Glossary of Modern Political Discourse - Occasionalities/Robert Hawks
8 February 2026 Edition
(Approved by the Office of Eternal Outrage and the Institute for Cultural Collapse Studies)
A
Accountability - A radical concept suggesting actions should have consequences, immediately dismissed as “divisive.”
Activist - Any person who notices injustice without permission.
Alternative Facts - Statements that FEEL truer than reality. Go for it.
American Dream - Owning a house built on land your grandfather stole from someone braver and/or stupider than you.
Antifa - Secret army of baristas who refuse to spell your name correctly.
Appeasement - The mortal sin of giving someone else even half of what they are absolutely entitled.
Armed Citizen - A guy whose neighbor frequently loses noise complaints.
Algorithmic Patriotism - Loving your country as long as the app approves.
Anarchy - Freedom, but messy. “The horror.”
Aristocracy of Pain - Those who suffer publicly for likes.
Aspiration Inflation - The belief that posting “dream big” replaces work.
Authoritarian Chic - When fascism gets a fashion line.
Austerity - The moral necessity of suffering, applied exclusively to people without lobbyists.
American Values - A vague hand gesture toward the past, usually deployed just before doing something cruel.
Anti-Woke - A sleep disorder characterized by terror of books, pronouns, and historical context.
Astroturf Movement - A grassroots uprising that smells faintly of oil money and PR firms.
Attention Economy - A system where outrage is currency and silence is poverty.
Authority Worship - Mistaking obedience for strength and submission for patriotism.
Average Voter - A fictional construct politicians invoke while ignoring actual humans.
Apology Tour - When accountability is framed as weakness, humiliation, or treason.
Algorithmic Outrage - Anger personally curated for you, because raw emotion tests better than facts.
American Carnage - A selective slideshow of decline shown only when it benefits the speaker, paused immediately after inauguration.
B
Baseline Reality - The shared factual floor everyone pretends still exists while sawing through it.
Backroom Democracy - A governing style where decisions are made at donor dinners, then announced as “what the people want” after dessert.
Base Voter Cultivation - The careful fertilizing of anger, fear, and conspiracy until supporters are too devoted to notice nothing in their lives is improving.
Billionaire Philanthropy - The noble tradition of returning a spoonful of the fortune you looted and getting a hospital wing, a documentary, and a halo in return.
Bodily Autonomy (Conditional) - The principle that your body is yours, unless a legislature, court, or church board decides it’s actually community property.
Book Ban Evangelism - The holy mission to protect children from dangerous ideas by making sure they never learn to question the adults censoring their shelves.
Balance of Powers - The tug-of-war between Fox News and QAnon.
Bipartisanship - When Democrats surrender faster than usual.
Border Security - A fence that keeps brown people out but still lets avocados in.
Bravery - Retweeting a meme with a flag in it.
Budget Cuts - Eliminating unnecessary school lunches so billionaires can afford that third yacht.
Back the Blue - Worshiping the referee instead of playing the game.
Big Tent - A political party that’s both on fire and under renovation.
Bootstraps - Mythical straps attached to shoes no one can afford.
Brand Loyalty - Political identity by merch.
Bubble of Freedom - The comfort zone where no one disagrees with you.
Both Sides - A rhetorical tranquilizer used to sedate moral clarity. Deployed when one side sets a house on fire and the other suggests installing smoke detectors, insisting that everyone needs to calm down.
Breadwinner Myth - The belief that one paycheck used to support a family of five, a house, a dog, and a college fund—until it was murdered by minimum wage workers asking for lunch breaks.
Bad Faith - Arguing a position you don’t believe in, using facts you don’t respect, to reach an outcome you already decided on.
Ballot Integrity Theater - A pageant of audits, hearings, and solemn faces designed to reassure no one and delay everything.
Billionaire Populism - When a man with three yachts convinces you he understands grocery prices better than you do.
Border Crisis - A recurring TV special that spikes every election year and vanishes immediately afterward.
Brand Safety Patriotism - Loving your country loudly, but only in ways that won’t upset advertisers.
Break Glass Rhetoric - Emergency language deployed for minor inconveniences, then stored next to the nukes.
Broad Church Politics - A coalition so wide it includes arsonists, fire marshals, and people selling commemorative matches.
Broken Window Morality - Policing poverty aggressively while treating white-collar crime like a clerical error.
Both-Party Brain Poisoning - The condition of believing corruption is universal so accountability is pointless.
Bureaucratic Mercy - When the system ruins your life politely and calls it procedure.
C
Cancel Culture - The radical belief that consequences apply to you.
Checks and Balances - Cash donations and favorable policies.
Crisis Fatigue - The numb calm achieved after the fifth “end of democracy” headline before lunch.
Climate Change - A communist hoax invented by thermometers.
Communist - Anyone who thinks billionaires should pay taxes.
Conservative Values - Traditions that existed for eleven days in 1950, and never before or since.
Critical Race Theory - Advanced sorcery intended to make white people feel guilty.
Culture War - Yelling about cartoons while ignoring decaying infrastructure.
Cancel-Proof - Too rich to be held accountable.
Civil War (2.0) - Streaming soon, brought to you by gun sponsors.
Cloutocracy - Government by influencer.
Constitutional Originalism - 18th-century cosplay with real consequences.
Culture of Fear - The most successful export since reality TV.
Civility Politics - The doctrine that tone matters more than truth, injustice, or bodies on the floor. Often invoked to scold the people being harmed rather than the people doing the harming.
Corporate Personhood - The legal fiction that allows a company to have more rights than its employees, fewer consequences than a toddler, and the emotional depth of a toaster.
Campaign Promise - A limited-time fantasy offered during elections, void where prohibited by reality.
Carceral Common Sense - The belief that every social problem looks better through bars.
Centrist Gravity Well - The place bold ideas go to die slowly while everyone nods gravely.
Censorship Panic - Screaming “free speech!” because someone else finally spoke back.
Character Issue - A scandal euphemism meaning “we’d care if this were the other party.”
