PSA to fellow Anti-Trump People

@Keraunos Whether I am or not is irrelevant, but the majority of the American people, who don't know much about politics, are going to use the one given by Google. I genuinely believe that if you smear Trump as being populist, that's more likely to gain him support than lose him support.

So you consider it more desirable to frame something in terms that will guide extremely uneducated people into having the opinions you want them to have, than to just try to describe it accurately? You might do quite well in electoral politics yourself.

@Keraunos No, I consider it more desirable to use words which are more likely to convey to people the thought in my head, rather than the polar opposite of the thought in my head.

What I mean is, regarding

[quote]I genuinely believe that if you smear Trump as being populist, that's more likely to gain him support than lose him support.[/quote]

, it is not supposed to be about "smearing" him or trying to shape anyone's perspectives of him. Although populism generally carries some moderately negative connotations, the important thing is: [i]"populist" accurately describes Trump[/i]. You cannot go into a discussion about something intending to knowingly deny that it is what it is just because you're afraid the person you're talking to might not know what a particular word means. That problem is solved by explaining to them the meaning of the word in question.

I mean, I guess you [i]can[/i] go into a discussion with those intentions, but don't expect anyone else to see a point to it or play along with you.

@Keraunos I go into every discussion with the intention of conveying to people clearly exactly what I intend to convey. Populist is a VERY misleading word, like "inflammable," which means "flammable." Since people already don't know what I mean when I say "liberal," I wouldn't want to be more confusing than necessary.

You are honestly the first person I've spoken to in my life who has perceived any ambiguity in the definition of "populist", but if you personally don't like using it, that's of course all well and good. Again, though, it means what it means, most people use it that way, Trump is a populist, and it's unreasonable to expect anyone [i]else[/i] to not call black black just because you claim it could confuse someone.

As for "liberal", with its myriad historical contexts — that word really has by now become something into which anyone feels entitled to inject whatever content they like. I could not be more supportive of you and anyone else who uses it being [i]very[/i] clear on what they mean by it to avoid misunderstandings. But "populist" really does just have the one general meaning, and any confusion in its case can be quickly remedied by supplying it.