The Word You Are Looking For Is Tyranny

January 16, 2026

Sarah Stewart Holland, cohost of the Pantsuit Politics Podcast:

Tyranny, defined as cruel and oppressive government.

Reading Paine’s 250-year-old argument for revolution, I found the word I had been looking for – tyranny.

What we are experiencing is tyranny, defined as cruel and oppressive government. Cruel is a word used to describe Donald Trump for over a decade now, and his second administration’s particularly violent and hateful approach to immigration enforcement can be described in no other way. And yet, the word had not occurred to me until this week.

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[…] A Testament Of Hope, he would not be giving up if he were here today. Note that he used the word tyranny. If only his ideas lasted all […]

Posted by: Another Martin Luther King Day Post – P.S. A Column On ThingsJanuary 19, 2026 at 07:38 AM

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