Conservatives have a language problem. For decades now, too many on the American right have failed to appreciate the importance of language, and thus have failed to use the spoken and written word effectively and with integrity. As a result, conservatives have ceded much of our language and culture to progressive agendas, and to the extent that they have reclaimed these, it has been at the expense of both the right use of language and the health of our republic. To counter both the extreme ideologies of the left and the worst tendencies of the rights, conservatives must take language seriously as both a means of conveying truth and as a tool for shaping culture.
Until recently, the conservative language problem was primarily one of effectiveness. As liberals turned the English language to their advantage, winning popular opinion to their agenda with euphemistic slogans like “love is love,” “death with dignity,” and “reproductive rights,” conservatives had no response. “Violence” slowly came to signify not just physical assault, but any action or opinion that challenges one’s beliefs. Once politically neutral words like “solidarity” and “ally” came to imply an affinity with a particular identity or set of political beliefs. Clearly, liberals understood that words had the power to influence public opinion on issues ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage and transgender surgery, and conservatives were left scrambling.
In a moral sense, the left was misusing language. Drawing on the thought of Christopher Lasch and George Orwell in her recent Providence essay, Nadya Williams wrote:
“…all writing is political, and bad writing and dishonest politics go hand in hand…. For Orwell, truth and intellectual honesty were central to style. Dishonest writers obscure agency with passive voice, avoid responsibility with euphemism, and hide ignorance with jargon. These habits, repeated, corrode character—and civilization.”
This is true not just of the written word, but of language in general. The liberal takeover of language has been largely dishonest, thereby corroding American character and Western civilization, but it was also brilliantly effective. The left deserves condemnation for its weaponization of words, but conservatives also deserve blame for failing to counter the left’s advances. Of course, there are exceptions to this conservative failure, including the conservative pro-life advocates who have insisted on being called “pro-life” rather than “anti-abortion.” On the whole, however, conservatives failed to grasp that the battle had moved from the realm of ideas to the realm of words.
One man did understand this, though: Donald Trump. Following his lead, a new generation of MAGA politicians and influencers have taken the war of words seriously, successfully turning much of our public discourse to their advantage. Though his style is blunt and simplistic, this raw, unrefined character is what makes his rhetoric so effective, allowing a billionaire celebrity to come across as an outsider ready to take on the corrupt elites. At times he (and the MAGA movement more broadly) have imitated the left’s strategy of imbuing words, such as “patriot,” with a new meaning or political connotation, but for the most part they have relied on repetition, belligerent imagery, and ambiguity to sway the American public. MAGA rhetoric is expressly designed to enrage liberals, and it in turn relies on this rage to rally right-leaning Americans to its cause.
In a sense, then, Trump has helped to solve conservatives’ language problem. Whether consciously or instinctively, he understands that words have power, and he has discovered a remarkably effective formula for beating the left at its own linguistic game. MAGA politicians and influencers have made their own variations on this formula, helping to bring about the so-called “vibe shift.”
And yet, as could be said of so much of the last decade of American politics, while the liberals are losing politically, the moral foundation on which conservatives claim to stand is eroding. There is wisdom in the saying “actions speak louder than words,” but applied to Trump, many conservatives seem to think this means “actions matter, but words don’t.” While plenty of conservatives relish every taunt, boast, and insult he posts on social media, I have often heard conservatives remark that, “He says stupid things, but all I care about is his actions on (insert policy issue).” Trump capitalizes on this attitude by making it difficult to know when he intends his words to be taken at face value. When someone regularly speaks in exaggerations and superlatives, it is easy for sympathetic listeners to give him the benefit of the doubt when he says something truly outrageous.
Take his rhetoric on immigration. While he regularly uses derogatory terms like “violent” and “criminal” when referring to illegal immigrants, and has even claimed that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” it is often ambiguous whether he is referring to illegal immigrants in general or only those who are actually violent criminals. This ambiguity allows him to appeal to far-right constituencies while giving more mainstream conservatives an easy way out. As long as they believe his actions warrant their support, they can argue that his words have simply been misconstrued and that they are just words, after all. Senator Lindsay Graham’s response to a reporter’s query regarding Trump’s “blood poisoning” comment was a perfect example of this: “We’re talking about language. I could care less what language people use as long as we get it right.”
The problem is that words, when used to obscure the truth, have a corrosive effect on society. Words can convey or cloud truth, they can urge individuals toward virtue or vice, and they can lead souls toward or away from God. “Trump derangement syndrome” is real, and the left has consistently overreacted to Trump’s statements. However, the right has also been too quick to ignore or excuse his misuses of language, and those of the MAGA leaders he has inspired. The bar for acceptable conservative rhetoric has been considerably lowered, even as many conservatives remain blind to the power of words. The result is conservative influencers peddling outlandish conspiracies, racist and anti-Semitic tropes, and anti-American propaganda, yet somehow retaining their conservative bona fides and large followings. Christians, who profess that “the Word was made flesh” and believe that the Bible is the word of God, should know that God created a world in which words matter. Conservative Christians should be at the forefront of a conservative movement that commits to using language both strategically and ethically, countering harmful progressive agendas and offering an alternative to the conservative misuse of language.
