“Weaponised empathy”: concessive capture of progressive values and the affective-semantic inversion of care in platformed far-right discourse

The analysis shows that the inversion is not achieved through direct rejection but through a concessive argumentative structure – “I believe in empathy, but … ” – that retains the humanist value on the surface while installing its opposite as conclusion, and that simultaneously constructs the political adversary in pathemic terms as irrational and self-destructive.

Once equipped with this structure, the reframed sign circulated across digital uptake, congressional discourse, think-tank messaging and evangelical media within weeks. The article contributes to critical discourse studies and social semiotics by identifying the enunciative mechanism through which platformed authority converts an ideological inversion into common sense – and by tracing how, once normalised, such inversions erode the discursive ground for humanitarian policy and human dignity.</p>