Cynical politicians have a way of changing positive words or concepts into something negative. The Republican Party appears to be taking a lead in this semantic tactic.
More than two decades ago, Republicans made the word “liberal” into a pejorative term, especially when they use it to describe other Republicans. They could dismiss anyone they disagreed with or disliked by calling that person a liberal. My simple, apolitical dictionary definition of a liberal: “tolerant of views different from one’s own.”
A few years ago, I met with a business owner in East Texas to profile his newly opened brewpub/pizzeria for a daily newspaper where I worked at the time. I brought an article that a sister publication wrote after the merchant opened a home-brewing supplies shop in an adjoining building. My intent was to check it for errors. The merchant changed from being jovial into hostile. He demanded to see my story before publication, but I declined. “I don’t like liberals,” he said. “You don’t know my politics,” I retorted. “You’re with the newspaper,” he responded, erroneously assuming all journalists are liberal.
I returned to the office and told an editor about the conversation. But unbeknownst to me, a reporter at the sister newspaper interviewed the merchant, with the story running in Sunday’s business section. The reporter, who had previous dealings with the brewpub owner, described him as being stern during the interview.
The owner of an insurance agency in the community praised the new business in a Facebook post. In response, I sent her a private message to tell her about my unpleasant encounter with the owner. She thought the businessman was being an “—hole” and offered to have a word with him. I rejected her gesture. Meanwhile, the merchant lost a potential customer.
A few weeks ago, I struck up a conversation in a club with a Texas native whom I had not seen in months. A friend told me she was stricken by the pandemic. I suggested she could have stayed home on New Year’s Eve and watched Anderson Cooper of CNN ring in the New Year from Times Square.
“I don’t like him,” she said. “Why? Is it because he is gay?” I asked. She responded, “I don’t like liberals.”
I told the Trumper I am politically liberal, to which she responded, “I have liberal friends.”
Another word is gaining currency among Republicans and conservatives: “woke.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines woke as chiefly U.S. slang for “aware of and actively attentive to important societal issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” It originated in African-American English and became more widespread in the United States starting in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter movement.
What could be negative about the word woke? Republican politicians have found a way to do so by making being woke sound like a threat to our freedoms. Leading the charge is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely candidate for president in 2024. He spoke of a “woke agenda” during his victory speech over Democrat Charlie Crist after the November general election.
The word woke crept into a conversation I had Thursday while waiting in the lobby at a podiatrist's office. A man, a registered Independent who gets his news from reading financial newsletters, said the term while also badmouthing California, a state where we both were born. “It’s a buzzword,” I told him. He also called the Golden state “the socialist republic of California,” an exaggeration that is not uncommon to hear in Arizona. We were only a year apart in age and came from the same region in the country but had totally different outlooks. However, I identified with one thing he said, “I’m lower middle class.”
Using buzzwords like liberal and woke to describe people we disagree with plays well with politicians’ bases but sows more divisions in a country that is already divided. It is us vs. them, not a call for unity.
Instead of using buzzwords that divide us, politicians need to de-escalate the rhetoric and work with the other side in Congress and the White House to solve the nation’s pressing problems.