Power, Language, and the Dehumanization of the “Other”

Two hands reaching through a bullet hole in a concrete wall, one marked by a red sniper crosshair, symbolizing dehumanization and war.

Words. The architecture of power begins here. Not with bombs, not with armies, but with permission – the permission to see others as less than human.

The language of leadership is never just about “style.” It is never just “authenticity.” Words are blueprints. They are the architectural drawings for how power will be used.

And when President Donald Trump – in the midst of an active conflict – boasts that the U.S. has “blown the shit out of Iran” and declares “the hard part is done,” it is not a lapse in etiquette. It is the blueprint for erasing millions of lives from moral consideration.

This isn’t a one-off remark. It follows weeks of threats to “completely obliterate” power plants, oil infrastructure, desalination systems – the machinery that keeps civilians alive. This is not just rhetoric. It is a linguistic strategy designed to make destruction feel decisive, justified – even routine.

The Shield of the Unfiltered

This kind of language is often defended as “real.” As “unfiltered.” As if stripping away polish reveals truth. But in the corridors of power, it does the opposite.

It functions as a shield.

It allows a leader to step around the weight of human consequence by turning war into theater – a performance of toughness where the only thing that matters is who sounds strongest.

When conflict is described with the flippancy of a bar fight, something critical happens: reality disappears.

The image of a family without water…
The darkness of a city without power…
The slow, quiet panic of systems failing…

All of it is replaced by a single narrative: someone “taking care of business.”

That distance is not accidental. It is the point. Because once the language shifts, reality has room to follow.

From Rhetoric to Reality

Look closely at the targets. Not just bunkers. Not just silos. We are talking about the grid. The pumps. The fuel. The literal mechanics of staying alive.

When the conversation moves from military installations to infrastructure – electricity, water, fuel – the strategy itself has already changed. This is no longer a battle between armies. It is pressure applied to the conditions required for human life.

And when that destruction is framed as something already accomplished – “we’ve blown the shit out of them” – it does something even more dangerous:

It closes the moral conversation.

It turns an ongoing humanitarian crisis into a finished job.
It transforms suffering into a checkbox.

Target hit. Checkbox marked. Humanity ignored.

Imagine the pumps stopped, the lights went out, the hospitals ran dry. And yet the language says: mission accomplished.

It tells the public there is nothing left to question – only something to accept.

The Language of the “Chore”

We are now hearing a new phrase creep into the discourse: “mowing the lawn.” The defense will be that they are only talking about “targets,” not people. But you cannot mow a nation’s infrastructure without cutting down the lives attached to it.

It is a domestic, clinical metaphor for mass destruction. Grass grows; you cut it down. Routine. Mindless. Disposable.

When we use the language of gardening to describe missiles, we are not talking about targets – we are talking about human lives as weeds. Lives that can be trimmed, cleared, maintained, discarded. Lives made insignificant.

The Historical Precedent: The 1924 Blueprint

None of this is new. Before a group can be excluded, harmed, or erased, it must first be defined as existing outside the boundaries of empathy.

We saw this clearly in the Immigration Act of 1924 – often called the Reed-Johnson Act. That law did not come out of nowhere. It was built on years of language that categorized people as threats, as outsiders, as fundamentally different.

It was a law built on the idea that human value could be calculated by a quota – that some origins were “desirable” and others a “biological threat.” It wasn’t just a travel policy; it was a declaration of who was fully human in the eyes of the state.

Language came first. Policy followed.

Because once division is normalized in speech, it becomes enforceable in law. The mechanism does not change – only the context does. Define a group as separate. Diminish their humanity. And the protections they rely on begin to disappear.

Once that boundary is drawn, power no longer needs justification. It only needs a target.

Investigative Empathy

So the question is not whether this language is “rude.”

The question is: What is it preparing us to accept?

We are watching a “might makes right” framework move from the edges of discourse into the center of it. A system where volume replaces substance, aggression replaces accountability, and spectacle replaces truth.

And once that becomes the standard, the consequences do not stay contained to one conflict. They reshape how power itself is understood.

True authority is not demonstrated by how effectively someone can erase the humanity of others. It is demonstrated by how firmly someone can recognize it – even when inconvenient, even in conflict.

Because once that recognition is gone, the shift is complete.

We stop seeing people.
We stop seeing families.
We start seeing numbers.
Targets.
Infrastructure.

And in that shift, we start seeing “acceptable losses” as ordinary… inevitable.

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Related Me We Too polls:

They really shouldn’t be minimizing war and the mass casualties with phrases like “mowing the lawn”

Not surprised anymore when Trump says phrases like “blown the shit out” … and “fuck” – so vulgar

I do not talk like that.

Targeting a civilian population’s water systems and power plants is a war crime.

The US and Israeli strikes on Tehran’s oil infrastructure should be illegal – it is so dangerous and unhealthy – they are targeting civilians without “targeting” civilians.