Everyone I Don't Like is a *_______*: A Partisan's Guide to Political Discourse
Words have meaning and power, and both are lost when they become casual and indiscriminate tools of attack.
I said what I said, and I’ll say it again. The right is doing to the word “groomer” what the left had done to the word “racist.”
The Culture War
Everyone loves to bitch and moan about the culture war. Well, not everyone, just the right, conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, Trumpsters, the establishment, the center-left…. ok, everyone but the radical progressive left likes to talk about the culture war. But the only reason they aren’t talking about it is that they’re winning it. The left is winning the culture war in every meaningful facet, film and media, art, fashion, academia, and most frighteningly language.
We’ve entered an age where any criticism, no matter how warranted or valid, can be discounted because it causes offense. Accidently misgendering someone can be cause for de-platforming and canceling. Argumentation has become one-sided because rules aren’t agreed to before debate but are unilaterally set by the left. Character attacks and insults have become the norm of political discussion, and equity and empathy have become the standards by which one’s arguments are judged in public. It matters not if you were right, but did you respect your opponent? The left plays by different rules, if you disagree, you’re a nazi, a racist, alt-right, a terrorist, and guilty of using harmful words.
We live in a world where facts do care about feelings. We live in a world, where anyone the left doesn’t like has become a nazi.
Becoming Thy Enemy
Those on the losing side of the culture war have become keenly aware of their position. Politics is downstream of culture, and many on the right have realized that in order to stem the tide of the “woke” progressive left from gaining further political power, they must win in the heart of culture. But instead of engaging in the battle for culture in mediums such as film, art, media, or academia, it appears that many on the right have chosen to adopt the latest stages of the left’s strategies, rather than emulate their generational success.
But the culture of weaponized discourse is itself a critical part of the left’s culture. A culture of conformity, outrage, and hatred, where any disagreement is punished with social and cultural ostracization and derision. At its heart, what the culture of the left has become in its victory, is one of hatred, collectivism, and reactionary outrage.
It’s this culture of reactionary outrage, paired with self-righteous anger, that led to the overuse and destigmatization of the words “nazi” and “racist” as attacks and pejoratives. “Everyone I don’t like is a Nazi” became a trope of leftist argumentation and became mocked by anyone to the right of the belligerent attacker. Leftists using words like Nazi, Bigot, and Racist used to be a sure sign that they had lost their argument, and were resorting to a tactic similar to tossing the chess table rather than finishing the game.
But recently, the right has succumbed to the same outrage and hatred. Over different issues, but resorting to collectivism. No longer is it “Everyone I hate is a Nazi,” but rather “Everyone I hate is a Groomer.” This tactic not only devalues the definition of the word groomer as it becomes a catch-all for anyone who disagrees with the right on issues surrounding LGBTQ, Drag, Trans, and children’s narratives, but it is also forfeiting the ethical high ground held by the right in the arena of political discourse. Resorting to collectivist insults based on differing ideologies, as opposed to reserving the accusations of grooming for those engaged in the behavior, is simply the right becoming the new left.
Subversive #78: "Weaponized Discourse" ft. Reed Coverdale
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Summary
Have the power of words been lost to the weaponized discourse of modern political argumentation? Is the right doing to “groomer”, what the left did to “racist”? Is “Pedo” just the new “Nazi”? Is the modern guide to partisan political discourse to just dive into reactionary insults against collective groups with no critical thinking? Is the culture war lost, now that the right has adopted the tactics of the left?
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