Introduction
The Latin sensus communis coming from the ancient Greek has given rise to many differing translations with overlapping meanings in modern languages, such as common sense and good sense in English, sens commun and bon sens in French, and gemeiner Verstand and gesunder Menschenverstand in German. It has also been the subject of discussion from a philosophical perspective from Aristotle to Gramsci, without forgetting Descartes, Kant, and other 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers praising common sense from a universalistic perspective to imagine a new political order, which has grounded liberal democracy (Rosenfeld Reference Rosenfeld2011). However, one cannot understand the democratic value of common sense without repositioning these universalistic principles within the contextualized history of each democracy and its society. These histories include institutional and situational parameters framing at a certain point in time what is perceived as a surfacing reality, accessible to ordinary citizens and requiring practical actions based on accepted traditional knowledge (Wodak Reference Wodak2021). Common sense has justified emancipatory policies leading liberal democracies in the subsequent stage of their existence, or it has justified reactionary policies leading to the retraction of liberal democracies and even their cancelation during a certain period of time. Common sense is then the open-ended approach to societal realities and their management currently used by radical right (RR) leaders such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán who claim a connection with the imagined ordinary citizen to perform changes in democracies.
Donald Trump, with his Make America Great Again (MAGA) program, and Viktor Orbán, with his nationalistic ‘Magyar-first’ goal, have both developed a strategic and performative political communication style leading to their elections. This strategy is based on claimed structural changes demanded by an exclusionary, essentialized, and resentful ‘people’ in-group embedded within a territorialized nation and presented as disfranchised by liberal ‘elites’, minorities, and international organizations (NGOs, multilateral institutions, etc.) (Norris and Inglehart Reference Norris and Inglehart2019; Olivas Osuna Reference Olivas Osuna2021; Lamour and Carls Reference Lamour and Carls2022; Lamour Reference Lamour2024a; Lamour and Mazzoleni Reference Lamour and Mazzoleni2024; Biancalana, Lamour, Mazzoleni et al. Reference Biancalana, Lamour, Mazzoleni, Yerly and Carls2025). This approach to society puts them in the international RR, which has attracted major interest from scholars due to its increasing ability to control public executive positions and to jeopardize the foundations of liberal democracies (van Dijk Reference van Dijk2024). Antagonism is immediately associated with the RR discourse, which is based on the production of common-sense argumentations (Wodak Reference Wodak2021). It has been researched across a wide range of discursive genres, from political campaign speeches to online posts (Newth and Scopelliti Reference Newth and Scopelliti2023; Lamour Reference Lamour2024b, Reference Lamour2024c, Reference Lamour2025a).
Nevertheless, one particular genre used by RR executives has received limited attention from a comparative perspective: the State of the Union or State of the Nation address. How do Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán mobilize common sense within this genre of discourse? Following a review of the literature on the RR discourse with a focus on the use of common sense, the methodology is presented. This is based on a Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of critical discourse analysis. The results are structured into three parts, each dedicated to a specific dimension of this genre of discourse: the enunciation of policies, the presentation of a polity, and the promotion of authority.
The commonsensical radical right: A willingness to destroy and the usefulness of topoi
The RR is a political group, the definition of which has given rise to many debates (Mudde Reference Mudde2017). It can be viewed synthetically as a political ensemble once named far right or extreme right, and which is eager to destroy the foundations of liberal democracy. This destruction is carried out through the progressive contestation of the rule of law, the rejection of minorities and individual rights, and the mocking or dismissal of democratic pluralism in the name of an empty signifier: ‘the people’ (Laclau Reference Laclau and Panizza2005). The RR does not exterminate its enemies, in contrast to the Nazi and fascist parties of the past (van Dijk Reference van Dijk2024). Its distinction from the historical far right parties is to use all the democratic and legal means available in a given situational context of power, to test – and if possible, progressively get rid of – the liberal democracy. It consequently shares many of the goals of the past far right (Snyder Reference Snyder2019) and can also remobilize all the inherited discursive codes of the far right, including those related to racism and antisemitism (Wodak Reference Wodak and Rydgren2018; Lamour Reference Lamour2021, Reference Lamour2024b; Reference Lamour2026; Mondon Reference Mondon2022, Reference Mondon2023; Brown, Mondon and Winter Reference Brown, Mondon and Winter2023; Newth, Brown and Mondon Reference Newth, Brown and Mondon2025). The daily news is a vivid source of information concerning this progressive hollowing out of liberal democracies. It notably includes not only the passing of specific regulations against NGOs and control over or pressure on mass media but also the scrapping of monitoring regulations or the use of pardons to secure the impunity of crooked/felon RR allies, activists, and violent followers (Feuer Reference Feuer2025; Toth, Pajnik and Zdravković Reference Toth, Pajnik and Zdravković2025). The RR is also keen to use referendums for complex issues to implement extreme policies on minorities silenced one by one (Fenyo and Than Reference Fenyo and Than2022).
The RR’s willingness to win the battle of ideas with the ending of critical thinking also means the cancelation of books in public libraries, the rewriting of the past based on a romanticized storytelling, or the suppression of public funding for research founded on scientific principles (Tollefson, Kozlov, Witze et al. Reference Tollefson, Kozlov, Witze and Garisto2025). This absolute control against democratic principles also justifies the redundancy of public servants and public agencies, considered as being in contradiction with the new radical order, in addition to the concentration of power within the handful of RR supporters chosen primarily for their faithfulness rather than their competence (The Guardian 2025). Last, the RR goals also include the destabilization of foreign liberal democracies with the financial and/or political support of existing RR parties abroad, including those qualified as neo-Nazi (Watling Reference Watling2025). The plan of this political family is to suffocate the liberal democracy gradually, at different speeds and geographical scales, while left/right liberal democrats lose ground, voice, visibility, and legitimacy in a public sphere organized around the RR’s strategic use of common sense.