Charisma Substitution - Replacing policy with vibes and hoping no one asks follow-up questions.
Civic Illiteracy - A condition where strong opinions thrive despite total ignorance of how anything works.
Cold Civil War - All the hatred, none of the uniforms, sponsored by cable news.
Compliance Fatigue - The exhaustion that sets in after being asked, once again, to tolerate the intolerable.
Consent Manufacturing - Democracy as a focus group, where outcomes are tested, refined, and quietly pre-approved.
D
Deep State - The guy at the DMV who asked for two forms of ID.
Deficit - Something destroying America when Democrats are in charge, and vital for national security when not.
Democracy - A temporary condition lasting until the wrong people win.
Demographic Destiny - The terrifying future where someone unlike you exists statistically.
Disinformation - Free speech you disagree with.
Diversity - Hiring one woman under duress and calling it equality.
Drain the Swamp - Replace career politicians with career criminals.
Data Patriotism - Selling your privacy wrapped in a flag.
Deflection - The national reflex.
Denialism - The new literacy.
Doomscrolling - Civic engagement via thumb.
Doublethink Tank - A nonprofit dedicated to forgetting inconvenient facts.
Decorative Democracy - A system that looks impressive from a distance, functions mainly during elections, and is otherwise kept behind velvet ropes labeled Do Not Touch.
Donor Class - The unelected branch of government that never misses a meeting, never waits in line, and somehow always gets its calls returned.
Democracy per Barrel - A sliding scale of freedom measured in daily output, adjusted for sanctions and cable news enthusiasm.
Damage Control - The phase where truth is triaged, allies are briefed, and accountability is escorted out a side door.
Data Laundering - Running lies through charts, think tanks, and acronyms until they come out “credible.”
Dead Cat Strategy - Throwing something shocking on the table so no one notices the body already there.
Debt Patriotism - Borrowing trillions in the name of freedom, then lecturing the poor about responsibility.
Decency Trap - The rule that only applies to people trying not to be monsters.
Default Cynicism - Mistaking emotional numbness for wisdom.
Democracy Adjacent - Authoritarianism with better branding and fewer uniforms.
Desperation Politics - When fear replaces policy and threats replace plans.
Disaster Capitalism Lite - Profiting from crisis without the courtesy of rebuilding afterward.
Disposable Constituents - Voters whose suffering is considered acceptable collateral.
Data-Driven Tyranny - The art of using spreadsheets, focus groups, and predictive models to prove scientifically that whatever helps the powerful most is “what people want.”
Decorum Shield - The rule that cruelty delivered calmly in a suit is respectable, while justified anger in plain clothes is “uncivil” and thus ignorable.
Deplatformed Reality - The collection of facts, histories, and bodies quietly removed from the conversation so the official story doesn’t develop a conscience.
Demagogue Dividend - The political profit earned when a loud liar convinces millions that their rage is a plan and their paranoia is patriotism.
Disaster-Ready Democracy - A system meticulously designed to respond to every crisis with hearings, hashtags, and absolutely no structural change.
E
Election Fraud - The act of counting votes you didn’t like.
Election Integrity - Only the elections we win.
Enlightened Centrism - Standing firmly nowhere while congratulating yourself for balance.
Elite - Anyone who pronounces “quinoa” correctly.
Entitlement Programs - Money your neighbor gets; your Social Security is totally different.
Equality - The dangerous belief that you don’t outrank your waiter.
Executive Privilege - The right to say “no comment” in legal Latin.
Echo Chamber - A safe space for the dangerously certain.
Economic Anxiety - Racism with a spreadsheet.
Election Denier - Nostalgic historian of an election that never ended.
Eternal Victimhood - America’s new religion.
Exceptionalism - The delusion that geography guarantees virtue.
Empathy Gap - The invisible border where compassion abruptly ends once suffering belongs to the wrong ZIP code, party, or news network.
Emergency Powers - Temporary authority that lasts exactly until the next crisis, and then the one after that, and then forever.
Economic Freedom - The liberty to be exploited without complaint.
Education Panic - Fear that children might learn something inconvenient.
Effective Altruism - Charity optimized to feel moral while changing as little as possible.
Electability Myth - The belief that voters want less of what they say they want.
Emergency Narrative - A crisis declared just urgent enough to bypass democracy, but never urgent enough to solve.
Enemy of the People - Anyone who publishes facts without checking with power first.
Enforced Normalcy - Pretending everything is fine because acknowledging collapse would be rude.
Ethics Inquiry - A ritual cleansing ceremony performed after the damage is done.
Evidence-Based Outrage - Anger permitted only when backed by polling.
Existential Threat - A term reserved for cultural change, never climate change.
Election-Proof Policy - Legislation crafted so vaguely, slowly, and incompetently that it survives any outcome because it accomplishes nothing detectable.
Ego Federalism - The doctrine that states’ rights matter deeply, especially when a governor wants to cosplay president on cable news.
Emotional Nationalism - Loving your country so intensely you forget to check whether your country loves you back.
Empire Maintenance Fee - The perpetual cost of keeping distant interests secure, billed to taxpayers who can’t find those countries on a map.
Erosion of Expectation - The slow national slide where people stop asking for justice, settle for survival, and praise crumbs as progress.
F
Fake News - Any statement that causes you mild emotional discomfort.
Family Values - Rules that apply to other families, not yours.
Filibuster - The noble art of reading the phone book out loud to kill Medicare.
Founding Fathers - Historical ventriloquist dummies used to say whatever you need today.
Freedom - The ability to carry an AR-15 into a Dairy Queen without being judged.
Free Speech - Your right to scream, their duty to shut the fuck up.
Fringe Candidate - Someone who lost the primary but gained a podcast.
Fact Resistant - Proudly allergic to evidence.
Faith-Based Science - The lab coat of the pious.
Filibusterer’s Remorse - Regretting democracy mid-monologue.
Flag Abuse - Wrapping tyranny in stars and stripes.
Freedom Fries Redux - When patriotism tastes like cold potatoes.
