On the proximity of the far right and the misuses of the ‘mainstreaming’ metaphor

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ABSTRACT A recent body of work has examined the normalization of far-right ideas and political violence. This is often referred to as the ‘mainstreaming’ of the far right. This article explores some of the unintended consequences of this explanation. I argue that even critical appraisals of mainstreaming – which generally implicate not only the far right, but the mainstream as well – can nevertheless work to ontologize the far right and mainstream as distinct, separable entities. I argue that contrary to the aims of such critical appraisals, this can obscure the proximity the far right has always had to the mainstream. I characterize this manoeuvre as a ‘White Reconstruction’ (Rodríguez 2021), which discursively portrays the far right as an aberration of liberal society, rather than recognizing it as a continuation of liberalism’s foundational logics, including its attendant racism, nationalism, misogyny and white supremacy.