticated political actors to communicate its extremist views while shielding its own activism from appropriate scrutiny through misdirection and pedantry. These communication strategies can also draw defenders of liberal pluralism into pointless argument as part of a political “game” (see What is the role of irony in far-right activism?).
Why do far-right groups often talk about “freedom”?
Far-right invocations of “freedom” are frequent. Although these appeals might suggest that far-right groups share concerns with friends of free and open societies, the freedom they demand is their collective one to direct the lives of individuals, not freedom for individuals to determine their own course of life.
For example, one of the first online neo-Nazi message boards was called Liberty Net. Explicitly white supremacist groups feature “freedom” in their names: the American Freedom Party and the Aryan Freedom Network. Far-right political parties and movements in Europe also invoke “freedom,” such as the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Polish Confederation for Liberty and Independence, and the Freedom Party of Austria. The far right has also been able to attach itself to conspiracy movements that use the rhetoric of freedom to oppose modernity or non-traditional lifestyles. For example, they demand “freedom” from “immigrant crime” or from social changes such as same-sex marriage.
The far right’s conception of freedom is distinctly illiberal—it is often calling for freedom from the supposed forced upheaval of liberalism. Its adherents believe that the rightful and proper social order can only be restored if the far right is in charge of formulating and enforcing social order to bring about the “freedom” of the collectivity over that of the individual (see What goals motivate the far right?). Examples include “freedom” from international obligations stemming from trade negotiations or other treaties, and “freedom” to impose laws that oppress and persecute citizens by race, gender, or religion. Imprisoning people for voluntary behavior which the far right opposes is not, to them, meaningful infringement on freedom—it is a rightful exercise of freedom to define their social order collectively.
The far right denies that meaningful freedoms have been lost when policies implementing its agenda override individual choices about whom to marry, what to read, where to go to school, with whom to associate or trade, or generally how to live one’s life.
The far right embraces a collectivist conception of freedom, which is the freedom of one group, perceived to be superior, to rule over other groups. That is in complete contrast to the notion of freedom as equal liberty under law that is central to the liberal tradition, as was argued by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty and by many other advocates of individual liberty.
“True freedom” for the far right consists in uninterrupted participation in the identity of the collective. Deviation from the far right’s prescribed forms of life are treated as tantamount to civilizational breakdown. This is why it believes the “true people,” and society along with it, is frustrated by competitive electoral politics, by liberal education, by pluralistic democracy, by the market economy and freedom of trade, by popular culture, and sometimes by the machinations of particular ethnic groups (notably Jews, typically referred to as “financiers,” “finance capital,” and “globalists”).
The Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt provided a framework for illiberal conceptions of freedom. Although few of the rank-and-file of the far right have read Schmitt, its intellectual class has been deeply informed by Schmitt’s conception of politics that pits “friends” against “enemies.” According to Schmitt, politics can only exist where there are friends and enemies, and, “an enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.” The true freedom sought by the far right is not realized in the right of individuals to live in peace without fear of arbitrary power, but in the unrestrained ability of collectivities to impose their will to realize their own preferred social ordering. In contrast, liberals see political rivalry as civil contests of ideas within a pluralistic society.
To go along with its inverted concept of “freedom,” the far right also has inverted concepts of “diversity” and “pluralism.” When members of the far right invoke diversity and pluralism positively, they have in mind something very different from what those concepts standardly mean in a sociopolitical context. The racist far right, as biological essentialists, believe that race-mixing reduces diversity by eliminating distinct races (and by extension their art and culture), and that racial segregation and ethnostates are thus the best protection for “real” diversity.
