Category Archives: lists

Expressive Words to Use Against the Trump Clique

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Criticizing the President is great, but it’s important to remember that the office insulates its holder from the impact of some amount of criticism. That’s why it’s important to go after the accomplices too. People like Sean Spicer and Steve Bannon ought to be unemployable after their affiliation with this administration. To help, here’s a list of pejorative terms for people helping the administration, most of which are underused:

  • Collaborator
  • Quisling
  • Vichyist
  • Recreant
  • Prevaricator
  • Fink
  • Tergiversant
Some of these are not perfect synonyms and refer to cowardice or evasion, rather than pure collaboration, and there are subtleties in each, so be sure you’re using the right word.

The 5 Best Primers on the Alt-Right

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With the election of Donald Trump, I’ve seen a lot of questions flying around about the “alt-right.” These are the five best articles I’ve read describing the group or its development. If you have any others, please feel free to share.

  1. A good explainer from Vox: Dylan Matthews, The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder, Aug. 25, 2016. 
  2. Buzzfeed News published a more conventional story on the history of the alt-right late in 2015: Rosie Gray, How 2015 Fueled The Rise Of The Freewheeling, White Nationalist Alt Right Movement, Dec. 27, 2015. 
  3. Media Matters put out a good description of the key symbols, with links to primary source materials: Oliver Willis, What Is The “Alt-Right”? A Guide To The White Nationalist Movement Now Leading Conservative Media, Aug. 25, 2016.
  4. The New Yorker’s short take: Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Is the Alt-Right for Real?, May 5, 2016. 
  5. A piece from The Awl describing the Neo-Reactionary movement, one of the referents/related strains of thought: Park MacDougald, The Darkness Before the Righi, Sept. 28, 2015. 

As an aside, I’ve also seen a lot of people insisting that we ought to refer to them as “white supremacists,” or at least “white nationalists,” in place of “alt-right.” I don’t have a serious disagreement with that, but the semiotics of naming in politics is too complex for me to wade into, and because the articles above use the phrase “alt-right,” I’m using it here.