Monday, December 31, 2018

A New Year’s political lexicon to help decipher 2019

     Anyone sorry to see 2018 go? A show of hands. Anybody? Didn’t think so. While the year was fine for me, personally — anyone who climbs to the top of a Mayan pyramid in Central America, hikes the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and sees both sons graduate from college in a single year isn’t in any position to complain — it does hurt to see our once great nation rolling in the mud of humiliation day after day.
     The biggest recommendation that can be made for 2018 is the lead-pipe certainty that 2019 will be worse, as the dogs of justice close in on an ever-more isolated Donald Trump while his adult minders flee and his defrauded base, lost in their own private dreamworld, howl outrage.
     They yell in a language all their own, one that often needs translation. This month dictionary companies have been trotting out their “Word of the Year,” but those really are not helpful, divided between faddish terms that will never gain popularity — Cambridge Dictionary chose “nomophobia,” the fear of losing your phone — or endorsements of the obvious. Oxford Dictionaries chose “toxic” as its 2018 word of the year.
     Gee, ya think? Why focus on a single word? I believe it would be more useful in our struggle to get through 2019 to understand changes in common words. Words whose definitions have become deformed, by those whose entire lives are an ongoing assault on factuality and meaning.
     So here I present my 2019 political lexicon, a highly abbreviated but I hope still comprehensive list. All usage examples are taken from actual emails or tweets sent to me:
     agenda: n. An imaginary coordinated directive that dictates the otherwise ordinary, independent actions of members of a despised group, often used to characterize gay people attempting to lives their lives. “The Democrats are committed to advancing the LGBT agenda and forcing the rest of America to accept, support and pay for it.” (National Organization for Marriage).


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7 comments:

  1. To add to those definitions: You must of forgotten that "Hiking the Appalachian Trail became a meme for leaving your wife, leaving your job as governor of South Carolina & then going to Argentina with your mistress.
    And then still manage to get elected to Congress!
    Mark Sanford did all of that!

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    Replies
    1. Accurate, but perhaps not especially topical since he was first elected to Congress in 2012 and this year failed to win in the SC primary.

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  2. That words have always been slippery beasts brings to mind this famous exchange.

    "What do you read my lord?"
    "Words, words, words."
    "What is the matter my lord?"
    "Between who?"
    "I mean the matter that you read my lord."

    Tom

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  3. My snowflake agenda of the day is to bash all fake Merry Christmas news and get right to the deep state of malaise affecting serious discourse about illegal immigration and demagogic witch hunts. It's sad. It's very sad.

    john

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  4. At one time, I thought the Nixon years were as bad as it could get. For a while, I thought our society was really making some progress. Then along came Creepy Old Donald Trump, who showed us how how the political game is really played. This year of 2018 has been the worst of my 70 years; not in personal terms, but as someone who cares about the future of our home planet and our human race. I want to believe that 2019 will be better, but I'm not holding my breath.

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  5. Trying to have confidence that the tide is turning. I think the folks who stood back and allowed the con man’s election by not voting are waking up to at least making the effort next time. If there’s enough gumption to put up a strong, stable, and capable person against that nutball; he’ll probably expose himself as the fraud he truly is. The hypocrisy of his actions will be his downfall only then.

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  6. I like the currants better. Worth the cost, smaller too. They aren't that rare of a find. I too like gro. shopping and finding new things.

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