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.@ChrisCuomo says "There's no American nationalism," and claims that the word nationalism has the same kind of valence as "concentration camps." Watching this clip, it hits you like a sock in the jaw: The culture war has turned into a connotation war.
In this connotation war, politicians use words however they want to do maximum damage to the other side. Journalists, who used to referee in the defense of a common language, now just join in--saying words mean whatevery they want them to. Cuomo even tells us he gets to decide!
For those still interested in an intelligent use of words, take a look at Joseph Ellis' superb book on the American founding, "The Quartet," in which this Pulitzer-winning historian correctly describes Washington, Jay, Hamilton and Madison as "nationalists" throughout the book.
Americans who correctly described themselves as nationalists include, for example, Teddy Roosevelt, who fought the League of Nations by decrying "professional internationalists" and "faddists fo all types that vitiate sound nationalism." (Take a look at the footnotes to my book.)
Some in the media may be entirely clueless about these things--they don't read books, so they really have no idea. But some seem to be aware they're acting as hatchet men. They intentionally gerrymander the meanings of words to maximally delegitimize their conservative opponents.
So "nationalism" is treated as though it means something like Nazism. And now it's said that America operates "concentration camps"--which is meant to suggest, again, that when you've got a nationalist government, you've got something like a Nazi government.
But watch the disappearance of the word "conservative" from the vocabulary of the major media. Now everyone who isn't liberal is "illiberal"--a term gerrymandered to include conservatives, nationalists, and traditionalist Christians--as well as racists, Iranian ayatollas, Nazis.
The purpose of all of this rewiring of the language, all of this newspeak, is to stamp out any legitimate conservative opposition in democratic countries. The aim is to impose a single ideological order, eliminating all opinion that isn't liberal opinion.
More about this at the upcoming National Conservatism Conference in DC: nationalconservatism.org