Freedom Costume - Tactical gear, flag cape, and moral certainty worn in public so no one mistakes confusion for courage.
Fiscal Responsibility - A sacred principle invoked only when feeding the poor, educating children, or repairing bridges; mysteriously absent during wars, bailouts, and tax cuts for yachts.
Freedom Drilling - Penetrating sovereignty in the name of liberty, markets, and shareholder value.
Fair and Balanced - A promise to lie to you politely from both directions.
False Equivalence - Treating arson and fire alarms as equally extreme positions.
Fear-Based Governance - Ruling by keeping everyone too panicked to notice the grift.
Fetishization of the Flag - Confusing national symbols with moral character.
Fiscal Hawk - A politician who can smell food stamps from three zip codes away but is blind to defense contracts.
Foundational Myth - A comforting lie elevated to scripture so no one has to fix anything.
Freedom of Choice - Sacred when applied to guns and healthcare refusal, sinful everywhere else.
Frictionless Authoritarianism - Losing rights so smoothly you don’t notice until the app stops loading.
Frontline Worker - Someone we applauded loudly and paid poorly until they became inconvenient again.
Future Generations - Imaginary people invoked to block action that might actually help real ones.
Flag-Based Reasoning - The airtight logic that whatever happens near a flagpole is automatically noble, correct, and beyond the reach of follow-up questions.
Fear Dividend - The political profit margin extracted from keeping citizens permanently spooked, jumpy, and too overwhelmed to demand anything concrete.
Fact-Optional Leadership - Governance performed with the confident swagger of someone who’s never let information interfere with a good headline.
Freedom Extraction - Removing liberties from the public the way miners remove ore: efficiently, lucratively, and with zero intention of restoring the landscape afterward.
Fugitive Accountability - The phenomenon where responsibility flees the scene the moment it hears lawyers warming up, only to reappear triumphantly at the next fundraiser.
G
Gas Prices - A mystical force controlled personally by whichever Democrat is in office.
Governance by Vibes - Making policy decisions based on which cable segment felt angriest.
Gerrymandering - Creative cartography that makes democracy decorative.
Gun Rights - Sacred liberties bestowed by the Founding Fathers, who definitely foresaw bump stocks and AK47’s.
Grassroots - Billionaire-funded movements cosplaying as angry farmers.
Great Replacement - Paranoid bedtime story for racists who can’t sleep owing to worries that the minimum wage may be enforced.
Gaslight Economy - Where prices rise because you imagined them.
Guilt-Free Colonialism - Exporting democracy with drone delivery.
Grievance Industry - Our leading sector.
Groomer Panic - Moral hysteria as political strategy.
Gun Idol - Weekly elimination show where only one amendment survives.
Gun Control - 1. Homicide/Suicide Reduction Attempts
2. Liberal efforts to murder your family by arming criminals
Government Overreach - Any policy that mildly inconveniences you, especially if it keeps other people alive.
Grievance Farming - The industrial cultivation of resentment, harvested seasonally and sold as identity, news, and campaign fuel.
Gameified Democracy - Treating elections like sports seasons where winning matters more than rules.
Generational Theft - Borrowing the future so the present doesn’t have to be inconvenienced.
Good Guy with a Gun Myth - A bedtime story told to avoid talking about math.
Governing Class - People who fail upward while insisting failure builds character.
Grandstanding - Mistaking volume, posture, and camera awareness for leadership.
Grift Adjacent - Not illegal, just morally radioactive.
Groupthink Patriotism - Loyalty measured by how quickly you stop asking questions.
Guideline Fatigue - The point at which public health becomes a suggestion and death becomes background noise.
Gaslight Federalism - States’ rights until someone asks who’s responsible.
Grave Concern - The prelude to doing absolutely nothing.
H
Healthcare - A dangerous socialist plot to prevent bankruptcy.
Hall Pass Journalism - One free lie per day if you’re famous, rich, or useful.
Heritage - The polite word for racism when grandma is listening.
Homeland Security - TSA agents confiscating shampoo to stop terrorism.
Hypocrisy - The only bipartisan tradition left.
Hyper partisan - Pretending to hate compromise while secretly cashing lobbyist checks.
Hate Entrepreneur - Monetizing resentment.
History Optional - New national curriculum.
Homeland Revival - 1950s reruns in 4K.
Humble Billionaire - The oxymoron that launched a thousand yachts.
HyperReality - When the news feels scripted and the fiction feels true.
Hostile Neutrality - Loudly insisting you “don’t care about politics” while repeating every talking point of the angriest person on television.
Human Shield Rhetoric - Using children, veterans, or “the Founders” as moral body armor to protect indefensible policies from scrutiny.
Humanitarian Extraction - Bombing with compassion so the crude can feel safe coming out.
Hardworking Americans - A phrase meaning “people I like,” never the ones actually working the hardest.
Harm Reduction Panic - The terror that saving lives might accidentally imply moral complexity.
Headlines-as-Evidence - The practice of treating vibes, chyrons, and viral outrage as settled fact.
Heretical Facts - Data that contradicts the approved narrative and must therefore be punished.
Hero Worship - Confusing celebrity, rank, or volume with virtue.
Hostage Politics - Governing by threatening to break things unless you get what you want.
Human Capital - A polite way to describe people right before discarding them.
Hypothetical Freedom - Rights you’re assured you still have, provided you never try to use them.
Hysterical Tone - The accusation leveled at anyone who refuses to discuss their own oppression calmly enough.
Historical Literacy - A dangerous condition causing voters to notice patterns.
I
Impeachment - A meaningless ceremony performed when the president is from the other party.
Inflation - Proof that Democrats invented money to make you poor.
Ideological Gluten - Something everyone insists they’re allergic to but can’t define.
“Inaccurate” - Complete and utter horseshit
Insurrection - A sightseeing tour that gets out of hand.
Infrastructure - A campaign promise that dies in committee.
“Internet Freedom” - The liberty to scream slurs at strangers from mom’s basement.