As Jerry Muller summarized the Conservative Revolutionary approach to pluralism, “Legitimate pluralism existed not in the domination of the state by competing socio-economic interest groups, but in the competition among the cultures of the [peoples], each embodied in its own state.” Liberal cosmopolitanism and ideas of universal human rights, according to far-right thinkers, make countries or nations more alike and thus liberalism dilutes diversity, whereas ethnic and national separation preserve diversity, not within nations, but among them. The far right is, accordingly, generally sympathetic to a wide variety of extreme theocracies and to dictatorships of various sorts, and strongly opposes the idea of human rights, in place of which it advances the collective rights of particular nations. It rejects the idea of global peace based on the free exchange of ideas, goods, and services in favor of global segregation, isolation, hostility, and perpetual enmity.
The far-right appeals to free speech as a social value so that its ideas and rhetoric, appropriately crowded out or discouraged across many parts of society, will be welcomed back in. This is part of the far right’s strategy of opportunistically exploiting liberal individual rights. Far-right figures frequently highlight examples of criticism, “deplatforming,” “cancellation,” or even actual censorship that many liberals also find objectionable. But these practices are not discouraged when it is the far right that benefits (see What policies does the far-right support?).
Liberals sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that the far right will not pursue its policies because, applied equally, such policies would disadvantage the far right itself. But as these groups are not liberal they have no intention of applying their policies equally.
What policies does the far right support?
Policymaking is not the realm in which the far right pursues overtly violent activism—though violent activism is meant to expand political possibilities. Policymaking is where the far right is most likely to employ political opportunism, assisted by plausible deniability and misdirection (see What are some hallmarks of far-right strategy?).
Until recently, the far right had to pursue its policies much more subtly. Now, there are obvious examples of policies that directly serve the goals of the far right, such as those supporting mass deportation, also branded as “remigration”, and even the expansion and establishment of offshore detention camps. Other policies championed or cheered by the far right may be less obvious to casual observers, but a few examples can help illustrate strategies employed by the political arms of the far right. The specifics will vary with the political opportunities available.
The far right believes that both the “true people” and the way of life that supports the true people are under assault by what it refers to as establishment or elite institutions—such as business (“woke capital”), government bureaucracies (“the deep state”), academia and schools (“centers of indoctrination”), intellectuals (“Marxists”), Hollywood (“deviants and perverts”), think-tanks and international organizations (“globalists”), the courts (“lawfare”), and the media (“enemy of the people”). Occasionally, these forces are grouped together and referred to as “The Cathedral,” a neoreactionary term coined by Curtis Yarvin. The far-right’s political project is consumed with finding various ways—often extra-legal—to oppose and even punish these groups.
The mainstreaming of calls for mass deportation is a triumph for the far right. It is the culmination of a long and sustained campaign to undermine support for immigration and build support for white nationalist and eugenicist policies. Prior to and along with deportation policies come efforts to restrict immigration, especially migration from countries and cultures not favored by the far right. While the lowest hanging fruit is always irregular or unauthorized migration, “legal” status can also be revoked—one way that progress on this goal will tend to blend seamlessly into advocacy for broader restrictions when domestic problems are blamed on immigrants. Opposition to refugees from Muslim-majority countries has been especially successful, and so anti-Muslim sentiment is also encouraged by the far right. (In the past, nativist groups in the United States directed their animus toward Catholics and Jews, among other groups.)
The far right opposes the liberal principle of the impartial rule of law. Instead, it intends to use legal systems as political weapons against its “enemies.” As such, it pursues policies that may seem to run counter to its interests—were those policies applied equally. Its intention is that policies not be implemented equally. The far right, like other illiberal movements, rejects legal neutrality as undesirable or even impossible. It is therefore a mistake to think far-right figures will balk at the use of the political and legal system for the purpose of punishing their foes and rewarding their members. In order to substitute “rule by law” for “rule of law,” the far right supports moves to erode or eliminate checks and balances and limits on power, especially on executive power.
The far right supports free speech insofar as it serves as a vehicle to launder its ideas into mainstream discourse spaces. It makes these appeals not out of a principled stance on the importance of individual rights or the free discussion of ideas, but because it believes that even private platforms should be obligated to accommodate its content, regardless of the owner’s wishes or the platform’s terms of service.
