My brother trounced with floccinaucinihilipilification with 29 letters. We liked the meaning: a series of Latin words that each mean 'nothing' - floccus ('a wisp') + naucum ('a trifle') + nihilum ('nothing') + pilus ('a hair') + -fication used together to mean "the act of estimating something as worthless"
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| So, family members: admit defeat! You can buy this shirt by GolemAura at Redbubble |
I didn't know then that antidisestablishmentarianism was an archaic word that meant a position that advocates that a state Church (the 'established church') should continue to receive government patronage, rather than be disestablished (or I would have liked it way less). I liked it because I could beat my brother by adding another prefix: counter- to make a word with 35 letters.¹
Counter-anti-dis-. Anti-anti-anti-. It was a good joke if you were into words.
It was difficult to fit on a t-shirt though.
Lately, however, I’ve noticed what I am going to call a 'counter-anti-dis-establishmentarian strategy' in politics.
And it's no joke at all.
Lately, however, I’ve noticed what I am going to call a 'counter-anti-dis-establishmentarian strategy' in politics.
And it's no joke at all.
The Establishment
By the Establishment, I do not only mean the centres of official power—though they are certainly part of it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised.
The word refers to the group that is dominant or elite, as well as those who actively support them to be able to exercise control over a community or a society.
Just who is The Establishment is different in different political contexts and probably depends on one's own political position.
In the USA, The Establishment refers to the network of wealthy and prominent American families that wield disproportionate political power and control vast corporate empires, sometimes also called 'The Elite'. Lots of people are furious about The Elite's control over American society.
So, The Establishment is a somewhat nebulous but excellent focus for our anger and frustration about why society isn't the way we want it to be. We get angry at those power-hungry, accountability-ducking, self-serving people in The Establishment!
Various movements give voice to this anger. The Occupy movement is one expression. The lengthy Farmers protest in India is another. The MAGA movement is yet another. Although from varying places on the political spectrum, and with conflicting demands about what needs to happen, these movements share a furious and often desperate repudiation of unaccountable power and excessive wealth by The Establishment.
As Wordly Explorations likes to play with words, we could describe that anger as dis-establishmentarianism. (I realise that anti-establishment is a more common description, but I want to play with ALL the prefixes I can; you'll see why soon.) ²
Various movements give voice to this anger. The Occupy movement is one expression. The lengthy Farmers protest in India is another. The MAGA movement is yet another. Although from varying places on the political spectrum, and with conflicting demands about what needs to happen, these movements share a furious and often desperate repudiation of unaccountable power and excessive wealth by The Establishment.
As Wordly Explorations likes to play with words, we could describe that anger as dis-establishmentarianism. (I realise that anti-establishment is a more common description, but I want to play with ALL the prefixes I can; you'll see why soon.) ²
MAGA starts with Dis-establishmentarianism
To explore the prefix strategy in politics, I must first explain why I see the MAGA supporters as Dis-establishmentarians.
Make American Great Again or MAGA is a campaign slogan used very successfully by the former US president Donald Trump. It is a 'loaded' slogan, which means it conveys different meanings to different people. Many see it as a dog-whistle and coded racist language, while others consider it represents their loss of status due to changes in society; some see it as an optimistic wish for a better future, and others see it as a resentful desire to go back to the days when white men were dominant.
Whatever meaning the slogan holds for its users, the underlying aim of the MAGA movement is to 'return' society to a mythical past time - back when things were 'great'. They want to 're-create' a mythical utopia: back when 'America cared about rule of the people, by the people, for the people'. (Obviously, they don't read history.)
The MAGA supporters are opposed to 'The Establishment' both within the Republican party and in broader society. They blame The Establishment AKA The Elite for everything that is wrong for in their lives.
A large proportion of the US population is working harder than ever, yet has experienced a decline in living standards, lack of health insurance, wages that don't cover the essential costs of living, high levels of household debt and enormous barriers to improving their lives. They see The Elite, The Establishment with easy access to higher education, the privileges and comforts of family wealth, first-rate medical care, etc. Such glaring inequality and unfairness inevitably leads to a sense of grievance and anger.
