afloweroutofstone:

afloweroutofstone:

The New York Times got a copy of a draft executive order from the Trump administration proposing to bring back CIA black sites and torture techniques. Beyond the disturbing nature of the proposal itself, the document is interesting because it shows both original text and subsequent edits. Here, I pulled out two specific examples of how the Trump administration explicitly tailors it’s language towards nationalist and mutedly Islamophobic demagoguery:

-Replacing “our Nation” with “our homeland”
-Replacing “global war on terrorism” with “fight against radical Islamism”

You should all definitely check out the article, along with the document itself.

The shift from “Nation” to “homeland” is pretty self-explanatory, but I think the rhetorical leap from “global war on terrorism” to “fight against radical Islamism” is also a pretty radical one. The obvious change there is the inclusion of the term “Islam,” even if in modified form, so as to activate Islamophobia in his base whenever they hear it and to keep the debate centered around that topic. But there’s other significant changes there too. The dropping of the word “global,” perhaps to shun an implication of militant internationalism. The shift from the formal “war” to the more informal, personal, almost vindictive “fight.” The shift in subject from the action of “terrorism” to the ideology of “radical Islamism.” And, as a whole, the attempt to make a continuation of at-times unpopular U.S. military involvement in the MENA region seem like a break with past by dropping “war on terror” terminology. There’s a lot to unpack there.

“Global war on terrorism,” used by Bush and Obama, sounds like a name designed to avoid criticism- to portray what’s being done as broad and widespread yet noble and uncontroversial. “Fight against radical Islamism” sounds far more aggressive, more like a battle slogan than carefully-worded Washington-speak. This seems very rhetorically important.