Common sense is the sum of culture-based intuitions and presuppositions used to act and make sense of societal order without requiring reflection on routinized daily life and the related thoughts (Schütz Reference Schütz1953). As suggested by Geertz (Reference Geertz1983), it is determined by three main parameters. First, the taken-for-granted social reality, as self-evident and not requiring any further explanation. Second, the surfacing dimension of social reality immediately accessible to anyone without specific expertise. Third, the practicality of its use, as common sense is mobilized to address down-to-earth issues rather than to lead to further abstract thinking. This concrete objective can notably favor the use of proverbs, jokes, and anecdotes that reinforce practical reasoning. The common sense of an imaginary ‘people’ is particularly mobilized by the RR to differentiate itself from other political parties, which are presented negatively as hegemonic and ideological, whereas common sense itself is what makes ideologies and hegemonies accepted in society through the display of perceptions presented as uncontestable (Gramsci Reference Gramsci1971). In fact, the RR has been characterized by its very chameleonic use of ideologies – from international isolationism and socio-cultural conservatism to economic neoliberalism, nation-first welfarism, etc., with the view to impose a counter-hegemony against democratic liberalism (van Dijk Reference van Dijk2024).
Common sense is thus used as a veil by the RR to obscure its constantly reconfigured ideological and counter-hegemonic goals in the name of an imaginary ‘people’, whose cohesion and interests are portrayed as being under threat from liberal elites and scapegoated minorities (LGBTQ+, feminists, migrants, ecologists, etc.) (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser Reference Mudde, Rovira Kaltwasser, Freeden, Sargent and Stears2013). As signaled by critical discourse analysts, common sense can be about formulating the tacit beliefs and presuppositions that help to shape power relations and the reproduction of inequalities in society (Fairclough Reference Fairclough1995; Fairclough and Wodak Reference Fairclough, Wodak and van Dijk1997; Reisigl and Wodak Reference Reisigl, Wodak, Wodak and Meyer2016). This common sense is organized around multiple topoi, that is, the unlimited thematic ‘of-course-ness’ argumentative stances leading to claims and conclusions. These topoi (advantage, uselessness, threat, burden, finance, etc.) are not fallacious per se. The scope of fallacy in RR discourse involves the intentional inclusion of false or misleading content to construct a persuasive argument. Their fallacy is determined by the multilayered institutional, situational, and historical contexts associated with the common-sense argumentation, claims, and conclusions circulated by the RR (Wodak Reference Wodak2021), presenting any issues from a crisis perspective (Moffitt Reference Moffitt2015), sometimes with induced conspiracy theories (Ekman Reference Ekman2022; Lamour Reference Lamour2024a, Reference Lamour2024b).
The strategic use of common sense in political discourse has not been the recent monopoly of the RR, but is intrinsically linked to the birth of liberal democracy in the Western world (Rosenfeld Reference Rosenfeld2011). Common sense has historically been mobilized in the public sphere to push both for emancipatory and for reactionary policies, leading to the legitimation or the silencing of claims associated with different segments of society recognized among or rejected by the citizenry. The main difference in the mobilization of common sense for emancipatory versus reactionary policies lies in the conceptualization of the society these policies aim to reinforce. In emancipatory policies, common sense is used to justify an inclusive vision of society, whereas in reactionary policies, it serves to legitimize an exclusionary vision (Woodly Reference Woodly2015). Today, common sense functions as a key discursive device through which the RR and its associates, as promoters of an exclusionary society, seek to mainstream themselves within the public sphere (Newth and Scopelliti Reference Newth and Scopelliti2023; Lamour Reference Lamour2024b, Reference Lamour2025b, Reference Lamour2025c, Reference Lamour, Scott and Wilson2025d).
As noted by Rosenfeld (Reference Rosenfeld2011), the combination of the freedom of consciousness and the deregulation of ideas can lead to an explosion of knowledge and the later use of common sense to impose new regulations and the disqualification of claims presented as absurd. The RR is currently boosting its electoral results in this specific time of freedom of expression and deregulation of ideas permitted by digital platforms. More precisely, the RR uses common sense in two opposite yet complementary ways. It uses common sense to claim new regulations and censorship in the material space of citizens, disqualifying emancipatory claims now regrouped behind a negatively connoted ‘wokeism’ (Neiman Reference Neiman2023). It also uses common sense to support the deregulation of knowledge in the digital space on the basis of the ‘freedom of expression’, to facilitate the spread of reactionary and post-truth content that can ground new dominant visions through the cumulative power of algorithms, trolls, or loud RR leaders (Thomas and Wendling Reference Thomas and Wendling2024; Ulloa Reference Ulloa2024). Common sense is what can justify the circulation and acceptance of the extremist RR discourse once banned from the public sphere.
Nevertheless, as argued by critical analysts, discourse is associated with specific genres (Fairclough and Wodak Reference Fairclough, Wodak and van Dijk1997). The verbal and body language of the RR at the center of public attention is not necessarily the same, depending on the genres (eg., political campaign discourse, interviews, press conferences, or speeches with foreign dignitaries). The German neo-Nazi-friendly and Italian post-fascist-friendly Elon Musk proudly and fiercely repeated something like a pseudo-Roman salute (used by 1920s–1940s German Nazis and Italian Fascists) in front of a galvanized pro-Trump crowd during an inaugural party on the presidential election night in Washington on 20 January 2025 (Rector Reference Rector2025). However, he did not address Trump with repeated pseudo-Roman salutes and some ‘Heil Trump’ or ‘Saluto al Duce’ when the US president became a promoter of his electric cars on the lawn of the White House on 11 March 2025 (NBC News 2025). This would not have looked good – either for his strategic car branding (already damaged by his neo-Nazi/fascist siding) or for the image of his car promoter.
