ABSTRACT: This article proposes that we think of reactionary rhetoric as the art of political gaslighting. Revisiting the thought of eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish statesman, philosopher, and political theorist Edmund Burke, the article extrapolates a conception of conservatism as inherently oriented toward a rhetoric of denialism, demonization, and victimhood. I argue that reactionary rhetoric bears a striking similarity to what trauma psychologists call DARVO: deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. I close with a discussion of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk's remarks on race as a case study in political gaslighting.
Jason Hannan (Sun,) studied this question.