They feel disempowered and disregarded by The Establishment. And I tend to agree with them that they have been mistreated, misled and let down by successive governments. What I don't agree with is what they want to do about it; but then - I think they've been used.
Unfortunately such grievances are easy to manipulate by the self-serving.
Manipulating MAGA Dis-establishmentarianism
Trump was able to tap into the anger and frustration of the MAGA movement, claiming to address their grievances, but largely just advancing his own interests (and enabling the white supremacists in the meantime). Dis-establishment frustration was there long before Trump.
And it continues after Trump. Heartfelt (if ahistorical and fanciful) MAGA dis-establishmentarianism creates perfect fodder for those who would advance a far right-wing political and racist conservativism that, rather than making people's lives better, would actually entrench a different elite group as The Establishment.
Last Wednesday, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, went on Fox News to proclaim, absurdly, that what happened to his state “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States”. Abbott blamed the power failure on the fact that “wind and solar got shut down”.
(In fact, the loss of power from frozen (deregulated, unprepared, climate change denying) coal-fired and natural gas plants was six times larger than the dent caused by frozen wind turbines.)
Abbott prevaricated to protect the elite group of oil barons with their obscene wealth and intransigence in the face of climate catastrophe that help keep him in power. The Establishment.
The MAGA supporter manipulators use myth and fabrication, they 'appear' detached from reality (to us), they seem unconcerned about making things up and lying to suit their political objectives. They use anything they can think of to harness deeply felt anger at 'The Establishment' - that other one.
But I don't think the manipulators are 'detached' at all; I think they use a strategy of anticipating criticism and flinging that around randomly. Some of it sticks, and if not, it makes the facts hard to find.
What it does is fire up the MAGA supporters and keep them focused on The Establishment as enemy.³
But I don't think the manipulators are 'detached' at all; I think they use a strategy of anticipating criticism and flinging that around randomly. Some of it sticks, and if not, it makes the facts hard to find.
What it does is fire up the MAGA supporters and keep them focused on The Establishment as enemy.³
Anti-dis-establishmentarianism
Continuing the prefix exploration, perhaps we could label those people reacting as the anti-dis-establishmentarians.
Some cry foul and highlight the lies, some demand evidence and facts in the face of fabrications, some argue against the myth of a previously great America, while others call for practical actions that address the real causes of inequality, disempowerment, and wealth concentration.
For example, the Washington Post Fact Checker staff reported that the former president made 20,000 false or misleading claims while in office. They report that the former president's most repeated lie during office was his claim that he had created 'the best economy in US history', repeating it whenever possible.
But fact checking will never have much influence on lies of this nature. It made no impact on the MAGA supporters who were told The Establishment was behind it anyway, pumping out 'fake news'. Trump simply doubled down, later saying he had achieved 'the best economy in the history of the world'. And the MAGAs cheered him on.
An example is the re-emergence of the left-wing movement Antifa in response to the perceived racism and white supremacy ideology of the MAGA supporters:
'If you are not a fascist—then you are Antifa,' the [protest] fliers read, arguing that anyone who opposes racism, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the xenophobic, ultranationalist ideologies of the far-right, 'and our current [Trump] administration' is an anti-fascist.
However, in responding to Antifa, the then president made no distinction between the ideological hostility of the white-supremacists (wearing MAGA caps) and the experience-based hostility of those who have been oppressed and even killed (e.g. the Black Lives Matter protests). He threatened to designate Antifa as a terrorist organisation.
He couldn't and didn't, but it sounded good to the MAGA dis-establishmentarians.
Counter-anti-dis-establishmentarianism
So, the anti-dis-establishment responses generally fail to cut through the lies and proto-fascist ideology of the dis-establishmentarian MAGA supporters and those who are manipulating them.
But just to make sure, a counter-anti-dis-establishmentarian phenomenon has been manufactured.
They are the media personalities ('hosts' posing as journalists, working for pretend ‘news’ channels) who accuse the opponents of the MAGA movement of the strategies they themselves use.