In fact, there are multiple genres of political discourse. One of them is the State of the Nation or State of the Union address. To use Durkheim’s framework, this type of address can be understood as a ritual-like process – a collective practice that contributes to the reproduction of the liberal democratic system, with its codified roles performed by specific actors (eg., president, prime minister) who interact with an audience (elected representatives and citizens). This community of actors and audience reaffirms shared beliefs through the use of symbols and performative acts (Alexander Reference Alexander, Alexander, Giesen and Mast2010). These national addresses, as liberal democratic rituals, are intended to project a sense of unity within complex societies. In contrast, the political communication of the RR tends to project a sense of fragmentation within overly simplified societies (people vs. liberal elite and minorities). This contrast raises the following question: how do RR executive leaders organize their discursive performances and strategically mobilize ‘common sense’ within these liberal democratic rituals?
Methodology and case studies
The methodology used here adopts the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of critical discourse analysis. The scope of DHA is to consider the power dynamics and the reproduction of inequalities circulated in discourse, and relate them to the overlapping contexts justifying and making sense of discursive content and styles (Reisigl and Wodak Reference Reisigl, Wodak, Wodak and Meyer2016; Reisigl Reference Reisigl, Flowerdew and Richardson2018). It consists of examining available information on the institutional, situational, and historical contexts framing the discourse of specific people, with inherited utterances, claims, and conclusions that are reused, repeated, or altered time and time again by speakers. DHA helps one to investigate the power dominance and inequalities projected in discourse, notably through topoi. These topoi are analyzed here. Particular attention is paid to the positively and/or negatively nominated and qualified individuals and communities put at the center of common-sense argumentations, leading to specific claims and conclusions legitimizing the views of RR executives circulated during their addresses (Wodak Reference Wodak2021). Contextual data making sense of these topoi are emphasized in the analysis.
The research is based on an analysis of the discourses produced by two of the most internationally visible RR executive leaders: the State of the Nation addresses by Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, and the State of the Union addresses by Donald Trump, the US President. The state addresses by Orbán, available following his 2014 election, are analyzed. Ten of these discourses in English could be taken from the official website of the Hungarian Prime Minister for the 2015–2025 period (https://2015-2019.kormany.hu/en; https://abouthungary.hu/speeches-and-remarks). All the Trump annual State of the Union addresses and assimilated discourses given in front of elected representatives of the US citizenry since 2017 were considered, that is, the four addresses from his first term in office and the first one of his second term, given on 4 March 2025. The scope of this research is to apply a DHA to the analysis of textual segments that reveal how Trump and Orbán strategically mobilize common sense to define policies, deconstruct polity, and sustain authority – ultimately enabling the justifiable hollowing out of liberal democracy during addresses that are expected to reaffirm it. These researched segments are preceded by a synthetic analysis of how Trump and Orbán project policy, polity, and authority across their speeches. To facilitate a focused comparison between the two leaders, one key policy – border control, which plays a central role in securing the election and re-election of RR executives worldwide – is selected for analysis.
The institutional, situational, and historical contexts framing the discourses of Trump and Orbán are obviously different. The US State of the Union address is a long-term institutional practice of the American democracy. The tradition of the address being delivered in person by the President dates from the early 20th century, and the speech is about the planned action of the government, seeking support from the chambers. One of the main changes occurring in this long-lasting routine was introduced by a US president revered by Donald Trump and who was in line with a people-centered, common-sense approach to US politics: Ronald Reagan (Rosenfeld Reference Rosenfeld2011). Reagan introduced one commonsensical utterance that has been repeated by the subsequent presidents, whatever was happening in the United States, based on the traditional knowledge of optimism and self-confidence associated with the imagined American people, whatever the real knowledge was of the US strength (the ‘State of the Union is strong’). Reagan also came up with the idea of acknowledging in presidential speeches exceptional representatives of the common people located in the gallery, whose practical behavior was exemplary and deserving collective respect: the ‘Lenny Skutniks’, celebrated by subsequent presidents (Kalb, Peters and Woolley Reference Kalb, Peters and Woolley2007).
The key situational context faced by US presidents is their executive instability. US presidents are characterized by their short duration and constrained powers. They are potentially blocked by mid-term elections and by not having an absolute majority in both legislative chambers, rapidly paralyzing their actions. They cannot have more than two terms in office, and each presidential term lasts just four years, transforming each executive term into a quick lapse of time between two elections and possible aggressive primaries. One must add to this the personal situation of each president, whose scrutinized life can be the subject of investigation by the free press, parliamentary commission debates, and judiciary prosecution in response to moral ethics scandals, with the multiple sequences colliding with the political goals and occupations of these presidents. One can think of the troubles affecting Bill Clinton’s presidency, or more recently, Donald Trump – both in and out of office. Trump’s narrative is that of a Republican leader in charge of the most powerful country in the world, but also constrained by one of the most elaborate liberal democracies on a global scale. Trump’s centrality in the US mediated public sphere is also the result of an increasing overlap between entertainment and politics, a trend boosted since the 1980s and transforming citizens merely as consumers of brands and slogans (McManus Reference McManus1994).
Viktor Orbán does not face the same context and constraints. He leads a more marginal country in the Western world in terms of demographics, economics, and international status. However, Orbán’s effective control over his nation-state is far stronger than that of any other Western leader, including Trump. In 2025, he is one of the very rare Hungarian politicians who was already involved in the first and very young democratically elected parliament dating from 1990, following the collapse of the socialist bloc. Orbán did not inherit an institutional democracy, unlike Trump. He has been one of the people behind the institutionalization of the Hungarian democracy. In contrast to most Western European democracies, the longer-term institutional context affecting Hungary – and consequently Orbán – is a mismatch between the territorialized state of the Hungarian democracy and the location of the Hungarian/Magyar speakers following the post-WWI Trianon Treaty, which put a third of the native Hungarian speakers outside the boundary of the Hungarian state. Orbán can invoke the Treaty of Trianon, Hungarian communities in neighboring countries, and the claims of the Hungarian diaspora across borders to promote his Magyar-first nationalist message (Lendvai Reference Lendvai2017, Reference Lendvai2021; Lamour Reference Lamour2023).
