Abstract
This paper analyzes how the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán uses social categorization and populist rhetoric in an anti-LGBTQ campaign. Drawing on social identity theory and the scholarship on populist rhetoric and anti-LGBTQ politics, the article examines 46 interviews, press statements, public speeches, and op-eds by Orbán. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Wodak’s discourse-historical approach, it shows how the prime minister frames LGBTQ communities as an out-group that poses a threat to Hungarian values and way of living. Similar to the issue of immigration and existing anti-LGBTQ frames in other countries, Orbán presents LGBTQ groups within his well-established anti-Western narrative. In addition, he connects LGBTQ communities to other out-groups that have been portrayed as a threat for a long time. The study sheds new light on the linguistic strategies of Orbán and shows how populist rhetoric and social categorization complement each other in a political campaign.
Keywords
Introduction
In the past decades, scholarship on populism has devoted increasing attention to populist rhetoric, examining the linguistic and rhetorical strategies populist politicians use (Busby et al., 2019; Sakki and Martikainen, 2021; Wodak, 2015b). It has explicitly been argued that the rhetoric of populist leaders is a crucial aspect of their appeal, meaning studying what kind of rhetoric they use is essential to provide a thorough understanding of the populist uprising (Mudde, 2004). In line with this, a great deal of research has explored populist rhetoric in various countries, such as France (Stockemer and Barisione, 2017), Italy (Bracciale and Martella, 2017), the United Kingdom (Bossetta, 2017), the United States (Boucher and Thies, 2019), and Hungary (Toth, 2020).
In the contemporary political context of Hungary, populism has been considered not as a sidelined political style but as an established ideology since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010 (Scheiring and Szombati, 2020). Thus, Hungary has been labeled as a populist democracy (Pappas, 2014), where populism is an important part of the governing party’s agenda and communication style as the defense and representation of sovereignty against the elite and “others” has been integral to Orbán’s rhetoric (Ádám, 2019; Albertazzi and McDonnell 2008; Visnovitz and Jenne, 2021). Previous research has explored different aspects of the Hungarian government and Orbán’s populist style, studying, for instance, their anti-immigration discourse (Bocskor, 2018), the populist argumentation in the government’s foreign policy (Visnovitz and Jenne, 2021), and the role of Christianity in the prime minister’s populist discourse (Lamour, 2021b).
Similar to previous political campaigns against immigrants, the Hungarian-American philanthropist and billionaire George Soros, or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Orbán and his government recently launched a campaign against LGBTQ communities, setting up a political narrative that portrayed the latter in a negative way. While scholarship has studied how LGBTQ communities are portrayed as a threat in various contexts (e.g., Edenborg, 2021; Mole, 2011; Persson, 2015; Russell, 2019), this particular Hungarian case is yet to be explored. Despite international outcry and the campaign’s controversial nature and expected effects (for an overview, see Hopkins, 2021), we still know too little about the rhetoric of this anti-LGBTQ campaign from a scholarly perspective. That is, there are crucial, open questions about the rhetorical building blocks of the campaign and its relation to populist rhetoric and anti-LGBTQ politics at large. At the same time, further understanding of Viktor Orbán’s—the only long-standing populist leader in power in the European Union (Lamour and Varga, 2020)—rhetoric and language in political practice is also important and worthwhile.
With these gaps and aims in mind, this article seeks to analyze how Viktor Orbán uses populist rhetoric and social categorization in the anti-LGBTQ campaign that led to a referendum on “LGBTQ issues” in April 2022. I draw on the literature on populist rhetoric and anti-LGBTQ politics and Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 2004). Drawing insights from the literature on social identity and social categorization is not unheard of in populism research (Goethals, 2018; Ron and Nadesan, 2021; Schulz et al., 2020). Most importantly, such a theory could contribute to a deeper understanding of how populists construct in-group versus out-group boundaries and how these boundaries are used and become pivotal in narrative-building. Furthermore, analyzing the ways populist rhetoric and social categorization are present in the Hungarian prime minister’s anti-LGBTQ campaign can also shed light on how the two work together and complement each other in a political campaign. To put it another way, how does the categorization process involve and rely on common elements of populist rhetoric in Orbán’s discourse?
To understand how Orbán uses populist rhetoric and social categorization in the above-mentioned campaign, I examine newspaper, television and radio interviews, public speeches, press statements, and op-eds by the prime minister. I use critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Wodak’s discourse-historical approach (Wodak, 2015a) to analyze the data. Turning to the discourse-historical approach, I seek to integrate the historical, political, and sociological dimensions into the analysis.
On the basis of the discourse analysis, the article argues that Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ discourse is characterized by a distinct construction of an out-group of LGBTQ communities. I find that the prime minister frames his narrative as the representation of the will of the parents who stand in opposition to what such communities stand for. Moreover, the paper shows that Orbán often uses multiple elements of existing anti-LGBTQ tropes and wartime rhetoric to frame the situation as a fight. This rhetoric, however, is frequently accompanied by the strategy of calculated ambivalence, potentially shielding Orbán from criticism. Furthermore, I find that Orbán emphasizes the LGBTQ groups’ otherness by linking them to the Western world and culture. The discourse analysis also shows that the prime minister connects other out-groups and scapegoats (such as immigrants or the European Union) to LGBTQ communities in his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, exacerbating the “threat” they pose.
The following sections of this article discuss populist rhetoric, Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory, and anti-LGBTQ politics. Then, the nature of Hungarian populism, previous scholarship on Viktor Orbán’s rhetoric, and the background of the anti-LGBTQ campaign are presented. I then turn to explain how data was collected and analyzed using critical discourse analysis and the discourse-historical approach. The remaining sections of the paper are devoted to the discussion of the findings. The final section concludes the study.