“Identity Buffet” - Pick what offends you most, but save room to taste for others.
Immunity Idol - Found only in the pockets of the powerful.
Influencer Candidate - Runs for office; sells merch instead.
Institutional Amnesia - “We’ve always been at war with nuance.”
Irony Fatigue - When satire and news merge beyond recovery.
Information Triage - The practice of deciding which facts get emergency treatment, which are sent home with aspirin, and which are quietly allowed to die in the waiting room.
Inconvenient Reality - Any verifiable fact that ruins a perfectly good argument and therefore must be questioned, mocked, or blamed on the media.
International Law - “Fuhrer Princip”
Illiberal Democracy - Voting is permitted, outcomes are negotiable.
Impact Statement Politics - Judging policy exclusively by who it offends, never by who it helps.
Impartial Arbiter - A role claimed loudly by people already holding the knife.
Institutional Capture - When regulators start sounding exactly like the industries they’re supposed to regulate.
Intent Over Outcome - The belief that meaning well excuses measurable harm.
Invisible Handjob - The free market mysteriously rewarding the already powerful.
Inevitable Backlash - A prophecy invoked to justify cowardice in advance.
Information Asymmetry - When the public is expected to decide with one eye closed and both hands tied.
Innocent Until Useful - The presumption of virtue applied selectively to allies.
Insider Language - Jargon designed to make exclusion sound like expertise.
J
Job Creator - A billionaire who fires 5,000 people after a tax cut.
Judicial Activism - Any court ruling you dislike.
Justice - Prison for them, immunity for us.
Justice Deferred - The American way.
Judicial Minimalism - “We’d love to help, but it might upset rich people.”
Jobless Recovery - Prosperity without participants.
Judgment-Free Zone - Except for everyone else.
Jumbotron Patriotism - Love of country, sponsored by Pepsi.
Jury of Peers - Twelve people too broke to avoid service.
Judicial Roulette - The thrilling national game where your rights depend entirely on which judge you happened to draw that day.
Justice Signaling - Declaring absolute devotion to “law and order” until the law applies to someone you recognize, admire, or voted for.
Just Asking Questions - A performance of innocence used to launder conspiracy theories.
Judicial Capture - When courts stop interpreting the law and start auditioning for donors.
Justice Gap - The measurable distance between what the law promises and who it actually reaches.
Jailhouse Economics - The belief that incarceration is cheaper than solving problems, despite all evidence.
Jingoism Lite - Nationalism without the effort of understanding history or geography.
Journalistic Neutrality Theater - Treating truth and lies as equally valid viewpoints for balance.
Judicial Time Bomb - A lifetime appointment whose consequences won’t explode until decades later.
Justified Excess - Overreaction rebranded as necessary firmness.
Jurisdictional Shrug - The bureaucratic move where responsibility evaporates mid-sentence.
Justice as Brand Protection - Accountability pursued only when ignoring it might hurt ratings, polls, or sponsors.
K
Karl Marx - The boogeyman hiding under every college student’s futon.
Kneeling - A greater threat to America than lead in the water supply.
Kompromise - The art of losing loudly so your opponent doesn’t gloat too hard.
Keyboard Commando - Armed and outraged from the couch.
Karma Deficit - When consequences arrive for everyone else but somehow skip the powerful.
Kindness Tax - Emotional surcharge for decency.
Kleptocracy Lite - Fewer coups, same corruption.
Knowledge Gap - The canyon where truth goes to die.
Kool-Aid Nationalism - Sweet, lethal, and easy to swallow.
Kangaroo Court - A legal proceeding where the verdict arrives early and hops over the evidence.
Key Voter Bloc - A group loudly praised during campaigns and quietly ignored afterward.
Killjoy Politics - The accusation leveled at anyone who ruins a profitable injustice by pointing it out.
Kitchen Table Economics - A folksy metaphor used to avoid discussing actual numbers.
Knee-Jerk Bipartisanship - Compromising on principle before anyone asked.
Known Unknowns - Facts everyone understands privately but refuses to acknowledge publicly.
K Street Consensus - The remarkable agreement that always seems to benefit donors.
Kryptonite Word - A term (racism, fascism, inequality) that instantly ends the conversation by being “too extreme.”
Kafkaesque Accountability - Endless procedures designed to exhaust you into compliance, not justice.
Kinetic Diplomacy - Talking with bombs so no one has to listen.
L
Law and Order - Law for them, order for you.
Liberty Tokens - Freedom points redeemable only if you already have money.
Leadership - A Republican shouting “freedom” while handing corporate lobbyists a pen.
Leftist Lunatic - Anyone who disagrees with you, especially if they read books.
Liberal - A smug smart-ass who fact-checks your feelings.
Lobbyist - A human briefcase full of corporate money.
Lawfare - Justice as competitive sport.
Lawn Sign Diplomacy - Changing the world one plastic slogan at a time.
Legacy Media - Yesterday’s liars, today’s scapegoats.
Liberty Fatigue - When freedom feels like spam.
Loyal Opposition - Extinct species last seen in the 1980s.
Liberty Theater - An elaborate stage production where freedom is loudly proclaimed, carefully costumed, and never allowed to leave the building.
Liberation Corridor - The precise path pipelines take once the shooting stops and the contracts begin.
Lawful Violence - Harm that becomes acceptable the moment it’s issued a badge, a waiver, or a patriotic press release.
Law-Abiding Citizen - A status revoked the moment you protest, film a cop, or inconvenience power.
Legislative Gridlock - A manufactured traffic jam blamed on democracy itself.
Legitimacy Crisis - When institutions demand trust without earning it.
Lesser Evil Voting - Democracy’s version of harm reduction, now in its third decade.
Lifetime Appointment - A dare disguised as a safeguard.
Litmus Test Politics - Reducing complex human beings to a single approved opinion.
Local Control - The principle that communities know best, unless they elect the wrong people.
Logic-Free Zone - Any discussion where feelings outrank facts and volume counts as evidence.
