Examples include microaggression, intersectionality, cisgender, BIPOC, Latinx, “the unhoused” (that is, the homeless), returning citizens (ex-convicts) and “pregnant persons” (formerly “women”).
For those not up to speed on the latest academic conceits and ideological fads, including non-college voters streaming out of the Democratic Party, progressives might as well be speaking Esperanto.
They have also infused old words with new meanings. Take “equity.” Specifically, it means ownership in a house or stocks. But in its new meaning, it is used more generally as a synonym for fairness.
Now, it has become a pillar of DEI — the hallowed trinity of diversity, equity and inclusion that defines today’s “social justice” ethos. In this context, “equity” conveys a demand for something stronger than mere equality.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers, an enthusiastic advocate of DEI, parses the difference by defining equity as “fairness and justice” that is “distinguished from equality.”
“Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.”
After the George Floyd-Black Lives Matter summer of 2020, bureaucracies set up to inculcate DEI spread like kudzu throughout government, colleges and public schools, philanthropies and private companies.
Job applicants were taxed with describing how they would endeavor to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in their daily work.
Democrats duly clambered aboard the equity express. On his first day in office in 2021, President Biden ordered federal agencies to develop Equity Action Plans to advance “racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government.”
But DEI’s reign was brief. Working class voters, across racial lines, saw it at best as a distraction from their struggles with high living costs and worries about immigration and crime, and at worst as a coercive regime set up by self-righteous elites to correct their thoughts and speech.
Their antipathy toward progressive moralizing played a significant role in sinking Kamala Harris and the Democrats last year and returning the failed coup plotter, President Trump, to the White House.
The president believes he won a mandate to stamp out all vestiges of DEI in America. His minions are firing anyone in the federal government associated with diversity and affirmative action programs.
In yet another example of executive overreach, Trump also is threatening private colleges, businesses and civic institutions with political retribution if they don’t fall in line.
How should Democrats respond to this MAGA version of cancel culture? The same way they should have responded to the left-wing original — by standing up unequivocally for liberty of conscience and free speech.
But they should also reflect on the ferocity of the public backlash against a sectarian identity politics that subordinates the general welfare to the pursuit of “equity” for favored groups.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea for progressives to abandon Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind society in favor of group preferences, DEI, critical race theory, and related ideas that fragment Americans along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.
Fixating on the differences between groups makes it impossible to build a broad, center-left alliance, especially when non-college Americans, a majority of the electorate, are either left out of the left’s hierarchy of victimized groups or assigned the oppressor role.
Democrats, however, should reject race essentialism and equity not because they’re unpopular, but because they are illiberal.
In America’s liberal tradition, individuals have inalienable rights and liberties, not groups. That many originally were excluded from equal citizenship is reason to apply these principles universally, not discard them...
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| Source:Columbia Business School with a look at Progressive Policy Institute President, Will Marshall. |
You can read the rest of Will Marshall's column at The Hill
The great comedian, as well as political and social satirist George Carlin had some great observations about what he called "soft language", which is what Mr. Marshall is talking about here as well, but put it differently:
"George Carlin says soft language hides reality and makes life less lively.
Euphemisms are words that make harsh things sound nicer but can cause misunderstanding.
Using soft language, people might miss the real message because it hides the truth.
Soft language is a phrase coined by American comedian George Carlin to describe euphemistic expressions that "conceal reality" and "take the life out of life."
"Americans have trouble facing the truth," Carlin said. "So they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it" (Parental Advisory, 1990).
Under Carlin's definition, euphemisms are the closest synonym to "soft language", although the "softness" is implied to be an effect of the euphemism's usage. When a euphemism is used, its purpose is to soften the impact of something shocking, crude, ugly, embarrassing, or something along those lines. Carlin's point is that this indirect language may spare us some discomfort, but at the cost of vividness and expressiveness.
A corollary to this is jargon, which is specialized language for particular fields. On the surface, its intention is to express specialized ideas more clearly and specifically. In practice, however, jargon-heavy language tends to obscure the point rather than clarify it....
From Thought Co
And here is George Carlin's 1990 standup appearance about what he called "soft language":
"One of my favorite George Carlin bits in which he describes the sterilization of the American language. From the 1990 special Doin' it Again."