For example, many on the far right believe that a static, socially conservative, white-European culture must be promoted and defended and that those who do not share their views may be legally coerced or suppressed. As the far right sees it, those other views are a “mind virus” which justifies their eradication, while far-right views deserve to permeate discussion spaces.
The institutions and practices of pluralistic societies are also used opportunistically by the far right to advance an agenda that is incompatible with the maintenance of pluralism. For example, homeschooling and mutual aid networks are deployed, not for their inherent benefits, but for the purpose of building a segregated social order that excludes others of different values or those who don’t fit in the far right’s social vision. Were members of the far right simply to rely on such networks in order to live as they please, without imposing their vision coercively on others, they would simply be groups enjoying the framework of liberal, pluralist, voluntary social order. The far right’s goal, however, is to deny such liberty to others. Far-right appeals to liberal freedoms are opportunistic and quickly abandoned when they have the power to deny others the right to speak, assemble, or mobilize democratic opposition.
Is the far right democratic or anti-democratic?
Populist and authoritarian movements often claim to be democratic, as they allegedly express the “will of the people.” What they mean by “democracy,” however, differs dramatically from what others mean by it. The issue can be understood as a part of a discussion on whether democracy can be illiberal. “Democracy,” like “freedom,” “equality,” and “justice,” is what the theorist and philosopher W.B. Gallie called an “essentially contested concept.” There are multiple and competing conceptions of such ideas, but, as Gallie noted, democracy has emerged as “the appraisive political concept par excellence.”
The concept of democracy common to the far right is the rule of the “true people,” such that even a dictatorship can be considered a democracy. Left-wing, anti-democratic political movements can also morph from democracy into authoritarianism once in power, complete with draconian crackdowns against vilified groups such as private businesses, financiers, and others, as under Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. But the far-right’s “democracy” is closed and directed, not inclusive and open-ended as in liberal polities. There are inherent qualities in individuals by race or religion that make them ineligible for full citizenship rights in the far-right’s scheme.
When operating within the framework of liberal democracy, the far right has the opportunity to use democratic principles to undermine democracy, to gain power and then use that power to further cement its hold on power. It often seeks to eliminate the independence of the judiciary, seize control of the media, and/or make constitutional or electoral changes to make the ruling party’s loss extremely unlikely, as the Hungarian government under the Orbán regime has effectively done. Resorting to democratic means to pursue power does not imply support for liberal democracy or its outcomes.
Liberal democracy rests on humility, which is not a characteristic of the far right, a movement focused on “values” rather than on abstract principles. As with the far right’s use of “democracy,” these are not values in the sense that the term is usually used. Instead, “values” is a special label sometimes given to ideas considered or existential importance and treated as political goals. (For more on this conception of “values,” see How is the far right different from conservatism? from Part I.)
In contrast, as the French historian François Guizot argued:
At the very moment when [liberal democracy] presumes that the majority is right, it does not forget that it may be wrong, and its concern is to give full opportunity to the minority of providing that it is in fact right, and of becoming in its turn the majority. Electoral precautions, the debates in the deliberative assemblies, the publication of these debates, the liberty of the press, the responsibility of ministers, all these arrangements have for their object to insure that a majority shall be declared only after it has well authenticated itself, to compel it ever to legitimize itself, in order to its own preservation, and to place the minority in such a position as that it may contest the power and right of the majority.
Liberal democracy also depends on a pluralist concept of a “loyal opposition” that the far right generally rejects. The liberal conception of democracy holds that it is possible to be loyal to the constitution of the country and oppose the ruling party or the government in power, even if—or perhaps especially if—that government denies the legitimacy of all opposition and claims to be the “true voice” of “the true people.” The opposition may, in turn, become the government, while the currently governing party may become the opposition. This accommodation of dissenting viewpoints—political pluralism—is a central part of liberal democracy.
