Monsters and Machines: The Political Language of Fascist Imperialism (Part 1)

This is part 1 of a series on “Monsters and Machines: The Political Language of Fascist Imperialism.” This is the first publication of a new project called the ‘Little Book/Long Essay’ (LB/LE) series, where I offer readers the opportunity to download and read a full-length report on a given topic, between 50-150 pages in length, with citations and sources: a place to go further in depth than social media or short articles allow, but short of the commitment of a full book. Each report will also be broken into several different pieces and shared as a series of articles, starting with this Part 1. (The full report of this LB/LE is not yet completed, but should be made available for download next week). This is also a multi-media project, as I intend to provide both audio and video components to this series, including with the upcoming re-launching of my podcast, ‘In This Mad World’. Don’t miss future parts in this series: subscribe to my website and podcast. Thank you!

Monsters and Machines: The Political Language of Fascist Imperialism

Part 1 – “To Make Lies Sound Truthful”: Orwell on Political Language

By: Andrew Gavin Marshall

The one-sentence summary: Applying George Orwell’s concept of “political language” to understand empire, fascism, and fascist imperialism in the context of present-day Israel and the United States.

“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“War is Peace,
Freedom is Slavery,
Ignorance is Strength.”
– George Orwell, 1984

When Israel and the United States launched a war of aggression against Iran on February 28, 2026, they initiated a new, dramatic and dangerous phase in modern world history. It was the manifestation of an alliance of two governments pursuing extremist anti-democratic agendas at home and empire-building abroad, not simply the continuity of a decades-long relationship between countries, but a new fascist alliance. Israel’s most extreme right-wing government in its history came to power at the end of 2022, and has driven its colonial and ethnic cleansing policies in the occupied West Bank, its genocidal war in Gaza, and its expansionist wars and occupations into Lebanon and Syria. The second term of the Trump administration, starting in January of 2025, marked the most right-wing extremist government in modern American history. Both of these governments represent or contain elements of what we would historically identify as fascist parties and political movements. Once in power, they pursue their deranged fantasies of “cleansing” society of its undesirables, dismantling democracy to establish an authoritarian dictatorship, and to establish a new empire abroad. It is the latter concept, that of fascist imperialism, and in particular, the political language of fascist imperialism, that is the focus of this essay.

Eighty years ago, in the aftermath of World War II – the last great war caused by the exploits of fascist imperialists – and just a few years before the publication of the famed dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote an essay on “Politics and the English Language.” He outlined the ways in which language was distorted and deprived of meaning in the pursuit of justifying or obscuring horrible acts committed by states and empires. This was the language of machines. This language has dominated political discourse through the 45 years of the Cold War and the decades of the post-Cold War world. It is the language of the political establishment and global imperial structures; the language of empire: designed to justify and obscure the realities of empire.

But eighty years on from the end of World War II, and a century on from the rise of fascism in Europe, memories of fascism and the ravages it brings the world have faded. The generations who lived through it are largely gone. In recent years it has made a resurgence in western – and indeed, global – political movements. The last time fascism was embedded in two governments (Italy and Germany), the most destructive and deadly war in human history was the result. Now that fascism has become embedded in two governments once again, Israel and the United States, this makes it essential to understand what fascism is and why fascist imperialism is uniquely dangerous to the world. To do this, I apply Orwell’s insights on political language to identify and understand the system of empire – the language of machines – which paved the way for the return of fascism and the legitimation of its hateful, violent rhetoric – the language of monsters.

The political language of empire is deliberately vague and obscure, while the language of fascism is often violent and visceral. But the relationship between these two forms of political language is not linear – one does not simply lead to and is replaced by the other – but is interactive and mutually reinforcing. Whether their rhetoric is obscuring or evocative – they both rely on a form of political language that creates a different reality through which they are able to exercise and accumulate power. The political language of empire attempts to hide the atrocities of empire, while the political language of fascism attempts to celebrate and elevate the violence of fascism. One wants to obscure the violence, and the other to praise it. This may seem a contradiction, and it is, but it is reflective of the contradictions inherent to empire and fascism, and to the contradiction in how they serve each other.

