Words as Weapons

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat”. Perhaps one of the most famous quotes ever uttered by a politician, Prime Minister Winston Churchill used this to rally the British people during World War II. The use of words have always been one of the greatest powers (if used correctly) wielded by those in power, yet in recent years they have been used not to rally a nation but rather as political weapons to polarise, villainise and stoke flames of division. It is important to note that this weaponisation of words transcends political affiliations with words being used by parties across the political spectrum to villianise other parties. This article will focus upon the political right’s weaponisation of words against the political left due to its deliberate usage by certain current leaders. 

One such example can be found in the semantic bleaching of the word “woke”. It has become a term used to denote and mock the views of the political left in its entirety, yet originally it was tied to the idea of one possessing a specific awareness of the mechanisms of ‘anti-blackness’ and racial discrimination. It has been transformed from a term of empowerment detailing ‘waking’ up and standing against intense and inherent discrimination to a pejorative term utilised by even the highest of global powers (like Donald Trump’s White House). President Trump passed an executive order on 23^rd July, 2025 titled “Preventing woke AI in the Federal Government” which aimed at blocking “ideological biases” from AI, one of which “one of the most pervasive and destructive of these ideologies” was DEI programmes. This encapsulates the weaponisation of the word “woke”. It no longer describes its originally meaning but instead has become a weapon used to belittle the ideas of the political left. This creates a polarising, and separated political climate, which inspires division rather than cohesion.

Moreover, this weaponisation of the word “woke” has become intertwined and solidified within the cultural zeitgeist, with it being used as a derogatory term to describe anything perceived as a ‘radical, politically-left’ viewpoint within general society. President Trump declared a war upon woke in a speech given during a joint session of congress in 2025. As the elected leader of the United States of America, his frequent weaponisation of the word “woke” sets a precedent within his party and his supporters leading to its continued misuse as a derogatory term. Actor Zachary Levi (known for voicing Flynn Rider in Disney’s “Tangled”) shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) describing woke as “any ideology that sacrifices logic, reason, rational thought, wisdom, knowledge, history, and facts on the altar of socio-political agenda…”. This paints a picture of the extreme transformation of the meaning of this highly-devisive word, from a term illustrating an innate social awareness to a description of someone or something overly sensitive or radical, lacking in intellect or critical thinking.

Thus, words are perhaps the most powerful weapon used by politicians to mold and contort public opinion with George Orwell describing it as being designed to “make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”. Perhaps the most important takeaway from this article is the importance of evaluation and critical thinking, looking behind what is presented at face value to the deeper meaning.