ABSTRACT In this article I consider Donald Trump as an “antisemantic” president, and link antisemanticism to broader forms of populism. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism, I explore the political and discursive domains as intrinsically linked in the Trumpian moment. Second, I turn to a theory of the antisemantic, showing its difference from the Orwellian universe. Where the Orwellian model depends on the inversion of meanings, the Trumpian paradigm (“Truth isn’t truth”) attacks the foundations of meaning itself. In the Trumpian age the internet also acts as a dark multiplier, thinning out meaning through its distortions and profusion. As counterpart to these patterns, I show how the antisemantic rests on certain symbolic fixities, especially around boundaries and the “uber” symbol of the wall. I end with some notes on how to reconstruct a sense of accountability in meaning, and to think of boundaries that are transitive and generative rather than singular and walled.

中文翻译：

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特朗普的反语义和民粹主义的界限

摘要在本文中，我认为唐纳德·特朗普是“反犹太主义”总统，并将反语义主义与更广泛的民粹主义联系起来。基于斯图尔特·霍尔（Stuart Hall）对撒切尔主义的分析，我探索了在特朗普时期内在联系在一起的政治和话语领域。其次，我转向反语义理论，以显示其与奥威尔式宇宙的差异。在奥威尔式模型依赖于意义倒置的情况下，特朗普主义范式（“真理不是真理”）攻击了意义本身的基础。在特朗普时代，互联网还充当着黑暗的倍增器，通过其扭曲和泛滥来淡化意义。作为这些模式的对应物，我将说明反语义是如何基于某些符号固定性的，尤其是在边界和墙的“超”符号周围。