My first response here is: if you don't like the Pat Buchanan's, the David Duke's, the Rick Santorum's, the George Wallace's, (from way back) and today, the Donald J. Trump's of the world, taking over our government and politics in America and giving them so much power over everyone else... you can't ignore and leave behind 10s of millions of Americans, simply because you don't like their culture, or what part of the country their from, where they went to school, etc.
The next Democratic nominee for President in 2028, could get 100% of left-wing vote. And no, I'm not talking about Progressives. I'm talking about hard-core, leftists, people who sometimes can even make Socialist Bernie Sanders seem somewhat mainstream... but even if the next Democratic nominee gets 100% of the socialist vote in the next presidential election, in and outside of the Democratic Party, this person even completely shuts out the Green Party nominee, (where all Democratic Socialists should live and belong) the Democratic will still lose to the "Republican" nominee in 28. Assuming it's only Socialists who vote for the Democrat.
At least pre-Donald Trump and his so-called MAGA movement, in order to win a presidential election in America, you had to lead a big tent political party to win the election. That might not still be the case with the so-called Republicans today. I mean Donald Trump basically won in 16 and 24, by running to the right of even Pat Buchanan... certainly George Wallace from 1968. He at times, could look like an escaped mental patient, who decided to run for President while he was on the run and somehow won anyway. Why? Because to do a lot of small town, blue-collar voters, the Donald Trump's of the world, don't look like mental patients. Perhaps they're crazy Uncle Joe, but they see the Trump's of the world as fighting for them and as very entertaining.
But the big tent standard, sill applies to the Democrats. Whether it's fair or not, when Democrats look and sound like escaped lunatics, they get held accountable by the mainstream media and Independent voters. And when "Republicans" do that:
"Well, we know they're crazy. But someone here has to be responsible and show some real leadership. And we pick the Democrats to do that for us. And when they try to out-crazy the Republicans, we'll vote for the Republicans because we know they're crazy and it's not an act".
Mark Twain once said: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."
I think this could be applied to Democrats, at least mainstream Democrats in how they respond to MAGA. Except I would amend that to say: never try to out-crazy, crazy people, because they're crazy and know how to be crazy. And you are just acting, anyway. And 1 crazy party in America is too much for a solid majority of Americans, anyway.
So if you are a Democrat right now, especially a mainstream Democrat and you actually want to get elected President and not just run to to raise your profile, you need to be a big tent Democrat. And big tent Democrats I'm sure will have some Socialists and coffee house hipsters, who think they're the coolest people in the world because they speak their own social language and put down or "own" anyone who speaks different from them.
But the next Democratic nominee for President is going to need all the mainstream Democrats as well and they're also going to need blue-collar Democrats, who voted for Donald Trump 3 times because they somehow got conned into believing that he represents them and fights for them. As well as Independents from all social and economic backgrounds, who are tired of the political dysfunction, the corruption, and chaos in Washington and think maybe there's a Democrat who can lead the country responsibly again.
And to Will Marshall's first point about what George Carlin called "soft language" and where he said:
"Over the last two decades, progressive activists have introduced lots of sententious words and euphemisms into the U.S. political lexicon.
Examples include microaggression, intersectionality, cisgender, BIPOC, Latinx, “the unhoused” (that is, the homeless), returning citizens (ex-convicts) and “pregnant persons” (formerly “women...
That's 1 of my points here as well. You don't win presidential elections in this country by trying to convince more than half of the country that they're ignorant and aren't capable of speaking for themselves, so you are going to try to do that for them.
All this "soft language", trying to make people feel better than they deserve to feel and trying to replace terms that might not seem as offensive as the real term that actually describes who someone is and what the actual truth is... American voters aren't children. That should be obvious enough. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be eligible to vote. Most intelligent, sane, and sober people, (which seems like a very small club in America every passing day) can handle the truth, if you just give them a chance to hear it.
As Will Marshall also said: "How should Democrats respond to this MAGA version of cancel culture? The same way they should have responded to the left-wing original — by standing up unequivocally for liberty of conscience and free speech...
In any true free society, you are going to have people who not just make more money than others, but make a helluva lot more money than others, because they either had better opportunities, or did a better job of taking advantage of the opportunities that they were given. That's why in a liberal democracy, like America, total equality, especially total wealth equality, is never the goal. The goal in a true liberal society, is quality opportunity for everyone and what they do with the real chance at freedom, is up to them.
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