The actions of this administration and its leader often leave us open-mouthed and tongue-tied. Trying to categorize what’s going on we use defective, inaccurate, fuzzy words like fascism, conservatism, liberal. Yes, we resort to clichés. We argue. What does “liberal” mean anymore? The imprecision is not just in the political context. Abstract and broad concept words tend to become not only ambiguous and diverse; they vary with the user’s understanding, background and purpose.
Mark Lilla wrote an interesting piece about this:
What is “conservatism”? Just a word. There is no essence to “conservatism,” any more than there is to “liberalism,” or “the right,” or “the left.” These are labels we make for little boxes into which we drop things that seem related, for reasons we can’t always articulate and sometimes can’t even remember.
Lilla’s concepts get dropped into “little boxes” or, as I would put it, stored in a patch of brain cells that, at best, permit a developing context to define the vagueness and ambiguity. That doesn’t usually work too well so these become slippery terms defined by the purpose of the user. Abstract political terms like conservative are especially susceptible to such twisting. Only the insiders can agree on a meaning, and sometimes they have their disputes. The internal disagreements among MAGA are legion.
Sometimes they are laughable. Here’s a prime example from the White House press secretary.
Today the No Kings marches have offered Republicans a great opportunity to joke about serious charges and grievances. Speaker Mike Johnson calls it the “hate America rally” that would draw “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” Rally organizers seemed to get a kick out this: “In a joint, unsigned statement, which they said they issued ‘after a few moments of laughter,’ they pressured Johnson over the government shutdown.”
My bottom line on this is simply that politics doesn’t do well with fuzzy concept words. Actions speak louder than they do anyway. Look at the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco for example. Or the impact of South Park. Has Schumer said anything funny or memorable lately?
seems to me there are words that accurately describe the situation, starting with bad and wrong. meaning of conservative is pretty clear despite efforts of some to redefine it. ultimately, the challenge is to work for things that are — or at least seem — good and right rather than being distracted by the sideshow of a semantic debate.
Consider: Nearly 7 million people showed up yesterday. Boisterious, determined, happy-to-be-together-dammit, and in for the long haul.
As Molly Ivins put it, “keep on marching beloveds, and when you get back, be sure to tell everyone how much fun you had.”