I mean, she received her orders in a private conversation whilst in the oval office. Clearly Trump does not possess the faculties to run the show, but he's the figurehead of the whole thing.
It's both, but in journalism, you pick your words carefully. There's no chance the writer of the headline wasn't fully aware of both connotations. There are a dozen other words that could have meant the same thing without making it sound nefarious.
First, there is the negative connotation of those words. Almost universally, people think of bigotry, anti-Semitism, and racism as bad things. Like, indefensibly bad. So pointing those things out is a good thing, because we should not tolerate bigotry in any form.
Unfortunately, I had to use the qualifier "almost" in that paragraph, and the group that does thing bigotry is OK is growing larger and louder. Several superpower countries are currently led by avowed bigots, and their supporters either pretend they aren't bigots or celebrate that they don't feel the need to hide their bigotry. The more ignorant hatred there is, the more it spreads.
But most average people still don't want to be called those things, even when they are. The feew that embrace it provide political cover to the vast majority that just want to hate people without being called names.
So right off the bat, just the act of accurately labeling bigotry, anti-Semitism, or racism is already a bit of a conversation ender, and it's not alwaysclear whether the person being a bigot even cares that you recognize it.
Next thing we have to clarify is that there is legitimate criticism to go around to practically any group. Specifically, the state of Israel is currently engaged in a violent, brutal, and merciless genocide of the Palestinians. This is a fact, and it is not in dispute.
But then there are anti-Semites who would like to see all of the Jewish people in Israel killed. Their response to one genocide would be to engage in another. As previously mentioned, those voices are growing in number and volume, and any time their is legitimate criticism of Israel, their voice join the chorus of outrage to steer the conversation towards eradication.
There's an old saying that 11 people who have dinner with a Nazi are a dozen Nazis. If you are seated at the "stop genocide" table, and a Nazi sits down to say "yeah, and kill all the Jews,"you have a responsibility to your cause to disavow them. But that's really difficult in the age of Twitter to separate yourself and disavow every Nazi who wants to support you. So when the Israeli government points at your table and says "those who criticize Israel are being anti-Semitic," you can't say that everyone who criticizes Israel isn't being anti-Semitic. Nuance doesn't fit in a soundbite. Look at how many words I needed just to get to a point where I could say "Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, but many critics of Israel are anti-Semitic" without making it sound like I am defending the genocide in Gaza. And I will still probably get downvotes on both ends from people who do defend the genocide, but also from anti-Semites who don't like being called out.
And that brings us around to the ouroboros of intent in political discourse. Your original question was whether people misuse those accusations to shut down criticism, and the answer is unequivocally yes. Even if the criticism is valid, and even if there are bigots among the critics, using those terms to describe or defend against critics is a tool to shut down the debate. Let's stick with Israel as an example. Israel is engaged in genocide. They have an interest in shutting down the debate. Anti-Semites want to kill all the Jewish people in Israel. They have an interest in mainstreaming their hatred and making peaceful revolution impossible. It serves both interests to label all critics of Israel as anti-Semitic, and the vast majority of reasonable people who don't think genocide is good are merely stuck between two sets of violent conservatives. Neither the Israeli government nor the bigots who hate Jewish people care about how many innocent people die. And it's always the innocent who do most of the dying.
We see this same avalance of hatred and ignorance when we talk about racism or really any form of bigotry. Any criticms that are even remotely valid are co-opted by hate groups because it helps promote their faction of conservativism, and then pointing it out helps the targets of criticism avoid accountability. And then the sheer quantity of accusations leveled dilutes the power of those words in the public consciousness, emboldening the actual racists, anti-Semites, and bigots.
TLDR yes, people "misuse" those labels to shut down criticism, even when they are accurate, and even when it is used by the bigots themselves.
Not exactly what you're asking, but Cabin in the Woods is like a love letter to all horror movies. It drops references and homages left and right, making horror movie tropes actual plot points, including bizzare foreign horror movies that aren't explained at all. The more you know about horror movies, folklore, and monster cinema, the more you will understand the movie.
If you haven't seen it, go see it now. I won't say anything else.
Can't come in unless invited, don't have a reflection, sensitive (or deathly allergic) to light, garlic, and holy water, these things are rarely explained.
Senior devs love vibe coding because they have the knowledge and skills to recognize and fix errors. They hate it because it makes morons think they don't need the knowledge and skills to recognize and fix errors.
The problem is that the left gets people cancelled for hate speech. The right gets people cancelled for objective truth. Read the comments that people are getting fired for. It's a blatant doouble standard that shifts the overton window on public discourse. Fascist bigots are running the country, and there's no room for compromise with hate.
If he talked to you about it, you probably would have talked him out of it. Tells me deep down he knew it was stupid, but he wanted to do it.
I would talk to him about that part of it, help him recognize the choice he made to ignore your voice of reason in his own head.
I wouldn't punish him for it, especially because he came to you to talk about it, but he's getting closer to the age when he has to really pay attention to that voice in his head because you won't be with him for every decision. Although, my kids often act like having to talk to me about things is punishment enough.
Well that's the trick, isn't it? The people who rule presume consent, but what they are really expecting is compliance. Your compliance is presumed consent. You can revoke your compliance any time you like, but the rulers will respond to noncompliance with force.
There's a process within the law, and there's a process where we replace the current law with something else. Within the law, we can vote for representatives who will impeach the current corrupt justices and approve new ones who are hopefully not corrupt. Let's call that option A.
Option B is the total overthrow of the government, which is ridiculous to even consider, but it's the alternative you're hinting at. Denouncing the SCOTUS doesn't change the ruling government in any way. Society is built on the idea that we all more or less agree to be ruled in exchange for fair rules and national defense. In a democracy, you have the appearance of agency, but you cannot simply withdraw consent to be ruled. The difference between democracy and fascism is that fascism explicitly defines violence as the means of control, while democracy merely implies that violence will be used to keep order. Once a democratically elected ruler decides to become fascist, there is no remedy but violence.
To wit, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
That said, I do not think we're quite there yet. I have no doubt Trump will try to go all in to remain in power, but I don't think he actually has enough followers to pull it off.
But that still leaves the corrupt justices on the bench. We need to focus on elections for representatives willing to impeach corrupt justices. If you think that process is too slow, consider that a violent revolution would probably take decades of bloodshed, and there's no guarantee we don't get some other despot as a result. Violence is not the answer to this question.
I mean, she received her orders in a private conversation whilst in the oval office. Clearly Trump does not possess the faculties to run the show, but he's the figurehead of the whole thing.