accidentally posted this in world news before bcs i forgot about the no internal US news rule by accident

Congressman Adam Smith says ‘totalitarian’ protesters are ‘trying to silence anyone who dares to disagree with them’

Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested.

“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.”

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It’s called doublespeak.

    A guy called Orwell wrote a book about Modern Totalitarianism that includes this (prety good book, recommended read).

    It was supposed to be a work of fiction but apparently a lot of politicians are using it as a roadmap.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      This is beyond double speak. It doesn’t even need to make sense anymore. As in, like, they don’t even need to form a complete, coherent sentence anymore.

      They don’t need to. They’ve had far more success with the big lie than anyone ever expected, I believe.

      • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        double speak and double think didn’t need to make sense. The key to them is accepting directly contradicting statements as equally true as long as the party puts them out. The total ignorance to contradiction is the key.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Right, but in 1984, there was at least a syntax to it that made sense. Double plus ungood makes sense because “ungood” means “bad” and “double plus” means “extra”, etc. There was a logic to it.

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      He wrote the book under the pseudonym Orwell, but the guy’s name is Blair.