Hungary also differs from the United States in terms of institutional power and international sovereignty. The democratic independence of the Hungarian state in the 1990s was coupled with its integration into the power-sharing European Union. This institutional power-sharing and its economic, cultural, and societal changes led to collective resentment among Hungarian citizens following periods of crisis – a resentment reawakened by opportunistic and once pro-European politicians such as Orbán to imagine an election-winning formula against a vilified ‘Brussels’ (Kazharski Reference Kazharski2022; Lamour Reference Lamour2022; Stanley Reference Stanley, Rovira Kaltwasser, Taggart, Ochoa Espejo and Ostiguy2017). The situational context directly faced by specific Hungarian prime ministers is also less constrained than the US equivalent, with no limitation of mandates, no primaries, and no mid-term elections. Orbán had already been the Prime Minister between 1998 and 2002 and has held uninterrupted executive power in his country since 2010. He is by far the longest serving executive of the Western world, to be compared only with the dictators of the socialist bloc, such as Tito or Ceaușescu, or currently Putin. This situational political longevity is related to the fact that the Hungarian Prime Minister has progressively silenced press freedom, reduced the separation between executive, legislative, and judiciary power, and contained the expression of political opponents (Lamour Reference Lamour2021; Murphy Reference Murphy2022). Orbán does not have the international status of Trump, yet his control over his nation-state is far superior to that exercised by Trump in the United States. Despite these differences in power distribution, we can hypothesize that they both share a similar, if not identical, use of common sense in their arguments about policy, polity, and authority during their respective state addresses.
The horse and carriage of a radical right ceremonial discourse: Embedding strategic common sense
Trump and Orbán are both prone to using common sense in their annual addresses, but the fallacies associated with this common sense to legitimize a hollowing out of liberal democracy are variable. This variability can be seen when one considers the three common issues referred to by both the executive leaders. First, the issue of border control as a policy to prevent the arrival of migrants from the global south in the territory where they are in charge. Second, the struggle against the institutional basis of the liberal democracy. Third, the willingness to mitigate negative personal images and deeds. Structural antagonism is what unites Trump and Orbán, but common sense is utilized in different strategic ways in their addresses, depending on the multilayered and sometimes evolving contexts they are facing.
Nothing quiet on the southern front: Common sense and border securitization
Trump has repeatedly drawn on and rephrased Reagan’s motto about the strength of the union in his speeches, as have previous US presidents. However, even if Trump favors Reagan’s motto over his MAGA slogan in his State of the Union addresses, this does not mean that the proclaimed strength of the United States shields it from external dangers, particularly migration from South America. What the DHA analysis of Trump’s discourse reveals is that the American president’s legitimation of border securitization is based on a discursive routine including two imbricated practices over the five years considered. First, the use of a distorted practice inherited from Reagan’s years and institutionally framing US presidential discourse: the changing reference to the Lenny Skutniks. Second, the placing of the differing Lenny Skutniks as representatives of the ‘people’ within the various phases of Trump’s performance around migration as a crisis (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser Reference Mudde, Rovira Kaltwasser, Freeden, Sargent and Stears2013; Moffitt Reference Moffitt2015; Lamour and Carls Reference Lamour and Carls2022). Previous presidents did not necessarily use Lenny Skutniks as models to promote emancipatory policies. However, they did not use them to exemplify a sense of ontological insecurity experienced by the American people – one that would call for reactionary policies (Kalb et al. Reference Kalb, Peters and Woolley2007). There is a specific multilayered institutional, situational, and historical context, leading to the use of strategic common sense when Trump refers to Lenny Skutniks. The surfacing reality, in turn, leads to practical claims and conclusions (Geertz Reference Geertz1983), justifying the scapegoating of migrants and the closure of the southern border with Mexico. The following example shows how most references by Trump to border control were organized during his presidential addresses:
For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. […] Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters […] were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016 […] neither of them came home. […] Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with (their) murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied alien minors […] Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. Please stand. Thank you very much. […]
Tonight, I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminal gangs, to break into our country […] Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez. He goes by ‘DJ’ and ‘CJ’. He said, ‘Call me either one’. […] At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ’s murder. […] Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 MS-13 gang members. […] And I asked CJ, ‘What’s the secret?’ He said, ‘We’re just tougher than they are’. And I like that answer. Now let’s get Congress to send you – and all of the people in this great chamber have to do it; we have no choice. CJ, we’re going to send you reinforcements. (Trump Reference Trump2018).
This part of Trump’s discourse shows how the topoi and fallacies are imbricated to justify the support for his policies against migrants. First, the Lenny Skutniks referred to in the gallery are not only heroes but also parents of victims whose sorrow is apparent to everyone. This speech segment shows a transition between the topos of threat and the topos of usefulness, tied to fallacies concerning immigration. The past immigration policies are nominated from a false perspective, negating all the restrictive immigration rules put in place by the past and recent administrations. The old policy was an ‘open border’ policy, full stop. This false assertion then leads to the opposition of two entities: an exclusionary negative out-group of migrants (gangs) vs. positively defined in-groups having to face these negative out-group members (parents of murdered daughters and a courageous police officer). Nonviolent and dutiful migrants are made invisible, and US citizens using the services of these dutiful migrants are absent. The common-sense threat lived by Americans and the common-sense usefulness of heroic officers anchor the evolving claims of Trump concerning the past immigration laws (‘glaring loopholes in our laws’ becoming ‘deadly loopholes’). The common sense of ‘people’ also determines the performativity of Trump’s discourse on the required conclusions. He asks all those assembled to stand up to pay tribute to the parents, and unless the Democrats want to appear as a shameful and heartless ‘elite’ supporting gangs, they have to stand up. The practical common sense of CJ, the officer, also legitimizes how all those assembled should vote according to Trump (‘we have no choice’). Voting against the laws scapegoating all migrants as dangerous gangs is like voting against US citizens.