Populist rhetoric as a discursive strategy
While several definitions of populism exist, this article centers on the definition by Albertazzi and McDonnell (2008: 3), who have argued that populism “pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice.” An increasing body of scholarship has focused on how populist politicians use language to appeal to their voters. Specifically, scholarship into populist politics has explored different aspects of the discourse strategies and logic of right-wing populist leaders in various contexts (Wodak, 2015b), identifying frequent features of such rhetoric. First, populist rhetoric often presents issues and narratives as a struggle of the ordinary people against the corrupt and long-standing elite or dangerous “others” (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2008; Busby et al., 2019). The anti-establishment rhetoric also involves the emphasis on the sovereignty of the people, and it could take numerous forms, such as simply mentioning the ordinary people or stressing their direct representation (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013). In addition, as Wodak (2015b) has made explicit, creating scapegoats is another substantive part of populist reasoning and rhetoric. That is, such politicians point out certain groups, minorities, or even individuals, describing them as the ones that pose a threat to the way of living.
In line with the assessment of Bracciale and Martella (2017), it should be noted that these rhetorical strategies per se are not necessarily an indicator of populist rhetoric and populist leaders, however. Rather, as existing scholarship has noted, populist politicians repeatedly employ such rhetorical elements and tropes. As Wodak et al. (2013) have stated, these features might be combined with other rhetorical elements to reflect the national audiences and situations. Thus, while research cannot use the above-discussed common characteristics as a readily available dictionary or toolkit, they offer a ground for a more systematic inquiry into populist rhetoric in different national contexts.
Social identity theory and its relevance in populism research
In general, social identity theory refers to the idea that people experience collective identity based on their membership in a group (Tajfel and Turner, 2004). As Tajfel and Turner’s seminal work has stated, individuals endorse a group membership by differentiating their group (in-group) in a positive way from others (out-group), drawing comparisons between groups (Tajfel and Turner, 2004). The concept of positive distinctiveness explicitly describes this phenomenon: people maintain the positive distinctiveness of their in-group by ascribing negative qualities to out-groups and making comparisons between their in-group and out-groups, constructing boundaries in this way (Hameleers et al., 2017; Tajfel, 1979). Thereby, group membership contributes to the feeling of social belongingness among the members of a given group. Moreover, according to social identity theory, belonging to an in-group is an important part of people’s social identity, and the attribution of negative qualities to out-groups is related to this importance (Hameleers et al., 2017). In the field of social psychology, the construction of in-groups and out-groups is called social categorization.
Following Tajfel and Turner's work (2004), an increasing number of studies have turned to social identity theory and social categorization to develop more nuanced understandings of populism (see, for example, Bos et al., 2020; Hameleers et al., 2017; Hameleers, 2019; Huddy, 2001; Schulz et al., 2020). As Huddy (2001) has argued, building on social identity theory is one of the most promising approaches in political psychology because it addresses issues and phenomena, such as the categorization of people into groups, that are relevant for political psychology, too. Likewise, Bos et al. (2020) have described populist messages as a social identity frame as they often sort people into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, emphasizing intra-group homogeneity and intergroup differences between the group of the ordinary people and the elite. Following this logic, populist rhetoric tends to highlight that the in-group is suffering and threatened because of the out-group. Consequently, one of the aims of populist rhetoric is to have people that identify themselves with the in-group, further constructing in-group favoritism and out-group hostility.
It is important to underscore that the focus of the article pertains to the in-group and out-group creation aspects of social identity theory with regard to a political campaign (i.e., how a main political actor builds and executes a campaign rhetorically along the construction of an out-group). Social identity theory, however, is not used to draw any conclusion on how, for instance, Hungarians think of their group memberships or attitudes towards LGBTQ communities on a more individual level. Instead, I turn to social identity to throw light on what rhetorical constructions, frames, and leitmotifs are mobilized in the creation of an out-group and how certain characteristics and goals are attributed to this out-group by a political leader. Differently put, how these rhetorical formulations lead to the formation of an out-group and out-group hostility (Bos et al., 2020) in the categorization process is one of the focal points of this paper.
Anti-LGBTQ politics
Situating the Hungarian government’s campaign in a larger theoretical and empirical context of anti-LGBTQ politics is axiomatic as it evokes similar campaigns against LGBTQ communities in other countries (Ayoub, 2016; O’Dwyer and Schwartz, 2010; Wilkinson, 2014). While these campaigns differ in their nature and effect (e.g., in some cases, they were commenced by opposition parties and not governments), analyzing the Hungarian case within this context could offer insights into whether characteristics of other campaigns and recurring elements of anti-LGBTQ politics appear in Viktor Orbán’s narrative.
In recent decades, sociology, political science, and queer scholarship have specifically focused on political homophobia and how LGBTQ people are framed as “others” and marginalized by parties and governments. Bosia (2014: 258), for instance, has stressed that homophobia is a powerful tool for state actors who could portray LGBTQ individuals using the notion of the “gay bogeyman.” Using the term “political homophobia,” Weiss and Bosia (2013) have argued that the former is a pervasive and long-standing tool that can be distinguished from other (such as religious or familial) forms of prejudices against LGBTQ people. As Reid (2017) has summarized, LGBTQ groups are often portrayed as the “aberrant other,” especially during political and social uncertainty and instability. In a related vein, Kuhar and Paternotte (2018: 208) have analyzed anti-gender campaigns in Europe, arguing that in anti-gender narratives, the so-called traditional values are the ones that frequently stand in opposition to LGBTQ and gender rights. Similarly, Russell (2019: 173) has demonstrated that anti-LGBTQ discourses of the far-right often position themselves as defenders of the family and children.
The idea that LGBTQ groups and gender movements pose a threat to certain values is indeed quite widespread in far-right and anti-LGBTQ discourses. As Ayoub (2016: 176), using the case of Poland, has underlined, anti-LGBTQ groups tend to present the rights of the former as a danger not just to the family but to the nation itself. As he has put it, the narrative of anti-LGBTQ discourses in Poland can be described by the “defend the nation” frame as it is embedded in moral nationalism, invoking that the nation and its supposed identities are under attack by nonheterosexuality. Although in various forms, this “defend the nation” frame (Ayoub, 2016: 176–177) was present in other countries as well. In post-communist Latvia, for example, the discursive practice was based on portraying homosexuality as a threat to the existence of the country, meaning that the homophobic discourse framed homosexuality as unnatural, not family centered, and non-traditional, making homosexuality and Latvian ethno-nationality mutually exclusive (Mole, 2011: 552). In Slovenia, the narrative of the anti-gender political discourse was similar: here, however, the focus was not on the existence of the nation but mainly on the well-being of children who are threatened by “gender theory” in schools (Ayoub, 2014; Kuhar and Zobec, 2017: 39).