Like the following example from Tucker Carlson, host (not really a journalist⁴) on Fox News (not really news).
CNN and other media organizations reported on the radicalisation of Americans via disinformation and right-wing conspiracy theories such as QAnon and the anonymous 'Q', and included the disinformation spouted by Carlson. He hit back claiming those media were in fact the source of the disinformation. He claimed that QAnon was a fabrication of mainstream media in The Establishment because he couldn’t find any evidence of it online.
He concluded his counter-accusation: “Who is lying to America in ways that are certain to make us hate each other and certain to destroy our core institutions?”
It's flabbergasting.
This is what I call the counter-dis-anti-establishmentarian strategy in politics: accusing opponents of one's own behaviour. The 'counter-anti-dis-' strategy means when anyone tries to clarify the situation, their argument is already discredited. The demand for evidence, facts and anything grounded in reality is already tarnished as immorally or ideologically motivated.
Another example from William Barr, who wrote in his resignation letter (almost directly lifting left wing criticism) about Trump's opponents: 'No tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds.' and 'Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance…'
The 'anti-dis-' people screech in frustration: WHO is being abusive and deceitful?
Historian Heather Cox Richardson points to the reason behind the 'counter-anti-dis-' strategy. She says that the Republican's hard-right policies - those that reinforce rigid class and social hierarchies, ensure the privileging of affluent white men, allow 'the market' to determine the nature and organisation of society - are deeply unpopular with the majority which suffers under such a system.
This is what I call the counter-dis-anti-establishmentarian strategy in politics: accusing opponents of one's own behaviour. The 'counter-anti-dis-' strategy means when anyone tries to clarify the situation, their argument is already discredited. The demand for evidence, facts and anything grounded in reality is already tarnished as immorally or ideologically motivated.
Another example from William Barr, who wrote in his resignation letter (almost directly lifting left wing criticism) about Trump's opponents: 'No tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds.' and 'Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance…'
The 'anti-dis-' people screech in frustration: WHO is being abusive and deceitful?
Why so deceitful? Why the manipulation?
Historian Heather Cox Richardson points to the reason behind the 'counter-anti-dis-' strategy. She says that the Republican's hard-right policies - those that reinforce rigid class and social hierarchies, ensure the privileging of affluent white men, allow 'the market' to determine the nature and organisation of society - are deeply unpopular with the majority which suffers under such a system.
In Letters from an American in February 2021, Richardson writes:
In 1986, Republicans launched a “ballot integrity” initiative that they defended as a way to prevent voter fraud, but which an official privately noted “could keep the black vote down considerably.” In 1993, when Democrats expanded voter registration at certain state offices - the so-called Motor Voter Law - they complained that the Democrats were simply trying to enrol illegitimate Democratic voters in welfare and unemployment offices.In 1994, Republicans who lost elections charged that Democrats only won through voter fraud, although then, as now, fraud was vanishingly rare. In 1996, House and Senate Republicans each launched year-long investigations into what they insisted were problematic elections, one in Louisiana and one in California. Keeping investigations of alleged voter fraud in front of the media for a year helped to convince Americans that voter fraud was a serious issue and that Democrats were winning elections thanks to illegal voters.In 1998, the Florida legislature passed a voter ID law that led to a purge of voters from the system before the election of 2000, resulting in what the United States Commission on Civil Rights called “an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement,” particularly of Democratic African American voters.After 2000, the idea that Democrats could win only by cheating became engrained in the Republican Party as their increasing rightward slide made increasing numbers of voters unhappy with their actual policies. Rather than moderating their stance, they suppressed the votes of their opponents. In 2016, Trump operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” Roger Stone launched a “Stop the Steal” website warning that “If this election is close, THEY WILL STEAL IT.” The slogan reappeared briefly in 2018, and in 2021, it sparked an attack on [the] government.The idea that Democrats cannot legitimately win an election has been part of the Republican leadership’s playbook now for a generation, and it has worked: a recent survey showed that 65% of Republicans believe the 2020 election was plagued by widespread fraud, although election officials say the election was remarkably clean.