Loyalty Oath Culture - Where agreement is mandatory and silence is suspicious.
Luxury Belief - A moral position that feels virtuous, costs nothing, and is paid for by someone else.
M
Mainstream Media - Any news outlet without a bald eagle in its logo.
Marxist - Person who once recycled a plastic bottle.
Media Literacy - A dangerous skill that ruins perfectly good outrage.
Moral Majority - A minority that yells loudly enough.
Mudslinging - Democracy’s national pastime.
Misinformation - The news you don’t want your uncle to see on Facebook.
Macho Populism - Alpha males with daddy issues.
Mass Delusion - Group project of the century.
Militia Cosplay - Halloween for the heavily armed.
Misinformation Economy - Lies with venture capital funding.
Moral Gymnastics - Gold medals in self-justification.
Metastasize - the word which, upon hearing, causes you to lose any further interest in your FICO score
Manufactured Outrage - A renewable energy source fueled by selective facts, cable news chyrons, and people who swear they “don’t even watch the news.”
Moral Panic Button - The big red switch politicians slam whenever their poll numbers dip, instantly summoning threats to children, bathrooms, cartoons, or God.
Manifest Density - The mysterious law of physics stating that oil attracts invasions the way mass attracts gravity.
Managed Decline - Letting things rot slowly enough that no one panics or resigns.
Market Solution - A proposal that assumes money will fix what money broke.
Meaningful Reform - Change described so vaguely it survives contact with donors.
Media Frenzy - A short, loud moral emergency that disappears the moment ratings dip.
Meritocracy Myth - The belief that winners earned everything and losers deserved it.
Message Discipline - Saying the wrong thing perfectly on purpose.
Middle America - A sentimental abstraction invoked to ignore actual people in actual places.
Militarized Politeness - Enforcing order with a smile, a badge, and overwhelming force.
Moral Hazard (Selective) - A concern raised only when poor people might benefit.
Movement Fatigue - The burnout experienced by people asked to save democracy every election cycle with no structural backup.
N
National Security - Justification for spying on your browser history.
Negotiate - To explain politely why we’re not compromising.
National Mood Swing - The hourly oscillation between civil war and brunch.
NRA - The most successful church in America.
Narrative - A story you tell to pretend your side has morals.
Neocon - A hawk who still thinks Iraq was a good idea.
National Gaslight - Annual patriotic tradition.
Nepo Patriot - Born on third base, saluting the home plate.
News Desert - The Sahara between ads.
No-Fly Facts - Information too dangerous for takeoff.
Normalized Madness - The new baseline.
Nation of Laws - A slogan meaning rules exist, enforcement optional.
Negative Partisanship - Voting not for anything, but against the thing you’re told to fear.
Neutral Arbiter Fantasy - The comforting belief that someone, somewhere, is calling balls and strikes honestly.
Next Crisis Doctrine - The habit of postponing solutions until the next emergency makes them unavoidable.
Noise-to-Signal Ratio - The mathematical proof that shouting beats substance.
Nonpartisan (Adj.) - Politically aligned, but offended by the accusation.
Not a Good Look - The moment morality is reduced to aesthetics.
National Divorce - A violent metaphor used by people who refuse to move out.
Narrative Discipline - The quiet removal of facts that complicate the story.
Necessary Casualties - People harmed far from the microphone, declared acceptable by those who never meet them.
O
Obstruction of Justice - Due process but make it optional.
Open Borders - The nightmare scenario of letting in Canadians without background checks.
Oppression Olympics - Competitive grievance judged exclusively by volume and merch sales.
Out of Touch - Anyone who knows how the internet works.
Outrage Cycle - The 24-hour rinse-repeat drama factory.
Oversight - Pretending to investigate while secretly fundraising.
Oblivion Loop - The 24-hour news cycle.
Offense Farming - Harvesting outrage for profit.
Open Carry Empathy - None detected.
Optics Management - Governing by Instagram filter.
Oil With American Characteristics - A foreign natural resource that becomes virtuous the moment it’s under U.S. management.
Orwellian Nostalgia - Missing the days when lies were elegant.
Official Narrative - The version of events you’re encouraged to repeat until it replaces memory.
Operational Secrecy - Classified not for national safety, but for reputational hygiene.
Order Without Justice - Stability achieved by silencing the inconvenient.
Outcomes-Based Excuses - Arguing that harm is acceptable if the spreadsheet looks good.
Overton Window Dressing - Making extreme ideas palatable by accessorizing them with calm voices and suits.
Ownership Society - You own the risk; someone else owns the profit.
Oligarch Envy - The belief that corruption is fine as long as it’s domestic.
Opt-Out Democracy - Civic participation reduced to choosing which injustices you’ll ignore.
Organized Amnesia - The coordinated forgetting required to maintain moral consistency.
Operational Fatigue - The point at which endless crises stop feeling urgent and start feeling permanent.
P
Patriot - One who loves America so much they threaten civil war weekly.
Pro-Democracy Sanctions (Pre-Justification Phase) - Starving civilians now so we can save them later.
Political Assassination (Democrat Victim) - An unfortunate but useful lesson in the essential elements of the Second Amendment.
Political Assassination (Republican Victim) - The gravest crime in human history, directly a result of Leftist Liberal Lunatics.
Policy-Free Politics - Elections decided entirely by vibes, fear, and yard signs.
Populism - Billionaires cosplaying as farmers.
Pro-Life - Fiercely protective of embryos, indifferent to everyone after birth.
Propaganda - Journalism with a flag filter.
Paranoia Economy – GDP of fear.
Patriarchal Feminism – “You’re free, sweetheart, as long as I approve.”
Performance Patriotism – Flag-waving as personality.
Post-Truth – The era where sincerity dies of exposure.
Prophet Margin – The profit in pretending to care.
Petro-Democracy - The sudden discovery that a country’s oil reserves were actually ballots all along.
Plausible Deniability - The official policy of “I didn’t know,” drafted in advance and notarized by a spokesperson.