Orbán does not refer to any Lenny Skutniks to ground the legitimacy of his reactionary policy on immigration, because Lenny Skutniks are not part of the institutional context framing the annual ceremonial discourse. He reprocesses, from one year to the next, the same representation of the small Hungarian fortress under siege by foreign entities eager to alienate and destroy the essence of the Magyar nation and its sovereignty, in the same way as during the long history of Hungary (Lendvai Reference Lendvai2021; Lamour Reference Lamour2023). The migrants are clearly a threat in Orbán’s speeches every year. However, the most important issue is about the struggle between Hungary and its coalesced powerful enemies: the negatively defined ‘left’ (recalling the past communist oppression) is generally associated with the hated ‘Brussels’ (recalling the past foreign oppression and in tune with popular resentment in Central Europe) and the no-less vilified financier, George Soros (recalling the antisemitic global conspiracy theory) (Lamour Reference Lamour2021, Reference Lamour2022). These three hate figures are present in all 10 speeches, as exemplified by the following segment:
The forces opposing us, George Soros’s network and the international bureaucrats he has bought, have in no way given up. There are those who still smell money. […] […] Then one of the Soros network’s chief ideologues, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, recently let slip that some years ago they secretly launched a programme to breed a Soros-like human race, or, as they modestly put it – if I can pronounce the term – Homo sorosensus. This means ‘Soros man’. And I realised that from their point of view, from the viewpoint of the Soros types, we indigenous people who have our own countries, our own culture and our own religion […] are individuals beyond redemption, who cannot be transformed. From their viewpoint, migrants are indeed better raw material to work with. […] Now of course we shall not look on impassively; we are not sheep, who quietly stand around waiting for their fate to be visited upon them. Naturally we shall fight […] Here, for a start, we have the ‘Stop Soros’ legislative proposal […] we shall divert a proportion of the foreign funding intended for pro-migrant NGOs, or pseudo-civil society organisations, to the border protection budget. (Orbán Reference Orbán2018).
Orbán’s playbook in this segment draws on a reactionary, antisemitic worldview historically shared not only by the Nazis, but also by the past autocratic Hungarian regime from the 1920s to the 1940s (Lendvai Reference Lendvai2017, Reference Lendvai2021). Like other RR leaders, Orbán can claim support for and protection of Jews, the State of Israel, and Netanyahu’s government (Wodak Reference Wodak and Rydgren2018), but that has not prevented him from circulating messages with antisemitic connotations. This vision here includes a Jew as the only named and negatively defined person: George Soros and all his derivatives (Soros types, Homo sorensus, Soros-like human race). Two negative attributes traditionally associated with Jews are linked to him: the global conspiracy theory and the interest in money, coupled with a reference to a specific body part: the nose (‘those who still smell money’). Orbán actually went one step further than the past Nazi’s ideologues in his diatribe, because the scheme orchestrated by Soros did not lead to a sort of bastardization of the Magyar race, but its tacit disappearance in tune with the contemporary great replacement conspiracy theory (‘from the viewpoint of the Soros types, we indigenous people […] cannot be transformed’) (Ekman Reference Ekman2022; Lamour Reference Lamour2024a, Reference Lamour2024b). The main topos of Orbán is that of the consequential: If Soros was all allowed to prepare his scheme, ‘we’ would be replaced, hence the required common-sense conclusion (the ‘Stop Soros’ legislation and border protection budget) introduced by down-to-earth common-sense claims (‘Now of course […] we are not sheep’, ‘Naturally we shall fight’). Orbán really likes to use highbrow and lowbrow references, metaphors, jokes, proverbs, and anecdotes to ground the practicality of his policies (Geertz Reference Geertz1983). This is especially the case when he bases these policies on the battles of ideas against the liberal democratic institutions.
The pillars of a counter-hegemonic wisdom: Loss of sense, lots of nonsense, and common sense
Orbán uses the annual ceremonial event to hammer home his rejection of liberal democracy from an institutional perspective. The same scapegoats are always mobilized (the left, Brussels, Soros), but the counter-hegemonic ideology of the Hungarian Prime Minister is differentiated from the liberal hegemony by the blurring of his ideological bases. Common sense is what enables Orbán to hide the dominant scheme of his battle of ideas (Gramsci Reference Gramsci1971). It also includes the mobilization of absurdity. Common sense is intertwined with this loss of ideological sense and the enunciation of nonsense to justify policies that do not need any reflective justification, and are ‘of course’ accessible to any sound and ordinary Hungarian citizen, as suggested in the following segment:
For ten years we have been debating how to evaluate the economic and social model that we have built in Hungary: it’s been called illiberal, post-liberal, Christian Democrat, a ‘democtatorship’, an authoritarian and hybrid system, and goodness only knows what else. No wonder commentators are so vexed, because a convent like our state system cannot be found anywhere else in Europe today […]. They refuse to accept that in this part of the world, dispensing with liberal theorising, we can derive our freedom from three simple Christian laws: we have acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad; God has created all of us in His own image, so we are all equal – regardless of origin and skin colour; and Christianity teaches us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Europe has forgotten that the world of political freedom can be built from these laws. What has happened and is happening in Hungary cannot be expressed in the liberal language of Brussels Eurobabble. In Brusselese it cannot be said that the Hungarians have not only taken their axe to a big tree, but to a primeval forest, and have managed to make their way out of it. With an IMF brain one cannot understand that we summoned up the courage to resist. […]
A liberal is nothing more than a communist with a university degree. If we had taken their advice, right now Hungary would be in the intensive care ward, with the tubes of IMF and Brussels credit attached to every limb. And the fingers on the valves regulating the flow of credit would belong to George Soros […]. And when Europe was already straining under the weight of migration, Soros announced that he was ready to offer credit to finance the settlement of one million migrants a year. Please bear in mind that the Soros Plan, the planned settlement of foreign population groups, is still on the agenda: the operation is in progress and we must man the defences, stoutly and unwaveringly. (Orbán Reference Orbán2020).
