Truculent
Entry #5 in Dr. Waffle's Lexical Lucubrations
This is the fifth in a weekly series of micro-essays using weird, wild, and wonderful words from Dr. Waffle’s venerable list.
truculent, adj.
1.a. Characterized by or exhibiting ferocity or cruelty; fierce, cruel, savage, barbarous.
1.b. Of speech or writing: Violent; rude; scathing; savage; harsh.
< Latin truculentus, < trux (truc-em) fierce, savage; compare obsolete French truculent (Cotgrave 1611).
Feature Not a Bug
A couple of days ago (or maybe yesterday? or last week? time no longer has any meaning) Terry Moran, the Senior National Correspondent at ABC News, was suspended fired for a tweet criticizing the current leadership of the United States of America:
We may all join in questioning the wisdom of tweeting hot takes late at night (otherwise known as “covfefeing”), or indeed of using Twitter for anything at all, but I find it hard to believe that a working journalist covering the descent of a mature democracy into fascism can be faulted for expressing an opinion about the truculent barbarians he is charged with covering. As several internet pundits opined in the nanoseconds following the kerfuffle, ABC News may indeed have policies prohibiting their “hard news” journalists from expressing political opinions, but the suspension is not a good look for the network, considering their craven settlement with the Trump administration six months ago, and the fact that TrumpWorld’s Ken and Barbie (JD Vance and Karoline Levitt) both screeched for retribution as soon as the tweet appeared. More importantly, it seems to me that what Moran expressed in his tweet was barely opinion. Can anyone, even in MAGA Land, deny that Stephen Miller is fueled by hatred? Isn’t that a feature, not a bug?