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Lead Us Not Into “Family Values” as a “God Term”: Devil Terms Part 3

March 2, 2019 DS Leiter Comments 10 comments

NOTE: This piece was originally written at the time when the United Methodist church decided collectively to continue as nonaffirming, as noted early in the piece. This was long before the current early 2022 push to demonize trans kids and other pushes to demonize LGBTQ+ folx. Thankfully the principles hold despite slightly changing circumstances. And this piece unwraps some key dynamics that sadly continue today. In the last couple of articles (see here and here) I’ve been analyzing what rhetorical…

The Fear of Tyranny that Could Unite Us: The Politics of Devil Terms Part 2

February 23, 2019 DS Leiter Comments 3 comments

As a communication scholar, I found the social media reaction to last week’s article about socialism as a devil term fascinating (if also disturbing). This week’s article will dive into some—er, differences of opinion I hold with many of the commenters. But it will also get into some unexpected common ground I found in the comments section among those who support the current US administration and those who dissent from its rhetoric and policies: a fear of tyranny. NOTE: This…

“Leftists” and Socialists, Oh My! The Politics of “Devil Terms”

February 16, 2019 DS Leiter Comments 6 comments

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This post was originally written in 2019, which means that references to the “current head of the administration” refer to the now-former 45th president of the United States. Sadly, his unhealthy use of devil terms continues in the right wing (not that that’s new–“socialism” has been a right-wing devil term since at least the 1920s–sigh), so this post still applies. In the US State of the Union speech, the current head of the administration used the word “socialism”…

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