{"id":851,"date":"2026-09-01T23:04:31-04:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:04:31+00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/?p=851"},"modified":"2026-09-01T23:04:31-04:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:04:31+00:00","slug":"this-is-the-weapon-of-the-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/2026\/09\/this-is-the-weapon-of-the-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the weapon of the enemy."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
A panel of a Batman comic. Batman is breaking a gun apart and saying \u2018This is the weapon of the enemy. We do not need it. We will not use it.\u2019 <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It\u2019s been years<\/em> since I\u2019ve blogged here. I\u2019ve been so busy that it\u2019s hard for me to take time to write about anything outside what I\u2019m doing for work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I\u2019m writing here because I see a lot of people inadvertently spreading state propaganda and giving Trump\u2019s ideas and actions legitimacy, which I refuse to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\t
  • Don\u2019t use Trump\u2019s title.<\/strong> Use only his name\u2014\u2018Donald Trump\u2019 is good enough for him. I never used his title during the first go-around with him, and I certainly won\u2019t now. <\/li>\n\t
  • Avoid referring to Trump\u2019s executive orders by name if you can<\/strong>, since these names are often propagandistic and often constitute hate speech. Refer instead to what they do. Just link to the EO or a news article on the EO for reference. (Sometimes you may need to refer to an EO by name, but avoid it as much as possible.) <\/li>\n\t
  • Relatedly, don\u2019t refer to Trump\u2019s regulations by name if they\u2019re written in a propagandistic way<\/strong>, which a lot of them are. Just refer to what the regulation does and link to them for reference (or a news article that explains the rule). <\/li>\n\t
  • Don\u2019t refer to last year\u2019s benefit-slashing, tax-cutting, billionaire-aggrandising budget reconciliation bill by its official name.<\/strong> Refer to it as HR1 or something else neutral, if you don\u2019t want to use outright epithets like \u2018One Big Ugly Bill\u2019. There\u2019s nothing \u2018beautiful\u2019 about that bill, and it\u2019s hard to refer to it as such with a straight face. <\/li>\n\t
  • Denali is Denali. Lake Ontario is Lake Ontario. The Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of Mexico.<\/strong> Google and Apple are spineless for going along with Trump\u2019s jingoistic renaming sprees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    By refusing to allow Trump and his goons to name things, you\u2019re depriving him of some of his power. After all, Trump loves branding. It\u2019s his entire shtick\u2014Trump University, Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Ice (not to be confused with Trump ICE), Trump cologne (possibly called \u2018Success by Trump\u2019, but I can\u2019t be assed to search right now), Trump Magazine, Trump Bibles, Trump sneakers, Trump NFTs, Trump Tower, Trump World Tower, Trump Mobile, Trump watches, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Network, Trump Mortgage, Tour de Trump, Trump: The Game<\/em>, Trump presidency, ad nauseam. <\/p>\n

    <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It\u2019s been years since I\u2019ve blogged here. I\u2019ve been so busy that it\u2019s hard for me to take time to write about anything outside what I\u2019m doing for work. Anyway, I\u2019m writing here because I see a lot of people inadvertently spreading state propaganda and giving Trump\u2019s ideas and actions legitimacy, which I refuse to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mf2_syndication":[],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","venue_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-language","7":"category-politics-us","8":"category-trump","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}