(Something) Denier¶
Political Rhetoric, 1993
Someone who is skeptical of extremists’ claims something is “well-established theory, law, fact or evidence”, whilst appearing exaggerated, politicised, or misrepresented.
Denial is a concept from psychoanalysis originating with Sigmund Freud’s daughter, Anna. The attempt to pathologicise it as a behaviour, or “denialism” (as opposed to “revisionism”) - useful for smearing one’s political enemies - is undoubtedly derived from the legitimate concerns around anti-Semites inexplicably contesting the observed genocide of 6 million people, exemplified by books such as Deborah Lipstadt’s “Denying the Holocaust – The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory”.