The far-right view, in contrast, typically characterizes the opposition as the enemy of the people and therefore utterly lacking in legitimacy. The far-right conception of democracy cannot be inclusive because it seeks to guarantee the fulfillment of “will of the people” from treasonous dissenters. As such, the far right believes it is proper to suppress, expel, imprison, or in other ways (some more subtle than others) silence or neutralize dissenters.
The far-right conception of democracy is ultimately incompatible with public deliberation and thus undermines even the majoritarian element of democratic decision-making. Without protections for individual rights, limits on executive, police, and military power, and systems of checks and balances, electoral democracies soon cease to be democratic at all—for when the dissenting opposition is forcibly suppressed, it becomes impossible to know what even the majority thinks.
Like authoritarian and totalitarian movements of the far left, when far-right movements find themselves in a majority, by hook or by crook, they pervert the system that brought them to power to ensure that they will never lose that power. The far right’s conception of democracy therefore ultimately eliminates democracy or converts it into a synonym for dictatorship. To be sustainable, democracy must also be, at least to a minimal level, liberal.
How does the far right both invoke and undermine the ideas of freedom and democracy?
Far-right actors’ appeals to freedom can create an illusion that they endorse liberal-democratic principles and mainstream policy positions. It may even appear that there are grounds for collaboration or opportunities for education and moderation. Individuals influenced by the far right may indeed be reachable, but moderate rhetoric from the far right should draw extreme skepticism. As with appeals to “freedom,” or “democracy,” such rhetoric is opportunistic or even flatly dishonest.
Three policy areas illustrate how seemingly liberal rhetoric can be used to bolster the respectability of radical illiberalism in ways that exploit the good will of unaffiliated activists and institutions: fairness, anti-war activism, and free speech.
Fairness
The “coding” of political issues with race in right-wing political campaigns (as exposed in Lee Atwater’s infamous interview) has been taken to new levels by the far right. Far-right movements view many contemporary policies to promote diversity as assaults on the natural order rather than as attempts to correct past injustices. They don’t see past discrimination as unjust, but simply as reflective of the natural order. A contemporary example comes from those who advance the “Great Replacement” theory and believe that the “deep state” (and often “the Jews”) are seeking to use immigration, affirmative action, and other policies as tools to destroy the power and the identity of the groups that should rule.
Accordingly, proponents of this conspiracy theory will use appeals to fairness to criticize, for example, racial quotas—not because they oppose racial discrimination per se or because they believe these policies are ineffective, but because they oppose the goals of those policies.
When state discrimination favors their preferred groups, the far right endorses it, as was certainly the case in the past, when laws on land use, redistribution, and much more were deliberately written to benefit some at the expense of others. Far-right opposition to mandated welfare and diversity-based interventions is not based on concern for equality or fairness: national conservatives emphasize the importance of discouraging higher education and economic independence for women at a national scale and increasing the number of men in education for “high-status” professions such as engineering, law, and medicine.
Anti-War Activism
The belief in peace is foundational for liberal democracy and human flourishing. The far right, however, selectively exploits and boosts defensive wars against dictatorial invasions when it believes that such opposition will advance its agenda, as is the case with the far-right opposition to Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia. Connections and mutual admiration between the far right and the Kremlin explain why the far-right opposes international support for Ukraine. KKK leader David Duke has called Russia “the key to white survival“ and his books were even sold in the Russian Duma, while neo-Nazi activist Richard Spencer refers to Russia as “the sole white power in the world.” The far right sees Ukraine as a liberal democracy that should submit to being conquered by a traditionalist dictatorship.
The far right also opposes foreign “neoconservative” wars that it believes are fought on behalf of other races or for the benefit of elite (often allegedly Jewish or Jewish-influenced) financial interests—especially wars fought in countries with predominantly non-white populations in which white soldiers are killed and white taxpayers provide the funding.
The far right will support wars it thinks are in the interest of the “true people.” It believes that military virtues are important for a “strong” country. It opposes military support for liberal democracies like Ukraine not out of principled non-interventionism, but because it wants the other side to win.
