Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Trump's scary word du jour? Fascism.


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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