Ai czar, border czar, health czar…

I see it mentioned all the time in the US media but also elsewhere recently, where does this come from?

Czar is historicly the title of Russian rulers. Which these people clearly aren’t, so why the use of this term?

Is it some sort of right wing dogwistle?

  • Krono@lemmy.today
    8·
    3 days ago

    The word tsar/czar originally derives from Julius Caesar, just like the German “kaiser”.

    But in US terms, it was popularized by FDR during WWII.

    In 1942, The Washington Post reported on the “executive orders creating new czars to control various aspects of our wartime economy.”[11] Positions were created for a transportation czar, a manpower czar, a production czar, a shipping czar, and a synthetic rubber czar, all to solve difficult problems in coordinating the resources necessary to fight World War II wikipedia