While in these countries, such narratives were not necessarily organized by incumbent governments, the case of Russia is an example of how a state-orchestrated anti-LGBTQ campaign works in practice. Wilkinson (2014) has argued that the Russian government introduced anti-LGBTQ laws on the basis of protecting young people’s development and traditional family and religious values, making nonheterosexuality socially inferior in this way. More specifically, LGBTQ people were connected and tied to endangering children and the “liberal West” in boundary-making moves (Edenborg, 2021; Persson, 2015).
The Hungarian context
Since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, the Hungarian political and constitutional changes have attracted considerable scholarly attention (Bozóki and Hegedűs, 2018; Illés et al., 2018; Körösényi, 2019). In particular, social science research has focused on the characteristics and nature of the Orbán regime, discussing whether the country is still a democracy (Bogaards, 2018). While different and disputed concepts have emerged to describe this regime, there is a scholarly consensus that populism has been in power in Hungary since 2010 (Brubaker, 2017; Csehi and Zgut, 2021; Hegedüs, 2019). As Batory (2016) has argued, Orbán’s government is an example of populists-in-government where the prime minister has continuously claimed to stand for and with the people against the elite or others that are often identified as representatives of liberalism and elitism. According to Pappas (2014), Hungary is a populist democracy where the prime minister and his government have launched a systematic attack on democratic and liberal institutions and principles. Indeed, in the last decade, Orbán’s government has transformed the media landscape (Bozóki and Hegedűs, 2018), altered the constitutional and electoral systems (Ádám, 2019), and tried to establish control over the judiciary of the country (Kovács and Scheppele, 2018).
The research agenda of Hungarian populism has devoted particular attention to Orbán’s political communication. Demeter (2018), for instance, has discussed that the Hungarian government is using overwhelming political communication and propaganda accompanied by right-wing populism. Similarly, Toth (2020) has emphasized that populism has become the mainstream method of political communication in Hungary, where the prime minister appeals to the people by ostracizing others and creating a picture of antagonist elite groups. What makes this populist communication unique is the fact that it is not just the opposition’s but the governing party’s rhetoric as well. While scholarship has pointed out the populist elements of opposition parties’, such as Jobbik or Demokratikus Koalíció (DK), rhetoric (e.g., Bozóki, 2015; Tóth et al., 2019), Fidesz has been characterized as a party that brought populism into power (Ádám, 2019). In studying this kind of populist rhetoric in Fidesz’s case, scholars have identified its recurring characteristics—namely, the critique of liberal democracy and liberal values (Brubaker, 2017), the securitization rhetoric of immigration (Illés et al., 2018), the use of conspiracy theories (Plenta, 2020), and the anti-European Union rhetoric (Buzogány, 2017; Demeter, 2018). More importantly for our context, recent years in Hungary have seen populist attacks on different groups and individuals—such as George Soros, NGOs, representatives of the European Union, and immigrants—that were, in many cases, portrayed as part of the elite or others who pose a threat to the country (Enyedi, 2018).
In the Hungarian context, such special attention to Orbán’s rhetoric is not surprising. As previous research has argued, as the most influential politician, he dominates the political discourse in the country, and other members of the government and his Fidesz party simply use the prime minister’s statements and opinions in their communication, resulting in a homogenous political communication (Csehi and Zgut, 2021).
This meticulous political communication strategy was also noticeable in the government and prime minister’s anti-LGBTQ campaign. In October 2020, in his weekly radio interview, Orbán touched upon a recently published anthology, Fairyland is for Everyone, a children’s book that includes retold classic stories, including LGBTQ characters. Referring to the book, Orbán mentioned that “in terms of homosexuality, Hungary is a patient, tolerant country. But there is a red line that cannot be crossed, and this is how I sum up my opinion: leave our children alone” (Bolcsó, 2020; translation by the author). As political analysts and journalists have argued, this was the time when the anti-LGBTQ narrative became a central part of Orbán and his government’s agenda (Cain and Reuters, 2021; Vörös, 2020). In fact, Orbán’s interview was followed by similar statements, Facebook posts, and interviews by other members of the cabinet and fellow politicians from Fidesz. Similar to Orbán, they argued that Hungarian children should be protected from the “promotion of homosexuality.” Along this line, the Hungarian parliament passed a law in June 2021 that bans LGBTQ people from featuring in schools or TV shows and movies for minors (Rankin, 2021). Despite heavy criticism from human rights groups and other member states of the European Union, the Hungarian government announced a referendum on the anti-LGBTQ law in July 2021, arguing that children should be protected and Hungarians should express their opinion on the “sexual propaganda” in schools (Hopkins, 2021). While the government’s campaign was described as an anti-LGBTQ and homophobic by human rights groups, NGOs, and the opposition, the central argument of the government was the characterization of the campaign as a “child protection” that aimed to defend children from LGBTQ ideas and sexual education in schools, denying that it was a homophobic campaign and referendum (Papp, 2021).
Although the referendum—held on 3 April 2022, coinciding with the general elections where Orbán’s party secured a fourth supermajority in the parliament—was ultimately declared invalid since less than 50% of the voters cast valid ballots, the anti-LGBTQ narrative is a turning point in Orbán and Fidesz’s rhetoric (Plankó, 2020). Previously, such topics were rarely part of Orbán’s discourse; homophobic and heteronormative leitmotifs mainly characterized Hungary’s far-right political parties, Jobbik and Mi Hazánk Mozgalom’s political narrative (Nuñez-Mietz, 2019). In fact, when Ferenc Gyurcsány’s MSZP–SZDSZ government wanted introduced the registered partnership of same-sex couples in 2007—and eventually introduced it in 2009—the then opposition leader Orbán and his Fidesz party did not vote for the legislation in the parliament, but he did not express negative notions towards same-sex couples either. Contrary to the party’s values and policy goals in the 1990s, Fidesz was not an active advocate of LGBTQ rights by the 2000s, however, Orbán—the then pro-European opposition leader who was preparing to come to power at any moment amid a deep economic crisis and the constantly questioned legitimacy of the Gyurcsány government—was not in a position to start campaigning against LGBTQ individuals then (Béres-Deák, 2020; Fábián, 2015).