Free Speech
Appeals to free speech have been strategically useful for far-right figures, who not only properly demand their legal rights to express their views without state censorship, but also simultaneously insist on being provided opportunities on private venues and platforms to insult minorities and women. They insist that being subjected to criticism or ostracism is in turn a violation of their rights. As the far right secures more political power, it seeks to silence speech with which it disagrees. Violent force is not its first resort because it has more subtle and sophisticated means at its disposal. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán controls and limits expression by using state funds to purchase and control media and shut down independent institutions.
The far right doesn’t care if it undermines the very protections that allow it to voice arguments against free and open societies because it rejects the liberal belief that those protections ought to be applied equally.
One way the far right undermines support for the principle of free expression is by loudly denouncing as “censorship” all criticism of its positions. Criticism is the private response to speech with which one disagrees; it is the alternative that a free society offers in place of legal censorship. By conflating disassociation or criticism with censorship, the far right dismisses non-government responses to offensive speech and lays the groundwork for speech rights determined by political power. As attorney Ken White puts it:
It’s crucial to the core bargain of free speech—that the state, or the community, refrains from punishing ugly speech because the remedy is more speech—that we are equally open to people making and voicing their own moral judgments about ugly speech. In other words, the justifications for free speech rights and free speech culture rely on everyone being free to voice [opinions that fall afoul of our expectations for speech decency]. Too many modern discussions blur these lines and wind up conveying that it’s somehow wrong not just to suppress speech, but to judge it. That’s nonsense, and encourages contempt for the whole free speech bargain.
The far right subverts free speech even as it cynically professes to be its greatest champion.
What is the role of irony in far-right activism?
Irony is useful both for recruitment and for maintaining plausible deniability for the movement’s committed activists. Irony allows those not yet committed to the far right to “try on” radical ideas, to look for fellow travelers, and to play at far-right politics. Extreme positions and offensive memes don’t have to be defended when they can be downplayed as “jokes.” Anyone upset by this content is portrayed as uptight, hysterical, or out of touch.
In a sense, the use of irony by many far-right activists is simply a culmination of other hallmarks of far-right activism. But its prominence, thanks to online communities such as 4chan/8kun and its compatibility with social phenomena such as “meme culture,” have made it a remarkable phenomenon in its own right, both as a deliberate strategy and as an illustration of how far-right strategies play out.
Irony allows extremism to become a sort of political “game” of coded messages and ambiguity. For example, 4chan trolls initially misidentified “OK” (👌) as a far-right symbol as a joke. But when the media reported it as a far-right symbol, 4chan laughed that a common and innocent symbol had been linked to it. The idea was to make “normies” and the media who took them at their word look hysterical. Subsequently, the far right really did adopt the symbol as a dog whistle, only to drop it later, partly because it had lost its effectiveness and partly to confuse outsiders not keeping up with its moves and games in real time. The confusion and degradation of trust that irony creates is deliberate; it is meant to frustrate and exhaust those who are trying to track the far right and those who seek not to associate with it.
The point of this game is to antagonize political opponents (“to trigger the libs”), to sow mistrust and uncertainty among political opponents, and to nudge more extreme ideas towards the mainstream through repetition and the plausible deniability lent by irony. Such gamification of radicalism is not only a sort of entertainment, but also a way of gaining status in far-right communities and reinforcing radicalization.
How can friends of free and open societies fight back?
Understanding far-right ideas and being able to recognize far-right material, messaging, and propaganda are key to fighting back. The takeover of organizations, parties, and even governments by far-right movements is a very real threat to free, open, and pluralistic societies. Not taking the threat seriously can be, as it was in the past, literally fatal.
Recognize the Vulnerabilities of Liberal Organizations and Institutions
In addition to recognizing and countering the ideas of the far right, it’s important to recognize and to counter its techniques.
