language and power podcast

The newer generations are more aware of propaganda due to exposure to media and social media. Analyzing fictional texts in school helps them recognize and be wary of propaganda in real life. The character Squealer in Animal Farm is an example of a propaganda machine. Trump's speech before the Capitol attack incited his supporters with phrases like "stop the steal" and "we will never give up." Trump's political ideologies have changed based on what his supporters want. His defenders are using his mention of a peaceful protest to argue that he did not incite the crowd. Thank you. Thank you. And because a lot of media exists nowadays and social media, generally the newer generations have a better understanding of these types of propaganda and won't be swayed as much by it. Because we often in school and classes, especially in more of the Western world, of course, we are set to analyze fictional texts with a little more extreme propaganda. But we're still supposed to analyze it, which helps us be wary of it in real life. A very common example of propaganda is in Animal Farm by George Orwell. In that story, there is a character or pig named Squealer and his entire character arc is just him being a propaganda machine to help the other pigs get more of what they want. And he therefore helps the other pig, Napoleon. This speech where he said a lot of we and such, we are going to the capital and such, was given after he had already lost the election. And so instead of accepting this defeat and giving a speech, maybe thanking his supporters nonetheless, he instead sort of riled up his supporters, which is what inevitably led to the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill. And that's now just known as January 6th. You could notice a lot of this sort of incitement in his speech when he uses phrases like we will stop the steal and then afterwards also another that says and we will never give up, we will never concede, it doesn't happen. These types of phrases is what incited the riot and made other supporters want to or feel the need to sort of protest what was the outcome of the election. And it made it seem like these Republicans in some way had some right to win no matter what the outcome of the election actually was and they were supposed to win, Trump was supposed to win no matter what. In the same way that Napoleon switches sides on a lot of things, we can also see how Trump's political sort of ideologies have changed. One example specifically is how in the past Trump was a bit more accepting towards a specific trans woman who was in one of his pageants and said it was fine because she was a woman. But now he's all of a sudden leading very anti-trans policies in the country because that is what reflects his supporters' views and what they want to see happen to this country. So in that way he becomes less of an individual politician and more of just an echo chamber for his supporters for the sole reason of giving them exactly what they want so that he will continue to stay in power. The thing that a lot of his defenders and lawyers are trying to grab at from his speech to sort of save him from this mess he's a bit made with the speech is that he at one point says that when they go over to Capitol Hill it will be a peaceful protest. And his defenders are sort of using this and solely this out of his huge speech to explain that he is not inciting the crowd and it was actually not his intention in any way and he is not part of what happened.