Data and methodology
For this study, qualitative data was derived from Orbán’s official website, miniszterelnok. hu. The website contains the transcriptions of Orbán’s all speeches, interviews, op-eds, statements, and social media posts. Since the government’s anti-LGBTQ campaign started in the autumn of 2020 (Plankó, 2020), as mentioned above, I focused on interviews, speeches, statements, and op-eds given and written between October 2020 and March 2022 by Orbán. The exhaustive corpus contained 119 documents, including transcriptions of radio and television interviews, press briefings, press statements, press conferences, Facebook posts, parliamentary speeches, public speeches, op-eds, and newspaper and weekly newspaper interviews—all the transcriptions that were available on Orbán’s website within that timespan. There was a notable diversity of discursive contexts in the exhaustive corpus as some interviews and press briefings were given abroad, while many of them targeted the Hungarian public. The first transcription was published on 4 October 2020, and the last one was on 25 March 2022, shortly before the parliamentary elections and the government-initiated referendum.
Summary of the analyzed transcriptions.
As Wodak has noted (Wodak and Nugara, 2017), populist discourse is context-dependent, and therefore detailed, qualitative inquiries are necessary to study them. Put another way, critical discourse analysis is a methodological approach that could serve research into populist rhetoric. Critical discourse analysis sees discourse as a form of social practice that is socially consequential and contributes to the creation and reproduction of unequal power relations (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002; Weiss and Wodak, 2003). According to Jørgensen and Phillips (2002), critical discourse analysis seeks to understand the links between language use and social practice. As such, studies using critical discourse analysis often focus on the language of those in power (Van Dijk, 1993; Weiss and Wodak, 2003), such as politicians.
In positioning Orbán’s discourse within the socio-political context, I applied Wodak’s discourse-historical approach (Wodak, 2015a). According to this approach, critical discourse analysis should integrate knowledge about the historical sources and the background of the discourse by paying attention to socio-political and historical contexts, too (Weiss and Wodak, 2003; Wodak et al., 2021). As Wodak has pointed out, the discourse-historical approach views discourses in their situatedness (Wodak and Nugara, 2017). Specifically, this interdisciplinary approach takes four levels into account: the text-internal co-text, the intertextual and interdiscursive connection between discourse, the extralinguistic social and institutional frames of the given situation, and the socio-political and historical context (Weiss and Wodak, 2003). Undoubtedly, the discourse-historical approach could help overcome certain pitfalls of critical discourse analysis, such as mere politicization or inaccurate analysis by integrating the aforementioned levels.
Given the purpose of the discourse analysis, I used the original Hungarian version of the transcriptions. Although the transcriptions are translated into English and other languages by the prime minister’s staff and available on Orbán’s website, as previous research has suggested, those translations tend to stylistically simplify the content of the discourses (Hegedüs, 2019). Selected quotations for the paper were translated into English.
Findings and analysis
Constructing the out-group
Already in the first instances where he mentions LGBTQ communities, Orbán aims to create a distinct out-group that refers to individuals who are part of such communities. Drawing a clear boundary between this out-group and an in-group that Orbán frequently refers to as “we” is done in various ways. Sometimes, the prime minister does not name the out-group explicitly, however, it is clear to the audience that he alludes to LGBTQ people who, in his rhetoric, stand in opposition to what the in-group represents. Consider, for example, the following excerpt: But they cannot demand, cannot ask from us that we make their view on life the basis of the regulations intended for the 99 percent majority. (Viktor Orbán, 18 December 2020)
Here, Orbán constructs the boundaries between LGBTQ communities and the general population by using personal pronouns and implicitly referring to LGBTQ individuals (“they”) who, in the prime minister’s account, would like to force upon their way of living on the majority of the population. Crucially, using the term “99 percent” helps the prime minister build his argument, showing that LGBTQ communities want to change the lifestyle of the overwhelming majority. Similar to later speeches, Orbán chooses to present himself as part of the majority by saying that “they cannot demand, cannot ask from us that we make.” This rhetorical strategy underlines that the prime minister is one out of many and stands with the majority. Such a rhetorical move echoes the Hungarian government and Orbán’s anti-immigration campaign: since 2015, Orbán has aimed to frame the immigration discourse of the country as an opposition between Hungarian citizens (“we”) and non-European refugees (“the others”) by arguing that the Hungarian lifestyle is endangered by refugees (“immigrants”) as their lifestyle is at odds with our way of living (Bocskor, 2018; Lamour and Varga, 2020). Building on this notion, Orbán tried to present himself as the leader who defends the values of the majority population that are at risk because of the refugees. In a political sense, this rhetorical strategy was effective as Orbán secured his third consecutive term in 2018 mainly because of his standpoint on immigration and the discourse of securitization (cf. Scheiring and Szombati, 2020). Thus, it is not surprising that the anti-LGBTQ campaign brings back the binary categorization of people in a strikingly similar fashion. Here, it should be noted that while the years after 2015 were characterized by an overwhelming anti-immigration narrative by Fidesz, this shifted towards the anti-LGBTQ narrative in 2020 when immigration discourses, during the border closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, became less opportune. This rhetorical shift indicates a pragmatic political decision as Fidesz was “forced” to find another scapegoat since the anti-immigration discourse seemed less adequate, echoing Reid’s (2017) argument that anti-LGBTQ narratives tend to increase at the time of political and social uncertainty.
The implementation of the binary categorization via personal pronouns that we see above was not unfamiliar to Orbán; not just in the anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigration campaigns but throughout his political career his rhetoric has been characterized by the use of personal pronouns that also function as a strategy to show that he represents the nation (Szilágyi and Bozóki, 2015). The representation of the collective (in-group) in this way is one of the main characteristics of populist rhetoric (Wodak et al., 2021) and a key aspect of constructing the out-group, but in Orbán’s case, it is also a long-standing and integral part of his political rhetoric. A salient and related example of this rhetorical strategy was Orbán’s answer to a question about LGBTQ rights on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia in 2015. In a short response to the journalist of the news portal Index, he mentioned that “I am grateful to the Hungarian homosexual community for not following the provocative behavior that numerous European countries need to deal with [....] I believe that in Hungary, though the constitution clearly differentiates between marriage and other forms of cohabitation, people with lifestyles different from our own outlook on life are safe, they are given the respect of human dignity that they deserve” (Fábián and Szilli, 2015; translation by the author). It should be seen that although Orbán praised LGBTQ communities in an odd way, he also made sure already in 2015 that he had emphasized their otherness (“they are given”) and that they are not part of the in-group that Orbán represents (“different from our own outlook on life”). Along these lines, throughout the anti-LGBTQ discourse, Orbán routinely ostracizes LGBTQ communities from the in-group by naturally referring to them with personal pronouns, creating the boundaries that demarcate the “99 percent majority” and LGBTQ groups.
