Shedding euphemisms, one at a time

On May 13 I happily reported that Michelle Malkin had given up the term “Islamist” (as I had previously urged her to do.) She wrote at her site on May 10:

Just an editor’s note—I’ve since stopped using the term “Islamist.” Not accurate. Jihadist, yes. Islamist, no.

Then yesterday, August 10, she wrote:

… I stopped using the terms “Islamic fascist” and “Islamofascism” a while ago, though, because they obscure rather than clarify. The views held by the Muslim jihadis who want to destroy us are not marginal views held only by a minority of “Islamic fascists.”

So when she said in May that she had stopped using “Islamist,” she evidently meant “Islamic fascist” as well. Excellent. But why does Malkin get this, and so many other conservatives still do not? In fact, for some conservatives, “Islamic fascist” represents a great leap forward from even deeper euphemisms such as “terrorism” or “evil doers.” Thus Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner yesterday noted that the Muslim activist group CAIR was complaining about President Bush’s reference to our enemies as “Islamic fascists” in his speech following the announcement of the terrorist arrests in England. She continued:

My advice to President Bush & co. Fight this semantic battle, because it’s at the heart of what this war is about…. [W]e need to focus on what we’re fighting and who the enemy is if we want to ever win [sic] this thing.

So, Malkin’s obscure and unusable euphemism is Lopez’s brave assertion of forbidden and essential truth. How long will it take Lopez—and many other conservatives who think like her—to catch up to Malkin?

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Ken M. writes:

The term “Islamo-Fascism” has always meant for me the conservative’s attempt to woo the liberal over to his side on the issue of jihad. The word “Fascism” has connotations of conservatives and liberals fighting together on one side in WWII. This is a lame conservative attempt to sway the liberal over with the thought that just as socialists and Communists “gloriously” fought against Fascism in Spain (with help from the American liberal community), they should do so against this new form of Fascism. Another sop to the liberals by conservatives … as if this were a “natural” conflict the liberals should align themselves with given this “Fascist” enemy.

I don’t buy this verbal suasion; it smacks of the same attempt by conservatives to use “racial equality” and “individual freedom” as an argument against “affirmative action.” Many times I hear in the conservatives’ arguments against liberal programs the use of liberal concepts and verbiage. As if the liberal will be deterred from his own conclusions by use of his own phraseology. It only makes the conservative look as if he doesn’t have persuasive arguments of his own to make and relies on the liberal’s tools and edifice. Doesn’t work. Too many conservatives write three paragraphs laden with liberal argumentation to try and arrive at one last paragraph with a conservative conclusion.

This is what makes them gullible and fall for a film like Oliver Stone’s WTC.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 11, 2006 07:05 AM | Send