If there is one thing that Trump understands, it's that
words matter. So it's no coincidence
that he is currently flailing about trying to find all the best words ;-) to push
when his approval rating has dropped to 38%. (Lardieri, 2020)
In the fall of 2019 that word was socialism. At the time I blogged about the fact that
many people had no idea what the word actually meant, but were against it. Even then it was obvious that we were dealing
with a generational divide as 70% of Millennials and 64% of Gen Z said they
would support a socialist candidate. You
can check out the comments from my Gen Z students here...
Now that we are in a global pandemic, healthcare for all is
suddenly seeming like a very good idea and crying out against socialism is a
very bad strategy. So Trump needs a new
scary word.
On July 3rd, he tried out "new far-left fascism." Unfortunately that doesn't make any sense at
all. Fascism is by definition a right wing
movement. Just ask Wikipedia who defines
it as "a form of far-right authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictorial power, and forcible
suppression of opposition..."
Hmm. Authoritarian,
ultranationalism, dictorial power, and forcible suppression of the
opposition. Who do we know who
personifies all these things? It sure
sounds like Trump is describing his own actions, not the opposition's. So will people realize that?
Or will they just be afraid of a word that
they can't be bothered to look up in a dictionary?
Lardieri, A. (2020, July 6)
Trump’s Approval Drops as Partisan Divide
Hits All-Time High, Poll Finds. usnews.com.
Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-07-06/trumps-approval-drops-as-partisan-divide-hits-all-time-high-poll-finds
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