The Weaponization of Language
Or, in other words, linguistic terrorism
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.
Philip Dick
These words from Philip Dick’s 1978 lecture1 were prophetic for the post-truth, post-reality world of 2025. Language shapes reality. We use language to speak truth. The Trump regime has turned words that once embodied some of our highest ideals into weapons of hatred and division.
This linguistic terrorism is a deliberate strategy. It is an effective psychological weapon designed to confuse, control, and weaken us. When we can no longer trust the meaning of words we once understood, we can no longer trust reality itself.
Let’s look at some of the words that have been weaponized.
Woke
Gone are the days when woke simply meant the past tense of wake. Its modern use emerged from Black communities as a call to awareness: to be alert to injustice, to see clearly the systems of oppression that others might ignore or deny.2 To be woke was to be conscious, aware, and morally engaged.
The right has co-opted the word and distorted it into a catch-all slur: a mind virus that affects weak, delusional, and "lunatic lefties.” Anti-woke activities include banning books, erasing history, closing libraries, and even “stop-woke” legislation.
By making woke a dirty word, consciousness itself becomes shameful. The goal is to glorify ignorance and make people proud of being asleep and indifferent to injustice.
Antifa
This term refers to an abbreviation, not an organization. Antifa is an abbreviation for “anti-fascism,” which means opposition to authoritarianism, dictatorship, ultranationalism, suppression of dissent, and control through propaganda, fear, and violence. To be anti-fascist is to stand against propaganda, fear, and political violence.
Historically, anti-fascism has its roots in 1930s Europe, opposing Mussolini, Hitler, and the Nazis. During World War II and since, anti-fascism expanded globally and represents the opposition to tyranny.
Enter the Trump regime. This is from a White House “Fact Sheet:”
President Trump: “I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.” 3
This is the culmination of invoking antifa repeatedly in speeches and tweets to distort, confuse, and smear racial justice protesters and to justify state violence.
But antifa simply means anti-fascist. It is not a terrorist group. It is a moral stance.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
With its roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement represented sixty years of hard-won progress towards equal rights and opportunities for all Americans. DEI initiatives addressed systemic discrimination against marginalized groups and implemented programs designed to ensure a level playing field for all Americans.
On the first day of Trump 2.0, the Trump regime picked up where it left off in 2020 and continued its assault on DEI programs. The administration has purposefully undone decades of progress through a succession of executive orders. At the same time, they have started a comprehensive gaslighting effort that distorts not only the meaning of DEI programs but also the meaning of the words themselves:
Diversity means recognizing and celebrating the full range of human experience with different races, religions, backgrounds, and perspectives that make America stronger. The Trump regime has twisted this into a concept that leads to preferential treatment or quotas based on identity (race, gender, etc.), forced integration, and discrimination against white people.
Equity means ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunity for all, removing systemic obstacles, and distributing resources and opportunities fairly. The Trump regime frames the emphasis on equity as giving unfair advantages based on group membership rather than individual qualifications. It labels equity mandates as illegal or immoral and as violating civil rights laws.
Inclusion means creating spaces where everyone belongs and can contribute. The Trump regime defines inclusion as pressured conformity to ideological norms (e.g., having to use certain language, join affinity groups, or accept certain training). In this context, “inclusion”” functions as a mechanism to enforce ideological adherence rather than promoting genuine belonging or participation.
The effective gaslighting by the Trump regime, combined with the cowardice and capitulation of universities, corporations, law firms, and the media, has led to DEI initiatives being twisted, distorted, and systematically destroyed. The loss of DEI initiatives, programs, and aspirations has ramifications for millions of people, every sector of our society, and our flailing democracy.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been so effectively distorted that the DEI acronym might more accurately stand for discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance.
Empathy
The weaponization of empathy is masterful: turning a virtue into a vice!
Empathy is defined as the capacity to understand and feel the emotions of others. It is shared vulnerability and requires caring about others, no matter who they are or where they are.
Empathy drives resistance against dehumanization, tyranny, and autocracy. An empathic person cannot be indifferent to the suffering caused by an out-of-control government. The lack of empathy is often a hallmark of sociopaths, psychopaths, and antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders.4 5 Therefore, one would assume that the capacity for empathy is a desirable trait for individuals and society.
But not so fast…
Right-wing leaders have declared empathy to be a fatal weakness. Elon Musk called it “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” Christian nationalists are on an anti-empathy crusade, recasting it not as a moral virtue but as a dangerous sin that undermines their vision of American strength. Their assault on empathy is part of the calculated effort to dehumanize the “other” and numb Americans to their suffering.6
Distorting empathy into weakness is part of the authoritarian playbook. They need us to be blind to suffering or to rationalize it. Empathy is not a sin. It is not toxic. It is not weakness, and it does not lead to “civilizational suicide.”7 Empathy does not make us cruel and irrational.
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, hundreds of social media posts resurfaced his words from years earlier:
I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that does a lot of damage.
Empathy is neither made-up nor damaging. The transformation of empathy into a vice is another example of the post-truth, post-reality, abnormal world in which we live. It is precisely this lack of empathy that is at the root of the polarization, cruelty, and drift toward authoritarianism in America today.
These are just the most prominent examples of the Trump regime’s weaponization of language. It is part of their larger program of gaslighting, spreading disinformation, alternative facts, and basic mind-f**ckery designed to make us doubt what we know to be true. We need to consistently work to reclaim and maintain our language, truth, and reality.
Action Steps
Expose distortions: Call out instances of language being weaponized when it happens on social media or elsewhere.
Be Antifa: Join thousands of Americans protesting against the fascism of the Trump regime on October 18th. Go to the No Kings website to find a rally near you.
Verify truth: Use and support organizations to determine accuracy of information, including: FactCheck.org, Politifact , and Snopes.
Protect democracy: Go to ProtectDemocracy for excellent information and resources for dealing with authoritarianism and disinformation.
Conclusion
Words matter.
As the Holocaust survivor and philologist Victor Klemperer warned in The Language of the Third Reich:
Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in.8
Victor Klemperer was a scholar of language who survived the Nazi regime despite being persecuted for his Jewish ancestry. He documented how language was weaponized in Nazi Germany, showing how poisonous rhetoric takes root slowly and dangerously in society.
The Trump regime’s weaponization of language is dangerous and must not go unchallenged.
Dick, Philip K. (1978). How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later. In I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1978, introduction). Reprinted in Sutin, Lawrence (Ed.), The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995).
Please read this absolutely horrifying White House “Fact” Sheet
Victor Klemperer, Language of the Third Reich: Lingua Tertii Imperii, 1966 (original German publication 1947)
…and I thought George Orwell’s 1984 was sci-fi!
Well researched and succinct. At least the world knows what a fool he is, but that doesn’t save our country-only we can.
Bravo, Heather!