Permanent Campaign - Governing reduced to fundraising, polling, and blaming the other side for not being governed.
Permission Structure - The social ritual where adults pretend they need a pundit’s approval to believe their own eyes.
Personality Politics - When charisma replaces competence and vibes stand in for legislation.
Policy Laundering - Sneaking unpopular ideology into law through neutral names, complex language, and sleepy committee hearings.
Price of Freedom - A phrase used to justify any misery except the kind that inconveniences donors.
Protest Tourism - Showing up for the selfie, leaving before the consequences.
Public-Private Partnership - Privatize the profits, socialize the losses, call it innovation.
Punishment Culture - The national hobby of confusing cruelty with order.
Patriotic Amnesia - Forgetting what your country did yesterday so you can applaud it today.
Q
QAnon - Bible study for people who hate reading.
Quorum - The number of senators required to ignore healthcare.
Question Authority - Encouraged until you ask the wrong questions.
Quiet Part Out Loud - When a politician forgets to use their “inside racism voice.”
Quarantine of Facts - Keeping reality six feet away.
Quasi-Fascism - Training wheels for tyranny.
Quiet Quitting Democracy - Low-energy coup participation.
Quid Pro Voter - Ballots exchanged for merch.
Quantum Patriotism - Exists only when observed.
Qualifying Outrage - The ritual where anger must be justified with the correct credentials before it’s allowed in the room.
Quality-of-Life Crime - “Offenses” like being poor in public, sleeping outside, or existing where wealthy people can see you.
Quarterly Democracy - A system where policy horizons end at the next earnings call.
Question-Shaped Answer - A leading question engineered to smuggle in its own conclusion.
Quota of Cruelty - The amount of suffering required before the public is permitted to notice, briefly, between commercials.
Quiet Censorship - Not banning speech outright—just throttling it, shadowing it, and burying it under ten tons of louder garbage.
Quarantine of Accountability - The emergency procedure where consequences are isolated, monitored, and never allowed to spread to powerful people.
Quasi-Expert - Someone with a microphone, a confident tone, and exactly zero obligation to be correct tomorrow.
Quid Pro Quo Amnesia - Forgetting the deal the instant it’s exposed, while insisting it was “normal politics” anyway.
Quantum Flip-Flop - Holding two contradictory positions at once, collapsing into whichever one benefits you when observed by cameras.
R
Radical Lunatic Leftist - Anyone left of Ronald Reagan.
RINO - A Republican who accidentally tells the truth.
Rights - Things we keep until the Supreme Court decides otherwise.
Rubber Stamp - Congress on autopilot.
Rural Voter - The most courted person in America, provided they hate cities.
Rebranding Failure - Calling collapse “transition” and hoping no one notices.
Reality Optional - Subscription required.
Red Hat Theology - Faith without evidence, only merch.
Reform Fatigue - The exhaustion of pretending things might improve.
Revisionist History Channel - Entertainment for the comfortably wrong.
Rural Exceptionalism - Virtue by ZIP code.
Regime Lubrication - The process by which tanks, talking points, and TV generals are smoothly greased with moral certainty.
Rage Bait Governance - Legislating like an influencer: provoke outrage, harvest clicks, call it leadership.
Reputation Laundering - Letting a monster rebrand as “controversial but effective” because time passed and donors nodded.
Reactionary Nostalgia - Missing a past that never existed, then voting like you can order it again off the menu.
Reality Compliance Training - The daily discipline of pretending the obvious isn’t obvious so you can stay “reasonable.”
Red State Reality Show - Politics as entertainment where suffering is the set dressing and the sponsors always win.
Righteousness Rent - The emotional payment required to keep your moral self-image, due monthly, payable in indignation.
Rule of Law Cosplay - Wearing legal language like armor while doing whatever the hell you wanted anyway.
Regulatory Capture (with Sprinkles) - Agencies “overseeing” industries the way a golden retriever “guards” a steak.
Retaliation Patriotism - Loving your country mainly as a weapon to punish people you hate.
Revenge Voting - Ballots cast not to build a future, but to make someone else miserable in the present.
S
School Shooter - A vessel for sending “thoughts and prayers.”
Second Amendment - The only sentence in the Constitution worth memorizing.
Socialist - A nurse who wants to be paid.
Selective Liberty - Freedom for me, a background check for thee.
Supreme Court - Lifetime cosplay convention for unelected priests in robes.
Spin - The art of polishing a dumpster fire until it looks like freedom.
State’s Rights - The God-given right to be backwards at a local level.
Sanctioned Ignorance - Government-approved stupidity.
Scapegoat Olympics - Every election year.
Self-Censorship - Free speech’s awkward cousin.
Shadow Government - The real one’s decoy.
Strategic Stability Operation - War, but only the parts that make gas prices feel patriotic.
Shamelessness - The new national costume.
Selective Outrage - Moral clarity that activates only when the offender wears the wrong jersey.
Sanctimony Subsidy - The invisible payment certain pundits receive for acting holier-than-thou while doing nothing.
Security Theater - Expensive rituals that create feelings of safety while solving the wrong problem beautifully.
Slogan Replacement Policy - Swapping legislation for catchphrases and calling it momentum.
Scandal Inflation - Everything is a “historic outrage” until nothing is, and then the real crimes get priced out of attention.
Surveillance-as-Service - Trading privacy for convenience, then applauding the app for “keeping you safe.”
Stability Fetish - The belief that “calm” is more important than justice, especially when calm benefits the comfortable.
Soft Coup Denial - “It’s not a coup if the paperwork is neat,” said while democracy quietly bled out in a conference room.
Sanity Tax - The emotional fee charged to anyone who still reads sources, checks claims, and refuses to pick a conspiracy.
Sympathy Shield - Using tragedy, family, faith, or “respect” as armor so no one can ask questions without being called evil.
T
“Two Weeks” - A time frame just beyond the visible extent of the universe.
“Taken out of context” - I forgot that this was being recorded, you motherfucker.
Tax Relief - Generous rewards for billionaires so they can finally make ends meet.
