In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt concluded the ideal subjects of authoritarians are not necessarily their most convinced partisan followers, but “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Since his eruption onto the national political scene, Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have waged not just political battles but an all-out war on the very idea that there are such things in the world as facts, reality and truth.
Robert P. Jones
In his first term, Trump declared reporters and media organizations to be “the enemy of the American people,” and his advisers polluted our public discourse with the introduction of “alternative facts.” He was permanently suspended from Twitter (remember those days of standards?) for spreading lies about his 2020 election loss and violating Twitter’s “Glorification of Violence” policy during the insurrection on January 6.
Just a few months later, Trump launched his own social media venture, which he cynically called “Truth Social.” In the first nine months of his second term, he has unleashed a massive propaganda campaign of obfuscation and doublespeak reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984.
In honor of the Oct. 18 No Kings Day demonstrations happening all over the country, I’m offering the first of three installments of “The Patriot’s Glossary of MAGAtarian Doublespeak.” May it help illuminate the MAGA attacks on facts and reality, and may we hold onto the truth that will make us free.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
— George Orwell, 1984
Woe to those who call evil “good” and good “evil,” who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! — Isaiah 5:20
Alternative Facts. A phrase used by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview Jan. 22, 2017, to defend White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false claim that the crowds at Donald Trump’s first inauguration were bigger than those at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Chilling in 2017. Quaint in 2025.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
Anti-Christ. According to tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who gave a series of lectures on the topic, “in the 21st century, the antichrist is a luddite who wants to stop all science. It’s someone like Greta (Thunberg) or Eliezer (Yudkowsky),” activists who are warning about the dangers of climate change and AI respectively. The antichrist is evidently anyone who is influential enough to effect limits to or regulation of transnational tech corporations.
Anti-Christian Bias. On Feb. 6, Trump signed an executive order titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias” and set up the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias within the Department of Justice, consisting of cabinet and agency-level leaders. The order narrowly identifies Christianity primarily with white evangelical and conservative Catholic theology, emphasizing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ positions. But white evangelicals only comprise 13% of Americans, and most Christians today (outside of white evangelicalism) actually support abortion rights, marriage equality and basic rights for transgender people.
Antifa. On Sept. 22, Trump signed an executive order “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization.” A few days later, he issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” which alleged without evidence that Antifa was responsible for a wide range of unrelated acts of violence such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk and anti-ICE protests. But as the Brennan Center for Justice explains, both former FBI Director Chris Wray and the Congressional Research Service have determined that Antifa does not exist as a group or an organization; rather, it is a loose ideology shared by disparate small groups and individuals. Moreover, the president does not possess the legal authority to declare any group a domestic terrorist organization. The declaration serves at least two purposes: 1) By targeting a name that refers to a tradition of resisting fascism, Trump prepares the ground for declaring anyone who compares his words or actions to fascism to be a member of Antifa and therefore a domestic terrorist. 2) More generally, Trump is creating a murky category that likely will be wielded by MAGA leaders as a political and legal weapon against those who speak out against his administration. House Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, referred to participants in the “No Kings Day” protests as “the Antifa people” who are participating in a “Hate America rally.”
Antisemitism. On Jan. 29, Trump signed an executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.” The order narrowly identifies antisemitism with criticism of the political state of Israel on university campuses, particularly actions that are “related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023,” which the order declares are “campus antisemitism.” While there is evidence of problematic antisemitism on campuses, the broader problem is the general rise of antisemitism and hate crimes against Jews in society, which Trump rarely addresses. Meanwhile, Trump himself has used Jewish stereotypes in public speech, reportedly expressed admiration for Hitler, and continues to trade in tropes that echo antisemitic Nazi language; see glossary entries below on “Blood,” “Racehorse Theory,” and “Vermin.” And MAGA’s own antisemitic problems exist not just among the old guard: leaders of Young Republican groups across the country were recently exposed by Politico using racist and antisemitic language such as references to “gas chambers” and “I love Hitler” on a private Telegram group chat.
Blood, Poisoning the. In a late September 2023 interview and numerous other times (see here and here), Trump described undocumented immigrants this way: “Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. We know they’re terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.” The phrase “poisoning the blood” dangerously echoes Nazi sentiments. Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf references the word “blood” nearly 150 times, typically in the context of notions of an ethnic or cultural purity that is in danger of being contaminated or poisoned. References to blood as ethnicity appear right up top in chapter one with this claim: “People of the same blood should be in the same Reich.” Here is Hitler railing against what he saw as a Jewish-controlled press: “And so this poison was allowed to enter the national bloodstream and infect public life without the government taking any effectual measures to master the course of the disease.” And this: “All the great civilizations of the past became decadent because the originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the blood.”
DEI. Formerly, “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs sought to increase participation and representation of groups that historically experienced discrimination and continued to be underrepresented in organizations. Today, these programs are openly and aggressively attacked by Trump, the MAGA movement and the U.S. government as being discriminatory against white and Christian Americans. See “Divisive Concepts/Ideology.”
Divisive Concepts/Ideology. On Sept. 28, 2020, near the end of Trump’s first term, he signed an executive order titled “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping” where he gave a lengthy nine-part definition of the new term “divisive concepts.” Amid several unobjectionable items were these three ideas: that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist;” that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;” and that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” The 2020 order was created to target the alleged teaching of “critical race theory” in schools and government agencies, but the concept has now migrated into dozens of state laws and was incorporated in a 2025 executive order “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” as a basis for “abolishing the DEI bureaucracy” within the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Despite the complicated jargon around this definition, unpacking this one is simple. We just need to ask, “divisive for whom?” and “uncomfortable for whom?” Clearly these provisions are designed to protect the consciences and comforts of white Christians at the expense of telling the truth about our history.
Robert P. Jones serves as president and founder of PRRI and is the author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future and White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award.
This column originally appeared on Robert P. Jones’ substack #WhiteTooLong. Subscribe there to follow the latest from Robert P. Jones.