Have you ever noticed how one seemingly isolated incident seems to spawn a rash of similar such incidents? Take, for instance, the recent series of mechanical failures and mishaps involving Boeing aircraft. Suddenly, it’s almost impossible to turn on the evening news without hearing of yet another plane being diverted because of some issue with a dislodged cowling, door or wheel.
It’s much the same with political issues. Library drag queen shows and inappropriate reading material for juveniles, not even a blip on anyone’s radar all these years, is suddenly a full-blown crisis – because somebody decided it should be.
Who is that somebody? Does anyone really know who lodged the initial complaint that drag queens posed a greater threat to kids than say, a priest or minister shielded by the church?
What has happened, thanks in large part to social media, that scourge of the Internet Age, is that the heretofore most insignificant complaint by someone tucked securely away in some remote bedroom but with access to a computer now gets full attention by everyone.
And by everyone, I mean those with the most Facebook or Twitter followers (I know, they don’t go by their former names anymore, but I’m old school) and politicians mining the landscape for votes.
It’s the same with platitudes that have found their way into the lexicon of elected officials with no real leadership qualities but desperate for an issue that might resonate with the electorate. These are banalities with little or no real meat on the bone but which “sound good” as a hot issue to latch onto. Let’s examine a few:
Drain the swamp. Sounds good, but what are the actual odds of one person taking on the federal bureaucracy and winning? And can you name any one individual who has ever done that. Former Sen. William Proxmire (R-Wisconsin) tried with his monthly “Golden Fleece Award,” but can you point to any such award that had any real lasting effect?
Deep State. See above.
MAGA. It’s just a political slogan that does nothing to address a proposed method of achieving some vague definition of “greatness” that apparently must have slipped away at some point (must’ve been after we recognized that women and minorities had rights and that we owed future generations the inheritance of a clean, livable planet).
Stop the Steal. No fewer than 61 court cases have determined that claims of 2020 election fraud had absolutely no basis in fact with many of those rulings coming from Republican-appointed judges.
Rigged election. See above paragraph.
America First. Sound good until we learn that this catchy slogan (first adopted by an outfit known affectionately as the KKK) doesn’t seem to apply to the American corporations who move their operations overseas in order to avoid taxes and for cheaper labor – at the cost of American jobs.
Witch hunt. Term usually employed by someone under investigation for some nefarious act(s). Term usually employed the loudest when the evidence against them is the most convincing.
Hoax. Dismissive term used when there is no other explanation for those charges being investigated.
Climate hoax. Same as above, except applied exclusively by climate deniers.
Fake news. Consensus favorite of them all. Overworked, abused cop-out. Nothing more need be said of this hackneyed phrase.
Crooked Hillary/Sleepy Joe Biden, etc. Terms employed liberally to denigrate political opponents in lieu of offering any real proposals on issues.
January 6 hostages. See Witch hunt, Hoax, Rigged election and above paragraph. Also known as gaslighting, or trying to convince us we didn’t see what we saw.
Secure the border. Something Native Americans would loved to have done a few centuries ago.
Library drag shows. Already discussed at length but has become a major issue with those who would rather not talk about America’s ill-advised wars, the treatment of disabled veterans returning from those wars, poverty, hunger, the wage disparity between corporate CEOs and American workers or the environment.
Critical race theory/great replacement theory/white nationalism. Interchangeable terms, all intended to instill great fear of minorities in the hearts of white America. Also to discourage or outright forbid the teaching of certain unpleasant elements of American history lest our innocent children be exposed to nasty truths about the root causes of the Civil War or the civil rights struggle for blacks or for women’s suffrage efforts – all fought by certain elite powers who desperately want those unpleasant chapters be expunged from our history.
Woke. Term meaning an awareness of the injustices thrust upon certain segments of society. An otherwise complimentary term turned on its head to mean something evil by those who would turn their backs on human suffering.
Antifa. Not an actual organization, though there are those who would want you to think otherwise. Term actually means “anti-fascist.” Fascism is an issue we actually fought a war against and the world was involved. Literally.
You’re going to be hearing most of these terms ad nauseam in the coming months leading up to the November election. They will be spewed by the trained circus seals who know only what their handlers teach them to say. They know nothing else and do not possess the ability or imagination to think for themselves and to rationalize the contradictions of their clichés
You’d think they’d want to make America great again.
Excellent article.as usual, Tom.
in Trumpland we won’t have to think, just trust and obey like the old hymn says.
In Trumpland there will be no need to think – only trust and obey as the old hymn says.
Excellent article!
Tom, you left out a couple platitudes. I will include them here:
Woman’s right to choose.
Every champion of abortion leaves out the direct object-murder. They uphold the right of women to choose to murder their baby.
Reproductive rights.
At what point do we hand off the baton from reproductive rights to the rights of the living being growing in a womb? First trimester? 5 years old? Isn’t the law clear when life begins. If I am a bank robber and in the course of the robbery I shoot a pregnant, transgender man, aren’t I charged with two counts of murder?
Misinformation.
We were told Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Hundreds of intelligence people told us it was fake. Lo and behold it was 100% real. Russian collusion amounted to $100,000 in FB ads in a 2 billion dollar contest. The Steele Dossier was fiction that frauds like Rachel “collusion” Maddow peddled for 2 1/2 years. Covid started in a pangolin, giraffe or gerbel, and, yet again, the misinformation was from the MSM. It was a lab leak. The vaccine is 100% effective and safe. Hank Aaron died shortly after taking the vaccine. Our friend, who had no history of heart disease, died 3 days after getting the vaccine from a heart attack. I know. Nothing to see here folks.
Climate change is settled science.
I wonder if climatologists and meteorologists attend the same curriculum? They can’t tell me, accurately, what the weather will be Friday, but they know what will happen in 1, 5 or 10 years? C’mon man. It’s been called global cooling caused by a lessening ozone layer (1980s), global warming due to greenhouse gases then they rebranded it climate change to cover an unpredictable future.
Democrats are the real patsies.