Buffoon-leaders degrade the very vocabulary critics need to oppose them.

Evidence

When the figure of the buffoon becomes central to public life, the problem is not only that they say foolish things but also that everything they touch becomes foolish, including—especially—the powerful language we need to talk about them and what they are doing. I think of these figures as “dumbpelgangers,” and they pipik so many terms and concepts that they risk leaving us all speechless. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 474

Categorization

• XREF: ‘Dumbpelgangers’ as a coinage extends Klein’s doppelganger device — the fake self figures not as a mirror-copy of her but as the farcicalizing twin of our collective political language.