Words are Trump’s weapons

“Welcome to the new War Department — the era of the Defense Department is over.” With these words, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a radical change in the role and mission of his department and of the United States Armed Forces. In late September, at an exceptional and hastily arranged meeting, Hegseth convened more than 800 generals and admirals of the U.S. military at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, a few miles from Washington, D.C. Many of them traveled for hours to hear the secretary’s impassioned proclamation. The theatrical and liturgical display of the meeting was unprecedented, unusual in peacetime, and grandiose. Like everything surrounding the communication of Trump and his entourage. Hegseth sought a historic moment, although it was nothing more than a histrionic, excessive, and unprofessional one. But he announced it. That is the reality, and the fact.

All of Trump’s excesses, ranging from his provocative threats to crude mockery, hurtful comparisons, and public contempt, paint a picture of a narcissistic and “alcoholic” personality, as defined by Susie Wiles, the president’s all-powerful chief of staff. And, although they shock us, they reveal something very important: Trump cannot stop saying what he thinks and what he is going to do. He acts without restraint, without a seatbelt, without an airbag. His need for absolute and global prominence leads him to lay bare his obsessions and visions. There is no more calculation, no possibility of underestimation. Trump is dying to make all his verbal fantasies a reality, to turn words into actions. There is no turning back. And the world has been warned. There is no need to speculate, interpret, or decipher. It’s all crystal clear, blatantly clear. “Welcome to the new War Department,” we were warned.

Hegseth’s speech and Trump’s latest statements reflect that words — though lacking any literary brilliance, not that any is desired — are now the preferred weapons of this megalomaniacal imperial vision. A crude, brutal, aggressive, and insulting rhetoric. But one that is increasingly mimicked and subservient to the militarization of politics (from deterrence to action)... and of communication. Not only are conflicts militarized, but also the stagecraft of power: there are “surgical” operations, war as a media spectacle, performative leadership (Trump as a showrunner). Foreign policy is becoming content for domestic consumption.

To better understand the role of language — and its staging — in Trump’s hyper-leadership, one must turn to semioticians, philologists, and linguists. The book Eternal Fascism replicates a lecture given by the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco at Columbia University on April 25, 1995. Eco aimed to warn that fascism can return at any moment, and we shouldn’t wait for it to take the same form as it did in the totalitarian movements and governments that ravaged Europe before World War II. The author starts from the premise that “linguistic habits are often important symptoms of unexpressed feelings.” Therefore, words are the new mental and physical maps. Trump expresses hidden, unconfessable, shameful feelings. It awakens the autocrat, misogynist, and racist within us. Eco warns against the “cult of action for action’s sake.” Action is beautiful in itself and, therefore, must be carried out without any reflection. Thinking is a form of castration. For this reason, culture is suspect, since it is identified with critical attitudes. In short, for Eco, fascism is all around us, but in forms far less recognizable than we would like to believe. It can return, and do so with the most innocent appearances. That is why he emphasizes that our duty is “to unmask it and point out each of its new forms.”

Despite his limited vocabulary and arguments, Trump is using words — like a broad brush — to redefine the limits of the world, the limits of thought. And he does so not because he knows, believes, or wants to… but because he can. “The limits of my language are the limits of my world,” stated the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, highlighting the profound connection between language and our understanding of the world. Never has a quote been more apt.

Let’s return to Hegseth’s speech and his reckless fascination with proclaiming his vision, his irrepressible desire to break boundaries, his vital need to demonstrate that he can speak without restraint: “War is something you do sparingly on our own terms and with clear aims. We fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.” All very clear, premonitory, and prophetic.