Newspeak – for emotional populists

Some people seem to get extremely upset when faced with some rather pedestrian ideas. And no wonder, because they are speaking a different language, literally!

Here is how I understand some of the expressions being used (after referencing the dictionary), compared with how emotional populists actually interpret their meaning…
(Entries are in alphabetical order)

“Authoritarian”
What I understand:
Wanting to centralise power and control in government.
What emotional populists understand:
Anyone who dares to take a strong position/statement on controversial issues.

“Capitalism”
What I understand:
“Advocating free trade and private ownership of the means of production (capital); so that they who work hard and takes risks will be the one to reap the rewards.
Opposite of Socialism.”
What emotional populists understand:
Greedy rich people who want to get rid of rules that protect society, so that they do not have to contribute to society.

“Centrism/Centrists”
What I understand:
Being unconcerned with the ideologies pertaining to the political left or right, and only concerned with producing results. Pragmatism.
What emotional populists understand:
A compromise between the goals of Conservatives and the Labour party.

“Communism”
What I understand:
Imposed equality of outcome. State ownership of all capital. Socialism taken to its logical conclusion.
What emotional populists understand:
Evil dictators. Or idealistic good lefties corrupted by power.

“Conservatives”
What I understand:
People who want to retain tradition, either out of habit/comfort, or out of caution of the danger of changing society too quickly, or even out of recognition the strengths and benefits of inherited wisdom.
What emotional populists understand:
Backward bigots/greedy Tories/Republican gun freaks.

“Cost”
What I understand:
“The downsides of carrying out a decision, whether in monetary payment, in expended effort, in amount of time taken, or in lost opportunity.
The opposite of benefit.”
What emotional populists understand:
How much money do we have to pay? Life isn’t all about money, you know.

“Crony capitalism”
What I understand:
The antithesis of free market capitalism, aka Kleptocracy: The abuse of government influence to gain wealth, such as state-sponsored monopolies. The bigger the government, the greater the abuse and wealth gained – a particular vulnerability of socialism.
What emotional populists understand:
The inevitable consequence of capitalism.

“Democratic / Democratised Socialism”
What I understand:
Exactly the same as socialism – because the state control does not become benign and efficient just because it was democratically supported.
What emotional populists understand:
The idea that socialism can be rendered benign by virtue of its popular support.

“Discrimination”
What I understand:
Distinguishing between different things.
What emotional populists understand:
Hate against those who are different.

“Diversity”
What I understand:
Being different, or having different backgrounds.
What emotional populists understand:
Anyone that is not white, heterosexual, or male

“Emigrant”
What I understand:
Someone who has migrated out of the country. An “outward migrant”.
What emotional populists understand:
Is that a misspelling of “immigrant”?

“Equality”
What I understand:
Giving everyone equal rights, and equal treatment.
What emotional populists understand:
Ensuring everyone has the same outcome in life.

“Establishment”
What I understand:
People or organisations who have gained widespread recognition and long-term endurance – such as multinational corporations, labour unions, or entrenched political parties.
What emotional populists understand:
Anyone with substantial wealth. Usually conspiring to oppress the poor.

“European Union”
What I understand:
An ambitious project of political power play, seeking to consolidate control of European nation states into a massive global superpower (that rivals the USA, Russia, and China), to achieve through politics what the instigators of WW2 failed to achieve through military might.
What emotional populists understand:
Trading with Europeans, travelling in Europe, and European countries. Anti-war.

“Ex-pat”
What I understand:
Someone who lives outside the country they were born in. Short for ‘Ex-patriate’, meaning “outside the land of the father”.
What emotional populists understand:
Rich white people from the west who move to poorer countries, who benefit from the glamour of being a foreigner and increased spending power due to advantageous exchange rate.

“Exchange rate”
What I understand:
How much a currency is valued compared to a different currency. A figure that is caused by the interaction of supply and demand, with no direct meaning in absolute terms.
What emotional populists understand:
A measure of personal wealth relative to foreign wealth; ipso facto – the direct representation of a nation’s wealth.

“Extremism/Extremists”
What I understand:
The taking of an ideological principle to its extreme conclusion without moderation. E.g. totalitarian communists, anarchists, or religious fundamentalists.
What emotional populists understand:
Extremely bad people with a penchant for aggressive behaviour. Usually right-wingers. Fascism manifested in violence.