This speech contains quite a few presuppositions and traditional knowledge disconnected from true knowledge (Wodak Reference Wodak2021). First, we should note the transition between an in-group, whose activity is irrelevant from a practical perspective (‘For ten years we have been debating’), and an irrelevant out-group, whose attributes are more and more negative (‘commentators are so vexed’, ‘They refuse to accept’, ‘liberal language of Brussels Eurobabble’, ‘In Brusselese it cannot be said’, ‘With an IMF brain one cannot understand’). This transition is accompanied by a second transfer of thoughts from the blurred counter-hegemonic goal of Orbán (‘illiberal, post-liberal, Christian Democrat […] and goodness only knows what else’) to the immanent truth that is surfacing in the counter-hegemonic Hungary (‘three simple Christian laws’). Later, Orbán adds a blurring of the liberal hegemony based on a metaphor in tune with the scapegoating of the 20th-century socialist past of Hungary (‘a liberal is nothing more than a communist with a university degree’). We should also note another metaphor with an antisemitic undertone inherited from medieval Europe, but also present in the last years of the Stalinist realm with the ‘doctors’ plot’ murdering party officials: the poisoning Jew represented here again by Soros in charge of a Hungary in ‘intensive care’, with again the recall of the specific interest of Jews for money and the reference to another body part linked to antisemitic iconography: the crooked fingers (‘And the fingers on the valves regulating the flow of credit would belong to George Soros’). The mingling of sense and the cumulative use of nonsense both ground common-sense claims (‘we have acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad’, ‘Hungarians have not only taken their axe to a big tree, but to a primeval forest’) and conclusions (‘we must man the defences, stoutly and unwaveringly’).
Trump’s discourse on his counter-hegemonic battles is not based on the threat of a dominant external power, because America, its ‘people’, and its ‘policies’ under Trump are ‘great’ and ‘beautiful’. Trump’s discourse often has the simplicity of a mid-morning tele-shopping presenter marketing anything from gold-plated rings to silver dishwashers. Nevertheless, he acts like a tele-shopping presenter who circulates a clear counter-hegemonic model against the liberal rules on which the US democracy is based, including a loss of sense, lots of nonsense, and common sense, as proved below. The reference to nonsense and the loss of sense is what justifies a seemingly commonsensical yet radical transformation of the polity, placed under the scrutiny of an institution that does not adhere to liberal democratic norms, the DOGE:
I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard. […] Thank you very much, we appreciate it. Everybody here – even this side appreciates it [The Democrats], I believe. They just don’t want to admit that. Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified. […] $8 million to promote L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. […] $8 million for making mice transgender – this is real. […] $1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee […] Under the Trump administration, all of these scams – and there are far worse – but I didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about them. They’re so bad. Many more have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by Elon, and we appreciate it. […]
Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. […] and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby [Kennedy, the health minister]. […] and one person is listed at 360 years of age. More than 100 years – more than 100 years older than our country. But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty. By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families. And today, interest rates took a beautiful drop, big beautiful drop – it’s about time (Trump Reference Trump2025).
Trump refers to a pseudo–Lenny Skutnik figure in the gallery – a man who receives a standing ovation from the Republicans: the practical Elon Musk, appointed by Trump to transform the federal government without going through any legal proceedings – an action that can be assimilated to the second most severe attack on the principles of American democracy following the 6 January 2020 attack on the Capitol by the pro-Trump rioters, pardoned in 2025 (Feuer Reference Feuer2025). The underlined positive attributes of Musk are widened to his democratically illegitimate team in the course of the speech (‘a group of very intelligent, mostly young people’). The positive Elon and his team are paralleled to a negatively defined out-group: the political opposition. It is not the opposition to his policies that is underlined by Trump, but something denaturing the sense of the democratic political debate itself: political hypocrisy (‘even this side appreciates it [The Democrats], I believe. They just don’t want to admit that’). This hypocrisy of the Democrats phrased by Trump is then followed by the listing of nonsense spending and statistics revealed by the democratically illegitimate but appreciated Musk. One can see that behind the cumulative absurdity of this listing, it is less the public saving that is looked for by Trump and more the scapegoating of real/fake minorities: LGBTQ+ people, transgender (mice), ecological demands, making the gallery and Republicans laugh alike. Trump knows how to use his past TV entertainer’s talent to win over his public and justify a practical conclusion no one should discuss: ‘But we’re going to find out where that money is going’, ‘we will defeat inflation […] protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families’). Trump can also use common sense from different perspectives when his presidential situation could become perilous.