On other occasions throughout the anti-LGBTQ campaign, Orbán expresses his view more elaborately on the alleged dangers that LGBTQ communities pose: […] force us to allow LGBTQ activists into the schools. Our position on this is that we are not going to allow them among our children. The sexual education of children is the responsibility of parents. Children belong to their parents, parents decide on their education, this is also confirmed by European documents, by the way. So, this is not just the Hungarian standpoint, but it is a passage, a text, a general directive in human rights and European documents. And sexual education can be conducted in schools if parents agree with that, but no one except teachers and those approved by school principals may be allowed in. (Viktor Orbán, 16 July 2021) Hungary has passed a law that clearly states that parents have exclusive rights over education in schools and sexual education. An LGBTQ activist or representative of any other ideology is not competent in this. (Viktor Orbán, 2 October 2021)
As the campaign moved on and the referendum was announced, Orbán’s rhetoric became slightly more explicit, meaning that he sought to frame the topic as the protection of children (cf. Kuhar and Zobec, 2017). In doing so, as the excerpts above illustrate, Orbán attributes characteristics to LGBTQ communities that portray them as a group that, simply put, wants to do something with the children. While still not explicit and clear, the prime minister’s rhetorical strategy is the implication that the out-group poses a threat mainly because they seek to change the traditional trajectory of the sexual education of children. Note, however, that Orbán does not explicitly state what kind of sexual education they seek to force upon children. Yet, the obscure formulation that “LGBTQ activists” enter “into the schools” could work to convince the audience that these communities pose a danger not necessarily to us but to our children. Even though news reports pointed out that there were no plans to allow “LGBTQ activists” into Hungarian schools (Presinszky and Janecskó, 2021), the argument has remained a dominant part of Orbán’s rhetoric. Such an argument echoes how anti-LGBTQ groups and the state in Slovenia and Russia used the notion of the well-being of children in their rhetoric against LGBTQ people, showing that this framework might be seen as a tool that could be used in different national contexts (Ayoub, 2016; Persson, 2015).
For Orbán, the negative characteristics and dangers attached to LGBTQ communities are crucial as they could deepen the belongingness to the in-group, further contributing to in-group favoritism and out-group hostility (Tajfel and Turner, 2004). But these negative attributes also have a pivotal role in populist rhetoric, especially in scapegoating. As Wodak (2020: 237) has noted, scapegoats are the “others” who are blamed for various challenges and issues. In Orbán’s context, by and large, LGBTQ communities (the scapegoats in this case) are mainly blamed for forcing their way of living on Hungarian children. In a sense, this framing allows Orbán to couple the anti-LGBTQ discourse with another central narrative of his governance, namely, the importance of family policies and the defense of Hungarian families—pivotal building blocks of his most recent term (Papp, 2021). By highlighting that “LGBTQ activists” want to enter schools, Orbán implicitly calls attention to that the out-group could threaten Hungarian families and their rights over the sexual education of their children. This is similar to what Kuhar and Paternotte (2018) call the “perversion of children” argument—an alleged danger that anti-gender movements tend to push back against—however, Orbán does not go that far and does not refer explicitly to any kind of perversion.
Representation of the will of parents
A substantial part of Orbán’s discourse shows that the narrative is presented in a way that creates the impression that the prime minister gives the decision on the issue to the people. In this particular case, the people mainly refer to parents who, according to Orbán, need to decide whether they allow LGBTQ communities in Hungarian schools. Take, for example, the following excerpt from an op-ed that the prime minister published on his website: The new Hungarian law simply states clearly that only parents can decide on the sexual education of their children. Education in schools cannot be in conflict with the will of parents, it must be supplementary at best, its form and content must be clearly defined, and it should be connected to parental consent. (Viktor Orbán, 17 June 2021)
As mentioned above, references to the people and their will are key instruments not just for Orbán but for many populist leaders (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013). While populist politicians often emphasize the expression of the general will of the people, and they tend to present themselves as the representatives of the people, in this context, this strategy is more specific. More concretely, in line with child protection framing, Orbán employs a narrative that emphasizes the role of parents. What is apparent here is the prevalence of the references to parents (three times in two sentences). That is, in his rhetoric, Orbán clearly weaponizes the “will of parents” that is supported by the new Hungarian law that was passed in June 2021 (Rankin, 2021). At the same time, we can notice here that it is still not obvious what the “will of parents” is. Orbán indistinctly alludes to the previously discussed argument about sexual education by “LGBTQ activists,” but again, he is not explicit enough. Nevertheless, the vagueness of meaning is counterbalanced by exaggerated claims about the threats that are at odds with the “will of parents”: We are here, this is our home, this is our country, here, the Hungarian people will decide how to raise our children. (Viktor Orbán, 2 July 2021)
While Orbán’s summarily like enunciation might seem very general, in fact, it emphasizes the nature of the threat in an obscure yet grim way. The sentence implies that not simply Hungarian children are at risk, but the sovereignty of raising “our children” in “our country” is at stake here because of the out-group. This type of simplification is a common discursive tactic of populist leaders, and the prime minister also uses the populist argument here that sovereignty is under threat (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2008). Moreover, similar to many populist discourses, simplification goes hand in hand with emotional appeals in Orbán’s rhetoric, further reinforcing the belongingness of the in-group based on supposed common understandings about what Hungary as a home and country means. The excerpt above is a vivid example of this: it is not just about the simplified and obscure dangers that the in-group face; by mentioning the home and country in a single sentence, Orbán aims to appeal to the patriotism of the audience. This kind of appeal is noticeable on other occasions in Orbán’s discourse: And there are many tens or hundreds of millions of European people for whom the family is still important – as we know it: man and woman who want to have children, and want to raise children –, the homeland is important, Christianity is important. (Viktor Orbán, 2 April 2021)
Here, although the perspective is broader (note the reference to the “European people”), Orbán still plays with patriotism by connecting people for whom the homeland is still important and who think that a family consists of a man and woman. Simultaneously, the quantification of the people in the sentence serves to underline the extent of the in-group and implicitly show that they are the majority (“many tens or hundreds of millions of European people”). Interestingly, targeting patriotic and nationalistic feelings invokes Orbán’s other political campaigns and Fidesz’s long-established discursive strategy (cf. Toomey, 2018). It has been noted (Bocskor, 2018: 556) that the Orbán-led Fidesz tended to position itself and its politicians and supporters as people that are on the “national/patriotic side” while portraying their opponents as “un-nationalistic” or “un-patriotic.” In this very context, patriotism is explicitly attributed to the majority (in-group), however, Orbán also combines this characteristic with other values (namely, his understanding of a family that consists of a man and woman) more related to the anti-LGBTQ discourse. This also highlights that Orbán’s discourse can be seen as nationalist, too: traditional and family values and the importance of homeland stand in opposition to the values that the out-group represents (cf. Bocskor, 2018).
