Anti-establishment Rhetoric Research Articles

The adaptation of the extreme right''s discourse

The Vlaams Blok is one of the most successful of the extreme right-wing parties in Europe. The growth of the party was partly due to its populist rhetoric on race and security, and its anti-establishment rhetoric. Indeed, over the years, the party has prioritized the immigration issue, which has yielded electoral rewards, and sidelined the Flemish question. Further, the Vlaams Blok has filtered, softened and rewritten strongly-worded ideological texts in order to broaden its electoral appeal, and consolidate its gains. The recent transformation of the Vlaams Blok into Vlaams Belang may be seen as a further step in the party’s attempt to become a right-conservative people’s party. It is another indication of an attempt to get away from the party’s image as being on the extreme of the right wing and the historical legacy of collaboration, and radical Flemish nationalism. However, the moderation of the Vlaams Blok’s language over the years is not only the result of electoral strategy. While enjoying steady growing electoral support, the party has remained isolated on the Belgian political scene. The traditional parties reacted to the extreme right’s success with a total exclusion of the party. This situation led far-right leaders to modify their strategies, positions and rhetoric, and to try to demonstrate that the Vlaams Blok is capable of assuming power responsibly. Similar trends in the moderation and adaptation of the party’s rhetoric can be seen in other successful extreme right-wing parties. In France, the Front National (FN) has of late presented itself as a party of good governance. In Austria, the Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs (FPO) significantly moderated its program and, as a consequence, dovetailed with the mainstream of Austrian politics in 1999. Ascension to government forced the party to review further its themes, tone and style. And in Italy, the Alleanza Nazionale (AN) developed a program in line with those of moderate European right-wing parties after it entered Berlusconi’s 1994 government.

Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood rebel: a critical survey and filmography

As a screenwriter, novelist, and political activist, Dalton Trumbo stands among the key American literary figures of the 20th century - he wrote the classic antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun, and his credits for Spartacus and Exodus broke the anticommunist blacklist that infected the movie industry for more than a decade. By defining connections between Trumbo's most highly acclaimed films (including Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and Roman Holiday) and his important but lesser-known movies (The Remarkable Andrew, He Ran All the Way, and The Boss), the author identifies how for nearly four decades Trumbo used the archetype of the rebel hero to inject social consciousness into mainstream films. This new critical survey - the first book-length work on Trumbo's screenwriting career - examines the scores of films on which Trumbo worked and explores the techniques that made him, at the time he was blacklisted in 1947, Hollywood's highest-paid writer. Hanson reveals how Trumbo dealt with major themes including rebellion, radical politics, and individualism - while also detailing lesser-known areas of Trumbo's screenwriting, such as his troubling portrayal of women, the dichotomy between his proletarian attitude and bourgeois lifestyle, and the almost surreptitious manner in which he included antiestablishment rhetoric in seemingly innocuous scripts. An extensive filmography is included.