The Progressive Left is Gaslighting Us
Democrats are undermining the English language in an effort to censor conservatives. Redefining words like recession, vaccination, woman, groomer, militant, and eighty-six.
The progressive left in America is attempting to redefine the ‘truth’ in an effort to silence their political opponents. Their modus operandi is to determine the truth of something and have that truth confirmed by a so-called fact-checker in a published fact-check. That fact-check article allows purportedly ‘neutral’ social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit to suppress and censor conservatives. Perhaps more insidious than merely redefining truth is the fact that Democrats are proactively redefining the meaning of simple words.
Ten years ago the American people were told The Impossible™ is Closer Than You Think by the so-called Mad Men of Madison Avenue. Marketers working with companies like Impossible Foods1 spent millions of dollars convincing us that meat and milk could be made from plants.2 Since then the Spin Doctors of K Street have started redefining all sorts of words to meet the needs of their political clients. It is now clear that words are being weaponized not just by marketers but by those who seek to “gain the high ground in argument, debate, policy, and propaganda.”3
Spencer Klavan astutely recommended that “to spot a would-be autocrat, look for someone who undermines language” in his American Mind article titled, Why Tyrants Redefine Words. The editor from the Claremont Review of Books uses Thucydides’ description of the Peloponnesian War as an example of what happens when a society turns in on itself as words lose their meaning weakening the foundation of legitimate rule (his translation of the ancient Greek):
They even changed the agreed-upon meanings of words to the opposite of the right ones. Rash impudence was called “courageous loyalty”; careful deliberation, “specious cowardice”…. Getting revenge was considered better than never being wronged in the first place…. The cause of all this was hunger for power motivated by greed and ambition.4
In the past few years, we’ve watched the progressive left redefine words like recession, vaccination, woman, groomer, militant, and eight-six. Here are just a few examples:
RECESSION
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of which the United States and most other developed nations are members, defines a recession as a decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over at least two consecutive quarters.5 Virtually every high school economics textbook defines a recession similarly. In fact, college economics textbooks also define a recession, in the same way, allowing for circumstances one might not consider typical recessions referring to them as ‘technical recessions’. We now learn that the OECD and virtually every economist on the planet have been wrong about what constitutes a recession for nearly 100 years.
For the first time in American history, with just three months left until the midterm election, the White House announced that the definition of recession used by virtually every developed nation was never actually the definition of recession.6 Instead the White House explained that until a private corporation called the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) announces the country is in recession - it is not in recession. In fact, it turns out that just eight economists who serve on the Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC) are tasked with declaring the start and end date of recessions.
The White House, with their willing accomplices in the mainstream media, is pushing a narrative that Biden can claim, in good faith, that the country is NOT in a recession until the BCDC says it is. This, of course, is not true. The committee’s role is to look backward at the data and make a determination of the actual start and end of recessions allowing economists to work from agreed-upon dates. According to Harvard economist and current BCDC member Jeffrey Frankel, the AVERAGE lag between the start of a recession and the group’s announcement is 12 months.7 The fact of the matter is that recessions don’t wait for the BCDC - they happen and the committee merely uses available data to pinpoint their start and end dates for posterity.
Since the United States began releasing quarterly economic data in 1947 each time nominal GDP has declined in two successive quarters the NBER has determined the economy was in recession - and there is no doubt that they will do the same a year from now. Despite what the Biden administration would have you believe the ‘definition’ of a recession has not changed - they’re simply trying to avoid calling this recession a recession until AFTER the midterm elections.
Despite this reality, the White House successfully convinced8 fact-checkers like Politifact to reinforce their recession “wordplay” by denying the longstanding definition of recession AND denying that the Biden administration is attempting to advance an alternative definition.9 As a result of the White House’s statement AND the Politifact fact-check Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have been labeling discussions that reject the White House’s wordplay as false misinformation.10 As Robby Soave points out, “This is yet another reminder that the project of purportedly independent fact-checking on social media is a highly partisan one, in which legitimately debatable opinions are passed off as objective truth.”
VACCINATION
After taking office President Biden repeatedly assured the American people that if they got vaccinated they wouldn’t get Covid-19 as seen in this video:
Shortly afterward the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the definition of both vaccine and vaccination on its website.
Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”11
The definitions promoted by the CDC when Biden was making false claims about the vaccines were interpreted by most people that the vaccines were 100% effective - matching Dr. Fauci’s mantra that the vaccines were both “safe and effective”. The fact of the matter is that the so-called vaccines should be called ‘therapeutics’ as they seem to reduce the spread and the seriousness of Covid-19 infections - they do not seem to offer any sort of immunity as a traditional vaccine would provide. Yet another word made meaningless for political purposes.
WOMAN
The efforts to redefine the term woman are perhaps the most controversial. No one has covered the effort more extensively than Matt Walsh so I’ll let him explain the issue:
GROOMER
For decades organizations like the Boy Scouts have required adult leaders to take youth protection courses to help them identify and eliminate groomers from their ranks.12 Recently the progressive left has successfully convinced Big Tech to redefine the label as ‘hate speech’ specifically targeting gay and transgender people. As a result, the word is banned, censored, or suppressed on various platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
The fact of the matter is that groomers can be straight, gay, nonbinary, or transgender. So what is the issue? Conservatives believe that much of the progressive left’s sexual and gender indoctrination of young children (K-3) amounts to grooming. To get an idea of what conservatives object to just take a look at some of the videos reposted by Libs of TikTok:
At the end of the day, as pointed out by columnist Debra W. Soh the term groomer “has been misrepresented by mainstream news outlets as a slur against gay and transgender people” and as a result, is being censored.13 The truth is that it is very important that we’re ALL able to identify and speak out against behavior that seeks to groom children.