The in-group’s fight
Related to the invocation of patriotism, another important component of Orbán’s discursive strategy is the subtle reframing of the issue and situation as a fight. In line with his frequent wartime terminology and war-related tropes (Szilágyi and Bozóki, 2015), the prime minister exaggerates the importance of the “LGBTQ-issue” by using phrases that are related to war and fight. Concurrently, these formulations may also contribute to the belongingness of the in-group since Orbán tends to talk about “our” fight as the following examples illuminate: We are fighting for our national sovereignty here. What does national sovereignty mean nowadays in Europe? (Viktor Orbán, 8 December 2020) Since this is about our children, and the future of our children is at stake, we cannot surrender. If we do not surrender, then we must fight. The government on its own will not be strong enough in this fight. (Viktor Orbán, 23 July 2021) The Holy Father [here, Orbán refers to Pope Francis after he had a meeting with the head of the Catholic Church] made it clear that the fight we are fighting for the protection of families is the most important battle for the European future. (Viktor Orbán, 17 September 2021)
Although in different ways, Orbán blatantly expresses that the problem calls for a fight. However, the prime minister makes sure that he does not refer explicitly to LGBTQ communities as the opponent in this fight, and thus his formulations are open to different meanings: the fight could allude to LGBTQ individuals, but it can also be seen as a more general fight where Hungarians need to protect what they stand for. This duality is part of the calculated ambivalence strategy—a recurring element of populist rhetoric that allows different interpretations when it comes to the discussion of a controversial topic or problem—that, in this case, shields Orbán against a potential accusation that he wants to fight with LGBTQ communities (Hatakka et al., 2017; Wodak, 2003). Interestingly, when it comes to interviews, Orbán’s calculated ambivalence strategy and the vagueness of meaning are rarely challenged by the interviewers since the vast majority of his interviews are given in media outlets where testing the prime minister is not part of the agenda. A large number of his statements and disquisitions about LGBTQ communities were given to the Good morning, Hungary! and Sunday News programs on the public radio station Kossuth Rádió, where Orbán meets supportive and admiring questions and the lack of adversarial attitude during these routinized interviews, enabling the prime minister to extensively elaborate his standpoints about the out-group (cf. Lamour, 2021a).
As Orbán’s argument goes, this is not simply the prime minister or the government’s fight, but the in-group is also involved (“this is about our children”), and its support is crucial (“The government on its own will not be strong enough”). Besides enhancing the sense of belonging with the in-group, this rhetorical tactic was also crucial for Orbán ahead of the referendum to boost the voter turnout, especially because Hungarian referendums are only valid if at least 50% of the eligible voters cast their ballots. The above-presented formulations which create the impression that the situation calls for a fight could work in favor of that. Remarkably, this discursive technique that turns to warlike terminology was prevalent in a similar situation, prior to the Hungarian government’s referendum campaign on immigration in 2016 (Bocskor, 2018). Then, the severity of the discourse about immigration was emphasized by strikingly similar phrases (e.g. “Hungary should defend itself”) and narrative (Bocskor, 2018: 561). While the use of war terminology is a notable characteristic of populist rhetoric (Toth, 2020), what we need to consider here is that Orbán, once again, uses one of his already tested discursive strategies in a new political context.
LGBTQ as the Western otherness
A central discursive feature of Orbán’s rhetoric is the connection he draws between LGBTQ communities and the Western world. In a variety of ways, the prime minister aims to create the impression that LGBTQ communities and advances are associated with Western European culture and thus less relevant for Hungarians, showing the out-group’s otherness in this way, too—similar to the Russian government’s anti-LGBTQ campaign where such groups were also tied to the liberal West (Persson, 2015). In July 2021, in his weekly radio interviews, for instance, Orbán said the followings: In Western Europe, now they have decided – and I do not dispute their right by the way, because this is about their children, they will raise them, they have decided – that NGOs, civil society-like organizations, these LGBTQ, so organizations that promote lifestyles different from the conventional family model can conduct awareness and sexual education campaigns already in kindergartens and elementary schools. (Viktor Orbán, 2 July 2021) These are Hungarian children, and we want to raise them the Hungarian way, as Hungarian parents see right, not as it happens in the Netherlands and Germany. But I am also gathering information currently, surfing the net to see what is going on, what is happening in Western Europe can sometimes make one’s hair stand on end. (Viktor Orbán, 16 July 2021)
As the examples illustrate, Orbán presents the supposed and frequently mentioned sexual education campaigns of the LGBTQ “organizations” as something that is already in place in Western Europe. The seriousness of the situation is expressed by the obscure and mysterious formulation that “what is happening in Western Europe can sometimes make one’s hair stand on end.” Note that Orbán does not make clear what exactly is happening in Western Europe, however, the insinuation (“make one’s hair stand on end”) could show to the audience that it is indeed something that is at odds with the “Hungarian way.”
