By Fitim Zekthi
One of the most defining features of populist politics—and the language it uses—is its refusal to accept any truth except the one it manufactures itself. At the heart of this style is the attempt to control the public mind through the very form of its communication. The public—or at least a portion of it—is not meant to think. It mustn’t even have the time to think. The public must be fed a steady diet of clichés, hollow phrases endlessly repeated.
Clichés sever any direct contact with reality. They serve to draw the public—or parts of it—into an alternate, curated reality. As Czech anti-communist dissident Piotr Fidelius once put it, a cliché strikes the individual tangentially on the head and leaves a mark just strong enough to prevent them from thinking independently.
And then comes another cliché. And another. The individual’s mind becomes a permanent target of these rhetorical blows, and eventually, they no longer think for themselves—they think as the cliché. The cliché becomes their only thought.
Edi Rama has used this method for years. So has Sali Berisha. Rama repeats slogans about the “European passport,” the “developed Albania,” “historic achievements,” “the sword of justice handed to SPAK,” and “personal responsibility for those who pick apples and pears,” and so on. He knows full well that the audience he targets will internalize and think along the lines of these empty phrases.
Berisha has his own toolkit: “narcostate,” “a liberated and stronger-than-ever Democratic Party,” “the Soros conspiracy,” “SPAK as a criminal tool,” and more.
Since the elections, the deployment of clichés—especially by Berisha and the Democratic Party (DP)—has grown almost geometrically. The aim is simple: do not give DP members, voters, or even MPs the time or space to think for themselves. The party’s rhetoric has been flooded with phrases like “the greatest electoral massacre in history” or “the terror of criminals on election day.” The sheer volume of these claims has smothered any room for alternative thought, reflection, or even pause.
International reactions to the elections have met the same fate. Berisha claims to have informed right-wing parties worldwide, who are now—he says—assessing the “horrific electoral massacre.” When Germany, France, and Italy (the EU’s leading powers) extended congratulatory messages to the Albanian government, the DP dismissed them as mere polite formalities. Party-adjacent voices in the media claimed these were just Sorosian leaders, irrelevant in the grand scheme. What matters, they say, is only the United States—which, in their view, is preparing to bring down Rama.
When the U.S. Embassy released its statement on the elections, followed by an excerpt from Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s remarks, the DP insisted that the U.S. had not congratulated Rama. According to them, this silence speaks volumes: the U.S. had supposedly congratulated Rama four years ago—but not this time. Hence, the Soros-controlled State Department must be crumbling, and with it, so will Rama.
Even Landau’s statement received no proper response—only vague allusions that he is part of a new American leadership determined to uproot Soros, and therefore, eventually, Rama.
Yet the truth is that both the embassy’s statement and Landau’s remarks are cut from the same political cloth. They reflect a single, coherent foreign policy philosophy that has been in place since January 20, when President Trump took office.
This philosophy—reaffirmed by Secretary Rubio on January 21 in directives to all U.S. embassies—seeks to drastically reduce U.S. involvement in the world’s affairs, unless such involvement makes America “stronger, safer, and more prosperous.” This new orientation is a modern revival of a long-standing American tradition: isolationism.
This is the same thinking that, in the 1920s, led Congress to reject the League of Nations, even though it was President Wilson’s own brainchild. This is the same spirit found in the Farewell Address of the first U.S. President, George Washington.
In today’s world, this means the U.S. is pulling back. The statements made by Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Hegseth in Munich echo this shift. It also explains Washington’s cooler stance on Ukraine, its blunt assessments of the European Union—President Trump famously called the EU a structure “designed to harm America”—and its refusal to engage in the India–Pakistan conflict, despite both being nuclear states.
It also explains why the U.S. has not lifted a finger during the political impasse in Kosovo, where 23 parliamentary sessions have failed to elect a speaker. The U.S. Embassy and the State Department have been passive—nothing like the interventions of the past.
In that sense, the recent U.S. message congratulating Kosovo’s independence and the quiet re-commitment to sending FBI and DOJ experts to support SPAK are as far as American involvement currently goes.
Seen in this light, the embassy’s congratulatory statement on Albania’s elections is not something that had to be issued at all. It came—and unfortunately for the DP’s rhetoric—it congratulated the people, which inherently affirms that the elections were deemed credible. No U.S. official congratulates a population for participating in a “massacre” or a “farce.”
Landau’s remarks reinforce this point:
“The U.S. will support [others] when help is requested and justified.”
“Justified,” here, means help that aligns with U.S. interests—not help rooted in local party politics, ideological extremes, or rhetorical vendettas.
His statement continues:
“We reject both unacceptable extremes—either a desire for extraordinary transformation, or the endless rehashing of ancient grievances. Politics without limits or historical humility becomes the enemy of strategy and constitutional state-building.”
The U.S. Embassy’s decision to publish this was no accident. It was meant to signal, bluntly: the U.S. rejects all extremes—whether they come from Rama or Berisha.
In short, neither of them is in the U.S. spotlight, nor do they have its personal backing. Albania still matters, though much less than before. The American focus is blurred, diffused, distant.
For Washington, the elections are over. What remains—only the clichés we keep repeating to ourselves.