MILITANT
When it became clear that President Obama’s drone war against al Qaeda was resulting in an unprecedented number of civilian deaths the decision was made to change the definition of militant. Prior to 2012 to be considered a militant one had to be engaged in warfare or combat but by 2012 every military-age male in a strike zone was declared to be a militant. As a result, in Yemen, the civilian drone casualty rate fell from 71% in 2010 to 1% in 2012. In Pakistan, the civilian drone casualty rate fell from 11% in 2011 to 2% in 2012.14
Interestingly, had it not been for Obama’s decision to redefine militants it would have likely been impossible to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri yesterday as the al Qaeda leader was targeted on his balcony in a populated civilian neighborhood in downtown Kabul.15 Civilian casualties were almost nonexistent despite dozens killed in the blast - thanks to the fact they were all military-age males.
EIGHTY-SIX
Just prior to the 2020 election Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer displayed a sign in her office that read “8645”. Republicans took the sign to mean that the governor was calling for the assassination of Trump - the 45th president. Whitmer had previously criticized Sarah Palin when a PAC supporting her used crosshairs on a map to point out which Democrats they planned to run against after Rep Gabrielle Giffords was shot. Criticisms that were constantly repeated and reinforced by the mainstream media at the time.16 Of course, in this case, the mainstream media immediately came to Whitmer’s defense arguing that eight-six merely meant to “get rid of Donald Trump.” Just another case of Democrats redefining words to meet the political needs of their political allies.17
As we’re seeing the truth and the definition of words modified by the progressive left we’re also seeing them malign mainstream political ideologies as hate speech. There is an overt effort to classify pro-life terminology as dangerous hate speech. For example, here is the text from a current petition from the Action Network:
Condemning anti-abortion violence and harassment isn't enough; the pro-life movement needs to cut out the hate speech that fans the flames of violence. We demand the pro-life movement stop the hate speech, stop lying about reproductive health care providers, and call upon the new special committee in Congress to investigate anti-abortion terrorism.18
Words matter. It is time to defend them from their enemies on the left before we lose our right to use them...
Stanley, TL. “Impossible's First National Campaign Declares: 'We Are Meat'.” Adweek, Adweek, 6 Apr. 2021, https://www.adweek.com/agencies/impossible-foods-declares-we-are-meat-in-first-national-ad-campaign-from-wiedenkennedy/.
Clark, Roy Peter. “Change in the Meaning of Words Demands Care in the Use of Language.” Poynter, 25 Nov. 2014, https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2009/change-in-the-meaning-of-words-demands-care-in-the-use-of-language/.
Klavan, Spencer. “Why Tyrants Redefine Words.” The American Mind, 3 Nov. 2020, https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-tyrants-redefine-words/.
SEIBT, Sébastian. “États-Unis : Ces Huit Économistes Arbitres De La Récession.” France 24, France 24, 29 July 2022, https://www.france24.com/fr/%C3%A9co-tech/20220729-%C3%A9tats-unis-ces-huit-%C3%A9conomistes-arbitres-de-la-r%C3%A9cession.
Jacobson, Louis. “Politifact - No, the White House Didn't Change the Definition of ‘Recession.’” PolitiFact, Poynter Institute, 27 July 2022, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/27/instagram-posts/no-white-house-didnt-change-definition-recession/.
Soave, Robby. “Facebook, Instagram Posts Flagged as False for Rejecting Biden's Recession Wordplay.” Reason.com, 30 July 2022, https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/.
CAMERO, KATIE. “Why Did CDC Change Definition for ‘Vaccine’? Agency ... - Miami Herald.” Miami Herald, The McClatchy Company, LLC, 27 Sept. 2021, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html.
Soh, Debra. “Banning the Word 'Groomer' Is a Sinister Sign.” Restoring America, Restoring America, 26 July 2022, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/banning-the-word-groomer-is-a-sinister-sign.
Zenko, Micah. “Obama's Final Drone Strike Data.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 20 Jan. 2017, https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data.
Liptak, Kevin. “How Joe Biden and His Team Decided to Kill the World's Most Wanted Terrorist.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2 Aug. 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/01/politics/ayman-al-zawahiri-death-white-house-joe-biden/index.html.
Fisher, Max. “Did Sarah Palin's Target Map Play Role in Giffords Shooting?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 26 Oct. 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/did-sarah-palin-s-target-map-play-role-in-giffords-shooting/342714/.
Stateside Staff. “Republicans Criticized Whitmer for Use of ‘86." What Does It Actually Mean?” Michigan Radio, 29 Oct. 2020, https://www.michiganradio.org/politics-government/2020-10-23/republicans-criticized-whitmer-for-use-of-86-what-does-it-actually-mean.