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Spygate: why Donald Trump’s use of ‘gate’ is a scandal

Trump has hit viral paydirt with an invented conspiracy theory that is masquerading as White House scandal. Is this a new, imaginary kind of ‘gate’?

When is a gate not a gate? When it’s a “spygate”. This is not a hinged partition in a fence for secret agents, but Donald Trump’s recent coinage for something that by all other accounts definitely didn’t happen: that Obama’s team planted a spy inside Trump’s campaign in order to help Hillary win, which also didn’t happen.

The suffix '-gate' is used with ironic hyperbole for trivial things. Or, in this case, purely imaginary things

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ssxqf4

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