Kenneth Glad
Political debate has grown harsher, and the incentives behind it have shifted. What once looked disqualifying can now look like a shortcut to attention.
In a column published on 11 February 2026, Guardian writer Zoe Williams argues that modern politics is increasingly shaped by figures who win coverage by crossing lines rather than respecting them.
She calls the tactic “vice-signalling” — not simply expressing controversial views, but advertising a willingness to violate shared norms in order to project toughness and authenticity.
Guardrails under strain
Williams’ focus is less on why voters respond to provocateurs than on why institutions no longer stop them. She questions why party leaderships, editors and broadcasters fail to impose lasting consequences for remarks that once might have ended a career.
In her telling, reprimands or brief suspensions rarely remove access to voters. Instead, backlash can generate fresh attention, making escalation politically rational rather than self-destructive.
The theme echoes wider media analysis. Writing in the Financial Times in January 2024, columnist Janan Ganesh used the term “vice signalling” to describe politicians who flaunt previously discrediting traits, betting that notoriety can translate into loyalty and media traction.
Social media platforms amplify that wager. Algorithm-driven feeds reward posts that trigger anger or shock, ensuring that inflammatory language often travels further than measured argument.
Williams highlights Donald Trump’s 2015 campaign launch as an early example of the approach, when he said: “[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”
Ruth Wodak, emeritus professor of linguistics and chair of discourse studies at Lancaster University, was interviewed for the magazine Society & Discourse in 2020 in which she described the method as a push “to constantly violate taboos, and in this way escalate the dynamics of the whole conversation, while getting immediate media attention, usually front page”.
In this reading, the provocation is not accidental. It is a signal to supporters that conventional restraints do not apply.
From shock to exposure
Williams traces similar patterns in misogynistic rhetoric, including JD Vance’s reference to “childless cat ladies” and conservative media personality Tucker Carlson saying before the 2024 US presidential election: “Dad is pissed. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now’”.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, tells Williams: “What goes on in politics does shape what people think, as well as what’s happened in their own lives.”
She situates the phenomenon historically, recalling how Jörg Haider, head of Austria’s Freedom party, deployed inflammatory and revisionist rhetoric in the 1980s and 1990s, a pattern Wodak has studied.
Williams warns that repeated exposure can recalibrate expectations: Language that once dominated headlines begins to register as routine, lowering the threshold for what counts as extreme.
The column by Zoe Williams can be read in full here.
Sources: The Guardian, Financial Times, Society & Discourse
