Reinventing the Right in Morocco: Right-Wing Populist Discourses and Sentiments in Moroccan Online Spaces

Abstract Nationalist sentiments and right-wing populist discourses have become a consistent phenomenon in Moroccan online spaces over the past few years, mainly under the name of Moorish Movement , coinciding with the rise of right-wing populist discourses globally. Consistent discourses and symbols have been deployed by online non-partisan social actors within the digital culture of the Moroccan Moorish right-wing nationalism ( RwN ) to reflect newly adopted identities, discourses, and ideological orientation from the global right in Morocco. This article deploys digital ethnography and Critical Discourse Analysis ( cda ) to investigate the patterned discursive strategies and practices of the Moorish nationalist movement as an online culture, particularly its discursive shaping and construction of social actors, phenomena, and contexts. The central tenet of this article is that the Moorish right-wing nationalism , both as organized online groups/pages and conforming users, mimics discursive elements typical to global right-wing entities, and engages in exclusionary, ethically problematic discourses.