Euphemism Is Dead

Mamdani and Trump agree on one thing

With Donald Trump’s creation of the Department of War this week, it struck me that the bloodless language of politics is dead. 

Ridiculous (and expensive) as the name change from the Department of Defense is, the bluntness is a Trump hallmark. Zohran Mamdani has connected with New York voters in the same way, from his concise “rent freeze” slogan to his refusal to visit Israel.

Gone is the cautious hemming and hawing. And other Democrats are taking the hint.

In politics there’s a scripted answer to any difficult question: I am deeply concerned, we will closely study the issue, I want to hear what the experts have to say. 

But saying that you are going to end the war in Ukraine on your first day in office? Or that you are going to freeze the rent and hike city taxes on millionaires by two percent, as Mamdani pledges? For the party apparatchiks and the lawyers and the “fact-check” brandishing traffic cops, this isn’t allowed.

But it’s the clarity that people want. Remember when Kamala Harris was asked what she would do about Gaza if she were elected president and she said nothing different than what Joe Biden was already doing? The voters seemed to remember.

Now, with the War Department, Trump is applying his signature tone to “national security” itself, the most euphemism-laden topic in American life. Now troops are no longer “servicemembers” but “warfighters.” “Readiness” is suddenly “lethality.” Invasion replaces “problem.” Even the word “immigrants” is replaced with illegals, rapists and murderers who are eating the dogs and cats.

In a funny way, Trump reminds me of Mamdani. Hear me out.

The insurgent democratic socialist doesn’t just touch the third rail. He does pushups on it. At a mayoral debate during the primary, every candidate lined up to pledge fealty to Israel, adhering to the script. Mamdani torched the whole ritual.

“The first foreign visit by a mayor of New York is always considered significant; where would you go first?” the moderator asked.

“I would stay in New York City,” Mamdani answered. “My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on them,” he said, declining to recite the catechism. The moderator, scandalized, tried to box him in. Mamdani doubled down: “I believe Israel has a right to exist — as a state with equal rights.”

Days later when asked to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” as antisemitic, Mamdani refused.

The condemnations were swift, especially from the bloodless old guard of the Party. He’d done the one thing you (supposedly) cannot do and hold public office in New York. Except he ended up receiving a larger share of the Jewish vote than any other candidate.

Meanwhile, Mamdani’s unofficial slogan, “rent freeze,” became a viral meme and shorthand for the campaign, inspiring young voters to turn out in record numbers. You were supposed to kneel before real estate in New York, the wisdom of bloodlessness went. Mamdani threw a brick through the stained-glass window. And won.

The keepers of euphemism issued one fact check after another about how a mayor can’t unilaterally issue a rent freeze. “The mayor doesn’t have the unilateral authority to do this or that,” the pundits said. His voters didn’t care.

What’s rewarded in this age is big, bold ideas — not why they might not work. From “rent freeze” to the migrant “invasion” by the “worst of the worst,” people don’t focus on the fine print. They want to know where you stand.

Trump and Mamdani are the strongest embodiments of this shift, but hardly the only ones. 

Ken Martin, the mild-mannered DNC chair, leveled a criticism of his own party at their summer meeting last month, saying he felt it was “bringing a pencil to a knife fight” in its opposition to Trump. 

Across the ocean, Vice President J.D. Vance castigated Europe for everything from censorship to its handling of the war in Ukraine. Criticizing our allies like this was unprecedented and so it was denounced by desk-bound and pencil-armed Washington as a gift to Putin or as a threat to NATO. But hardly any ordinary person gave a shit.

The death of euphemism is everywhere. “Cancel culture” itself has been canceled. Google Trends shows the term has declined to its lowest level ever.

Kanye West can post his music video literally titled “Heil Hitler” on X and leave it up — despite having been banned for an antisemitic post in 2022. Liberal establishment weather vane Matt Yglesias drops the epithet “retard” like it’s a comma.

A Wall Street banker, quoted by the Financial Times, summarized the mood, saying: “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled … it’s a new dawn.”

Democrats running for office are getting in on the action, too. Gavin Newsom has become a Trump-like tweeting machine and frequents right wing podcasts, which until recently would have been denounced as “platforming.” AOC calls Trump a rapist — no equivocation, no legalese. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett mocks disabled Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, calling him “Governor Hot Wheels.” Disability advocates demand an apology which never comes. 

The DNC has even advised leaders to curse more in public to affect authenticity. No shit.

As for Meta, following Trump’s return, Zuckerberg axed the social media company’s third-party fact-checking program and loosened content restrictions in general. He even admitted the change was driven by a “cultural tipping point” triggered by the election. 

Some of this is of course Trump’s doing, but the real driver of this vibe shift is the Internet. We live in the digital panopticon now. Everything you’ve ever said —every dumb tweet, every college op-ed, every drunken photo — is archived forever. The level of social sanction we’ve seen in the past few years just was not sustainable.

Mamdani doesn’t bother deleting his old tweets, which contain plenty of political commentary considered disqualifying by the fading sticklers. Musk swings a chainsaw onstage during his DOGE tenure, wholeheartedly embracing the charge that he was recklessly cutting government programs. Podcasting juggernaut Tim Dillon brags about accepting Saudi money.

We can basically say anything we want now. But do we have anything worth saying?

During the Oval Office announcement Secretary of Defense (er, Secretary of War) Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. military hasn’t won a war in almost a century.

“From the Department of War to the Department of Defense in 1947,” Hegseth said, “we haven’t won a major war since … whether it’s the Korean War or the Vietnam War, or our generation of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

If only what he meant was that we should avoid war. Hegseth, like Trump, doesn’t have much to say beyond “win.”

— Edited by William M. Arkin