Republican Dictionary V

Republican Dictionary V

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Bankruptcy reform was a handout to the credit card companies, the prescription drug bill was a multibillion-dollar donation to the pharmaceutical industry, the repeal of the death tax was a handout to the Paris Hiltons of the country. Never before in our history have our politician’s words been as out of touch with their actions.

This is no accident. While Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff have been sucking the pork out of the barrel, their intellectual lackeys have systematically been creating an entire language of Republican doublespeak. In fact they have gotten so brazen at it, their chief spin doctor, Frank Luntz, went on The Daily Show to demonstrate how it’s done.

For the past six months, readers of thenation.com and I have been working to pop the festering boil on our political life with the skewer of satire. We’ve been building a Republican Dictionary that will be published as a book in the fall. We are almost finished, but we still need a few more funny, sharp, and biting definitions. We need your help, specifically for words like “The Patriot Act,” “The War on Drugs,” “Airport Security,” “The House Ethics Committee,” “Tom Delay,” “Creationism,” “Crusade,” “Proliferation,” “Blue State,” “Red State,” “The United Nations,” “Zell Miller.” (Click here to submit your ideas.)

We will select our favorite submissions for the book, and if yours is included we’ll send you a free copy. I thank you for your help in this fight.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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