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#rhetoric

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Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre lost his Parliament seat in the recent election. "He lost while trying to speak in two tongues. But it’s impossible to appear calmly sane while not insulting the far right." "Some speculate the loss of his own riding was in large part due to his support for the convoy protest that shut down central Ottawa in early 2022."
thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/05/21
#Canada #Conservative #Leader #Poilievre #election #debate #rhetoric

Is It Happening Here? Other countries have watched their #democracies slip away gradually, w/out #tanks in the streets. That may be where we’re headed—or where we already are. archive.is/5cFz9 When #Trump ran again, in #2024, his #autocratic #rhetoric was more pitched. He promised #retribution, a #purge of ideological #enemies, and #mass #deportations on flimsy legal pretexts. WH debuted set of lawn signs 2 highlight undocumented people who have been arrested since Trump’s return 2 power

If I'm being honest, I don't really have a lot more to add here, but I wanted to highlight a specific section of this article about the rhetorical style employed by Trump and the Pork Reich because much of our mainstream establishment, even the portions of it that are opposing Trump (and I don't think that represents a LARGE portion of said establishment) either doesn't know how this works, or doesn't care to identify it and work to counteract it:

commondreams.org/opinion/musk-

Musk, Social Security, and the Ponzi-Scheme Boomerang

"Trumpism as a discourse most prominently features three verbal maneuvers: gaslighting, coopting, and boomeranging. All three are intertwined in the disingenuous effort to overturn our liberal democracy and further the move toward a more illiberal autocratic political system, where Trump and his followers get to claim they are saving us from the failures of the current political system. Gaslighting is where you deflect a criticism by saying that the problem is something other than what the critic alleged, thereby insulating yourself from that criticism. For instance, the January 6th attack on the Capitol was actually an inside job perpetrated by the FBI. Coopting is where you adopt the language of your critics so that you are the one with the just cause and they are the one who is deserving of condemnation. The January 6th attack on the Capitol was an instance of Trump supporters standing up for democracy, not trying to undermine it. Boomeranging is where you send criticism directed at you right back at your critics. In this case, the claim is that the critics of the January 6th insurrection are actually the ones who are threatening democracy. These are all lies, aided by disinformation, consciously deployed to pollute public discourse and open the door to allowing Trump and is supporters to overthrow the existing constitutional order."

Setting aside the fact that the author and I clearly have wildly divergent opinions about to what degree the American system under free market fundamentalism actually represents a democracy, this is a fairly accurate assessment of the rhetorical style deployed by Dowmarket Mussolini, his mandarins, and the "America First" fascist movement in modern politics. I would have liked to see Schram point out that this style of discourse is always employed by fascist movements throughout history, without variation, and some comparison to the DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics employed by abusers because I think both of those things are quite instructional in the context of Americans being woefully unprepared to recognize and combat fascist politics in a country where fascist ideology has been normalized for decades and decades. For example, this is French philosopher, playwright, and political activist Jean-Paul Sartre writing in 1946:

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Now obviously Sartre focuses his analysis on antisemites in this quote, but objectively speaking antisemitism is such an inherent part of the larger fascist zeitgeist that he was in fact also discussing the larger fascist argument style. Furthermore, as you can see, Sartre has somehow predicted in slightly different words, the same rhetorical techniques, as deployed by Trumpists, America First fascists, the larger alt-right and pretty much every "conservative" that's happily thrown their lot in with the nazis they always wanted to be. It is in my studied opinion, not at all some sort of accident that the Trump administration's ideological arguments and justifications perfectly mirror those of the literal Nazi Party and um, rapists, of which there are many in Trump's administration.

Finally, I should hope at this point it goes without saying that I do NOT support starving senior citizens and poor people so Elon Musk and the other rich nazis who own Trump can steal literally trillions (no, really, with a T) of dollars from the US treasury and by loose extrapolation, the American people - but if you needed that pointed out here, there it is.

Common Dreams · Musk, Social Security, and the Ponzi-Scheme Boomerang | Common DreamsDismantling the most prominent social welfare program of the last century is undoubtedly an extremist undertaking and Musk is employing Trumpism as a discourse to help make that happen. Whether he succeeds is dependent in no small part on our ability to call out and resist his verbal jujitsu.
#Fascism#Trump#Musk
Continued thread

3/ Both Hitler and Trump share a style of incoherent, repetitive, and aggressive language. They vilify perceived enemies—be it Jews, communists, or immigrants—and offer simplistic, violent solutions to complex issues. Sound familiar? #Populism #Rhetoric

Continued thread

2/ Trump’s use of terms like “poisoning the blood” and calling immigrants “animals” echoes language used by Hitler to describe Jews as a threat to society. This kind of talk dehumanizes entire groups of people, making them seem less than human. #Dehumanization #Rhetoric

🧵 A warning on the dangers of dehumanizing rhetoric and its potential to undermine democracy. The comparison of Trump’s language with Hitler’s shows how fear-based, xenophobic rhetoric can escalate into violence and oppression. Let's break it down: #Democracy #Rhetoric

"Embolden" is far too big and old-sounding a word to have been part of GWB's vocabulary when he applied it to people saying not to invade Iraq or torture folks in gulags or spy on ourselves. Someone made it up and put it in his mouth for him, like spoon-feeding a baby.

Anyone who uses the word is lying. It's too cumbersome to use if you don't have an agenda.
#USPol #rhetoric

Show this to your anti- #bicycle #Ontario #Conservative friends and coworkers next time they barf up the same #DougFord #rhetoric.

youtu.be/_FZDEehlaC4?si=6Dm_Zt

With mass transit, the rationale where to add capacity is easy - look for the existing crammed busses and trains - _on existing routes_. #Cyclists, however, won't take a route unless it's safe(r), i.e., the infrastructure already exists, and few will use a bike lane if it doesn't connect anywhere.

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