“Far left”
What I understand:
Totalitarian communists.
What emotional populists understand:
Idealists.

“Far right”
What I understand:
Libertarian capitalists.
What emotional populists understand:
Totalitarians/Nazis/Fascists. The epitome of evil.

“Fascists”
What I understand:
Authoritarian nationalists.
What emotional populists understand:
Anyone who disagrees with a liberal.

“Free speech”
What I understand:
The right to say anything you want, no matter how controversial, for the sake of facilitating public debate, challenging social mores, and protecting individual freedoms.
What emotional populists understand:
The right to slander people based on limited understanding of their views, to say only socially acceptable things, and the legal obligation to stop people saying or writing things that hurt your feelings.

“Free trade”
What I understand:
“Trade that arises naturally when buyers and sellers make decisions free from government intervention, as opposed to trade that is distorted by policies such as subsidies (eg green energy), purchasing mandates (eg motor insurance), protectionist import bans/tariffs/quotas (eg common external tariff), unbalanced taxation (eg sugar tax).
Not opposed to appropriate trading standards and regulation.”
What emotional populists understand:
“Trade that completely disregards quality or safety standards.
Evil Capitalism at work.”

“GDP”
What I understand:
Gross Domestic Product – essentially how much monetary value is being added by a country’s economic activity, whether by business, consumers, or government. An indicator of economic activity, which correlates with a nation’s economic health.
What emotional populists understand:
The cumulative wealth of a nation.

“Going on strike”
What I understand:
Industrial action of last resort, the last course when conventional negotiation fails, designed to hit the profits of the employer by killing productivity.
What emotional populists understand:
Political action designed to raise awareness to the plight of the ‘working class’, by hurting the middle class public who rely on public transport to earn a living, and whose jobs are not protected by trade unions.

“Health tourism”
What I understand:
The deliberate travel to a country to make use of, and pay for, the superior health service available in that country.
What emotional populists understand:
The deliberate travel to a country to abuse its state-funded health provision.

“I disagree”
What I understand:
I don’t think that’s entirely correct.
What emotional populists understand:
You oppose everything I stand for. Maybe you even hate my very being.

“Immigrant”
What I understand:
Someone who has migrated into the country. Literally an “inward migrant”.
What emotional populists understand:
Someone who is poor and undoubtedly skilled and hard-working, who thus deserves a resident visa because this country wouldn’t survive if there are no hard-working immigrants.

“Invest”
What I understand:
Putting money into an endeavour to give it capital for growth and building up productivity, in the hope of redeeming the investment at a material profit or otherwise gain in value.
What emotional populists understand:
Spending money on government provision of services, regardless of whether or not the funds are available, and with no regard for economic sustainability or return on investment.

“Left-wing”
What I understand:
“Advocating increasing the reach of government, centralisation of control, and state control of industry.
Liberal attitude to social values/traditions.”
What emotional populists understand:
Ideas by people who care about improving the country. Everyone else is either narrow-minded, backward, or selfish.

“Left of centre”
What I understand:
A lean toward government provision of services at the cost of higher taxes.
What emotional populists understand:
“The idea that the government should pay for everything that I think the public needs, and to always intervene to prevent people from making poor choices.
Basically the same as socialism.”

“Liberal”
What I understand:
Being unfettered by social mores and traditions.
What emotional populists understand:
Good people.

“Libertarian”
What I understand:
Desiring to protect individual liberties over state control.
What emotional populists understand:
Right-wingers pretending to be good.

“Migrant”
What I understand:
Someone who moves from one place to settle in another place.
What emotional populists understand:
Refugee.

“Moderates”
What I understand:
The opposite of extremism – someone who might hold to a particular ideology or principle, but is willing temper to those principles against other concerns, or to accept pragmatic concessions.
What emotional populists understand:
“Someone who used to be militant about their beliefs, but is now not so violent about it, albeit not necessarily any less invective at it.
“”I find your opinions completely reprehensible, but I’m willing to tolerate them.”””

“Nationalism”
What I understand:
The concept of prioritising the country’s needs over that of foreign interests.
What emotional populists understand:
Racism and fascism.

