Trump Politics and the English Language

Orwell Was Talking About Something IMPORTANT

I fear we’re going down a bad road.

To some, many of whom I agree with politically, but not tempermentally, they are resorting to oversensationalized, hyperbolic language that does harm to their very cause. They casually throw out the most dire of circumstances as the norm, use the worst of possibilities as the example and sneer at anyone who is not in total agreement to the intent and degree as they are. It’s a product of the world we currently inhabit, with more news being absorbed through TikTok, more cable news being geared to enrage and more partisan messaging being the norm instead of sensible discussion and debate. It’s no longer preferable to state facts or report accurately, it’s preferable to have a larger engagement and subscriber count from which to monetize, and that only happens when people yell to the rafters the party line instead of speak clearly and on point, even if the news is not favorable.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been accused of “verbal semantics” as a “hill I was going to die on.”¹ I’ve heard many people use words of which I could very easily deduce they did not know their actual meanings, or read what I wrote (they just knew they didn’t want to hear it). The number of times I’ve been told we were living in “1984” this past month have been too numerous to speak². I often wonder what Orwell would think about his classic book now becoming a shorthand for everything he hated. People live so often in these metaphors they no longer understand or recognize the actual world they are living in.

Two years before the publication of “Big Brother,” in 1946, George Orwell wrote the essay “Politics and the English Language.” It is an incredibly important piece of work that I come back to often, because it demonstrates many of the problems people have in talking about politics. I’ve reproduced some important passages below, but highly recommend you review the entirety of it on the Orwell Foundation website.³

Politics and the English Language 

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language – so the argument runs – must inevitably share in the general collapse...

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer.... 

The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose-construction is habitually dodged.

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically ‘dead’ (e. g. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgels for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles’ heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a ‘rift’, for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators, or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are: render inoperative, militate against, prove unacceptable, make contact with, be subject to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc. etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purposes verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved from anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biassed judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid processes of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien régime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, Gleichschaltung, Weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in English. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, sub-aqueous and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon opposite numbers. The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the -ize formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentatory and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality...

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions, and not a ‘party line’. Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers and the speeches of Under-Secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases – bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder – one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity...

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find – this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify – that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against...

I think the following rules will cover most cases:

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase – some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse – into the dustbin where it belongs.

Horizon, April 1946

Where We Are and Where Do We Go From Here.

So where does that leave us? In a pretty dark place. Everything Orwell discusses above exists today but amped up to 11 and is now nonstop 24/7 pummelled into you. We are condemned to endure these events and trials without a good sense of how to communicate them very well. In today’s atmosphere, everything HAS to be discussed in the most dire of terms as if Armageddon is at hand, or else you aren’t committed to the cause enough. That level of anxiety, that level of frustration, that level of sheer edginess only leads to exhaustion and depression.

I have a better solution. We continue to compile the laundry list of administrative failures and compounding problems and over time focus on some of the more impactful few rather than throw everything at the wall. We continue to document those actions that make the country uneasy. We continue to objectively call out the damage that this administration is doing, but we do it in a calm rational manner that middle America and swing voters can comprehend and assess on their own merits. We continue to point out how the loss of USAID impacts the American farmer who provides grain for humanitarian missions and is paid by the government, and now doesn’t. We continue to show the men and women who served this country how the slashing of veterans’ benefits will impact them. We demonstate to the factory worker in Detroit who is now laid off how Trump’s tarriff war with Canada is the cause of his predicament grinding car production to a standstill. We point out how the cost of food is skyrocketing because the immigrant workers on farms are being deported forcing farmers to pay more for work, increasing prices.

What we can’t do is pull our hair out and scream at the top of our lungs how everything is fascism and how everyone in Trump’s administration and who voted for Trump is a Nazi, because 1) that’s hyperbolic, 2) that’s offensive to middle of the road Trump voters, particularly in swing states, that we are going to need to vote with us in the near future and 3) that doesn’t sink in directly to voters as much as the more tangible things they see and feel do (in fact, it makes them averse to anything after that you do say). To be so manically and exasperatingly screaming all the time makes you nothing but Chicken Little— You can’t simultaneously bring them in and push them away at the same time. Be a friend and ally to them instead.

Do Trump and Co. say and do things that we don’t like that don’t get the attention they deserve? Probably. But narrowing the atrocities down to a few easily digestable issues also directs the electorate in one direction, instead of the diffuse, “every direction because everything is a crime,” manner. That will be far more productive. It also means that we focus more on what Trump and Co. DOES as opposed to what they SAY. Do we REALLY care about renaming the Gulf of Mexico? Not really. It’s still going to be called the Gulf of Mexico no matter what Trump and Google say. Is it worth making a stink about? No, it’s more worth our mockery and disdain. But what about the Department of Energy firings/re-hirings? Absolutely point that out! They were so incompetent, they didn’t realize the DoE was in charge of our nuclear stockpile and when they did realize it, they tried to hire them back but didn’t know how to contact half of them! Administrative incompetence will bring back stark memories of Trump’s Covid response when a million people died and he offered to inject bleach and take horse tranquilizers as treatment. Or his hurricane response where he suggested nuking a storm to disperse it. What I am saying is, pick and choose your fights (and issues) better. These aren’t metaphors or labels, these are actual concrete things that will resonate.

We’re all in this together. We’re all in for a long four years and we’re all in the same boat; don’t make it seem like jumping overboard in the middle of the ocean is preferable to riding it out with everyone else.

1. I hate that phrase. You can read what I think about it here.

2. In truth, I’d say its more like “Animal Farm” with a pig running the farm, choosing instead to piss on a windmill rather than let someone else take credit for it, and breaking every standard rule made. It’s only a matter of time before MAGA starts broadcasting how much they like government in the same vein as the sheep in the book bleat “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better” at the end.

3. This essay is singularly the best piece of writing on political writing and speech you will find. I highly recommend going to the Orwell Foundation website and reading it in full.