We Need a New Vocabulary For Our Politics... by Dan Rather

[sinkingfeeling]

https://steady.substack.com/p/we-need-a-new-vocabulary-for-our-436?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTY2NDUxMywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDE4MjQ1OTQsIl8iOiJuL2pUYyIsImlhdCI6MTYzMjY3MDA1MCwiZXhwIjoxNjMyNjczNjUwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjQ3ODgxIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.hZmDuIsIm0M_rkwajNPnAxF-4-lWW0GiGudR8gtTJ24

Simply put, we use vocabulary from the past to talk about the present in a way that can, if we are not careful, be very distorting. Much like the powerful computer/camera/reader/flashlight/alarm clock/tracking device we carry around in our purses or pockets has only a tangential relation to traditional notions of the telephone, the nomenclature we use to reference political parties, the courts, and the other institutions of our civic life is equally tenuous.

We need to really think hard about how antiquated some of our descriptions for our current state of affairs have become. Let’s start with who makes up the citizenship of our country. It is nothing like what it was, even in the not-too-distant past. We are much more diverse, by any metric you could think of. We are also more urban, more educated, and more mobile. And yet there is a strong bias to think of “average Americans” as those who would be conjured up in decades past. Proof of this can be found in the seeming obsession by the political press to hunker down for interviews with voters in rural diners. These Americans are asked their opinion about the direction of the country a lot more than a young immigrant in the Bronx.

Once one acknowledges all this churn it brings into question some of the other descriptive terminology we tend to use. What really is a conservative, a liberal, a moderate? How can you be a conservative and care nothing about conserving the planet? How can you be called a moderate and do nothing to moderate the greatest assault on democracy in generations? Is it a liberal value to adhere to the science of vaccines?

I would humbly suggest that journalists in particular pay attention to these questions of semantics. Because what you call something matters. It shapes how the public sees reality. The term “liberal” might suggest a movement that is unrestrained, whereas “conservative” might suggest a movement that is secure and grounded. Is that really an accurate portrayal of Democrats and Republicans today? Even the idea of two equal political parties simply vying for votes, Democrats this and Republicans that, is a mischaracterization of what each of these parties has become and how they function. Political parties in our history have had leaders, but they have not been cults of personality. The terminology of a “party” suggests a core set of beliefs, a platform on which candidates run, even if they do not agree on all the issues. But today’s Republicans are less a party than a mass movement with fealty to a would-be authoritarian. They didn’t even try to produce a platform for the 2020 campaign. Instead, their voters, in a party that long championed “family values,” embraced a man who was morally bankrupt. This included a vast majority of white, evangelical voters. Similarly, the party that piously lectured on fiscal responsibility when Democrats wanted to spend money, eagerly opened the checkbook to a grifter.

It is understandable that we seek to hold on to familiar terms to try to make sense of the present. That’s how language works. We need some common points of comprehension. And languages do evolve. But it takes time. Right now, we don’t have time to sit back and wait. We need to develop the words that accurately describe the dangers we are seeing. We can’t let comfortable euphemisms and terminology cloud out the truths of our moment. To try to come up with new ways to describe our politics is not an easy undertaking, but it is a necessary one. If we hope to accurately diagnose what ails us and find solutions rooted in the current reality, we must let go of the definitions of the past.

[blm]

1. The GOP was taken over by Rabid Reactionaries

who gained control of the party by forcing out traditional conservatives over the last 20 years.

[RainCaster]

2. Very well said nt

[niyad]

3. KNR

[hay rick]

4. "Conservative."

Right now, if somebody tells me they are a Republican because they are "conservative," I hear that they are ok with treason.

[pandr32]

5. Everybody should read this

[burrowowl]

6. K&R Dan Rather

[calimary]

7. Dan Rather remains a national treasure. And a national conscience.

Keeping this!

[mellow]

8. "Conservative" equals radical?

We've come to use "conservative" to refer to radicals and cult members and fools. A new word is needed.

[mountain grammy]

9. As always, Rather nails it..

absolutely this;

Right now, we don’t have time to sit back and wait.

[hermetic]

10. Great article

I totally agree.

[ffr]

11. I disagree. The terminology is already there. Word definiitions are what they are.

The GOP is 100% a cult that makes no secret to the fact that they see things hypocritically as they see fit, their alternative facts based reality.

It's a reality that can change by the minute. No wonder they have no party platform, because it's whatever they make it out to be as they roll with the punches.

