Weaponizing Language: Co-optation as a Rhetorical Strategy of Political Leadership

Abstract: As political divides have deepened, political leaders increasingly use language that draws clear lines between “us” and “them” rather than language meant to bring people together. One increasingly visible linguistic strategy used by political leaders is co-optation, which refers to the use of words or phrases originally associated with one political group reappropriated in a negative or sarcastic way by members of the opposing group. Drawing on negative partisanship theory, we argue that this strategy is effective for leaders because it signals clear opposition to the political outgroup by weakening the meaning of terms originally associated with the outgroup. We examine this process across multiple datasets. First, we identify and validate co-opted political terms. Second, we analyze a large-scale dataset of political leaders’ Twitter posts to test how co-opted language shapes responses to political leaders. We find support for our main hypothesis and briefly discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: politics, communication, identity, leader evaluations