Author: Mitchell A. Sobieski

Across the United States, many citizens are wrestling with a familiar dread, the sense that the institutions built to safeguard democracy have become fragile props in a long-running performance. Donald Trump’s second presidency has exposed not only the weakness of federal guardrails but also the futility of watching each new outrage unfold as if civic norms could somehow restrain the convicted felon determined to shatter them. He has turned politics into a spectacle, and in that theater, even resistance has become part of the show. The question is whether Americans must keep playing supporting roles in a drama that...

In 1990, a little-known Republican political training organization called GOPAC released a document that would come to define American political rhetoric for decades to come. Titled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” the memo was designed not as policy guidance or campaign strategy but as a linguistic arsenal. The goal: to reshape the way Republican candidates spoke — and how voters perceived their opponents. Distributed to aspiring Republican officeholders across the country, the document advised candidates to adopt emotionally charged, value-laden vocabulary to praise conservative ideas while simultaneously demonizing Democrats. It wasn’t a list of talking points. It was...