I’ve written a series of articles collectively called ‘The War on Words,’ in which I outline how the political left uses the connotations of words, independently of the meanings of those words, to attack political opponents. In some cases the meanings of words are reversed, such as in the case of the word ‘racism,’ where the left has created an alternate definition that is, itself racist, or in the case of the word ‘fascist,’ which the left throws around as if to claim that Hitler was somehow a libertarian or something.
If you want to know what a real fascist looks like, I give you Elizabeth Warren.
I’m afraid the left is moving beyond the War on Words. The left is no longer using words just to propagandize the public, but is now using words to actively punish political friends and foes. Anyone who so much as questions their agenda will fall under attack.
Take the strange case of Sharon Osborne and her show, ‘The Talk.’
It all started when Oprah Winfrey interviewed Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle claimed that Meghan Markle had been oppressed by the Royal Family, and went so far as to accuse an undisclosed member of the Royal Family of racism.
To the political left, Meghan Markle telling Oprah Winfrey how oppressive it was taking on a life of prestige and privilege, and being expected, in return, to learn how to live in the royal court, was an act of heroism. Oprah, who believes herself to be equally oppressed, was all ears.
Victimhood is the political currency of the left. The more a victim someone can claim to be – the more oppressed by society – the more political power they are given, and by giving people power based solely on how much of a reason they believe they have to hate society – how can anyone expect such a system to end well?
Piers Morgan questioned Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s claims on ‘Good Morning Britain.’ Piers Morgan even called some of the claims outright lies. This led to a confrontation with the weatherman of Good Morning Britain, who was appalled that a white television reporter could question Meghan Markel’s account of oppression.
Piers Morgan, as a white male, lacks political currency.
It turns out that a number of Meghan Markle’s claims were not only false, but demonstrably so. That did not matter to the producers of ‘Good Morning Britain.’ Piers Morgan questioning Meghan Markle’s account was taken as an overt act of racism, and Piers Morgan was forced off the show.
Sharon Osborne is friends with Piers Morgan, and she defended him on her show. Sheryl Underwood (the other host, who happens to be black) took exception to Sharon Osborne defending Piers Morgan, leading to a terse exchange in which Sharon Osborne asked Sheryl Underwood to ‘educate me’ on what it was that Piers Morgan said or did that was racist. Sheryl Underwood’s answer was that white people need to own their own racism – it is racist to ask black people to explain our racism to us.
Sharon Osborne was then kicked off her own show.
The United States is at a very dangerous inflection point where we will have to decide, as a country, whether to follow actual truths or political truths. Actual truths are those things that are actually true. Political truths are those things that are believed to be true in the public sphere, independently of whether or not they are actually true. Neither Piers Morgan, nor Sharon Osborne said or did anything racist – that is an actual truth. Sadly for both Sharon Osborne and Piers Morgan, their racism has become a political truth, and will forever define them in the public sphere.
An actual truth is that the police killed 19 unarmed black men in 2019. A political truth is that the police are hunting black men down on our streets with impunity. An actual truth is that the new Georgia voting law expanded access to early voting and tightened voter ID laws. A political truth is that the new Georgia voting law is a re-introduction of Jim Crow.
The distinction between actual truths and political truths may sound silly, but this distinction is becoming ever more important, with postmodernism rising from our universities into our corporate boardrooms. Coca-Cola is asking their employees to be less white. United Airlines has decided that hiring pilots based on their ability to fly airplanes is racist.
There is nothing wrong with a company like United Airlines working to make it easier for those who cannot afford pilot lessons to become pilots, which is one of the things United Airlines is doing, but United Airlines is using race and gender as the qualifying factors rather than socio-economic status. What Coca-Cola did is just plain wrong. In both cases – and I could give hundreds of examples – the companies are ‘going woke’ and accepting political truths that are in stark contrast to reality.
I’m not cherry-picking either. More than 100 corporations have united to fight Georgia’s new election law. All of these corporations are putting political truths ahead of reality.
Postmodernists don’t believe in actual truths – to the post modernist, all truth is subjective, and there is no rational way to choose one truth over another. Postmodernists will sometimes say things like, “You have your truth, and I have my truth.” As such, whatever ‘truth’ is the most useful in promoting whatever ideology is wanted becomes the only truth that matters, regardless of how fictitious that ‘truth’ may be.
The political left has a much better grasp on the difference between actual truths and political truths, but the political right needs to wake up to the fact that political truths are more important, in terms of public perception and policy. The political right needs to wake up to this quickly, as the political left is censoring conservative content, and is edging closer and closer to an outright ban on dissent. Should the left succeed in banning dissent, actual truths will no longer matter, as they will no longer exist in the public discourse.
Actual truths are already, in many cases, hard to find.