TDS/Trump Derangement Syndrome - Loyalty to the United States Constitution.
Thoughts and Prayers - The official substitute for policy.
Theatrics of Governance - Lawmaking as performance art with no intermission.
Treason - Breathing as a Democrat.
Trump - The sun around which the outrage solar system orbits.
Triggered - The condition of anyone who heard a fact today.
Two-Party System - Pick your flavor of corporate overlord.
Tactical Ignorance - “I didn’t read the report.”
Talking Point Tourette’s - Involuntary punditry.
Term Limit Theater - The illusion of change.
Truth Decay - Chronic condition of the republic.
Twitter Patriot - 280-character revolutionaries.
Time Dilation - A purely subjective but brutally reliable phenomenon in which time expands or contracts based on how much ideological damage your brain is taking.
One minute listening to a political opponent explain something they don’t understand stretches into an epoch measured in sighs, eye-twitches, and the sudden awareness of your own mortality.
Meanwhile, an hour hearing someone articulate exactly what you’ve been screaming into the void passes so fast it leaves a vapor trail.
Closely related to algebra tests, cable news panels, and congressional hearings, Time Dilation proves that while physics insists time is relative, politics confirms it’s also punitive.
Targeted Transparency - Releasing “the facts” in carefully edited slices so the public sees just enough to stop asking.
Tough-On-Crime LARP - Cosplaying as Batman while defunding the things that actually reduce crime.
Taxpayer Rage Transfer - Converting justified anger about corporate theft into hatred of teachers, librarians, and food stamps.
Teflon Accountability - A coating applied to powerful people that makes consequences slide off like rain on a waxed SUV.
Tragedy Leasing - Borrowing someone’s grief for a press conference, then returning it unopened with a flag pin.
Truth Sandwich - One accurate statement between two lies, served so “fact-checkers” look petty complaining about the bread.
Total Freedom (Terms Apply) - Liberty marketed as unlimited, throttled the moment you try to use it.
Technocratic Shrug - “It’s complicated” said with a sigh, as if complexity means nobody is responsible.
Talking-Point Parasite - A phrase that enters the brain through cable news and feeds on nuance until only slogans remain.
Temporary Emergency Forever - The magical government power that lasts exactly as long as it’s useful and no longer.
“Transgender For Everyone” - What the fuck does this even mean?
“Thank you for your attention to this matter.” - Fuck You
U
Un-American - Watching soccer, recycling, or asking questions.
Undecided Voter - A unicorn spotted every four years.
Unlearning - The horrifying process of realizing you were confidently wrong.
Unity - When everyone agrees with us completely.
Useful Idiot - A pawn who thinks they’re playing chess.
Unreality TV - Where democracy goes to die laughing.
Unverified Patriotism - Pending fact-check.
Upward Failure - The primary qualification for leadership.
Urban Legend - Anything that happened to someone’s cousin.
Unilateral Mercy - Forgiveness granted to the powerful without asking the victims, because “we have to move on.”
Unelected Veto - When donors, courts, or party elders kill a policy without ever appearing on a ballot.
Urgency Theater - “We must act NOW” (fundraising link below), followed by months of doing nothing with spectacular intensity.
Unthinkable Until Tuesday - The idea that sounded insane yesterday, normalized today, and is policy by next news cycle.
Umbrella Cynicism - A worldview so broadly “everyone’s corrupt” that it keeps you dry from ever having to care or act.
User Agreement Democracy - Your rights are intact as long as you click “I Agree” and never read the terms (or the bills).
Upward Accountability - The bizarre system where the people least responsible for outcomes are the ones punished first.
Unreciprocated Civility -Being asked to stay polite while someone else sets your rights on fire and calls you “emotional.”
Undercover Extremism - Radical policy smuggled in wearing a sweater vest labeled “common sense.”
Utility Patriotism - Loving the country only when it’s useful as a weapon, a brand, or an excuse.
Unfettered Capitalism - Freedom for corporations, handcuffs for workers.
V
Vaccine - A microchip delivery system courtesy of Bill Gates.
Values - The things you scream about right before taking a lobbyist’s check.
Values Drift - When principles slowly float away but the slogans remain.
Voter Fraud - Grandma mailing in her ballot.
Virtue Signaling - Publicly pretending to care, unlike the honest hypocrites.
Viral Outrage - The only bipartisan contagion.
Voter Suppression - Democracy’s fine print.
Victory Lap of Lies - The post-truth parade.
Virtue Deficit - National debt, moral edition.
Voluntary Ignorance - Bliss, but make it patriotic.
Validation Economy - Where truth is determined by engagement, and engagement is determined by anger.
Veto by Outrage - Killing policy by whipping up a mob loud enough that leaders pretend their hands are tied.
Victimhood Credentialing - The process of ranking suffering to decide whose pain is allowed in the room.
Vibes-Based Governance - Legislating by mood, optics, and whatever phrase tested best in the focus group.
Viral Expertise - Being considered qualified because your bad take got 2 million views and a blue check.
Volatility Dividend - The profit (political or financial) earned by keeping everyone anxious and unstable.
Virtue as Insurance - Posting the “right” sentiment preemptively so you can do something shitty later with cover.
Visibility Penalty - The rule that if you name a problem directly, you become the problem for “making it political.”
Voter Outreach (Hostile) - A campaign strategy where you “reach” voters mainly to punish them for existing.
Verification Fatigue - The exhaustion that sets in after the thousandth lie, when fact-checking starts to feel like shoveling snow in a blizzard.
W
War - God’s way of teaching Americans geography
Welfare - Socialism for the poor.
Weaponized Confusion - Deliberately muddying facts so no one knows what to oppose.
Whistleblower - Traitor who ruined the surprise.
Woke - Condition caused by reading a book without parental supervision.
War on Christmas - Seasonal marketing campaign disguised as persecution.
White Working Class - Media’s favorite endangered species.
Weaponized Nostalgia - The past, but with bullets.