This essay will begin by looking at George Orwell’s writing about political language and its historical role in relation to Israel and the United States as imperial powers. After establishing an understanding of political language, we examine the meaning of fascism itself – drawing from historical examples and noted scholars of fascism – and then identify the concept of fascist imperialism. Then we examine the language of fascist imperialism in Israel, starting with the genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023, through the wars on Lebanon, expanded occupation in Syria, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank up to the 2026 war on Iran. Then we look at the US example, the role of War on Terror in altering the political language of empire and opening the floodgates for fascism, culminating in the US launching its first fascist war with its “model ally” Israel.

This is not a comprehensive history or examination of these wars, empires,  governments, or political movements, but is focused on the role of language in perpetuating these political forces. This essay is intended to arm you with understanding: to identify political language and when it is being used to deceive, hide, and justify horrifying acts of brutality, and to raise the alarm for the serious situation we are in where we have now witnessed the launching of a fascist alliance of Israel and the United States, both seeking radical transformations at home and abroad. Fascist imperialism is derived from and propelled forward by the language of monsters and machines.  

George Orwell is best known for writing the most famous dystopian novel of all time, 1984, published in 1949, with a lasting impact upon popular culture, introducing to our collective lexicon terms and phrases like “Big Brother,” “Thought Police,” “newspeak,” “doublethink,” and “thoughtcrime.” Even his name serves as a description of a dystopian forms of surveillance and control, for something to be Orwellian. Three years before he published 1984, he wrote an essay entitled, Politics and the English Language, establishing some of the concepts behind his dystopian novel. It reflected an understanding of how power worked in the world, and how those with power accumulated more of it. Orwell understood this not only intellectually, but through his own experiences. Born to a British colonial middle class family in India, he volunteered to serve in the imperial police force in the British colony of Burma (now Myanmar), which led him to be disgusted by what he witnessed of colonialism. In the 1930s he volunteered to go fight the fascists in the Spanish civil war. And during World War II he worked for the BBC, which gave him an education in propaganda. Through his experiences and studies, Orwell (real name Eric Blair) came to expertly understand war, colonialism, fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda.

Orwell began his essay on political language by asserting that, “the English language is in a bad way… it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes,” but, he added, “an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form.” He offered the example of a man who drinks because he feels like a failure, and who then fails because he drinks. “It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language… It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” However, “the process is reversible.” Orwell turned particular attention to the role of politics in the decline of language, noting that words like Fascism and democracy had become almost meaningless as definitional terms, instead meaning things like “something not desirable” (fascism) or praising a country (by calling it democratic). “Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way,” he wrote: “That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.”

“In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing,” he wrote, adding that where this was not true, “the writer is some kind of rebel” expressing their opinion and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, he continued, “seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style,” in which speakers of this style may appear to be turning into “a machine.” Citing examples such as British rule in India, the Russian purges, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, he went on: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible,” as such things “can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” He provided some examples: “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” Orwell wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms… In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.” But, he added, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” In his conclusion, Orwell wrote: “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

It is from the ideas that Orwell articulates here about “political language,” its use of euphemism, vagueness, and insincerity to hide true intentions and brutality, which I will attempt to apply to our recent experiences of war, empire, fascism, and genocide. The examples will be drawn from the United States and Israel, two countries who have perhaps done more than any others to destroy the meaning of words and whose use of political language attempts to justify or erase the most brutal of crimes of state violence. Virtually all western nations long ago embraced the misleading political language offered up by these two countries, a language common to a shared imperial system. In other words, it’s not only Israel and the United States that have for decades had a shared political language when it comes to empire, but it was embraced by most of the Western world, notably the G7 countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan), as well as most of the EU and NATO countries. The use of political language, especially on the subject of ‘Israel-Palestine’, has been used to great effect since the founding of Israel, and especially since the Israel-US relationship became so important following the 1967 war. Popular deception and ignorance on the subjects of Israel and Palestine is a long-standing and intentional outcome of the widely shared used of political language among Israel and its western backers.

