I have written previously how the woke left uses the words “racism” and “racist” to denigrate their political opponents and obfuscate the left’s real political aim, which is the total domination of America by racialized bureaucrats. Calling their opponents epithets such as “racist” is akin to the old question, “When did you stop beating your wife?” There’s no correct response, no defense. Whatever you say or don’t say, you’re guilty.
This use of words is very clever. Words have enormous power, to both describe and mislead. The most misleading words are those invented to describe something purportedly real, but which actually doesn’t exist. (An example is the old “blood libel” lie spread by anti-Semites about Jews.) Say something often enough, and eventually it will be believed by people, observed Goebbels and Hitler and, later, someone who studied them closely, Donald Trump. (“The 2020 election was rigged!” “Hillary’s emails!”)
Those are rightwing lies. The Left is equally adroit at them. Through its complex web of organizations, quoted by a compliant leftwing media, it repeats these words or phrases over and over again, until a baffled public, hearing them everywhere, assumes they refer to real things. These words can best be described as “woke,” says a Politico article from last week that lists some 45 terms that “Democrats should stop using” because they “put “a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities.” The article doesn’t actually namedrop any top Democrats, although it’s easy to come up with examples (Kamala Harris, Ilhan Omar, Lateefah Simon, AOC). It’s also easy to identify local politicos who use these terms: here in Oakland, they include Pamela Price, Carroll Fife, Sheng Thao, Barbara Lee, and the rest of the usual DEI suspects.
What are these 45 words and phrases? The list is too long for my little blog, but here are some of the top ones, according to the Politico article, which was based on a previous article in Third Way: triggering … microaggression … systems of oppression … cultural appropriation … the unhoused … food insecurity … housing insecurity … patriarchy … person who immigrated … cisgender … patriarchy … LGBTQIA+ … BIPOC … incarcerated people … involuntary confinement.
You could almost play a party game: cram as many of these terms as you can into a single sentence that, in meaninglessness and pomposity, could have come from the mouth or pen of any Oakland City Council member of the last twenty years: “I will end the systems of oppression and microaggressions that oppress the unhoused and our BIPOC brothers and sisters, and restore rights to incarcerated people suffering from involuntary confinement, many of them persons who immigrated,” etc. etc. ad nauseum.
The article breaks these 45 words into six categories, one of which, “explaining away crime,” is the most reprehensible and toxic to the Democratic brand. Indeed, a large segment of Americans has come to believe that Democrats favor, not the victims of crime, but the perpetrators. Every time a liberal talks about the “root causes” of crime, he or she causes more voters to flee to the Republican Party. Americans know that there is no “root cause” of crime that can sanely be attributed to a murderer or mugger, other than a hostile criminal mentality. This is just more bullshit that woke liberals have been feeding Americans for years.
The antidote for Democrats, according to Third Way and Politico, is for Dems “to talk like normal people and stop talking like they’re leading a seminar at Antioch.” Here, the article does namedrop some Democrats who are “communicating in authentic ways that welcome rather than drive voters away...”. Among them are Pete Buttigieg, Andy Beshear and Ruben Gallego (I would add JB Pritzker). Not included is Gov. Gavin Newsom (“iterative processes,” “foundational,” “equity lens”, etc.) whom I would advise to read the article. He’s been getting better lately, but sometimes he still sounds like he’s on his way to that seminar at Antioch. “Big is getting small and small is getting big,” Newsom once told Steven Colbert. “What the f— does any of that mean?” replied Colbert, potentially anticipating millions of American voters who might ask precisely that question of Newsom during the 2026 Presidential primaries and campaign.
Steve Heimoff