![Text box with quote: ‘[W]e are not going to let the Socialists rip the heart out of our country. We are not going to let them continue to corrupt our elections, and steal from us our God-given right to control our nation’s destiny… Today Republican Senators and Congressmen will either vote to turn American into a godless, amoral, dictatorial, oppressed, and socialist nation on the decline or they will join us and they will fight and vote against voter fraud and election theft, and vote for keeping American great.” Alabama Representative Mo Brooks Rally speech, 6 Jan 2021](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsJQjtRG6HUhyGzBYjDWDhp3oDX1ubQxH_m-hrKmDstRs0GbXNdofD421JcucjXv1rNnX3zSV3wQMTGvyJCr39ZQQMcfH90F-ySytGyi1DIKzHBiF3y_8LkDMHSOlqf8qTesOk2s2KVTat/s632/counter+mo+brooks+UL.png "Mo Brooks quote")
So, the increasingly hard right-wing Republican party (and its behind the scenes supporters) knows it can't win election based on its increasingly unpopular policies.
They need to suppress voting against them in order to win, and THEN they need a strategy that disguises these overtly undemocratic tactics - what I call the counter-anti-dis- strategy. They harness and focus legitimate resistance to The Establishment to allow them to advance their own agenda.
That way they don't need a robust defence for their policies that are unpalatable to the majority.
Counter-anti-dis-establishment strategies work to muddy the waters, make demands for accountability look petty and partisan, and render fact and reality-based debate almost meaningless.
And in response to this mutual accusation fest, satirists (like The Daily Show, The Late Show with Steven Colbert, and many more) mock and satirise the liars, the confabulators, the reality-free claims, and the nostalgic myth lovers.
That way they don't need a robust defence for their policies that are unpalatable to the majority.
Counter-anti-dis-establishment strategies work to muddy the waters, make demands for accountability look petty and partisan, and render fact and reality-based debate almost meaningless.
Reverse-counter-anti-disestablishmentarianism
And in response to this mutual accusation fest, satirists (like The Daily Show, The Late Show with Steven Colbert, and many more) mock and satirise the liars, the confabulators, the reality-free claims, and the nostalgic myth lovers.
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| Still from satirical advertisement on Twitter |
Right on topic is this satirical advertisement from The Daily Show: 'Republicans Rail Against ‘Pandemic Of Voting’. It features a faux-Republican campaign against the harm done to the great nation of America due to voting, and includes the argument to change the voting system or there might never be another republican president.
I can laugh along with these American parodies. (I also love the Australian equivalents in The Betoota Advocate, The Shovel and The Juice Media. I need the solace for my own Australian dis-establishmentarian despair.)
But I also worry about them. It seems any derisive satire can end up as grist for the 'counter-anti-dis-' crowd.
So many accusations have been flung by the counter-anti-dis- media (set up for that purpose) that when the reverse-counter-anti-dis- crowd take it to humorous extremes to mock and deride, the MAGAs just go all the way with them.
Here's an example from The Intercept: I Tried to Make Claims About Election Fraud So Preposterous Trump Fans Wouldn’t Believe Me. It Was Impossible. The author, Jon Schwarz, claimed on Twitter to be destroying Trump ballots in increasingly ludicrous tweets, but the MAGAs reacted seriously. And furiously. In fact, Schwarz decided to delete it after he realised someone might take him at face value and use his tweets to justify violent actions.
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| Selected tweets from the article by Jon Schwarz |
Schwarz wrote:
What made the whole thing especially rewarding was using their own modus operandi against them. As a journalist, I’m constantly anxious about making sure every sentence, every word, is accurate. Now I was acting as Trump and his minions do — free to say anything, no matter how asinine or ridiculous, with no basis in observable fact and with no sense of responsibility toward others.
A strategy, not an affinity with lies
It's the role of these types of comments, lies, fabrication and confabulations in the larger political counter-anti-dis- strategy. This strategy allows the far-right and arch-conservatives in the USA to advance an agenda that is unpalatable to most people.