The mainstream media has been calling the United States (and the rest of the Western world) systemically racist for some time, and has been doing so in spite of the lack of evidence indicating that the Western World is systemically racist, as well as in spite of the literal mountains of evidence to the contrary. There is racism on every country on Earth, and the notion that racism can be completely eliminated in a nation of 330 million people is absurd, but the United States is nevertheless the least racist nation on Earth. The claims that the United States is uniquely racist, systemically racist, or some other such thing – these claims are demonstrably false, as are some of the claims Meghan Markle and Prince Harry made, and yet the claims persist.
The media claiming something that is demonstrably false, while ignoring all of the evidence and continuing to make the claim until the public just accepts it – none of that is anything new. Once Trump became President, the mainstream media gave up all pretenses of reporting ‘news’ and went into straight-up propaganda mode. This has been happening for years. Firing someone for asking a question, however, is new. Sharon Osborne did not defend racism, or make a racist statement herself. She simply said, “You said that what Piers Morgan said was racist. How was it racist? Educate me.”
And just like that, the new rule has been written – asking for an explanation of how or why something is racist is now an offense worthy of ending careers. I would suspect that at some point in the future, questioning a false narrative will be considered a hate crime.
You see this new phase of American ‘wokeness’ (or should we call it ‘brokeness’?) all around us. When Georgia passed a voter ID law, President Biden pressed Major League Baseball to pull the All Star Game out of Atlanta as punishment, and has been encouraging other businesses to pull out of Georgia in retaliation of what he calls ‘the new Jim Crow’ as well. Major League Baseball was so gung-ho to denounce this Georgia law that they relocated the All Star Game to Denver, in spite of the fact that Colorado has the same law. The mainstream media has been up in arms for two days now about how questioning whether or not the new Georgia law is racist, is racist.
Did you ever think you would live to see the day when an American President would leverage the power of corporate America to force individual states to do the President’s bidding? I suppose we should not be surprised considering that Joe Biden ran on an openly fascist platform – or as he put it, he will ‘end the age of shareholder capitalism.’
It is also not hard to get corporations on-board with fascist policies. The Biden Administration is promoting a two trillion dollar ‘infrastructure’ bill that has very little to do with infrastructure – after already passing a two trillion dollar Covid relief bill that had very little to do with Covid relief. Most of the money in these bills will go to the favored corporations that play along with Biden’s fascist policies, and accepting government largess is a much easier way for a corporation to cut a profit than is the dog-eat-dog worlds of free market competition.
The consumer be damned – Joe Biden does not work for you…
Questioning whether or not something is racist is now considered racist, which is somewhat unnerving after the CDC declared racism a public health threat. Today, if someone questions whether or not something is racist, the CDC considers that the equivalent of spreading an infectious disease.
As our military purges conservatives from its ranks, and our President declares war on white supremacy and political extremism, one would think the the definitions of such phrases as ‘white supremacy’ and ‘political extremism’ would be important, but rather than using such words and phrases with precision, our media uses them ever more nebulously. We are on the verge on making racism illegal, and at the same time we are also expanding the definition of the word ‘racism’ to include all forms of political dissent.
Imagine a country where anyone can be accused of the crime of racism, and any attempt to defend oneself from the accusation is used as proof of guilt. Imagine a country where should a lawyer try to defend the accused, the lawyer too is guilty. Imagine a country where even asking what it was someone did that was racist, makes you guilty of racism.
That’s where we live.
Understand what is under attack. It’s not just words the left is attacking, but ideas. To the Postmodernist, everything about our society from the Constitution down was created to perpetuate the Western Patriarchy by oppressing women, and people of color. The left is actively working to jetison justice, replacing it with ‘social justice,’ in which the details of a specific case do not matter. We are told, for example, that though Derek Chauvin may be seated in a Minneapolis courthouse, it is the entire United States that is on trial, and that if Derek Chauvin is found innocent the entire country will be found guilty.
Nobody on the left cares whether or not George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose. Derek Chauvin’s guilt or innocence is not considered relevant. Derek Chauvin, rather, must be sacrificed to the Volcano God of Political Correctness irrespective of the facts.
To the left, a free people will arrange themselves into a power hierarchy, making freedom the cause of oppression. To the left, our society is oppressive precisely because the people are free, and the solution to oppression is the elimination of freedom.
We cannot quote the Constitution to defend the American Way of Life. The left believes in a ‘living document’ interpretation of the Constitution, in which the Constitution says whatever it needs to say at any given moment in time, completely independently of the actual wording of the Constitution. Quoting the Constitution is an attempt to make it say what our founders wrote into it, and that is an affront to the living document. As crazy as it may sound, to the left, the Constitution is unconstitutional. To the political left, the best way to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution’ is to ignore it.
Winston Churchill said of the fall of France, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Is this the end of the beginning of the radical, leftist takeover of the United States, or did that occur during the Obama years?
Is this the beginning of the end, or did that occur when big tech and the mass media united in opposition to Donald Trump – and when a ‘well funded cabal’ decided to protect American democracy from the will of the American people?
Is this the end? Time will tell, but one thing is clear: in the end, either radical leftism wins, or we do.
