Political blather in this era tends to conform to a certain set of code-words, which are repurposed from their original meanings to fit the complaint one reads in George Orwell's Politics and the English Language: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible."

A solid reading of Orwell's essay will clarify such an explanation. However, further explanation (provided below) is needed to show why so many people defend the indefensible. At any rate, our current political situation lends itself to the use of code-words, used in the style Orwell describes as "meaningless words." The point of "meaningless words" in political discourse is so that the words themselves are used to insure no need to explain. One can see extreme examples of this in the word salad rhetoric of Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, or many of the Republicans currently running for President. Generally, then, "meaningless words" are talismans against the reader or listener figuring out what is actually going on. Here is a brief list of "meaningless words" in present-day political discourse -- I may come back to edit this essay to include more such words if I recall them.

A big phrase in the current situation is "helping Ukraine" -- the notion promoted with "helping Ukraine" is that NATO is "helping Ukraine" by obliging Ukraine to fight "counter offensives" that in fact kill off tens of thousands of people, over and over again, to the extent of maybe between two and four hundred thousand Ukrainian dead so far. Actual helping of Ukraine would mean suing for peace, which would be contrary to "helping Ukraine" as the phrase is commonly used.

"Fascism" -- "Fascism," as currently used, is a stand-in term for any form of authoritarianism the speaker or writer doesn't like. Authoritarianism the speaker or writer does like, however, is portrayed using terms like "deplatforming," a term beloved of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There's also "canceling," as when YouTube banned Scott Ritter. Left open is the question of whether or not private actors who are far more powerful than most governments can be "fascist" in making purely private decisions. In concluding, it must be said that actual Fascism, Fascism of the period between 1914 and 1945, would involve a level of authoritarianism which hasn't been approached in the current era yet.

"Moving (elected) Democrats to the left" -- this is a term Democrats say when they don't want to show their true colors, as opposed to "compromise," "bipartisanship," and "voting for the lesser of evils," terms used to display the Democratic Party's effective stance on most issues. Sounding "Left," you see, is hip, like when Nancy Pelosi dressed up in kente cloth, but doing Left deeds is unprofitable, as Nancy Pelosi knows well. For the voters, the actual moving of elected Democrats to the left would involve staying out of elections in which Democrats moved to the right. This is typically something Democrats are unwilling to do.

"Lesser evil" -- the "lesser evil" is clearly something to vote for, but not for the reason usually portrayed. "Lesser-evil" voters are not interested in minimizing evil, because -- for instance -- at present the actual minimization of evil would mean swiftly concluding the proxy war in Ukraine out of an aversion to World War III. But, rather, those who proclaim themselves to be "lesser evil" voters want to avoid thinking about evil. Evil is evil -- there isn't a calculus to it. "Lesser-evil" voting is therefore not really about considerations of evil.

"Israel's right to exist" -- this is a term meant to guarantee the annual US subsidy to Israel, as well as the prior assumption that the Israeli government can do no wrong. Israel could actually still exist without the subsidy or the assumption, but "Israel's right to exist" is not about Israel's existence.

"Antisemitism" -- this is a term not entirely about "semites" -- Arabs are "semites" too -- but is typically used to tar anyone who criticizes the Israeli government.

Above all, however, present-day political discourse is about creating fantasy worlds that are to be cemented together with lies repeated over and over again. One has to imagine that Adolf Hitler set the standard for this sort of rhetorical behavior. Orwell explains this phenomenon accusingly:

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, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. 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.

The aggregates of deceptive language ("Big Lies") toward explicitly political aims was once known as the "Big Lie" technique, as used to justify McCarthyism, climate change denial, January 6th fever, or whatever fantasy world one hopes to have other people inhabit. Present-day political discourse, then, creates worlds of universal deceit, and the best way to explain this deceit is through the concept of the Reality Principle as once explained by Sigmund Freud. Present-day political discourse says "The Reality Principle for me, but not for thee." Readers and listeners are supposed to believe in the fantasies; writers and speakers can be assumed to continue the political charades out of ideas, be they good or bad ones, of brute self-interest.