Free speech threatened, language weaponised, truth corrupted

The ‘No to Kings’ protests in America are a response to authoritarians blurring moral boundaries, creating confusion and turning words into weapons of control. Matthew Sharpe on history repeating itself.

The world finds itself in a cultural environment in which the vast majority of democratic countries believe. fake Savior “strongmen,” part of their “populist” appeal rests on their ability to lie, exaggerate, and bully their opponents with impunity.

Philosopher, writer and French resistance member Albert Camus wrote The struggle against totalitarianism was a struggle to preserve order. a few vital distinctions.

It lies in the ability to think and speak clearly.

We cannot allow language to be distorted by those who are greedy for power at any cost, and to turn it into a cultural weapon in their hands.

The fundamental principle of those who favor authoritarian rule is that everything is political: from parliamentary debates to lyrics and appeal. Taylor Swift. When culture is seen as war, use the language It is portrayed as a virtue to deceive, divide and demonize opponents.

The primary means for democracies to subvert liberal norms and institutions is

Creating a false equivalence with the defenders of democracy.

If achieving political goals requires lying and making false statements, then he must first accuse the people he wants to deceive of being liars. If one wishes to betray cherished principles, one must accuse the other party of having already done so.

Why?

If one wants to politicize the courts, make openly partisan appointments, and threaten judges with whom one disagrees, then blaming liberals To have created “law”. If you find yourself supporting a convicted criminal for high office, ironically you are forced to do so. echo of old Marxist Bertolt Brecht He concerns the entire judiciary in his sarcastic mockery of banks: “What is robbing a bank compared to establishing a bank?”

This strategy has several advantages. Specifically, it is also known as: “what about licking”.

This process of undermining shocks and confuses many people who have grown up in liberal democratic societies and who expect politics to be and should be conducted with at least a pretense of honesty. Distortions and assertions create confusion, leading to self-doubt (“did we/the Liberals really do this?”) and even guilt, delaying a concerted, principled response.

Hannah Arendt went too far, but with some factstotalitarian regimes, not a brainwashed population,

They are so confused that they have lost faith in their own ability to find the truth.

Second, the cynical “they started it” strategy by asserting moral equivalence clears the moral ground for direct movements effectively politicizing the jury and sponsoring partisan and propagandistic media sources.

Albert Camus writes this once again with a prescient understanding in his 1952 book responding to Hitlerism and Stalinism: Vaccine. He talks about the extreme and inevitable consequences of authoritarian governments in the torture and murder of outside groups:

The victory of the man who kills or tortures is overshadowed only by a shadow: the inability to feel that he is innocent. Therefore, he must create a feeling of guilt in his victim, so that universal guilt in a world without direction will allow no other course of action than the use of force and will bless nothing but success.

When the concept of innocence disappears from the mind of the innocent victim, the value of power establishes a definitive dominance over the world of despair.

White supremacists with Australian flags. What really happened at Bondi?

“They started it”

An extension of this core “they started it” strategy is that if one wants to overthrow democratic, constitutional rule and replace it with an illiberal, authoritarian Leader, one must present oneself as the true defender of “democracy,” “freedom,” and opaque values ​​such as “Western Civilization” or “Greatness.”

This strategy became vital for the Far Right after 1945. Once the atrocities committed by Hitler and Mussolini became known to the outside world, anyone who still wanted to defend ethno-nationalist authoritarian rule failed to do so. to say this was it What did they support?.

For at least two generations, until historical memory collapsed, Far Right activists proceed with caution or maintaining a resentful silenceI’m waiting patiently.

Today, after time has passed and liberal democracies have failed to keep alive the memory of Nazism and fascism, the historian concludes: Timothy Snyder says “schizofascism””.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin effectively He destroyed the free press, silenced all genuine opposition, and put an end to free and open democratic elections in his country. He asked for support from fans Far Right extremists like Aleksandr Dugin And ruthlessly eliminated criticsInside and outside of the “Motherland”.

But when Putin’s tanks entered Ukraine’s sovereign territory, many had “anti-Nazi” slogans on their sides.

Intellectuals such as Martin Heidegger Members of the Nazi Party They legitimized Hitler and his followers to wider society, artfully presenting themselves after 1945 as persecuted dissidents and even critics of the regime.

Meanwhile, they argued, the fascist destruction of liberal democratic societies had an “inner reality and magnitude” that, given time, should return, as well as perpetuating the regime’s violent antisemitism.

Once again,

The effect of confusion caused by such deceptive use of language is politically invaluable to the Far Right.

An opposition that can cast doubt on whether the Far Right’s takeover of a democratic nation is in fact a well-intentioned exercise in line with its core values ​​is an opposition that is completely confused and crippled.

authoritarian activists

Another strategy vital to legitimizing the Far Right’s takeover of democracies – for a period long enough to conquer the “command positions” of the executive, judiciary, legislative, military and police forces – is implicit in what we have now laid out.

Over time, authoritarian activists should seek to “deconstruct” or eliminate distinctions between peace and war and present peacetime life as a form of “war” in which increasingly extreme measures are required.

We also see this in President Trump’s recent attempts to present Democratic cities in the US as:war-torn” or “battlefields“requiring urgent need send the army This is a move into alleged war zones – a move that, of course, could trigger the kind of violence he claims to be trying to prevent and could legitimize or license the use of emergency powers.

Trump attacked the UN, countries are going to ‘hell’

This distortion of basic language also shows up in attempts at demonization. all peaceful protesters against the new regime as “violent” and “crazy” or “extremists”—even if they are not members or minions of the greatest ghost and illegitimate enemy.antifa”.

Trump himself has dehumanized his opponents by repeating Far Right content online: “vermin”, also immigrants “poison the blood” Americans. Both Tropes at the heart of Goebbels and Hitler’s propaganda arsenal. This arsenal (metaphorically intended), Jews as “parasites”” And biological threatsin ways that will ensure their destruction when the time comes.racial hygiene” He protects the German “people” (volk).

Such a language and today’s shocking reality of boots on the ground in blue statesIt has been prepared by considering “culture wars” as normal in Western democracies for a long time. There are thousands of small cultural and political steps on the path to authoritarian rule.

happened 19th-century Jewish poet Heinrich Heinesaying this like a prophecy

Once they start by burning books, they will finish by burning people.

What we see emerging in real time today is that convinced political partisans in democracies appear determined to end democracy itself as they begin to distort language to normalize warlike hostility and false equivalence.

The right moves to the right in Indonesia as President Prabowo channels Donald Trump