The mitigation of scandals and controversies with a brave face: The revealing mirror of common sense
Trump uses common sense to justify and push forward policies going against the long-term principles of the US democracy. However, it would be wrong to state that common sense is only used by him to advance reactionary policies. Common sense can also be mobilized to support emancipatory visions and policies, as in the long history of liberal democracies (Rosenfeld Reference Rosenfeld2011). This is nevertheless done by Trump with a clear goal and a given situational context: the softening of the scandalous and reactionary image of Trump following his first election in 2016 and at the end of his first term in office, to reach out beyond his electoral stronghold before the coming 2020 election. This use of common sense from an emancipatory perspective was then canceled in his second term, during which one can note exclusively a revengeful US president never previously seen in the contemporary history of the State of the Union address (Kalb et al. Reference Kalb, Peters and Woolley2007). The use of common sense from an emancipatory perspective by Trump in 2016 and 2020 always obeyed the same rules: referring to past famous US presidents from the Republican camp who could reach out beyond their parties (Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower). Trump also put forward policies targeting minorities, and especially the black community. When he entered office in 2016, he showed great respect for the pro-slavery US President Andrew Jackson (Schonfeld Reference Schonfeld2017) but never referred to him during his five State of the Union addresses. The following example shows how the emancipatory common sense was used by Trump:
In the gallery tonight, we have one of the Space Force’s youngest potential recruits: 13-year-old Iain Lanphier, an eighth grader from Arizona. Iain has always dreamed of going to space […] Sitting beside Iain tonight is his great hero. Charles McGee was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one century ago. Charles is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen – the first black fighter pilots – and he also happens to be Iain’s great-grandfather. After more than 130 combat missions in World War II, he came back to a country still struggling for Civil Rights and went on to serve America in Korea and Vietnam. On December 7th, Charles celebrated his 100th birthday. A few weeks ago, I signed a bill promoting Charles McGee to Brigadier General. And earlier today, I pinned the stars on his shoulders in the Oval Office. General McGee: Our Nation salutes you. From the pilgrims to our Founders, from the soldiers at Valley Forge to the marchers at Selma, and from President Lincoln to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans have always rejected limits on our children’s future. […] The people are the heart of our country, their dreams are the soul of our country, and their love is what powers and sustains our country. We must always remember that our job is to put America first! (Trump Reference Trump2020).
Trump was already on the campaign trail in 2020, and this was the time to pay tribute to the Lenny Skutniks whose portrayal could show to all the US citizens that the US president, entering into a new electoral contest, believed in emancipatory values, mingled with the supreme value to be referred to by all US presidents: respect for the US Army and veterans. One can note that the references to these Lenny Skutniks and their positive attributes are not paralleled by any negative out-groups. No antagonism was needed, as Trump was engaged in the softening of his image. His reverence for the emancipatory cause of these black Lenny Skutniks was combined with silence about the white segregationist America, which rejected black emancipation and sometimes supported Trump, as notably evidenced by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader (Naughtie Reference Naughtie2020). One can also note that Trump nominated exclusively an Afro-American Skutnik ready to be at the service of the US army, whatever the situation on the civil rights of black people. The black Skutnik was obedient to the then white-ruled United States. This positive portrayal then induced a common sense, broad, emancipatory, yet fallacious claim, when one is aware of the racial segregation in the US history lived by the celebrated Skutnik and still vivid in 2025 (‘Americans have always rejected limits on our children’s future’). This fallacious claim leads, in conclusion, to the nationalist motto coined by Trump during his campaign since 2016 (‘America first!’).
Orbán did not have the electoral pressure of Trump, which induced some strategic behavior and claimed emancipatory goals. As he controls a large proportion of the Hungarian media, as well as the judiciary power, the chances of an investigation being carried out and affecting him directly are also very remote. However, it did happen once, in 2024. He then felt like referring to it during the State of the Nation address, showing how grave the issue was, both from an ethical perspective and for his political future. The scandal was about a pardon given by the Hungarian President and ex-Minister of Family Affairs of Orbán’s government to a man sentenced in a pedophilia trial before the state visit of Pope Francis to the country in 2023 (Thorpe Reference Thorpe2024). On this occasion, Orbán could not come up with a Brussels/Soros-led conspiracy theory including some antisemitic undertone to ground a commonsensical interpretation of this moral ethics breach. He did associate pedophilia with Brussels, ready to ‘excuse and explain the inexplicable’ the year before the scandal took place (Orbán Reference Orbán2023), but not this time. However, his reference to this scandal during his 2024 address shows how the common-sense protection of children following a scandal affecting him was used strategically to protect himself and, in the process, to generate a retrograde vision of women, to reject liberal democracy, and to scapegoat his traditional enemy – the left:
The year 2024 could not have started in a worse way. Our President of the Republic has submitted her resignation to Parliament. This is like a nightmare, and it is taking a toll on us all. We see the departure of a respected and highly esteemed President, who worked – indeed fought – for her country, the Hungarian people and their families, and represented Hungary in the wider world with great honour. […] In her own natural way she showed us men that the realm of women’s feelings and thoughts is essential and irreplaceable in every walk of life – including in politics. […] While her departure is right, it is a great loss for Hungary. The reason for her resignation is that she granted a presidential pardon to a person who was convicted of covering up crimes which harmed children. The vast majority of Hungarians did not accept the validity of her presidential pardon, and rejected it. But the finest – and at the same time most difficult – task of the President is to sustain the unity of the nation […] she herself was no longer able to restore that unity. Therefore we must acknowledge that in this situation what happened was what had to happen. […]
A presidential decision was countersigned by the Minister of Justice. Her departure is an inevitable – and, I believe, unfair – consequence of the laws of politics. […] Children must be inviolable, and their molestation must result in the severest possible punishment. In such cases there shall be no place for pardon. Therefore resignation was the right course of action, and it makes us stronger. It is with a heavy heart that, on behalf of us all, I thank the President and the Justice Minister for their hard work. As regards the debate surrounding the resignation, all I can – and all I must – say is that there is more dignity in the little finger of each of the two departing ladies than there is in all the leaders of the Left combined. (Orbán Reference Orbán2024).