But behind the language was a reality of growing desperation, despair, and devastation among the Palestinians, millions of whom lived under Israeli blockade for decades, and many millions more living under a brutal Israeli military occupation. The language of “self defense” and an invented “right to exist” that no other nation state apparently has (states either exist, or they don’t, but no such “right to exist” is found in international law), predominated the focus of western political leaders and their largely obedient national media systems. The acceptance and proliferation of the language of Israel’s empire over the Palestinians, the language of machines, had facilitated over the course of decades the collective dehumanization of Palestinians, to obscure and justify their perpetual status of being occupied, colonized, blockaded, besieged, bombed and brutalized.

The domination, colonization and ethnic cleansing – and genocide – of the Palestinian people is being directly undertaken by Israel, but it is a collective western project, with the United States, Germany, the G7, EU, and NATO nations largely providing economic, military, intelligence, and/or diplomatic support to Israel, for decades and in recent years (though there are a growing number of countries within these blocs that are trying to challenge the pro-Israeli bias, such as Spain). It is the language of a political orthodoxy, which Orwell described in his essay as having “a lifeless, imitative style,” in which those who speak it speak like “a machine.” In effect, they are part of the machinery of empire, and so it makes sense that they adopt some characteristics of machines, appearing mechanical, unphased, unemotional, uncompromising, unconscious, unyielding. As Orwell noted, political language was “largely the defense of the indefensible.”

And by focusing on obscure concepts and non-existent rights, the discussion around Israel-Palestine also meets another key facet of political language as defined by Orwell, “to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Orwell’s premise was that political language used vague, empty, and euphemistic (nice-sounding) words to justify otherwise horrific, oppressive, and destructive actions and objectives. Here, the use of euphemism is essential, and so must be properly defined and understood. This is the Merriam-Webster definition of euphemism: “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive word or expression for one that is harsh, indelicate, or otherwise unpleasant or taboo.” Among the many euphemisms common to everyday language are: saying ‘passed away’ instead of died, ‘made love’ instead of had sex, ‘passed wind’ instead of farted, saying ‘comfortable’ instead of rich, ‘between jobs’ instead of unemployed, ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’ instead of saying stupid, ‘let go’ instead of fired, or ‘collateral damage’ when civilians are killed in a military attack. It’s clear that we use euphemisms frequently in all areas of our language, but it is the use of euphemism in political language that concerns us.

What does it mean for a state to have a “right to exist”? States are created by force of arms or by agreement among a broader set of states (or empires), they do not exist “by right.” Once they exist, states do have some rights, including a right to self-defense against another state that is attacking it. But more than rights they have responsibilities, to their own citizens and to other human beings under their control. None of the terminology is ever actually defined, because that would require accurately defining the “conflict” itself, as it is often euphemistically described. The issue is, fundamentally, one of colonization. Zionist activists were able to gain British imperial patronage to help colonize the land of Palestine and ultimately establish the state of Israel in 1948, and thereafter continue the process of colonization and expansion at a periodic rate, pushing forward, accepting some push back, but ever maintaining its sovereign authority over the Palestinian population, most of whom hold no political or civil rights inside Israel, which consistently described itself as “democratic” (What does it mean to be “democratic” when you rule over millions of people who have no democratic, civil, or political rights?).

