Merriman Webster is rolling in his grave. Language once used to communicate ideas has become a battle mace. If you’re unfamiliar with that tool, it was a medieval weapon to bludgeon the opponent to a bloody bone crushed pulp with one successful hit. Apropos. We’re in sort of a new kind of space where language has taken a turn in how it’s used. It used to be that intelligent people would use a greater variety of words with more precision to convey nuance as well as broad messages. Now the opposite is taking place in public discourse and media, the progressives only know how to attack with a string of predictable simple words.
I can’t help but relate this to a petulant child or adolescent that in anger, babbles the same words over and over again until he/she gets their way. Up until a few years ago, misplaced words were inaccurately applied to signal the displeasure of the progressive-left toward the conservative-right. Racist. Fascist. Bigoted. These were words thrown out in predictable scenarios, like our bad mannered child pulling the string on the doll to get one of eight or ten random words repeated – it hardly mattered which one. But now it’s gotten so much worse. In the Orwellian crackdown of the new progressive regime, it’s now routine to use strings of words repeatedly spewed at every conservative political adversary. It doesn’t matter if they’re rich, poor, a Sunday school teacher, a grandmother, a student, an out of work pipeline worker, a senior US Senator office holder, all are guilty as described by their polemic. Adjectives: Racist, far Right (there is no Conservative or Right anymore, only far Right) –Fascist, Bigoted, Extremist, White Supremacist. Nouns: Extremist, Christian, Nationalist, Nazi – (why of course). For good measure, lets also throw in: Hater. The language chosen to represent themselves are axiomatically opposite, Tolerant, Compassionate, Anti-Fascist, Self-defense, Peaceful, Heal.
Let’s pull the progressive string a few times:
- The marchers were far-right fascist Christian nationalist.
- Twitter deleted the extremist nationalist X’s account for hateful, bigoted, white supremacist speech against congressperson Y.
- The speaker warned Republican legislator X that extremist hateful lies challenging the election process would not be tolerated.
- Peaceful Anti-Fascist protestors broke windows while demonstrating against Senator X whom they say promotes hateful racist and extremist far-right views.
And on and on and on. Pull the string again…
It doesn’t matter that 99% of the demonstrators were peaceful, that being Christian isn’t hateful much less unlawful, that pointing out video footage of election fraud is neither lies not extremist, but if the progressive mob says it is, it is to them. If their media says you are, you are. When Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi say ‘heal’, they mean heel and submit. The fact that the progressive left far better embodies their own accusations than their victims, is immaterial, they’ve hijacked the English language.
How do we recapture the battleground called language, the rhetorical space?
First we stop submitting to and unquestioningly responding to all speech that uses progressive pet-language. Senator Rand Paul provided an excellent example to this when confronted by George Stephanopoulos. He would not indulge George on his terms. First step: STOP.
Second step, demonstrate independence from the manipulative progressive voices. ‘I refuse to play along with your game’. I like the attitude of Dave Portney when he declared “They’ve been trying to cancel me for two decades — I’m un-cancellable,” he said in a Twitter video. “I’m big. You’re little. I cancel you.” Second step: INDEPENDENCE. Which brings us to the last thing:
Third, be aggressive, be vocal, be loud; in fact, you have to be louder than your opposition. Take them by surprise because they are used to you cowering when they pull out the old worn racist, far right –fascist, bigoted, extremist, Christian, Nationalist, Nazi, hater. Third step: AGGRESSIVE.
We have to be far more forceful. I’m not playing their game and I do not sign onto their power grab over language. Speak up. The attempt at progressive dominance only works if you submit to their rules and the accusations they assign to you. Any dialogue prefaced by their misused language is terminated until confronted, corrected and countered. Gird yourself.