In a country such as Hungary, where there has been a collapse between different executive functions, all major decisions including presidential pardons – and especially so before the venue of the Pope – can hardly be thinkable without the consent of Orbán. Nevertheless, Orbán used the topos of law to push away any personal responsibility regarding this pardon. There are many dimensions in this textual segment. First, the victims – the children from a public-run orphanage who were raped over many years – are made invisible in the argumentation. The victimization is centered on the two women who officially signed the pardon for the prosecuted man. These women are given positive, but also marginalizing attributes with patriarchal connotations (‘realm of women’s feelings and thoughts’, ‘the little finger of each of the two departing ladies’). However, these political victims also become a common-sense fuse to protect Orbán thanks to the topos of law (‘her departure is right’, ‘Her departure is an inevitable consequence of the laws’, ‘resignation was the right course of action’). Orbán also put forward a common-sense utterance that any citizens and politicians could share (‘Children must be inviolable, and their molestation must result in the severest possible punishment’). However, the consequential magnitude of this punishment is silenced. Nobody knows if the wrongly pardoned man has been put back in jail. The entire scandal is framed by Orbán from the perspective of the rejected liberal democracy. The Hungarian President needed to resign – not because of the democratic rules of laws and the protection of children but because of the law of ‘politics’. The positive attributes given to the Hungarian President and Minister of Justice (the dignity) were paralleled with the negative attitude of Orbán’s scapegoating the ‘left’ around an issue Orbán resented, as it contravened his absolute power: public debate. A year later, Orbán returned to the protection of children: not protection from a pardoned man involved in a pedophilia trial but protection from gender activists. This was referenced in a segment including a positive nomination of Padre Pio, the Vatican, and the Holy Father, and the negatively defined Brussels and Soros (Orbán Reference Orbán2025).
Conclusion: Sensus communis or when radical right leaders know their Latin
The RR leaders know their Latin sensus communis and its useful good or common ambiguities to shape argumentation, to enunciate claims, and to define legitimate conclusions going against the normal functioning of the inherited liberal democracy and its citizenry. They are always eager to use anecdotes in their arguments to justify the gradual dismantling of the liberal democratic order. This article has demonstrated how they circulate ‘common sense’ from three main perspectives to challenge the foundations of liberal democracy. First, they use it to justify reactionary policies (eg., border securitization). Second, they mobilize it to legitimize reactionary polity (eg., Hungary’s constitution grounded exclusively in religious law, or Trump’s delegation of democratic oversight to Elon Musk, as if in an Orwellian dystopia). Third, they employ common sense to mitigate controversies and scandals that could undermine their electoral viability and authority (eg., Trump, the KKK-supported candidate, publicly celebrating US minorities before elections but no longer afterward, or Orbán distancing himself from a pedophilia scandal by allowing others to take the fall through resignation). Fallacy consistently underpins the RR’s strategic use of common sense. While some reflections offered by Trump and Orbán on the protection and dignity of human beings may appear universalistic, such statements are systematically embedded in fallacious reasoning aimed at scapegoating out-groups, dismantling liberal democratic norms, and preserving the political dominance of RR leaders within their respective nation-states.
Previous research has exposed the RR’s use of common sense in various discursive genres, including political campaign speeches, daily online posts, mass media interviews, and press conferences (Newth and Scopelliti Reference Newth and Scopelliti2023; Lamour Reference Lamour2024b, Reference Lamour2024c, Reference Lamour2025a). What can we learn from the commonsensical discourse delivered by executive RR leaders during their annual state addresses in democratic assemblies? The main finding is that one of the most ritualized discourses of liberal democracy in the Western world can be strategically co-opted by RR leaders to normalize autocracy as a regime in progress. Differences between executive leaders may emerge depending on the situational context they face – such as upcoming elections or political scandals. They may also vary according to institutional context – whether liberal democracy remains or not resilient. Nonetheless, in both cases, the argumentation of these leaders converges toward a common objective. The outward appearance of a liberal democratic ritual must be preserved, while its core principles are hollowed out in the name of an imaginary and exclusionary ‘people’ in search of scapegoats (the Jew, the migrant, the left, Brussels, LGBTQ+…). These discourses reject foundational democratic norms and bolster support for authoritarian leadership.
Future comparisons should examine executive RR leaders operating in similar political and regional contexts, such as Poland and Hungary. Further research should also explore the differences between RR and liberal executive leaders in their strategic use of common sense. However, the present analysis reveals how eager RR executive leaders can be to align commonsensical rhetoric with the specific contextual factors of each country and region – such as rampant antisemitism in Central Europe for Orbán, or the celebrated ‘Lenny Skutniks’ in the United States. In this American context, it is telling that in 2025, Elon Musk – vehemently applauded and presented by Trump as a kind of Lenny Skutnik – responded to this collective support from the Republican Party not with the pseudo-Roman fascist salute he had used days earlier in front of a galvanized Trumpist crowd but with a military-style salute directed at Trump. He mimicked the gesture of US veterans, who can be honored as Lenny Skutniks in State of the Union addresses. This salute, a symbolic gesture of the grateful veteran, was maintained – even though neither Musk nor Trump has served in the military. It became an almost Benny Hill-like illusionary performance, illustrating the progressive hollowing out of the US liberal democratic ritual and its routinized reverence for the armed forces. However, if future Lenny Skutniks were to give a pseudo-Roman salute to a US president during a national address, it would no longer be a satirical or illusory gesture. It would mark the transformation of the US democratic ritual into an explicitly autocratic one, a ritual likely embraced as ‘great’, ‘big’, and ‘beautiful’ by the true believers in Trumpian eschatology.
Data availability statement
Public data available online. Each discourse analyzed in the article is referenced with a weblink (see References).
Funding statement
The work was supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund [INTER/FWF/25/19403668].
Competing interests
No conflicts of interest.
Ethics approval statement
No ethical issues. Public discourse analysis.
Permission to reproduce material from other sources: N/A.
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