“Over-regulation”
What I understand:
The excessive application of rules and regulations, in such a way as to be counter-productive, because implementing it harms society more than it benefits society.
What emotional populists understand:
“Right-wingers dog-whistling in favour of complete deregulation for the sake of profits.
Clearly these people don’t care about peoples’ well-being.”

“President / Prime Minister”
What I understand:
The head of government, elected to represent the desires of the people in setting policy and driving legislation.
What emotional populists understand:
Supreme ruler, without which a nation and its citizens will fall into disorder and chaos.

“Populism”
What I understand:
Appealing to the desires of the populace, regardless of ideological principles or political loyalties.
What emotional populists understand:
Appealing to right-wing bigots.

“Progressives”
What I understand:
People who want to change society to what they THINK would be better.
What emotional populists understand:
People who want to change society to what they are absolutely CERTAIN would be better.

“Racism”
What I understand:
“Prejudice based on a person’s skin colour, race, or ethnicity.
Somewhat related to xenophobia (the prejudiced dislike of a person based on their nationality).”
What emotional populists understand:
“Any signs of negativity toward a person with a darker skin tone.
Giving foreigners a lower priority when it comes to national interests.
Criticism of Islam (other religions don’t count).”

“Refugee.”
What I understand:
Someone seeking refuge in another country due to persecution they face in their own country.
What emotional populists understand:
Someone seeking to move from a poor country to a rich country.

“Right-wing”
What I understand:
“Advocating reducing the reach of government, devolution of control to the most localised level possible, and private control of industry, as typified by the free market.
Conservative attitude to social values/traditions.”
What emotional populists understand:
Selfish ideas, by people who only care about themselves. Populists. Anyone who doesn’t agree with the Left.

“Right of centre”
What I understand:
A lean toward lower taxes and less government intervention.
What emotional populists understand:
“People who still believe that the government should intervene to prevent bad choices, but who do not mind some form of capitalism.
In other words, socialists with a desire for lower taxes.”

“Socialism”
What I understand:
“Advocating state ownership and control over capital and the means of production, so that government bureaucracy rather than private enterprise controls and monopolises the industry. This means that nobody involved in industry is motivated by a reward, whilst the public purse takes the risk.
Opposite of Capitalism.”
What emotional populists understand:
People who care about protecting human rights, in particular being generous toward the poor and vulnerable.

“Sovereignty”
What I understand:
The right of a country to determine its own legislation and policy without being subject to foreign control or interference.
What emotional populists understand:
The right for a country’s politicians to make decisions for the plebeian electorate.

“Terrorist”
What I understand:
Political activists who resort to force of violence, targeting civilians indiscriminately, in order to gain widespread media and political attention for their cause.
What emotional populists understand:
Anyone who resorts to deadly violence regardless of justification or cause (such as disgruntled employees). Definition of violence may include threat of violence or verbal aggression.

“Tolerance”
What I understand:
The acceptance of differences, whether in background or opinions.
What emotional populists understand:
The normalisation of liberal values, where differences of opinion are not acceptable or tolerated.

“Trade union”
What I understand:
Industrial collective designed to be a balance of power against unscrupulous employers.
What emotional populists understand:
Political activists who are protectors of the poor and vulnerable.

“Violence”
What I understand:
The deliberate application of harmful physical force on another creature or human being.
What emotional populists understand:
Any action that can cause physical or emotional pain, such as signs of anger, threat of aggression, or verbal abuse.

“World Trade Organisation (WTO)”
What I understand:
An international organisation set up to facilitate global trade and ensure fair practices through internationally-agreed regulation.
What emotional populists understand:
A set of rules representing the worst-case scenario imaginable for international trade, which would destroy the United Kingdom’s economy.

Lastly, a few personal bugbears not related to politics…

Term/Expression	What I understand:	What emotional populists understand:
Engineer	Someone who engineers/designs solutions as a professional discipline.	Technician/ mechanic/ grease monkey.
Technician	Someone who works on fixing and maintaining technical or mechanical equipment.	Someone with good technique.
Asian	Anyone from the continent of Asia (including Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians, Siberians, Japanese, Filipinos, Arabs, Israelis, Indians, Turks…etc)	Anyone Muslim or brown-skinned, such as Indians and Pakistanis.