Colonization has resulted in occupation, which has created a system of apartheid in the country, and not simply in the occupied territories. The settler extremists who prospered in the extreme apartheid state of the occupied West Bank have since come to take over the state itself (in close alliance with Prime Minister Netanyahu). And now this state has been driven to the persecution of an ongoing and evolving genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians, and not simply against those trapped in Gaza. Words like colonization, military occupation, apartheid (or racial/religious segregation and persecution), Jewish supremacy, state terrorism, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, genocide and annihilation or extermination evoke dramatic imagery, and are entirely negative in historical context, from the conquest of the Americas and decimation of Indigenous peoples and society, to the French and US wars in Vietnam, the French war in Algeria, the British war in Kenya, the racist apartheid South African regime, or to genocidal regimes like Nazi Germany, Hutu Power Rwanda or the ethnic cleansing campaigns of the Balkan wars. The reality of what exists on the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank can only be accurately described using stark and extreme language, for it is reflecting stark and extreme realities. We don’t describe historical genocides like the Holocaust as “evacuation” operations, or a reasonable “final solution” to the “Jewish question,” but this was the language that the Nazis used when justifying and implementing their policies of genocide. It is one thing to use coherent and clear language to identify genocides after they have concluded, but while they are underway, political language is employed to hide, justify, and implement these programs of mass displacement, destruction, and murder. And in virtually every case of 20^th century genocide, the group or state carrying out the genocide claimed its actions were undertaken in self-defense. Given the centrality of this vague term “self-defense” to justifying Israel’s entire regional and internal imperial and colonial project over the course of decades, an extension of that language to justify and implement outright genocidal policies is not a dramatic leap.

For Israeli and western publics, the shared political language between their political establishments and societies have manifested as a shared delusional world in which Israel is the besieged victim in need of endless support and aid. This has of course been changing in recent years, a result of witnessing Israel’s (and the Western world’s) conduct during the recent years of genocide in Gaza. But it helps us to understand why, even after nearly three years of witnessing in real-time the violent brutality of a genocidal state gone mad, words like genocide and colonization are still rarely invoked in western political discourse, because they challenge our shared political delusions, and if we were to accept the images and ideas they evoke as a closer reading of reality, then the task of justifying support for Israel and its policies becomes significantly harder. In other words, if we accept that the word genocide is appropriate, then it follows that we have to do something about it; which, in the case of most western nations, would mean, in the very least, to stop arming and supporting Israel, the state committing the genocide. This would also put nations at odds with the main supporter of Israel, the United States, the most powerful state in the world. Therefore, for most political establishments, it is viewed as better to just continue to support Israel and obscure reality through political language than to actually risk challenging Israel and the world imperial power, the US, particularly with a vindictive president at its head.

The political language of an empire that has been led by the United States – though operated as a kind of ‘group project’ of the West – in which Israel has played such an important regional role, is the default setting of most western nations; it is the language of the status quo, the language of machines. Western leaders must contemplate: What is a little genocide to the whole structure of empire? And they may conclude that supporting Israel – or not actively opposing it – is the cost of maintaining the global imperial system, or at least to maintain a working relationship with the United States, to preserve their place within the existing ‘international order’ (another euphemism to describe imperial systems). They are of course wrong, and the western world’s support for Israel over the duration of the genocide has done untold damage to western credibility around the world and at home, from which it will take generations to recover, and the consequences of which have barely begun to be witnessed. This credibility destruction fuels chaos abroad and fascism at home.

As Orwell wrote, political language was largely concerned with the “defense of the indefensible,” because if one were to speak in a direct and honest fashion, it would require “arguments which are too brutal for most people to face.” As a result, the language focuses on “euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” We are not part of an empire; we are members of a rules-based order. We don’t engage in imperialism or seek domination; we partake in interventions to liberate others. We don’t arm and support a racist, settler-colonial, apartheid state while it’s turning fascist and committing a genocide; we support the only democracy in the Middle East to defend itself against threats to its existence. Political language obscures and justifies simultaneously; it hides the reality while legitimizing the policy. As Orwell concluded in his essay, “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” There is perhaps no better example of this kind of political language than that which obscures and justifies Israel’s colonization, occupation, and genocide against the Palestinians. In this sense, the language of empire – the language of machines – has always been quite monstrous, in terms of what it hides and justifies. But the language of monsters is largely a recent transformation in mainstream uses of political language. That is both a cause and result of the rise of fascism in popular political culture.