Not only do they harness the MAGA's dis-establishmentarian anger, they exploit their hope for a better life. Hope is powerful, and sometimes all that a person has when they can't find work, can't pay rent, can't pay for health care. The explanatory power of conspiracy theories resists all 'fact checks', because they point to the role of The Establishment who is hiding what is really going on with their so-called 'fake news.'
The prefix strategy in politics is extremely effective, particularly in our contemporary media landscape. Any opposition to lies, fabrications and fantasy just garners another prefix.
Any more prefixes?
I guess this post itself could be described as de-reverse-counter-anti-disestablishmentarian.
In fact, it could go on for a while: we have a few more 'anti-' prefixes: contra-, un-, in-, non-. We could definitely create a new longest word in English. Contrived? Definitely. Concerning? Very.
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| Some reverse-counter-anti-dis-establishmentarianism from The Shovel (snip from Facebook) |
And we know from childhood that you can’t easily stop or win the game of insults. It often degenerates into fists or hairpulling, and people get hurt.
We have to find another way to defang counter-anti-dis-establishmentarianism.
Our current approach is not working.
I think it starts with seeing the prefix strategy in politics for what it is, and focusing on its aims.
And we also have to do something about The Unaccountable, Power Abusing Establishment, in America, Australia⁵ and elsewhere, that is the basis of all varieties of dis-establishmentarianism.
Anger at The Establishment is legitimate, but it is very easy to exploit.
And I'd hate to see us run out of prefixes.
Footnotes
- I see that antidisestablishmentarianism is sometimes referred to as the longest non-contrived and nontechnical word in English. There you are floccinaucinihilipilification: worthless and contrived!
- I'm using dis-establishment the way most people use anti-establishment. That's because I don't want to skip any available prefixes and they need to be done in the right sequence. Anti-establishment, of course refers to someone who is opposed to the existing system (the Establishment). In addition, there are those who might call themselves simply anti-government. But please humour me; I want to play with prefixes.
- Interestingly, the Occupy dis-establishment movement was weakened by ignoring, misrepresenting and infiltrating it, but the MAGA dis-establishment movement has been picked up as a handy tool for the hard right wing.
- Just like his father, Dick Carlson, Carslon Tucker can be described, at best, as a gonzo reporter. Gonzo journalism is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. Basically, not journalism.
- This post focuses on American examples, but this strategy is growing in Australia. It's currently less obvious because our government is already dominated by the hard-right conservatives who happily manipulate the truth to achieve their unpalatable agenda. While they are in power, they don't need the counter-anti-dis- strategy as much. But just wait.
Images
- Anti-dis-establishmentarianism t-shirt by GolemAura at Red Bubble [Oh no, is this an ad??] https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/The-Longest-Word-in-English-by-GolemAura/3885056.NL9AC
- Farmers' protest: http://scroll.in/article/981677/no-matter-how-hard-the-propagandists-try-protesting-farmers-wont-be-seen-as-anti-national
- MAGA cap: unattributed; found through Creative Commons image search.
- Store closed. No electricity: https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/texas-power-outages-why-blackouts-hit-as-temperatures-fell/
- Smash fascism: Amy Osborne https://truthout.org/articles/in-the-face-of-far-right-violence-we-must-organize-to-survive/
- Huffpo Tucker Carlson: snipped from Facebook
- Mo Brooks quote made by the author with text from Letters from an American 29 July 2021 at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-29-2021
- The Daily Show: snipped from Twitter at https://twitter.com/i/status/1366116461526347786
- Jon Schwarz tweets snipped from The Intercept article at https://theintercept.com/2021/07/21/election-fraud-trump-preposterous/
- The Shovel post on Scott Morrison snipped from Facebook
Interesting. I've always been put off by what I see as just unthinking blaming of the government, but you've put another side to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg. Well, there is that too. I think it's important to draw a distinction between the MAGA (and other dis-establishmentarians) who may or may not really understand the situation, and those who manipulate them.
ReplyDelete