Later on, the prime minister elaborates more explicitly on his argument that Hungarians (the in-group) stand against the adaptation of the LGBTQ sexual education campaigns that, in Orbán’s account, are part of the Western European culture: If it is not important, why is Brussels trying to force Hungarians to revoke a child protection act? Because it is important, indeed, important, they have plans with Hungary, and they expect us to adopt the Western European culture that allows the so-called LGBTQ activists into schools. We oppose this. (Viktor Orbán, 3 December 2021)
Such rhetoric works only because Orbán and his Fidesz party have changed their political narrative over the last decade, turning from a pro-Western liberal and conservative party into a right-wing populist one that views Western Europe in a negative and highly critical way (Buzogány, 2017). As Demeter (2018) has shown, under Orbán’s leadership, Hungary has become the first post-socialist member state of the Europe Union that uses anti-Western propaganda. In recent years, the government has started to use a narrative more critical of the Western world, talking about the decline of the West, and declaring the Western political model dead (Bocskor, 2018; Buzogány, 2017). In the anti-LGBTQ campaign, Orbán mobilizes the topos of the decline of the West as he presents his arguments about the LBGTQ communities alongside notions about the othering of Western Europe. For his supporters, because of Fidesz’s anti-Western rhetoric, Western Europe could already invoke negative feelings and ideas that are not in line with the in-group’s way of thinking and lifestyle. Adding the anti-LGBTQ discourse to this rhetorical framework, Orbán can exaggerate the otherness and negativity of the out-group by presenting LGBTQ communities within a broader discursive construction that is more likely to carry negative connotations in the eyes of the prime minister’s audience. It is ironic in a way, however, that Orbán’s narrative builds upon the protection from Western advances and yet the main rhetorical frame (“sexual and LGBTQ propaganda in schools”) of this campaign is Western in itself: defending children from LGBTQ themes and organizations in schools became a dominant political goal for some members of the Republican Party and states—such as Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida—in the United States over the last years (Gabriel, 2022). This also echoes Orbán and Fidesz’s other rhetorical tropes from recent years; fighting against, for instance, “woke or cancel culture” has become part of the prime minister’s party’s agenda, despite that these notions barely existed in Hungary before Fidesz introduced them to the political discourse (Presinszky, 2022).
On another occasion, Orbán unifies his topos of Western Europe and other elements of populist rhetoric in his anti-LGBTQ discourse: I remind you that in Western Europe and in Brussels, no one ever asked the people either about the LGBTQ propaganda or migration. (Viktor Orbán, 23 September 2021)
Here, Western Europe is mentioned to underline the common populist argument that the Hungarian people’s will is directly represented with regard to the “LGBTQ propaganda” as opposed to the West, where people—as Orbán’s argument goes—are not asked about these questions. As such, this is an attempt to implicitly portray Western European countries as undemocratic compared to Hungary, where voters could express their opinion during referendums. This refers to a usual element of populist rhetoric, namely, the emphasis on the alleged “democratic deficit in the European Union” (Mudde, 2004: 562). In line with his anti-Western narrative (Krekó and Enyedi, 2018), Orbán underscores that political processes in Western Europe leave people out of the decisions by ignoring their viewpoints on, in this case, the “LGBTQ propaganda”—using a populist formulation that assumes that such propaganda comes into being by depriving people’s voice and opportunity to decide (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008).
Relatedly and in line with another main characteristic of populist rhetoric (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008), Orbán’s rhetoric connects LGBTQ communities to the so-called elite as well, presenting LGBTQ topics as a certain form of an elite project, as the following excerpt illustrates: So, alone in Europe, here in Hungary, a referendum has decided and will decide on each of the two questions. This was the case with immigration, and it will be the case regarding the question of the upbringing of children, regardless of what we think about this question. I assume that many of you might think differently than I do. The fact that in Hungary this question is decided not by the elites but by the people is, I think, certainly an approach worthy of appreciation and recognition, and a democratic achievement from Hungary. (Viktor Orbán, 21 December 2021)
In an implicit way, Orbán suggests that the questions concerning the anti-LGBTQ referendum are decided by the elites in other countries, making a populist argument that draws a subtle connection between LGBTQ communities and the elite.
Anti-LGBTQ discourse and mobilization of other out-groups
Strongly connected to the references to Western Europe is Orbán’s rhetorical strategy to present other out-groups and scapegoats alongside LGBTQ topics. This practice allows him to position the anti-LGBTQ discourse next to previous political targets and issues that his audience is already familiar with. More concretely, the prime minister uses numerous ways to rhetorically mobilize the government and Fidesz’s existing scapegoats and present them hand in hand with his arguments about LGBTQ communities or “LGBTQ propaganda.” Illustrative of this is one of Orbán’s interviews he gave to the Hungarian weekly newspaper Mandiner: The supporters of the open society attack the nation and the family and then weaken our identity with mass migration. Now they want to make our children unsure of themselves. We cannot let this happen! (Viktor Orbán, 3 March 2022)
As the excerpt above also illuminates, in Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ discourse, other scapegoats come into play to remind the audience that the threat they pose is similar to what LGBTQ communities mean. In this case, for example, the mention of the “open society” can be seen as a reference to George Soros (the Open Society Foundations is a private funder network founded by Soros)—a long-established scapegoat whose antagonist role and idea of open society have been utilized by the prime minister and Fidesz over recent years (Plenta, 2020; Wodak et al., 2021). The threat of “mass migration,” a persistent campaign issue for Orbán, is also articulated alongside the anti-LGBTQ discourse. Importantly, Orbán does not simply present the threat that LGBTQ communities pose (“make our children unsure of themselves”) next to other out-groups, but he directly connects them to those who support the idea of open society and “mass migration” by claiming that “now they want to” influence children’s identity. In a way, Orbán uses the alleged threat LGBTQ communities pose similar to what Pető (2015: 127) describes as the “symbolic glue” with regard to anti-gender mobilizations: his rhetoric signifies a wider set of fears and desires. What is also important here is that the prime minister brings together two existing anti-LGBTQ frames, namely, the “defend the nation” and “defend the children” (Ayoub 2014, 2016), by mentioning that both the nation and children are under attack.
