Trump takes language back to the Stone Age – The Age
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Fire and brimstone, the end of days, the apocalypse, armageddon. The preachers of old, whether they be of religious faith or secular dominion, exhorted and roared for the gods of wrath to pass judgment on mere mortals and their failings. In essence, it was self-styled power-hungry and power-fuelled men, always men, trying to bend others to their will.
Their river of lava-like invective, in essence, was an oratory to subjugate. It has ebbed and flowed through history.
George Orwell, in his essay “Politics and the English Language”, written in the last year of World War II, believed that what politicians said publicly was, in the main, a defence of that which was indefensible. “Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.”
The deployment of euphemism made palatable the barbaric reality of what men really did to each other. But as Bob Dylan has sung, things have changed.
If only Orwell were alive now to witness the Trump days. Euphemism is dead in the water. No matter the longevity of the thought wrapped in the Trump expression (each day truly is a new day for him), now it is the simplistic phrasing, the unadorned message that issues forth from his lips and social media account Truth Social (Orwell would love that title). This being the meme age, Trump’s one of himself as Jesus tending the sick fits in well with the process (Trump deleted it, but still had a war of words with Pope Leo). Trump is sound and fury signifying nothing, and yet in such a world turned inside out, it also means everything.
Every action is upper case. Indeed, every moment is upper case. It is as if doing so creates a citadel of righteousness.
It’s quite possible if Orwell were alive today, he might have considered a sequel to Animal Farm, based on Trump. He could even use Trump’s own words: “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
Clearly Trump is not speaking to anyone familiar with the world’s history. If euphemism is dead then so is diplomacy, despite appearances of shuttle planes here and there: “We have a plan – because of the power of our military – where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
And just to reinforce the point, “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” (And now Trump has threatened to close the strait.)
Contributor
Orwell might wonder, is this a man driven by an impervious faith in his own power? It is a misplaced faith.
Undoubtedly, despite the evidence to the contrary of the force of his will, and that being so, the world can hear in his voice echoes of the contorted voices of the maniacal preachers and politicians of the past.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”
One wouldn’t be surprised to hear him declaring at some stage to somebody or country, “We shall smite you to dust! You and your minions shall be SMOTE!”
From a mote to a smote indeed. These are not the words of a peacemaker, this is the language of one who has lost, or perhaps never had, faith in anyone but himself.
Warwick McFadyen is a desk editor at The Age.
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