This retroductive study aims to examine in what way paradoxes figure in contemporary political discourse, and what political effects arise therefrom. To this end, the study will address an extreme example – Swedish right-wing nationalism - which often is accused of being paradoxical; for example, when right-wing nationalistic discourse – often explicitly anti-feminist – begins to appropriate a feminist analysis in order to engage in contemporary political events. Such was the case when news of what happened in Cologne on New Year’s 2015/2016 reached Sweden. An important theoretical framework for this study is Michael Billig’s Ideological Dilemmas, and his theories on common sense and intellectual- versus lived ideology. According to Billig ‘doxa’ constitutes various contradictory values, and in this way, doxa is inherently paradoxical. Therefore, in order to understand and define the figure paradox, first we need to investigate how our own liberal doxa operate paradoxically, and what are both the rhetorical and political implications of the paradoxes constitutive of liberal common sense. The analysis of this study suggests that liberal discourse has, to a certain degree, facilitated the growth and effectiveness of right-wing nationalist discourse that has drawn on cultural differences as a permissible ground for a debate surrounding the future of western liberal principles and the defence of women’s rights.