The presence of other out-groups also allows Orbán to present his argument about LGBTQ communities with a vagueness of meaning by simply coupling them with other scapegoats. Depending on the speech situation, the mobilized scapegoats include not just the supporters of the open society or immigrants but also the European Union. Take, for instance, the following excerpt: And we are standing firm now as well, and all we say is that Hungarians are not right, but they will be right. And because three is the Hungarian truth, after the utility prices and the migrant issue, we will be right for the third time as well: there will be a referendum, and we will protect our children, too. Hungary will be the first country in Europe where we stop the aggressive LGBTQ propaganda at the school gates. (Viktor Orbán, 23 October 2021)
By invoking the fights against “the utility prices and the migrant issue,” the discursive strategy enables Orbán to implicitly refer to the European Union and use a subtle anti-Brussels narrative. For long, Orbán’s rhetoric regarding the fight for low utility prices for Hungarians and immigration has been characterized by frequent anti-Brussels narrative, meaning that bringing in the question of “utility prices and the migrant issue” invokes the negative role of Brussels for the Hungarian audience (Ádám, 2019; Demeter, 2018). Moreover, to underline his argument, Orbán uses a strong rhetorical strategy by integrating the famous Hungarian proverb that “three is the Hungarian truth” (which means, simply put, that something is completed only after three times), establishing an equivalence between the fight against Brussels, immigrants, and “LGBTQ propaganda” in this way as well.
Conclusion
Taking the oath of office in the Hungarian parliament in May 2022 after his landslide victory, Orbán said that “we will protect our families, we will not let gender activists into our schools, here, the father is a man, the mother is a woman, and leave our children alone” (Orbán, 2022a; translation by the author). A few days later, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—a conference for conservative politicians and activists organized by the American Conservative Union (ACU)—Orbán told the audience that “there is, for example, the LGBTQ propaganda targeting children. This is still a new thing over here, but we have already destroyed it” (Orbán, 2022b; translation by the author). While this article has focused on a time period between the general elections, the prime minister’s ongoing discourse does not seem to suggest that the anti-LGBTQ narrative will fade out soon, even though the referendum on the topic was invalid.
As this paper has shown, in his anti-LGBTQ discourse, Orbán employed a recurring “us versus them” identity pattern, painting such communities as out-groups that pose a threat to Hungarian citizens but especially Hungarian children (in-group). Although the prime minister sought to frame the discourse as a fight, he often turned to the calculated ambivalence strategy, signaling a double message in order to protect himself against various accusations. The discourse-historical approach allowed us to see Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ discourse in its broader context, revealing that he regularly used common tools of populist rhetoric to present the out-group negatively and connect it to the so-called elite. Most importantly, however, this approach also revealed how Orbán drew connections between already existing scapegoats and out-groups of his political narrative and LGBTQ communities, a strategy that allowed him to empower the discourse and exaggerate the threat that such communities could mean. In other words, Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ discourse relies on out-groups that his political rhetoric already introduced to the Hungarian audience, making them an integral part of this campaign as well. This suggests that Orbán is able to use previous scapegoats and out-groups almost like a toolkit and incorporate them into different political contexts. Thus, this analysis points to a meticulous rhetorical strategy in which the prime minister established and—from Fidesz and Orbán’s perspective—effectively othered out-groups (such as Brussels, the supporters of the open society, and immigrants) are remobilized to become part of a coherent political narrative in where the in-group needs to be defended against multiple scapegoats and out-groups.
Empirically, this study has offered new insights into Viktor Orbán’s rhetoric by showing the implicit and explicit ways he constructs an in-group and out-group and creates boundaries between the two throughout the anti-LGBTQ campaign. The article has shed new light on the flexibility of Orbán’s various discursive strategies and toposes, showing that his established rhetorical frameworks, building blocks, and topics were used in and adjusted to our analyzed campaign. In addition, the paper has shown that Orbán’s narrative is partly in line with already existing anti-LGBTQ frames that characterized similar campaigns in Poland, Russia, and Slovenia. The creation of boundaries between the in-group and LGBTQ communities has not just discursive but real effects in Hungary, however: the anti-LGBTQ law is still intact, and since its introduction, there has been an increase in attacks against members of such groups in the country (Kovács and Garay, 2021).
From a theoretical point of view, this article has shown that frequent discursive elements of populist rhetoric go hand in hand with the out-group formation in a political campaign. The creation of LGBTQ communities as an out-group was articulated through multiple rhetorical tropes of populist rhetoric (e.g., simplification, emphasis on the values of the sovereign people), however, most importantly, the categorization processes relied on the existence of other, previously established out-groups, suggesting that the out-group creation might work better rhetorically if previous discourses already introduced other out-groups to the audience. While the Hungarian prime minister indeed ascribed negative qualities to the out-group of LGBTQ communities that could result in out-group hostility, the continuous use of calculated ambivalence also meant that the out-group formation had its limits in Orbán’s case—that is, the out-group was not framed explicitly as an enemy, rather, the emphasis was on the threat they pose. Furthermore, the categorization process was also characterized by the rhetorical emphasis on the unitedness of the in-group which was helped by the fact that the prime minister framed himself as the representative of the latter, using the common populist technique.
This study can be expanded along these theoretical lines. First, it would be fruitful to see how Orbán and the Hungarian government create out-groups in other political campaigns, investigating how the findings of this paper pertain to such campaigns. While scholarship has focused on these political campaigns, the theoretical framework in most cases did not involve social identity theory and its out-group creation aspect. Second, by broadening the scope of the present study, future research could glean important insights by exploring the effects of the out-group creation and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the voters, potentially using quantitative methods (e.g., automated content analysis or survey methods)—an approach that can shed light on how citizens are affected by such a campaign. Finally, in line with the latter, future research could also examine the nature of the counterreactions to this campaign and rhetoric to get a better understanding of how an out-group reacts when it is scapegoated.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Gerben Moerman for providing insightful comments and constructive suggestions during various stages of this study. I am also grateful to Elke Schwarz and the two anonymous reviewers for their guidance on this article. A previous version of this paper was presented remotely at the Third Helsinki Conference on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation (HEPP3), University of Helsinki, Finland. The article has benefitted from participants’ feedback.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.