Our friends on the left like to play fast and loose with words. They frequently take words and try to redefine them in a politically damaging or politically advantageous way. Of course, I will also provide something the right is doing because I am conservative, which means I am principled.
This is not an incredibly new phenomenon, but I feel like it needs to be discussed. Since the historic election of 2024, there has been a lot of talk about people who put the price of eggs or gas above women's health rights.
They use the term women’s health rights or women’s reproductive health instead of abortion because the left knows that more and more Americans are against tearing babies apart and vacuuming out their remains while in the womb.
First, the left can no longer define woman. Even a Supreme Court justice cannot define woman. It is very confusing to the left until it comes to abortion. Suddenly, they know exactly what a woman is.
What about health rights? The left loves to throw the word “rights” on the end of other terms. They think that using the word “rights” makes something a right. This, again, is part of their make-believe world.
How about the doozie of saying women’s health instead of abortion? Does anyone fall for it?
The left tells us about common-sense laws. For example, they say “common-sense gun laws,” but the proposed laws are anything but common sense. This is part of their make-believe world, where if they use a word, it means what they think it should mean, not what it really means.
The term racist has been used so frequently to describe everything that it’s questionable whether it has any real meaning. Voter identification laws are racist. Donald Trump is racist. All voters who did not vote for Harris are racist.
Why are voter ID laws racist? You will be told that Black people have a difficult time getting ID, which seems more of a racist sentiment than the fact the right wants elections where only citizens vote. It was explained that because more white people voted for Trump than Harris, it’s proof of racism. This can only be true if you look through a lens that only sees race and not the skills and abilities of the person.
Trump won in a landslide that created a red wave because of Harris’ inabilities and past failures, not because of her race. If it was a race thing, then why did Trump do better than any Republican in recent memory with nearly every minority group?
Did you know the word "violence" means saying things that others do not like? Yep. If you make arguments against specific topics, it is not simply disagreeing. You are using violence. The rest of the world believes that Hamas' attack and killing of Jewish civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, was an example of violence. The left thinks the statement that trans women should not play in women’s sports is violent.
I could fill multiple pages of the Daily News with examples of the left and their wordplay; I will stop there because I promised something the right is doing and should also be called out.
With the 2024 election results in the books, I have seen many people post a graph showing the number of votes received by the Democratic presidential candidates over the last handful of elections. There is an outlier in Joe Biden's 2020 election.
It seems that the Democrats got nearly 15,000,000 more votes than in other recent presidential elections. Some on the right are pointing to this as evidence of fraud. Some of those on the right also note that the 2020 election had a massive number of mail-in ballots because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, they state or infer that widespread mail-in balloting could be ripe for fraud.
I do not know the reason for the anomaly, but I think there could be a simple explanation. Ballots went to the homes of people who were not allowed to work or go out because of the pandemic. They didn't have that much to do. So, with easy access to a ballot and copious quantities of time, I could see people voting at a much higher frequency than ever before.
In the above examples, we see the left making a concerted effort to push its agenda through word manipulation. The right, on the other hand, is committing the fallacy of a false dilemma or hasty generalization. Either way, we need to be better.
Anderson was the co-host and producer of the award-winning conservative talk radio show before hanging up the headphones. Earning a degree in philosophy helped further sharpen his renowned logic. He has a superb sense of right and wrong and advocates educating people instead of controlling them. He enjoys photography, woodworking and sports. He may be seen helping and volunteering in the community when he is not performing computer programming. He loves feedback at crier@cityofpullman.com.