The definitions of words accurately describe this in it's current form. As hypocrites, they are loyal and disloyal to one another, are for the military industrial complex, while at the same time against funding veterans benefits. They're pro-vaccine in the formation of the science behind getting a vaccine, before they're against the vaccine once it favors democrats politically. They'll call people sheeple for doing what's right, getting vaccinated for the betterment of society, while they're numbers dwindle in comparison, like sheep following others off a cliff. They'll tout themselves as American patriots, while openly taking political assistance from our adversaries and giving comfort to those adversaries, while democrats find ways to punish those adversaries. They're pro America, but against democracy. Their pro United States, but want to succeed from the union and actively wielding policy to reward their red states and punish their opposition's blue states. They'll steal SCOTUS seats, while denying democratic presidents any courtesy to nominate vacant seats, if it's in their political interests and power to do so.

The GOP is no more. What remains is an authoritarian cult desperate to hold onto power as the rules of democracy do not favor their platform, the platform that doesn't stand for anything.

[erronis]

18. The GOP uses words as weapons like a fox cloaked in a sheepskin.

They're working on perfecting the war-is-peace, ministry-of-truth memes.

Whatever they say is the opposite of what they mean. But they are perfectly willing and able to change instantly if it serves their ultimate purposes.

"The GOP is 100% a cult that makes no secret to the fact that they see things hypocritically as they see fit, their alternative facts based reality." - the Hypocrite Party.

[dchill]

12. Not bad for a kid, Dan!

[Marthe48]

13. Going back to my grandarents' heyday

early 1900's. Check out some of the speeches people gave (such as William Cullen Bryant), check out the literature published for people to read (such as Scientific American). Read some editions of papers across the U.S. from that era. You had to be more than literate to read and understand the extensive coverage. Even the chidlrens' literature was amazingly in-depth. Many people I knew from that era did not continue education past 8th grade. My grandmother strongly believed in self-education and filled her house with books for self-improvement. I know she minded missing out on graduating from high-school. She set a wonderful example for us kids. I knew people from my parents' generation as well who didn't get their high school diploma. Some were self-conscious. Others just went to work at age 13 and never had time to get back to school. There was a cachet about learning and education then that we have left by the wayside now. Look in the movies how the smart people are either nerdy losers or evil scientists. Terrific role models for kids.

[Boomerproud]

14. Tear-inducing, not so must for the point of the article

about language but how we are failing as a society.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

15. He's right, and I am so damn sick and tired

Of these people being labelled in the media, and being allowed yet to label themselves as “conservative”. These are anti-democratic radicals. If any group in this country right now is “conservative”, it’s us democrats, trying to hold onto traditional norms and democratic values and processes, and the rule of law itself.

[peggysue2]

16. I agree with ffr's thread above

It's not that we do not possess the words or the vocabulary to accurately describe what's before us. It's that we choose not to use those words, that vocabulary.

How long did it take the media to call Trump out for the pathological liar that he is? How long have we suffered the 'bothsiderism' equation in nearly all news reports when it's been beyond obvious that the Republican Party, the Trump supporters and acolytes are not a political party at all but a personality cult. How many are willing to point out that Trumpism is simply a more palatable term for fascism? Or that the idea of a 'unitary president' is simply another word for autocrat?

We are gazing into the abyss as the press discounts the zeal that Trumpers have for Tucker Carlson's continuing bleat about Replacement Theory or casting an accusatory finger at our schools over the phantom teaching of Critical Race Theory, not to mention the 700,000+ Americans dead from Covid (with no end in sight) because Carlson et al., and their spew of propaganda and cultish followers have turned a virus into a political weapon.

All in the service of Donald Trump.

What ails us is a minority party willing to burn the house down, reshape the country into their own bloated image without any regard for the democratic Republic that has sustained the nation. Rather, they've fallen in with the political theory of the day: democracy = inefficient, slow, clunky; autocracy = getting things done in a smooth, streamlined manner without all that regulatory stuff or the legal hurdles or the endless debates.

Democracy is so yesterday, the theory goes.

History teaches a far different lesson, one that's littered with bodies, drenched in blood along with graft, greed and hate.

We have a clear choice:

Democracy. Or not.

The words are there. We just need to use them.

[sarchasm]

17. Love this.

Rather eloquently explains what many are feeling at this point.

[erronis]

19. Just reposting the link to Dan's substack article without all the tracking

https://steady.substack.com/p/we-need-a-new-vocabulary-for-our-436