Dear Progressive Reader,

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order to rename the Department of Defense to “Department of War.” While the change may seem trivial and inconsequential (it is, after all, what they actually do), the symbolism of the renaming is significant. In the Order, Trump declared, “it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend. This name sharpens the Department’s focus on our own national interest and our adversaries’ focus on our willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours.” The concluding words are particularly ominous, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made it even more clear in his statement about the change, noting “its about restoring the warrior ethos.”

Using words to change people’s understanding of how things are supposed to be is nothing new. George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 talks about the ways the regime reshaped the understanding of its subjects. “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” This was embodied in the dictatorship’s slogans of “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” In a 2023 article in Historia, Catherine Hokin writes of the Nazi propaganda machine, “All of the Third Reich’s public language was purposefully chosen. Some of it was intended to obscure its goals, some of it was used to prevent panic spreading, and some was intended to soften-up a wider audience in order to bring them around to a ‘correct’ way of thinking.”

The Trump Administration’s attacks on the meanings of language, as well as its crusade against history and certain forms of culture, are all part of a larger plan. Along with going back to a mythical past (the Department of War was first so-named on August 7, 1789), this new use of words and names and stories is about creating a new history. “We won everything before . . . then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to Department of Defense,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “I think it’s a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now,” he continued.

In Chicago, residents remain anxious and uncertain about Trump’s threatened deployment of National Guard troops in the city. “We’re going in, I didn’t say when, but we’re going in,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. These threatened military-style occupations of Chicago and other cities follow Trump’s business playbook of “keep ‘em guessing”—never letting your opponent know what you are going to do next. But it also echos the playbook of El Salvador’s authoritarian president Nyaib Bukele. As the Associated Press notes, “Bukele remains wildly popular, largely because his all-out pursuit of the country’s once-powerful street gangs has brought security, though critics argue at the cost of due process.” Trump (much like Secretary of State Marco Rubio) has shown his appreciation for Bukele’s tactics—earlier this spring hosting a bi-lateral meeting with Bukele, and in August issuing a statement in support of the Salvadoran leader passing a law for unlimited presidential terms which read in part, “We reject the comparison of El Salvador’s democratically based and constitutionally sound legislative process with illegitimate dictatorial regimes elsewhere in our region.” Bukele is doing what Trump would like to do with term limits, and the U.S. President may well believe that Bukele’s ability to do so is based in his popularity as a “crime fighter.”

This week on our website, Nourdine Shnino tells the moving story of choice his family faces as Gaza City is set to be emptied by the Israeli military. “The only choice left is not where to go—but how to face the end,” he writes. Also, Mike Ervin explains how Trump’s crackdown on immigration is affecting people with disabilities who rely on home heath care workers; and David Rosen looks at how the Trump Administration is weaponizing the Federal Communications Commission against news and information. Plus, inmate Kevin Light-Roth pens an op-ed on the importance of higher education; Donna Gaffney and Teri Mills opine on the role of grandparents in supporting vaccination for kids; and Anna Weber reminds us of the importance of disaster resilience planning in saving lives and money.

Finally, on Wednesday, September 10 at noon Central Time, I have been invited to moderate an international webinar on The Legal Regulation of Drugs: A Call to the Development Sector sponsored by the nonprofit Health Poverty Action based in the U.K. but working around the globe. You can register to join the session and receive reminders and follow up material—or simply watch live on Youtube. It promises to be a fascinating and insightful discussion.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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