White Fragility Parade - Floats sponsored by denial.
Winning the News Cycle - Losing everything else.
Worship Economy - Idols, hashtags, and profit margins.
Wrathocracy - Government by perpetual tantrum.
Whip Count Democracy - Governing reduced to tallying threats, favors, and donor calls until “principle” is a rounding error.
Whataboutism Insurance - A policy that covers any scandal as long as you can point at someone else’s older scandal.
Weaponized Procedure - Using rules, delays, and “process” as a cudgel to kill accountability without leaving fingerprints.
Wellness Fascism - The belief that society would be fine if people just ate better, exercised more, and stopped asking for rights.
Working Families (Trademark) - A phrase used to bless policies that quietly screw working families.
Wall-to-Wall Panic - News coverage calibrated to keep you terrified, exhausted, and too distracted to notice who’s picking your pocket.
White Paper Alchemy - Turning a lobbyist memo into “research” by stapling it to a PDF and adding graphs.
Warrior Cosplay - Tactical gear, social media bravado, and zero actual courage when confronted with reality or consequences.
Wedge Issue Mining - Digging up social conflict like coal: dirty, profitable, and guaranteed to poison the air.
Wish-Casting Policy - Replacing legislation with slogans and vibes, then acting shocked when reality doesn’t comply.
X
Xenophobia - Family tradition disguised as patriotism.
X-tra Judicial - The way we like executions best.
X-Factor - That magical quality a candidate has until they speak in public.
Xeno-Exceptionalism - Loving America for hating outsiders.
X-Ray Patriotism - Sees through facts.
X-Treme Center - Radical moderation with teeth.
Xenial Tyranny - Smiling politely while dismantling rights.
Xenocratic Elite - Foreign investors buying patriotism wholesale.
Xylophone Patriot - Makes noise, no melody.
X (as a Verb) - The modern solution to disagreement: delete, ban, shadow, deplatform, or “handle,” then call it community standards.
Xenoglossia of Outrage - Speaking fluent moral panic despite not understanding a single fact in the language.
Xenophobic Merit Badge - The reward you get for saying “I’m not racist, but…” with confidence and a flag backdrop.
Xeroxed Principles - The same recycled talking points copied from yesterday’s outrage and sold as conviction.
Xerox Democracy - A process where the results are pre-printed and everyone just argues about toner.
X-Acto Civics - Cutting rights with surgical precision while insisting it’s “just a small correction.”
Xylophonic Debate - A political argument that’s all loud clacking noise, no melody, and somehow still performed on Sunday shows.
X-Files Governance - Policy made from rumors, vibes, anonymous sources, and a deep belief the truth is “out there” but inconvenient.
Xeno-Scapegoat Protocol - When something breaks, immediately blame immigrants, cities, “globalists,” or whichever outsider is trending.
Xploitative Freedom - Liberty rebranded as the right of powerful people to treat everyone else like disposable parts.
Y
Yellow Journalism - News stories that are only red if they help us.
Youth Vote - A terrifying mob of 19-year-olds who’ve seen TikTok.
Yes Man - The backbone of every administration.
Year Zero Politics - Every morning is the apocalypse.
Yellow Tape Justice - Crime scenes as campaign ads.
Yield Curve of Conscience - In perpetual inversion.
Yes-But Politics - Agreeing with justice in theory while opposing it in practice.
Youth Indoctrination - Education, but scary.
Yard Sign Theology - The belief that a printed slogan is a substitute for thinking, voting, or knowing what a bill does.
YouTube University - An accredited institution where vibes are evidence and the comment section is peer review.
Yielding to “Common Sense” - The ritual of surrendering to the dumbest possible solution because it polls well.
Your Rights, Pending - Civil liberties delivered like a package: delayed, rerouted, and “out for delivery” forever.
Yell-to-Lead Ratio - The measurable truth that some politicians confuse volume with competence.
Yesteryear Purity Myth - The fantasy that America was once perfect, until someone asked for equality and ruined the vibes.
Yes-You-Can’t Politics - Campaigning on hope, governing on excuses, and calling it maturity.
Youth Panic Dividend - The profit earned by convincing adults that teenagers’ vocabulary is the end of civilization.
Yellow Brick Road to Nowhere - The optimistic policy pathway paved with slogans that leads directly back to the status quo.
“You’re Being Divisive” - A scolding spell cast whenever you name a problem clearly enough that it can’t hide anymore.
Yuppie Revolution - Resistance with wine pairings.
Z
Zero Tolerance - Maximum punishment for minimum behavior, provided you’re poor.
Zoning Laws - The art of keeping affordable housing out of your neighborhood.
Zombie Voter - The only Democrat Republicans are sure exists.
Zero Accountability - The American Dream 2.0.
Zombie Economy - Capitalism’s afterlife.
Zoom Patriotism - Love of country from the waist up.
Zuckerbergian Democracy - Terms and conditions apply.
Zero-Day Democracy - A system so full of exploits that by the time you notice one, it’s already been patched over with a lie.
Zombie Accountability - The appearance of consequences shambling around long after the real thing has died.
Zoning by Exclusion - Urban planning that insists it’s about “character” while making sure the wrong people can’t afford to live nearby.
Zuckerberg Defense - “The algorithm did it” spoken as a prayer for absolution.
Zealotry Lite - Extremism with a smile, a podcast mic, and plausible deniability.
Zero-Risk Leadership - A governing philosophy that guarantees nothing improves, but no donor is ever startled.
Zigzag Principle - A moral stance flexible enough to reverse itself between breakfast TV and the evening news.
Zoomer Panic - The fear that young people understand the internet, history, and power structures better than you do.
Zookeeper Journalism - Treating dangerous ideologies like exotic animals: fascinating, hands-off, and never confronted directly.
Zone of Moral Silence - The space where atrocities are acknowledged briefly, sighed over deeply, and then never mentioned again.
Zero-Sum Patriotism - The belief that someone else gaining dignity means you lost America.
Zeitgeist Exhaustion - Nation too tired to care.
