Opublikowane: 2025-12-31

Resisting the poisonous language of fascism

HENRY A. GIROUX
Studia Krytyczne/Critical Studies
Dział: Temat numeru
DOI https://doi.org/10.25167/sk.6099

Abstrakt

This article examines how language has become one of the central battlegrounds in the rise of American fascism. Drawing on the insights of Morrison, Ngũgĩ, Klemperer, and others, it argues that Trump’s rhetoric is not simply inflammatory but functions as a weapon of authoritarian statecraft, a “dead language” designed to erase memory, suppress critical thought, and normalize violence. The piece explores how fascist rhetoric intertwines with neoliberal pedagogy, white supremacy, and profound inequality, shaping a culture of disposability where dehumanization is institutionalized and cruelty governs. Through a layered analysis of state terror, racial cleansing, attacks on immigrants, the militarization of civil society, and the collapse of moral imagination, the article exposes how authoritarian politics transforms civic life into a war zone sustained by propaganda, fear, and spectacle. Against this descent, it calls for reclaiming language as a site of critique, memory, and democratic resistance. Only by forging a new, insurgent vocabulary, one capable of naming the crisis and envisioning emancipatory futures, can democratic agency be revived and the machinery of fascist politics be confronted.

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Zasady cytowania

GIROUX, H. A. (2025). Resisting the poisonous language of fascism. Studia Krytyczne/Critical Studies, (14), 10–27. https://doi.org/10.25167/sk.6099

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Creative Commons License

Utwór dostępny jest na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 4.0 Międzynarodowe.


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