5 Things Conservatives Made Up
Watch out for these buzzwords Conservatives deploy in order to paint themselves as patriotic victims.
1. Radical Left
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running for Governor in Arkansas. Aside from her usage of soldiers and kids to purposely appear as if she’s sympathetic to people — she mentions the “radical left” just 2-minutes in.
The term is a perplexing oxymoron. How could a generation of non-binary, LGBTQ+ snowflakes pose any harm to conservatives and the country as a whole? The word radical more often than not implies physical violence which most people on the left abhors.
But in recent years, with anti-racism demonstrations and other political disruptions — Republicans spun it as products of the “radical left” or the “far left”. These directors of spin needed to conjure up an equal but opposing entity to the “far-right” which are very real groups. They found that antithesis to these groups in Black Lives Matter and Antifa.
But there’s nothing radical about fighting for racial injustices and against racism. We’ve been doing it for centuries now.
You could also attribute the concept of the radical left (and other conservative arguments) to “whataboutism”. The article lays out the fallacy which is an intrinsic part of whataboutism,
“The line hints at whatboutism’s most commonly commented-on flaw. As the Fallacy Files says, “whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge.”
We’ve observed this the last 4 years. Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol? What about Antifa? Trump and Co. inciting a riot? What about the media trying to cancel them?
There’s always a scapegoat to blame when you’re fighting to keep a system that benefits you and only you in place.
As for actual ideals and policies such as free healthcare, they’re not anything new or extreme.
2. Antifa
Okay, so this entry is cheating a bit. But it’s important to realize Antifa has been one of the main talking points of the GOP most notably from conservative politicians like former President Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz (R-FL 1st District).
While Antifa is a very real concept, the keyword is concept. As mentioned in the previous entry, conservatives love the idea of a boogeyman which they can attribute to the radical left and subsequently align Antifa ideology with liberal ideologies.
Anti-racism and anti-militant police, for example, are times that occurs.
The myth of Antifa as a group operating as a central network with chapters and divisions has been debunked to death. So as to not beat a dead horse, just remember that when there’s a hint of racism, you should expect Antifa to be right around the corner. For a little destruction & mayhem; they might be behind that, too.
But for as much they’ve been attributed with pretty much any looting or rioting that goes down; they also aren’t the biggest threat to America by far.
You have a higher chance of contracting COVID and dying than getting attacked by Antifa.
3. Cancel Culture
Ambient Reads covered how Sen. Josh Hawley isn’t being cancelled or censored as he continues to whine on Twitter and the New York Post.
Cancel culture has amounted to celebrities having to actually confront either bad and disgusting past behavior and/or they have to adjust to an evolving society which doesn’t tolerate their outdated beliefs.
People will always and forever take things too far and a mob mentality is the primary result of people who aren’t familiar with the facts of a case or just happen to dislike the subject of cancellation.
It’s not right, of course, but people like Sanders will hide behind it to say whatever she’d like including outright lies.
People like Aziz Ansari, Dave Chappelle, Chris Brown, Brett Kavanaugh, and many others have continued to enjoy success.
So while Twitter enjoys a cancellation almost every day; it’s relatively easy to ignore it, because it’s… Twitter: they have no power in their little sphere on the internet. And if you’re afraid of a bunch of nonbinary snowflakes who put pronouns in their bio and you call that the radical left — then that’s just an awful way to live.
4. Socialism/Marxism
More buzzwords.
5. Censorship
The word censorship has practically lost all meaning.
This entry could go on & on about how what happens to Conservatives isn’t censorship in almost all cases.
What they’re complaining about is content moderation.
Content monderation will always be the bane of any social media’s existence which is why Parler met a fiery end; no company wants to be held liable for a free-for-all that either spills over into real life or gets their advertising dollars yanked.
So if you thought that it’s your right to spread fake news on the platform just because you can do it and it’s your First Amendment right; you’ve forgotten that these are privileges given to you by private companies.
While there are some legitimate concerns about the influence of Twitter and Facebook and how their reach could be problematic; it’s up to the government to decide how to handle how these tech giants operate.
The main takeaway from this article is conservatives put a spin on every last piece of media and detail that comes out to portray the left as radical and who are looking to censor them and takeaway their guns. These buzzwords are how they get people to vote against their own self-interests. The skewed news coming out of it the right-wing propaganda machine is unprecedented and will continue to be so as long as viewers remain loyal to the lies.