As fascist movements and parties have come to power in Israel and the United States, political language has taken on a new tone to exist alongside the familiar euphemisms. It is not simply about hiding and justifying violence and repression, but about glorifying and revelling in violence and repression, to normalize a language of brutality and celebrate the violence it produces. This is the fascist influence on language, as both Israel and the US are currently being radicalized by fascist parties in their governments. This extremism filters through our modern political language, and feeds back into fuelling more extremism, just as Orwell described in his essay when he evoked an image of a man who drinks because he thinks he is a failure, and then becomes a failure because he drinks. In this case, fascist language helps fuel fascist politics and boost fascist parties, which then further popularizes and legitimizes fascist language. But it cannot achieve this by replacing the language of machines – the standard, vague and euphemistic political language of empire and the political establishment – but by integrating with it. Fascism does not abandon the political euphemism, it makes it more extreme. For the language of monsters to become mainstream and take power, it must learn to adapt to and work with the language of machines.

The language of machines helped to create a world of unreality or obscurity, a world embracing numerous myths and fantasies as part of its political discourse. The language hides the realities of a collective western imperial system and ignores and excuses the violence we commit against others, while making claims to moral authority. The realities of empire are quite clear to those who are experiencing its blade and brutality; people being repressed, imprisoned, expelled or murdered are aware of what is happening to them, regardless of the language the perpetrators use to justify it. It is for the publics at home and optics abroad that the perpetrators create vague and largely meaningless fantasy worlds. But the acceptance of these myths has made populations more vulnerable to political ideologies and movements that both fuel and feed off of myth-making and obscuring reality, that actively construct an unreality – a fantasy world increasingly detached from the real world. This chasm gives growth to fascism.

While standard forms of political language attempt to obscure and euphemistically describe reality, they do so typically to ensure populations are submissive and passively supportive. Political language is thus generally designed to keep the machine of empire functioning without much input from or confrontation with domestic populations. Fascists, on the other hand, also create mythical worlds of unreality and fantasy, but to greater extremes, in virtually every sphere of human life, and instead of seeking to create pliant populations, fascists seek to incite, inflame and radicalize populations and societies. For fascists, political language must both obscure and inspire. The language of machines does not inspire, it subdues. But the language of monsters – a language of celebratory brutality – can inspire a great deal: of fear, hatred, insecurity, victimhood, humiliation, passion, and violence.

The language of monsters – fascist political language – is emotional and evocative. It must construct a total fantasy world, and then inspire a mass following of extremists to help make that fantasy a reality. Fascists must be both wildly deceptive and emotionally and visually evocative. They must be both eternal victims beset upon by enemies in all directions, and strong warriors capable of defeating any and all foes. Their language helps create a community of shared victimhood, while identifying the supposed cause of their victimhood (usually a racial, ethnic, or religious minority group or multiple disenfranchised communities). It radicalizes their followers with a language of brutality – of hate, racism, extremism and violence – and then provides images and actions to associate with power, revenge, redemption, and survival. Violence it not simply a means to an end, but an end in and of itself; violence becomes not merely a tool of politics, but its temple. Violence is worshipped and respected.

Fascist language is not the language of the machine managers of empire and the political establishment; it is the language of monsters: those who take pleasure in and celebrate the experience of brutality and violence. Where fascism is more successful in political systems is where they effectively integrate their language within the wider machinery of political language, and thereby give themselves and their ideas added legitimacy, institutionalizing it within the system itself. Often, to achieve this feat, fascists will vacillate between extremist hate-filled outbursts (to inspire and rally their base) and empty promises, vague expressions, and claims of ‘moderation’ (typically during election periods) in order to gain entry into the political and governing structures. Once in power, this oscillation between extremist and empty language would typically continue simultaneously, alternating according to audience and intention, but in effect normalizing both the language of fascism and its schizophrenic and hyper-deceptive style of politics. When fascist language and politics enter the mainstream, reality becomes more obscured, and brutality becomes more accepted. Fascist language is the language of victimhood, self-delusion, of humiliation (for the fascist), and exclusion, discrimination, hatred, dehumanization, violence, destruction, expulsion or elimination of those outside the dominant group.

To better understand fascist language and its uses, it is essential to better understand fascism itself.

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Andrew Gavin Marshall