It is especially important to be alert to the use of “entryism,” or the infiltration of existing institutions and organizations by members of the far right. (Entryism has also been a strategy on the left, perhaps most famously advocated by Trotskyists.) In the U.S., far-right organizations were explicit about their intention to join and influence the Republican Party, but publications, business associations, and think tanks can also be targeted.
It’s easy to discount entryism because it’s non-violent. But that would be a mistake, as an OpenDemocracy report suggests:
Entryism receives less attention than the violent strategies and tactics that traditionally accompany extremist ideology. Nonetheless it is important to recognize the various strategies, violent and non-violent, that extremists use to advance their ideology. On the far right, these ideologies have exclusionary, authoritarian, and anti-democratic agendas: not only is democracy opposed, it is often targeted.
This strategy is clandestine, deceptive, and conspiratorially targeted at democracy and its institutions. It opposes the norms of liberal democratic culture, spanning from open discussions, free deliberation, and informed choice. By being inimical to democratic culture, it can subvert democracy, taking the power from the citizens and placing it in the hands of a self-selected elite. Entryism is therefore a means through which anti-democratic agendas can be realized.
Explicitly Commit to Peaceful Liberal Tolerance
To guard against the subversion of liberal organizations for far-right ends, participants should be imbued with an understanding of the principles of free societies and thus made more alert against opportunistic entryism. Projects that support open, free, dynamic, cosmopolitan societies are at least partly immunized from far-right capture by language that signals incompatibility with far-right goals. Self-consciously framing one’s activism as liberal, pluralistic, tolerant, and inclusive can support liberal-democratic norms while making one’s efforts ill-suited for exploitation by far-right activists looking for mainstream projects or organizations to exploit for their own ends.
Proactively Argue Against the Far Right Without Elevating Them
Defenders of free societies should also actively argue against far-right ideas, projects, and goals, rather than assuming that far-right efforts will fail if they are ignored. That is not the same as actively providing them platforms to advance the far-right agenda. And while pointing out the absurdity of far-right views can be useful, it’s important that the ideas be addressed.
To be clear: the far right must be politically defeated. Liberal toleration defends the rights of people with repugnant views while recognizing that free societies can be undermined or obliterated by such repugnant illiberal ideas. Basic respect does not require inclusion or representation, or that those seeking to destroy free societies be treated as though their views are just part of the back-and-forth of liberal democratic deliberation.
It’s important to defeat illiberal ideas with reason and speech before they acquire the power to punish and eradicate liberal ideas and political enemies with force. Defense of the individual rights of members of the far right to advance its repugnant agenda should be paired with arguments against its ideas and agenda and support for persons and communities targeted by far-right activism. Concern about disproportionate reactions against perceived transgressions (“cancellation”) is shared by many reasonable people. That concern should not be allowed to rise to the level of a taboo against condemning genuinely illiberal ideas and the people who would use their power to impose them on society.
Provide Paths for Deradicalization
Free and open societies should provide many off-ramps for people in the ideological grip of the far right. For people asking, “How can I deradicalize?” or “How can I help a loved one deradicalize?,” there is no shortage of pathways to assist those who need help letting go of an intellectual and political framework that promotes bigotry and actively fights for illiberal and undemocratic ends.
All of us can use reason to see through fallacious arguments, use wisdom to weigh evidence, and exert the mental focus to get through clouds of emotional fog. Liberals must hold on to the willingness to tolerate while summoning the courage to disagree.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The far-left and the far-right are very much in alliance. The Maduro dictatorship, for example, is aided by the Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán (who vetoed an EU statement on the election Maduro blatantly falsified) and by Russia’s national socialist regime. In Germany the AfD and the communist BSW are open allies. I have spent a lifetime fighting against socialist tyranny (in the USSR and everywhere else); the heirs of that tradition of socialism are again on the march against open and free societies, either in alliance with or openly working as far-right movements.
wow. thank you so much for putting this together.
it's a great resource for a budding writer like myself. I've therefore bookmarked this story.
Cheers.